Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

men and women determined that single girls not married off by the age of thirty often remained single for life, whereas a man was expected to take at least one wife, regardless of his age. Father had just turned thirty and headed his own company, with properties, investments and many thriving businesses. He had worked hard to achieve all this, putting business affairs and family welfare before
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    personal gratification. Now he decided to please himself.
    Cruising with his sons around the neighbourhood in his impressive Buick on a Sunday afternoon, he spotted his secretary, Miss Wong, standing by the door of a modest apartment complex conversing with a girlfriend. He immediately noticed that the friend was very young and possessed a xiu se ke can (surpassing loveliness good enough to feast upon).
    Jeanne Virginie Prosperi was the seventeen-year-old daughter of a French father and a Chinese mother. Her features were an exquisite combination of Chinese delicacy and French sensuality. Her face was oval, with a white, porcelain-like cornplexion. She had lustrous, large, round, dark eyes, fringed by long lashes. Her head was crowned with thick, silky, jet-black hair. That day, her slender frame was dressed in a simple white blouse with a scooped-out square neckline and a royal-blue cotton skirt tied with a bow at the waist. Later on Father was to discover that Jeanne was a skilled seamstress and made all her own clothes.
    Next day at work, Father made discreet enquiries and found out from Miss Wong that Jeanne was her classmate and had just started work as a typist at the French consulate. At lunchtime he drove over to the consulate on the pretext of applying for additional import-export licences from France, found her there and made her acquaintance.
    Jeanne’s father had been a soldier in the French army and was involved in the building of railways in China. He married a woman from Shandong Province. They had five children and times were hard. He left the army and found a job working as a security guard for a firm in the French Concession in Tianjin. He died suddenly in 1936, reputedly trying to break up a barroom brawl.
    His widow coped as best she could. She had a small widow’s pension. She and her spinster sister, Lao Lao, took in sewing to make ends meet. Being French citizens, all five children were given special scholarships by missionary schools within the
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    French Concession. Both Jeanne and her older sister, Reine, graduated from St Joseph’s Catholic School for Girls, run by the Franciscan sisters.
    Although Jeanne was not someone with an impressive social pedigree, she did graduate from the most exclusive convent school in Tianjin and, along the way, had acquired many of the social graces. Besides Mandarin, she spoke fluent French and English. Father was enchanted by her beauty and style. The fact that she was half European made her something of a trophy, to be prized, cherished and put on display.
    During the 19305, in the treaty ports such as Tianjin and Shanghai, everything western was considered superior to anything Chinese. A young, beautiful and educated European wife was the ultimate status symbol. Jeanne Prosperi, therefore, possessed considerable allure. She was always perfectly groomed and remained so all her life. Still in her teens, she displayed all the beguiling modesty instilled at the convent. In addition, there was a gleam in her eyes that suggested that she was a little more exciting than an ordinary girl barely out of school. Father began to desire Jeanne with a desperation in which sexual longing mingled with social aspirations. A decorous courtship began.
    Father would pick her up from the French consulate every day and drive her home, sparing her the unpleasant crush of Tianjin public transport. They went for meals at exclusive hotel restaurants, danced at the country club and went to the movies. Tianjin boasted three cinemas, the Gaiety, Empire and Capitol, which showed romantic Hollywood