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Four Treasures of the Sky
by Jenny Tinghui Zhang
This story is a grim march to bleakness, where every moment of hope is but a mirage, or at most a brief respite from an even deeper foray into darkness. If you liked [b:A Little Life|22822858|A Little Life|Hanya Yanagihara|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1446469353l/22822858._SY75_.jpg|42375710], then this book may be for you.
Daiyu begins as a wealthy girl from a loving family in late 19th century China, but her life spirals when her parents disappear just ahead of the authorities chasing them. Daiyu's grandmother tells her to disappear into the city, so she does, ending up a hungry urchin before being given work by a calligraphy master. I had assumed that Daiyu's knowledge of calligraphy would become essential later in the plot. That is how books usually go. A character learns a special skill that gives them an advantage or opportunity later on. This is not that kind of book. It appears that Daiyu learns calligraphy almost exclusively so that Zhang can create beautiful metaphors and allusions related to calligraphy and Chinese characters. As someone who has taught herself a scanty amount of characters (a couple hundred), I appreciate Daiyu's use of a character's components to interpret the world around her.
"I revisit the character for her name 燕. There is the fire, yes, but I have been looking at it all wrong. There is a reason the fire lies below the other characters, below mouth and north and twenty. The fire is there because it is greedy and seeks to burn everything above it. It is what Swallow is: consumptive and destructive."
I still wish calligraphy had a more central purpose to the plot, not just to the writing and the character of Daiyu, but Zhang does make alluring use of it.
Since happiness cannot last for Daiyu, she is kidnapped and sold to a brothel in San Francisco.
Something that I could not get past - because sometimes I become obsessed with some detail or plot point that strikes me as false and I fall down a rabbit hole of research - is that Daiyu's kidnapper bothers to force her to spend a year learning English before shipping her to the United States. A whole year! Of feeding and housing and clothing (in prison conditions, but still), and hoping that you aren't sinking resources into someone just for them to die. There is absolutely no logical reason for Daiyu to be taught English by her slaver. I had assumed it was because she was going to be sent to a high-end brothel, where a courtesan's conversation is part of her high price. But it is quite clear that - despite the important/wealthy white, English-speaking clients - she is not in a high-end brothel in that sense. None of the men seem interested in conversation. It is portrayed more like a mid-tier brothel, especially since the women are forced to work in the decoy laundry during the day. Everything I've ever read about 19th century laundry makes it clear that it will destroy your hands if not your complexion as well and while I have no idea whether it was something that occurred in lower tier brothels, I am confident it would not have occurred in a high-end brothel.
I ended up trying to Google whether enslaved Chinese women forced into prostitution were often taught English. I even ended up using my public library's JSTOR access to read the article mentioned in the Author's Note: Lucie Cheng's "Free, Indentured, Enslaved: Chinese Prostitutes in Nineteenth-Century America." It is a fantastic article, and I highly recommend it to anyone who reads this book and wants to learn more. It does not mention a similar scenario of spending a year teaching the girls English before sending them to the U.S. In fact, most of those forced into prostitution were either sent to high-end brothels that were exclusively for Chinese clientele, or sent to lower-end brothels with both Chinese and white customers. This makes sense, as the reason why there was such a thriving market for forced prostitution of Chinese women was the extremely limited number of Chinese women in the United States (due to a number of factors). Cheng does not describe a brothel similar to the one where Daiyu ends up: exclusively white/English speaking clientele but mid-tier. It is not outside the realm of imagination that such a brothel actually existed. It just would be in the minority.
Since there was not much of a market for Chinese prostitutes who spoke English fluently - and even Daiyu's grasp of English does not seem particularly valuable to her madame or her potential customers - this makes it even stranger that her kidnapper decided to spend a full year making sure she spoke excellent English. Furthermore, he ships her over to the U.S. hidden under coal, barely feeding or watering her, leaving her to soil herself in a claustrophobic space where she can scarcely move. This is certainly a realistic condition for transporting someone you have just kidnapped/enslaved - these girls are sadly disposable, bought cheaply and sold at a high price. But not someone who you have just sunk a year of resources into. Why bother teaching a special skill (again, for a FULL YEAR of making no profit and only paying costs) to someone who you are treating as utterly disposable? It was more likely than not that Daiyu would die from those conditions, or potentially become useless for her intended purpose (driven mad from the conditions; blood clot; losing a limb, etc.).
