Read Song of Everlasting Sorrow for Free Online Page A

Qiyao is the typical daughter of the Shanghai longtang . Every morning, when the back door squeaks open, that’s Wang Qiyao scurrying out with her book bag embroidered with flowers. In the afternoon, when the phonograph plays next door, that’s Wang Qiyao humming along with “Song of the Four Seasons.” Those girls rushing off to the theater, that’s a whole group of Wang Qiyaos going to see Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind . Running off to the photo studio is a pair of Wang Qiyaos, best friends on their way to have their portrait taken. Sitting in virtually every side room and tingzijian is a Wang Qiyao. In the dimly lit living room of every Wang Qiyao’s house there is almost always a set or two of mahogany furniture. The sun draws circles on the windowsill but refuses to come in. There is a three-mirrored vanity in her bedchamber. The powder of her rouge container always looks a bit damp and sticky in its jar, while the container of hair oil has dried up. The copper lock on her camphor chest shines from repeated opening and closing. Whether the radio is tuned to Suzhou pingtan storytelling, Shaoxing opera, or stock market updates, the reception is poor and the broadcast is always accompanied by a buzzing hiss. Wang Qiyao’s amah sometimes sleeps in the small triangular room under the stairs, which is just large enough for a bed. The amah has to do everything—her duties extend even to emptying out the dirty water after the mistress has washed her feet. The family orders the amah around as if they are trying to get every bit of their money’s worth out of her. Yet, busy as she is from morning until night, she still has time to go out and spread gossip about her employer—and carry on a clandestine affair with the neighbor’s chauffeur.
    Fathers of girls like Wang Qiyao always end up beaten into submission after years of being henpecked by their wives. This sets an example for Wang Qiyao of what it means to respect a woman. On these Shanghai mornings, that’s Wang Qiyao’s father sitting in the trolley car on his way to work; in the afternoons, that’s Wang Qiyao’s mother sitting in the rickshaw on her way to buy material for her new cheongsam . Every night, beneath the floor of Wang Qiyao’s apartment, mice scurry to and fro; in order to eliminate the mice, they bring home a cat, and so the apartment takes on a faint stench of cat piss. Wang Qiyao, usually the oldest child, has become her mother’s closest friend while still quite young. Mother and daughter have their clothes made by the same tailor and always go off together to call on friends and relatives. Girls like her always listen to their mothers’ complaints about the incorrigible nature of man—using their own fathers as object lessons.
    Wang Qiyao is the typical girl in waiting. The girls that the interns working at Western-style shops ogle surreptitiously—they are all Wang Qiyaos. On the hot summer days when clothing is brought out to be aired, Wang Qiyao stares at her mother’s trousseau chest and fantasizes about her own dowry. In the display window of the photo studio, the lady in the floor-length wedding gown is Wang Qiyao just before her marriage. Wang Qiyaos are always stunningly beautiful. They wear indigo blue cheongsams that set off their figure and a bang of black hair shyly concealing their eyes, which seem nevertheless to speak. Wang Qiyaos always follow the mainstream, neither falling behind nor rushing ahead—they are modernity in numbers. They follow what is trendy the same way they would follow a recipe: with blind faith, never expressing opinions or asking questions. The fashion trends in Shanghai rely completely upon Wang Qiyaos. But they are incapable of setting things into motion—that is not their responsibility. They lack creativity, because they are in want of an independent personality; but they are diligent, honest, loyal, and devoted, always blindly following suit. Uncomplaining, they carry the spirit of the