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- Biographies - |
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Grace in China: An American Woman Beyond the Great Wall, 1934-1974 |
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 Grace in China:An American Woman Beyond the Great Wall, 1934-1974 by Eleanor McCallie Cooper and William Liu Black Belt Press 400 pages, 1999 ISBN 157966024X Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart The box was full of old letters, many yellowed. Most were still in their envelopes but some had been taken out, typed and copied, others refolded and stuffed back in, a few pages missing, stamps torn off. Some were bundled and held together with an old rubber band that had practically melted. The dates were forty, fifty, sixty years ago…One began ‘Dear Mama and Everybody,…’ It was Grace’s first letter from China. - From Grace in China Grace McCallie Divine left the safety of her Tennessee home to study music in 1920 Chicago. A gifted singer with an operatic voice, she won a scholarship to further her studies in New York, arriving in 1926 with her mother and grandniece in tow. When Grace’s mother befriended Liu Fu-Chi, the Chinese man she encountered in the elevator who had come to the United States to study hydraulic engineering, a series of events would follow that would change the course of their lives forever. The bond between Grace and Fu-Chi deepened and eventually became cemented with a memorable evening at the Met. Although the American cultural norms of the late 1920s and ‘30s frowned heavily on interracial relationships, Grace and Fu-Chi soon found themselves deeply in love. Despite protests from Grace’s family, and the illegality of their relationship from the state of Tennessee, the two were married in 1932. When Fu-Chi lost his job during the Depression, he returned to China while pregnancy forced Grace to remain in America. Almost two years would pass before Grace and her daughter would be reunited with Fu-Chi. Grace’s first letter home recounts the harrowing trip to Tienstin during the summer of 1934. This is the letter that opens the book, grabbing the reader by the throat. While the relationship between Grace and Fu-Chi is central to the book, the relationship between Grace and China is equally as pivotal. Ultimately, because she identifies with her husband, she identifies with China. Witness to some of the most drastic events in Chinese history, Grace describes with a disturbing view the brutal occupation of the Japanese Army in 1939, and the worst flood on record later that year. In spite of constant mail service interruption and delays between letters, Grace continued to write to her family in Tennessee. On the afternoon the Communist Army marched through the streets of Tienstin, Grace stood in her yard. In 1954, because of the Red Scare and the inflammatory nature of her letters, Grace’s older brother Tom requested that her writing be kept to family news or to stop writing. For the next twenty years, Grace wouldn’t have contact with her American family. During that time, Fu-Chi died; Grace rejected her status as a United States citizen, was employed as an associate professor at Nankai University and was later diagnosed with breast cancer in 1962. The worst however came on a cold January night in 1968, when the Red Guard arrested Grace and her son William for spying and supplying information to foreign friends, making Grace the chief exhibit in a public condemnation ceremony. After resuming contact with her family in February 1974, William and a frail Grace arrived back in Tennessee in October. William eventually obtained a degree in linguistics at the University of Tennessee, and was later offered a position at USC-Berkley in California, where Grace spent her last five years. Grace McCallie Divine Liu died on April 25, 1979 at the age of seventy-eight. GRACE IN CHINA languished on my bedside for three months. I was sorry I had waited so long once I read the first paragraph. The authors Cooper and Liu (Grace’s grandniece and son) pull the reader into Grace’s life with her own words, from her letters to the memoir she never completed. I found myself holding my breath awaiting the outcome of each event in Grace’s life. Her words are so powerful that I felt as if I had lived by her side. GRACE IN CHINA is an extraordinary adventure that everyone should take. |
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