The Concubine's Daughter
by Pai Kit Fai

List Price: $14.99
Pages: 496
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780312355210
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Q: Can you tell us a bit about how you decided to lead a literary life?

A: The short answer is that I was never much good at anything else. When the teacher spoke of mathematics I thought of poetry. Finding the right words to describe a walk by the river, or adventures to be found in an apple orchard, was far more enchanting to me than adding and subtracting truckloads of figures I felt I might never use. My mind just didn’t belong behind a desk. It still doesn’t.

I suppose I began writing then, at the age of seven or eight, looking out of the schoolroom window, listening for a cuckoo, transported by the smell of new-mown hay and the sun-warmed backs of Shire horses. For a child, even in the war-torn streets of London, or the bucolic joys of the rural counties, the world of letters and its search for words and sentences was considered a foolish waste of time. That didn’t stop me.

Q: What inspired you to write The Concubine’s Daughter?

A: I traveled widely in the Far East in my early life. Every sight and sound, no matter how great or small, was a new experience for me, to be entered bravely and explored in full. The clamor of Oriental cities, never more than moments away from the most peaceful and enchantingly beautiful countryside, claimed me and my imagination completely. Villages, too small to notice --- where long lives were lived contentedly in the simplicity of faith under the kindly eye of some smiling god --- offered an instant welcome and countless stories; such stories mingled with the unforgettable aromas of spices and herbs, produce grown a step from the door --- stirred, mixed, tossed in sizzling woks over open flame, to some secret family recipe. Always by women, young or old, strong, capable women, stooped over endless terraces of rice, urging stubborn buffalo behind a wooden plow, or washing clothes at the village well. They always seemed so complete to me . . . until I learned how quickly and unjustly the gods could lose their smile.

Q: Your protagonists, Li-Xia and Siu-Sing, are headstrong women who face seemingly insurmountable odds in a patriarchal society. You’ve mentioned your interest in women’s rights in China. Can you tell us what spurred your interest, and how your story was imbued by your understanding of the issues?

A: I think my fascination with the courage and amazing strengths of heart and mind so often found in women the world over began during my early travels.

In male-dominated societies of the early twentieth century, underprivileged girls were arrogantly and often savagely exploited with no concept of dignity, spiritual freedom, or physical comfort. Nowhere was this more harshly followed than in China, where a girl child was considered of no more value than an unwanted kitten, to be drowned at birth in the paddy field and left for the ducks to squabble over.

Those unwanted daughters allowed to live were put to work as household servants, although slaves would be a better term, until old enough (usually six to eight years old) to sell as “cherry girls” --- virgins whose innocence and chastity were bartered like a basket of fish or a fattened piglet --- for about the same price and with the same degree of ceremony.

The sung-tip, or contract, bonded them for life to the buyer without payment or rights of any kind. The cunning and the ruthless among them, through the use of sex and manipulation, sometimes fought their way to a perilous position of power and success; but the vast majority were soon seen as disposable by the rich old men or whoremongers who owned them. Homeless and nameless, sold from one hideous situation to another, the future they faced was bleak beyond description.

Those few who forged their identity in such a cruel and unrelenting society through their own wits, decisions, and choices were sometimes clever enough to change their cruel destiny against the most formidable odds and by the most remarkable of adventures --- to find a life and love of their own that led to great success. Theirs are the tales worth telling.

Q: You are a master of the Chinese martial arts. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to study martial arts? How has its practice enriched your life? How did you draw upon your knowledge of this ancient Chinese practice when writing The Concubine’s Daughter?

A: Well, first, the title of master is often loosely used. It carries very different meanings in the many competitive schools, or forms, of martial arts throughout Asia and now the Western world. Today it is possible for a female to attain the degree of master, while for many centuries a woman adept was usually one of royal blood or noble birth, taught from infancy to evade the ever-present threat of kidnap and rape. That is, until a Buddhist nun created a form that was designed for the female disciple; it was called White Crane. So, there are many levels of master, or si-fu.

In China, especially the China of old, such a title was held in the highest possible esteem, earned by a lifetime of devotion in search of perfection, widely known as kung fu. This was often the rarified domain of novice monks cut off from temptations of the world by a life in mountain monasteries. An abbot or grand master may, if he deems it earned and well deserved, bestow the credit of si-fu upon one who teaches what he or she has learned.

