Pipa's Story by Lan Samantha Chang
"Pipa's Story" by Lan Samantha Chang follows the journey of a young woman named Pipa as she leaves her small Chinese village to work for a wealthy family in Shanghai. Pipa's mother, a powerful figure in their village known for her potions and charms, provides her daughter with protective herbs and asks her to carry a small stone to safeguard her memories. Upon arriving in the bustling city, Pipa grapples with feelings of loneliness and fear as she adjusts to her new life. She forms a friendship with a fellow maid, Meisi, and discovers that her employer, Wen, has a dark past tied to her own family's tragedy, including the mysterious death of her father.
As Pipa learns more about Wen's ruthless nature and his connection to her family's past, she faces moral dilemmas that challenge her loyalty to her mother and her own survival. The story intertwines themes of memory, loss, and the impact of personal choices against the backdrop of societal changes, culminating in a tragic ending that affects Pipa's life forever. Ultimately, Pipa's narrative reflects on the enduring bonds of family and the haunting memories that shape her identity even as she seeks to carve out a new life in Taiwan.
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Pipa's Story by Lan Samantha Chang
First published: 1993
Type of plot: Magical Realism, family
Time of work: 1949
Locale: A rural Chinese village and Shanghai
Principal Characters:
Pipa , a young Chinese girlHer mother , a village woman who works in charmsLao Fu , a friend of Pipa's motherWen , a rich Chinese merchantMeisi , one of Wen's servants
The Story
A young woman named Pipa leaves her Chinese village to work for a wealthy family in Shanghai. Because Pipa's mother works in charms and makes potions, she is a powerful figure in her village. When Pipa prepares to leave, her mother mixes potions to protect her against bodily harm as well as herbs that will fix her past in her memory and never allow her to forget her mother, no matter how far away she goes. The mother also asks Pipa to promise her to take a small stone with her and to find the heart of the house in which Wen, the man for whom she is going to work, lives and to hide the stone there. She tells Pipa not to tell anyone what village she is from and not to tell anyone her mother's name.
Pipa gets a ride to Shanghai with her mother's family friend Lao Fu. When she arrives, she is terrified by the size of the city. Reaching the house where she is to work and watching her mother's friend drive his cart away, she thinks she has said her last good-bye to her village and her mother. After years of avoiding her mother's sight, Pipa feels she is now in a place where her mother cannot see her; she is so filled with conflicting emotions about this that she vomits on the side of the road.
Pipa makes friends with another young woman named Meisi who works in the Wen house. She allows the stone, which her mother sewed up in her smock, to be thrown away. When Wen learns that Pipa can read, she is given a more important role in the household than simply being a maid. Later, when Lao Fu comes back to Shanghai to see how Pipa is doing, he tells her a story about when Wen was a young man and was a friend of her father. He tells her how her mother had an astounding talent for finding anything that was lost. Lao Fu also tells her that he, her parents, and Wen went into business together gathering ginseng roots to sell. However, Wen was a ruthless, ambitious young man who wanted Pipa's mother for himself. One foggy day, Pipa's father disappeared, and Pipa's mother, pregnant with Pipa, mourned for him and would not have anything to do with Wen until her husband's body was found. In the spring, the body was found at the bottom of a ravine, lying on a bed of pinkish quartz. Pipa's mother knew that the death was not an accident and accused Wen of killing her husband. Wen left the village and disappeared for years. Pipa tells Lao Fu that the story has nothing to do with her and that she will not keep her promise to her mother. However, when Wen sexually assaults Pipa's friend Meisi, she finds the stone, a piece of pinkish quartz, and hides it in his bed.
When the communists enter the city, they behead Wen. Pipa never sees her mother again; the communists execute her as a witch. Pipa goes to Taiwan and gets a job in a library. She gets married and has two children, but the smell of smoke always reminds her of her mother.