Stranded in no man’s land
or nomad land
for twelve years
or so the story goes
year: 195
place: Kaifeng
113 °52’ E, 34°11’ N
a bustling city
near the Yellow River
Cai Yan
aka: Wenji
daughter of a statesman
child prodigy
excelled in classical literature and music
married at age 16
widowed soon afterwards
she returned to her parents’ home
a civil rebellion invited mercenaries from the border
them thugs
she was taken hostage, along with many others
taken to the north
chained, threatened, starved
imprisoned with the others
in the cold, harsh frontier
“winds of the steppe rise in spring and summer,
flapping as they blow on my clothes,
whistling as they enter my ears.
my heart stirred, I long for my parents.”
by then her father had passed away
no one ransomed her
or so the story goes
she became the wife of a nomad prince
or so the story goes
she was in love?
she was coerced?
she was raped?
what did he say to her?
honey, could you please pass the salt?
twelve years later
someone came from the capital
she was ransomed
the ambitious minister was consolidating power
a pious act to show off her father’s friends
when the emissary showed up
she had to say farewell to her children
“I could not bear to take leave of them.
the children came forward and embraced my neck,
‘where are you going, mother?
they say mother is to go away,
will you ever come back?
mother has always been loving and kind
why are you now so unkind?
we are not yet grown up,
what shall we do if you don’t care for us?’
“my confusion grew to madness.
I wailed and wept, caressed them with my hands;
we were about to be separated but I hesitated.”
when she arrived home
everyone she has ever known had passed away
her home was deserted
she went up to a hill
and heard wolves howling
so one story goes
when she arrived home
she washed mutton fat off of her hair
she put on a silk dress
played the zither
she reunited with family members
so another story goes
for the nationalists, the Marxists, the patriarchs
she was a heroine
sacrificed her children for the sake of the homeland
fatherland
while her children lived and died in motherless-land
a landless mother
she wanted to kill herself
so another story goes
she was married for the third time
after returning from captivity
at age thirty
a marriage arranged by the minister
not much else is known about the rest of her life
but the storytelling continued
about her captivity
the parting with the children
and her return home
year: 1975
place: Stockton
37°58’N, 121°18’W
San Joaquin Valley
she is now a woman warrior
she dances with swords
she gives birth on horseback
so goes Maxine Hong Kingston’s story
a child of immigrant parents
she learns how to play the ‘barbarian reed pipe’
even as she struggles
between silence, language, memories
mother’s memories
of fatherland
in a strange land occupied by ‘ghosts’
stories of loss and recovery
and things we always leave behind
underneath our feet
in between places.
Thanks to Varsha Nair. Life in the Clearings refers to Margaret Atwood’s 1997 novel Alias Grace, based on 19th century accounts of a woman who was accused of murder in Canada. A subject of intense fascination, Grace Marks, like Cai Yan, could only be accessed through the ideologies of boundaries, gender, and nationhood. Thanks also to Jennifer Gambell for her excellent comments to my rendering of the story. My inquiry of the Cai Yan legend is summarized in “Between Stories and their Tellings: the legend of Wenji’s Captivity and their historical significance” [www.asiasociety.org/arts/wenji/historical/essay.html] (2002).
All quotes are edited from Hans Frankel’s translation of a poem attributed to Cai Yan. See his “Cai Yan and the Poems Attributed to Her,” CLEAR vol. 5, no. ? (July 1983), 133-156.
Fragments of a 12th century representation of Cai Yan’s captivity survived in the collection of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Accession numbers 28.62-5). Scenes 13 and 18 could be found in www.mfa.org/collections