While studying, in 1977, in the Philippines, I was faced with advanced cancer of the throat. As an alternative to radical surgery, my own Chinese master taught me a sequence of breathing exercises said to be eight hundred years old. When after five years of daily practice I was found to be free of the dreaded disease, he suggested that I teach the techniques to others. If the success of my books on the subject has helped share the benefits of ancient Chinese health systems with readers in the West, then I accept the compliment of si-fu within that context.

I have found that the study and practice of any discipline that seeks to harmonize the body, mind, and spirit is a path worth following --- one that can lead to a world of endless fascination and undreamed-of achievement, in which anyone, with time and patience, can conquer the extraordinary.

Q: You are a noted scholar of holistic medicine. Can you tell us a little bit about how you began studying holistic medicine? How did your understanding of the subject work its way into The Concubine’s Daughter?

A: Again, the same could be said for the generous title of scholar: In the days of Li-Xia and her daughter, Siu-Sing, a scholar was a man or boy who could read and write with his fingers and had a mind fast and nimble as an abacus . . . or one who had mastered the art of the calligrapher’s brush. Artists and poets were the ultimate scholars --- but all were men. Education was strictly the domain of the male, not to be wasted in the worthless hands of the female.

If my books on this subject have provided the slightest understanding of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) --- if it is “scholarly” to research the subject of your story thoroughly, and to enjoy every moment of it --- then I accept the title humbly.

Q: What other research did you do when writing the story? How did you decide what to include and what to leave out? Did you scrupulously adhere to historical fact? To what extent did you take artistic liberty?

A: Most of my research was done over some thirty years of living and working in the Far East, much of it in Hong Kong and Macao. It is not difficult to absorb the way of life in such wild and wicked cities, or the unchanged territory that still surrounds them. So, researching a story as like The Concubine’s Daughter becomes part of one’s life. There is no great need for historical facts; China is and always will be an unfinished adventure, its fabulous and often frightening past as alive today as it has ever been.

As for how it was decided what to leave in and take out --- with a palette as rich as this with which to paint your picture, there is little need for artistic license, or censure, the truth lies around every corner and in every one of a billion faces.

Q: You were born in England but married into a famous Hong Kong family. Can you tell us a bit about how you came to be called Pai Kit Fai, and what this name means to you?

A: If my impressions of China needed any qualification, this came as a treasure trove of information when I married into one of Hong Kong’s founding dynasties, with branches in Shanghai and Macao. The Civil Library of Hong Kong was donated by the family, as were many of the colony’s hospitals and colleges, so there was no shortage of history.

When a person of foreign blood takes up professional life in Hong Kong or on the Chinese mainland, he or she is automatically given a Chinese name to have printed on the flip side of their business card. A chop or seal bearing the adopted name is also carved from soapstone in the traditional manner.

The great honor of being received into the arms of a Hong Kong family, especially one of notable heritage, requires certain standards of behavior and acceptance of ancient customs on behalf of the foreign member. The most important of these is the choosing of a Chinese name by which he or she will be thought of by the family elders. The choosing of such a name is the responsibility of the patriarch or matriarch, and is taken very seriously. The newcomer is observed for weeks or months until a name is chosen to best translate his or her character and calling. In my case, an elderly aunt who had devoted her life to the education of Hong Kong’s young people --- a very dear lady with a doctorate from Cambridge University --- provided me with the name of Pai Kit Fai, which loosely translated means something like “Person of Letters and Grand Ambition.”

While I take the name most seriously, its interpretation is of less importance as it can differ with each new ear, eye, and tongue. A Chinese guest once took me aside at an important banquet to advise me (in a whisper) that my name could also be translated as “Large Mountain of Lup-sup,” which I discovered was the Cantonese term for unpleasant garbage. Fortunately, I also discovered that the bearer of this disturbing news was a sworn enemy of the family and an uninvited troublemaker. So, Pai Kit Fai it is and always will be.

Recommended Reading

World Without End
by Ken Follett

Tai-Pan
by James Clavell

Memoirs of a Geisha
by Arthur Golden

The Bonesetter’s Daughter
by Lisa See

Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter
by Adeline Yen Mah

The Talented Women of the Zhang Family
by Susan Mann

The Song of Everlasting Sorrow
by Wang Anyi, translated by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan

top of the page