This leaves me with the impression that Daiyu was taught English by her kidnapper for the simple reason that Zhang wanted her to be fluent in English. How else could she understand clearly all the vile things screamed and whispered at her in English? There is nothing wrong with trying to take down language barriers for your characters to move the plot along. But why couldn't Daiyu have learned English, for instance, through a missionary school/orphanage? Or some other likely way? It just makes no sense that her kidnapper would spend a year teaching her English (also under conditions that would likely kill her; people died in those prison conditions all the time in the past, especially when held for a long period of time), ship her over to the U.S. through a highly dangerous method, and then dump her into the general cattle call (the kidnapper didn't even have a particular buyer lined up for a fluent English speaker!), only to have her sold to a brothel where holding a conversation with the clients appears to be a valueless skill.
Zhang clearly researched this book. Most of it felt authentic to the period, based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the 19th century American West (it's not a particular area of study for me, but I've read both fiction and nonfiction books about it). So it's a shame that this plot point remained in the story. Maybe Zhang just had a bit of a heavier hand of authorial dictate in what happened in the book because she has a certain idea or message she wanted to express and did not cover her tracks as much as some authors. I've complained of similar issues with [a:Ann Patchett|7136914|Ann Patchett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1371838720p2/7136914.jpg] and [a:Barbara Kingsolver|3541|Barbara Kingsolver|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1350499031p2/3541.jpg].
Even though I did not like the authorial dictate or the soul-crushing nature of the book, I appreciate Zhang as an author. Her writing is elegant but not overly flowery. Even as I hated every new dismal turn the book took, the writing pulled me along and kept me from giving up on it entirely. I usually find the lack of quotation marks pretentious (because it is), but even that was not overly bothersome. This was not the book for me, but I would readily read Zhang's next work.
Daiyu begins as a wealthy girl from a loving family in late 19th century China, but her life spirals when her parents disappear just ahead of the authorities chasing them. Daiyu's grandmother tells her to disappear into the city, so she does, ending up a hungry urchin before being given work by a calligraphy master. I had assumed that Daiyu's knowledge of calligraphy would become essential later in the plot. That is how books usually go. A character learns a special skill that gives them an advantage or opportunity later on. This is not that kind of book. It appears that Daiyu learns calligraphy almost exclusively so that Zhang can create beautiful metaphors and allusions related to calligraphy and Chinese characters. As someone who has taught herself a scanty amount of characters (a couple hundred), I appreciate Daiyu's use of a character's components to interpret the world around her.
"I revisit the character for her name 燕. There is the fire, yes, but I have been looking at it all wrong. There is a reason the fire lies below the other characters, below mouth and north and twenty. The fire is there because it is greedy and seeks to burn everything above it. It is what Swallow is: consumptive and destructive."
I still wish calligraphy had a more central purpose to the plot, not just to the writing and the character of Daiyu, but Zhang does make alluring use of it.
Since happiness cannot last for Daiyu, she is kidnapped and sold to a brothel in San Francisco.
Something that I could not get past - because sometimes I become obsessed with some detail or plot point that strikes me as false and I fall down a rabbit hole of research - is that Daiyu's kidnapper bothers to force her to spend a year learning English before shipping her to the United States. A whole year! Of feeding and housing and clothing (in prison conditions, but still), and hoping that you aren't sinking resources into someone just for them to die. There is absolutely no logical reason for Daiyu to be taught English by her slaver. I had assumed it was because she was going to be sent to a high-end brothel, where a courtesan's conversation is part of her high price. But it is quite clear that - despite the important/wealthy white, English-speaking clients - she is not in a high-end brothel in that sense. None of the men seem interested in conversation. It is portrayed more like a mid-tier brothel, especially since the women are forced to work in the decoy laundry during the day. Everything I've ever read about 19th century laundry makes it clear that it will destroy your hands if not your complexion as well and while I have no idea whether it was something that occurred in lower tier brothels, I am confident it would not have occurred in a high-end brothel.
