The Kitchen God’s Wife

by Amy Tan

THE LITERARY WORK

A novel set predominantly in China from around 1911 to 1949 and set in America around the time of publication; published in 1991.

SYNOPSIS

A mother is forced to reveal the darkest secrets from her past in war-ravaged China to her American daughter.

Events in History at the Time the Novel Takes Place

The Novel in Focus

Events in History at the Time the Novel Was Written

For More Information

Born in Oakland, California, in 1952 to Chinese parents, Amy Tan wrote The Kitchen God’s Wife to tell the story of her mother, Daisy Tan. The character of Winnie Louie experiences trials and tribulations in pre-Communist China that mirror those suffered by Daisy, who fled to the United States on the last boat from Shanghai in 1949 before the Communist takeover.

Events in History at the Time the Novel Takes Place

Dynasties and alien invaders

In the novel the character Winnie Louie presents her daughter with a poignant, richly detailed story of a difficult life in her troubled homeland. She recounts in vivid detail the horrors that her people experienced when the Japanese invaded China. In fact, the Japanese were not the first to try to exploit this vast, lush land with its abundant resources; China’s history seems to have been one long struggle against foreign conquerors. Prior to the thirteenth century, China was ruled by a succession of imperialistic dynasties. In 1279 nomadic tribes from the northern land of Mongolia became the first alien invaders to rule the country. In 1368 the Mongols were deposed and native rule was restored by the Ming Dynasty until 1644, when another tribe of foreigners from the north, the Manchus, took over. The Manchus established the last dynasty, the Qing (1644-1912).

Political turmoil (1911-1949)

The Revolution of 1911 toppled the Manchu dynasty; in the novel, it causes Winnie Louie’s grandfather to commit suicide. Civil War ensued as the Communist Party, formed in 1921 with Mao Zedong (or Tse-Tung) as its leader, jockeyed for power against the nationalist Guomindang (or Kuomintang) rebel group. In 1924 the Guomindang finally aligned itself with the Communist Party during a period of nominal cooperation. Three years later Chiang Kai-shek, who was never very fond of the Communists, assumed leadership of the Guomindang’s Central Executive Committee, and the Communist-Guomindang union crumbled. Under the Guomindang’s rule, China’s doors opened wide to foreign investment and trade, and the merchant class prospered. China’s growing wealth sparkled like a jewel across the ocean, enticing the Japanese and adding impetus to their attempt to control the land. The Japanese invaded Manchuria and took over northeast China in 1931. During the ensuing war, the Japanese air campaign showered a blanket of bombs on Shanghai and other major

cities that forced citizens to become transients, moving from city to city. Japan formally invaded the rest of China in 1937. By 1942 the Japanese faced certain defeat in China because of the support China was receiving from the U.S. military, so Chiang focused his military resources on battling the Communists. The Liberation War (1946-49) pitted the Guomindang against the Communists and ended with Chiang’s—and the Guomindang’s—flight to Taiwan, a large island off China’s coast then known as Formosa. Fear of a Communist state led many Chinese to desert what did indeed in 1949 become the People’s Republic of China. In the novel, Winnie Louie ends up fleeing both the Communists and her abusive husband, Wen Fu.

“The Flying Tigers.”

A series of violent confrontations had erupted between Japanese citizens of China and Chinese natives well before the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. The violence sent Chiang Kai-shek to the United States to plead for defensive aid. Wary of becoming embroiled in international conflict, the U.S. government sent an “unofficial” American Air Force mission to China. The American pilots who established the first training school at Hangchow were dismayed to find that success as a Chinese aviator had depended less on flying skill than on money and political power. In 1937 Chiang coerced Louisiana’s legendary pilot Claire Chennault out of retirement to head the “foreign legion,” a group of mostly Chinese American men who had little or no experience in military aviation. Chennault had earned his wings in the army in 1918, when aviation was still a new endeavor, and had fought in World War I. At the age of forty-six, having lost much of his hearing, he was forced by the Army Air Corps to retire, after earning a reputation as a tough, chain-smoking, bourbon-drinking fighter with an iron will. Military experts scoffed at the pilots Chennault brought to China to help the Chinese air force, but under Chennault’s no-nonsense leadership the American Volunteer Group (AVG) soon emerged as a respectable squadron.

In the novel, Winnie meets Chennault in Hangchow:

I remember the pilots gave him a good-sounding Chinese name, Shan Nao, which sounded like “Chennault”: shan as in “lightning,” nao as in “noisy.” Noisy lightning was like the sound of airplanes racing across the sky—zah! And that was why Shan Nao came, to teach the pilots how to fly.

(Tan, The Kitchen God’s Wife, p. 165)

The Chinese saw the intimidating image of a shark, complete with sharp, menacing teeth, on the noses of AVG planes and dubbed them “The Flying Tigers.” In 1942 the Flying Tigers’ destruction of 199 Japanese planes was instrumental in China’s victory in its war with Japan.

