Good Earth, The - Pearl S. Buck [147]
(14) Kiang Kang-hu, The New York Times Book Review, 1933,
reprinted from The Chinese Christian Studen November-December 1932
....The ancestral portrait, which is painted when the person is alive but is completed posthumously for the worshipping by future generations, is especially a subject of detailed convention and definite technique. The person represented must be shown full face, with both ears, in ceremonial dress, with the proper official rank indicated, and seated in the position prescribed by tradition.
Once a Chinese mandarin sat for his portrait by an artist of the Western school. After the work was done he found his official button, which was on the top of his cap, was hidden and, moreover, his face was half black and half white! He was very angry and would never accept the artist's explanation and apology, so vast was the difference between their conceptions of correct portraiture and the use of perspective.
It arouses in me almost the same feeling when I read Mrs. Pearl S. Buck's novels of Chinese character. Her portrait of China may be quite faithful from her own point of view, but she certainly paints China with a half-black and half-white face, and the official button is missing! Furthermore, she seems to enjoy more depicting certain peculiarities and even defects than presenting ordinary human figures, each in its proper proportions. She capitalizes such points, intensifies them and sometimes "dumps" too many and too much of their kind on one person, making that person almost impossible in real life. In this respect Mrs. Buck is more of a caricature cartoonist than a portrait painter.
...As she has selected only a few particular characters from a special section of the interior, her picture is far less true to Chinese life as a whole.
In a word, I find Mrs. Buck's novels representing only a particular phase of the darker side of Chinese life. Owing to her peculiar observation from a viewpoint which is after all foreign, she emphasizes, if not also exaggerates, a few special points and makes things appear queer and unnatural to both Western and Chinese eyes. As a Chinese I see too much shade on the face of her subject; it turns white skin black and black hair white. The artist may assure us that it is only due to the effect of the light and perspective. Let it be so, but still a Chinese never had a black face, nor white hair except in old age. If one sees the subject itself in broad daylight, it will surely be different from the picture....
As long as a Westerner cannot himself or herself read Chinese texts and, as long as he or she depends chiefly on Chinese coolies and amahs [servants] as the source of information and as first-hand translators, there is little hope left for him or her to really understand and truly interpret China, even though he or she be born and live always in China.
(15) Mrs. Buck's reply to Kiang Kang-hu,
The New York Times Book Review, 1933
In the first place let me say that he [Kiang Kang-hu] distinctly right in saying that I have painted a picture of Chinese that is not the ordinary portrait, and not like those portraits which are usually not completed until after the death of the subject. Any one who knows those portraits must realize how far from the truth of life they are; the set pose, the arranged fold, the solemn, stately countenance, the official button. I have dealt in lights and shades. I have purposely omitted the official button. I do not ask the subject if he recognizes himself---lest he prefers the portrait with the official button! I only picture him as he is to me. Nor do I apologize....
...And I am less interested in tradition than in actuality....
...Local custom varies so widely in China that no one can lay down a sweeping statement; one can only say "in my region it is so." For this reason I have deliberately chosen to localize my customs fairly closely, in order to be accurate at least to one region. In addition, I verify my accounts by reading them to Chinese friends of that region.
But I know what Professor Kiang would have: