Good Earth, The - Pearl S. Buck [150]
16. Confucian temple. The Confucian Chinese, unlike the Buddhist, performed their rites for the sake of their fates in this world. Confucius (551-479 B.C.) was an aristocratic statesman and teacher of ethics who was concerned with the welfare of the masses and with the development of the chün tzu (the perfect man). He theorized that through the good moral examples set by the rulers and the adherence to certain (often religious) ceremonies, society would function smoothly. With this worldly form of religion, it is not difficult to understand the acceptance of a secular outlook in China today.
17. Western Pagoda. This was the only building in Wang Lung's town, besides the tea shop, that had more than one story. The pagoda is a Chinese development that derived from the stupa, which housed relics of Buddhist saints. Pagodas rarely have more than fifteen stories (the total number of stories is always uneven, because Buddhism values odd numbers), although one pagoda is 360 feet tall. Eventually, the pagodas lost their connection with Buddhism and were built in ail shapes and sizes to bring civic good fortune.
About the Author
PEARL S. BUCK devoted her life to the creation of better understanding between the peoples of Asia and the West. She was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia on June 26, 1892, but spent her childhood in China, where her parents were Presbyterian missionaries. Living in the historic city of Chianking, she learned Chinese before English. When she was fifteen she went to boarding school in Shanghai, her first formal schooling before she returned to America to enter Randolph-Macon College. After graduation in 1914, she married John Lossing Buck, a teacher of agriculture, and went to live in a town in North China. Here she lived for five years, gathering the memories that became the basis of The Good Earth.
The publication of her first article in the Atlantic, in 1923, confirmed a childhood interest in writing and led ultimately to her first novel, East Wind, West Wind. Less than a year later, the appearance of The Good Earth, established her reputation. The novel was an extraordinary best seller and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, translated into more than thirty languages, and made into a play and a motion picture. After that she wrote over eighty books, including such famous novels as A House Divided, Dragon Seed, Pavilion of Women, and The Time is Noon.
In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Mrs. Buck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, the Brotherhood Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Wesley Award for Distinguished Service to Humanity and more than a dozen honorary degrees from American colleges and universities. She died in Danby, Vermont on March 6, 1973.
Notes:
THE GOOD EARTH was written out of Pearl Buck's long, firsthand experience in China. Her parents were an ill-matched pair of Southern Presbyterians named Absalom and Carie Sydenstricker. Pearl was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia, in 1892 while her parents were on a home leave, but she was taken to China at the age of three months and lived there most of the next forty years. Her father was a humorless, zealous man who tried for decades to convert the Chinese to Christianity. Her mother was an unhappy woman who felt permanently exiled in a strange land.
Compared with the childhood of other Americans, Pearl's was extraordinary. By the time she was four, she spoke and wrote Chinese as well as English. Her only playmates were Chinese children who let her join their games but called her a "foreign devil" because of her blue eyes and blond hair. Though Carie tried to discourage the practice, Pearl's Chinese amah (governess) told her some of the most popular Chinese tales, such as "The Kitchen God," "The Jar of Silver," and