I ended up trying to Google whether enslaved Chinese women forced into prostitution were often taught English. I even ended up using my public library's JSTOR access to read the article mentioned in the Author's Note: Lucie Cheng's "Free, Indentured, Enslaved: Chinese Prostitutes in Nineteenth-Century America." It is a fantastic article, and I highly recommend it to anyone who reads this book and wants to learn more. It does not mention a similar scenario of spending a year teaching the girls English before sending them to the U.S. In fact, most of those forced into prostitution were either sent to high-end brothels that were exclusively for Chinese clientele, or sent to lower-end brothels with both Chinese and white customers. This makes sense, as the reason why there was such a thriving market for forced prostitution of Chinese women was the extremely limited number of Chinese women in the United States (due to a number of factors). Cheng does not describe a brothel similar to the one where Daiyu ends up: exclusively white/English speaking clientele but mid-tier. It is not outside the realm of imagination that such a brothel actually existed. It just would be in the minority.
Since there was not much of a market for Chinese prostitutes who spoke English fluently - and even Daiyu's grasp of English does not seem particularly valuable to her madame or her potential customers - this makes it even stranger that her kidnapper decided to spend a full year making sure she spoke excellent English. Furthermore, he ships her over to the U.S. hidden under coal, barely feeding or watering her, leaving her to soil herself in a claustrophobic space where she can scarcely move. This is certainly a realistic condition for transporting someone you have just kidnapped/enslaved - these girls are sadly disposable, bought cheaply and sold at a high price. But not someone who you have just sunk a year of resources into. Why bother teaching a special skill (again, for a FULL YEAR of making no profit and only paying costs) to someone who you are treating as utterly disposable? It was more likely than not that Daiyu would die from those conditions, or potentially become useless for her intended purpose (driven mad from the conditions; blood clot; losing a limb, etc.).
This leaves me with the impression that Daiyu was taught English by her kidnapper for the simple reason that Zhang wanted her to be fluent in English. How else could she understand clearly all the vile things screamed and whispered at her in English? There is nothing wrong with trying to take down language barriers for your characters to move the plot along. But why couldn't Daiyu have learned English, for instance, through a missionary school/orphanage? Or some other likely way? It just makes no sense that her kidnapper would spend a year teaching her English (also under conditions that would likely kill her; people died in those prison conditions all the time in the past, especially when held for a long period of time), ship her over to the U.S. through a highly dangerous method, and then dump her into the general cattle call (the kidnapper didn't even have a particular buyer lined up for a fluent English speaker!), only to have her sold to a brothel where holding a conversation with the clients appears to be a valueless skill.
Zhang clearly researched this book. Most of it felt authentic to the period, based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the 19th century American West (it's not a particular area of study for me, but I've read both fiction and nonfiction books about it). So it's a shame that this plot point remained in the story. Maybe Zhang just had a bit of a heavier hand of authorial dictate in what happened in the book because she has a certain idea or message she wanted to express and did not cover her tracks as much as some authors. I've complained of similar issues with [a:Ann Patchett|7136914|Ann Patchett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1371838720p2/7136914.jpg] and [a:Barbara Kingsolver|3541|Barbara Kingsolver|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1350499031p2/3541.jpg].
Even though I did not like the authorial dictate or the soul-crushing nature of the book, I appreciate Zhang as an author. Her writing is elegant but not overly flowery. Even as I hated every new dismal turn the book took, the writing pulled me along and kept me from giving up on it entirely. I usually find the lack of quotation marks pretentious (because it is), but even that was not overly bothersome. This was not the book for me, but I would readily read Zhang's next work.