Superstitions and daomei thinking

Many characters in the novel exhibit superstitious thinking called “syncretism”—a form of religion that combines the traditional Eastern philosophies of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism with popular folklore and mythology. The essential aim of syncretism is to master fate; the fundamental belief is that one’s actions, even if unintentional, determine whether one is blessed with good luck or cursed with bad. An example is daomei—negative thoughts leading to bad events. In the novel, for instance, after Winnie fleetingly imagines Wen Fu dying in the war, he is seriously injured in an accident.

Winnie believes that even the simplest accident, like dropping a pair of scissors, can lead to calamity:

I remembered what Old Aunt had once said about the bad luck of dropping scissors. I could not remember the reasoning, only the stories: a woman who lost the sharpness of her mind, a woman whose hair fell out of her head overnight, a woman whose only son poked his eye out with a little twig, and she was so sorry she blinded her own eyes with the same stick. What a terrible thing I had done, dropping my scissors. I called my servant right away and told her to throw those scissors into the lake.

(The Kitchen God’s Wife, p. 242)

Immediately after dropping her scissors, Winnie gives birth to a stillborn child, which seems to validate her suspicions. Because of Winnie’s obsession with daomei, her daughter Pearl hesitates to confide in her about a disease; she fears that her mother will somehow blame herself for it.

The Novel in Focus

The plot

The Kitchen God’s Wife opens in modern-day San Francisco, where Winnie Louie, a Chinese immigrant, runs a small flower shop in Chinatown with her friend Helen. Family obligations—an engagement party and a funeral— bring Winnie’s reluctant American daughter, Pearl, to town. At first, the story unfolds through Pearl’s narration. Winnie and Pearl have a tense relationship, and Pearl’s inner thoughts reveal that Winnie’s traditional Chinese superstitions, beliefs, and mannerisms are a source of embarrassment to her American daughter. “Aunt” Helen confronts Pearl at Pearl’s cousin’s engagement party and drops a bombshell. Convinced that she herself is afflicted with a brain tumor, Helen worries that the weight of Pearl’s secret—one that both women have hidden from Winnie for many years—will prevent her from flying to heaven when she dies. If Pearl, who has multiple sclerosis, won’t tell Winnie the truth about her condition, Helen will.

The story then shifts to Winnie’s narration. Helen blackmails Winnie in the same manner. It becomes clear that Winnie has never told Pearl about the man she married in China decades ago, long before she met Jimmy Louie, Pearl’s deceased father. The rest of the novel follows Winnie’s story as she tells it to Pearl. She delves deep into the recesses of her dark, troubled past, weaving in rich, occasionally humorous detail her story of a life and country steeped in tradition. Her tale begins in Shanghai in 1911 where Winnie (Jiang Weili), a precocious child, lives what at first appears to be a charmed existence. Her wealthy father, Jiang Sao-yen, owns several factories as well as the large mansion housing Winnie, her doting mother, several servants, and his other wives. Winnie’s luck changes when her beloved mother mysteriously disappears. Her father, wishing to eliminate any reminder of his runaway wife, ships Winnie off to Tsungming Island to live with his brother’s family, whose large estate is funded by Winnie’s father. No one seems to know what has happened to her mother, but everyone has their theories. Winnie fantasizes that her mother, unhappy in her loveless marriage, has run away with her true love, a Communist revolutionary named Lu, and will someday return to claim her daughter.

Winnie’s aunts and uncle, while not outwardly abusive or neglectful, treat her more like a guest than family. Her cousin, Peanut, by contrast, is constantly showered with gifts and praise. Despite the preferential treatment Peanut receives, Winnie doesn’t harbor any resentment. Instead, Peanut and Winnie grow into adolescence as two sisters would, sharing everything—even Wen Fu, the man whom Peanut wants to marry.

Winnie and Peanut meet Wen Fu during some New Year’s festivities in town, where he performs in a traditional play honoring the “God of the Village.” Turning on his actor’s charm, Wen Fu playfully flirts with Peanut and buys her presents. Winnie, sensing danger, is not so easily fooled by Wen Fu’s charms. After he follows them home and sees their large house and obvious wealth, he begins to court Peanut. When Wen Fu finds out from Auntie Miao, the match-maker of the village, that Winnie’s father subsidizes Peanut’s family, the tide of Wen Fu’s affections changes course and moves in Winnie’s direction.

Winnie’s aunts and uncle, eager to marry their niece off, ignore Peanut’s expressions of disappointment and gratefully accept the Wen family’s proposal of marriage on Winnie’s behalf. The family travels to Shanghai to obtain Jiang Sao-yen’s blessings. Seeing her father again twelve years after her banishment and exploring her old home stirs a longing in Winnie for family stability. The pending marriage generates more attention for Winnie than she has ever received in her life. Her father treats her as if she has never left and spends a small fortune on treasures, the likes of which Winnie has never known—beautiful hand-carved furniture, silver flatware, dishes, and blankets— for her dowry. Ironically she feels like part of the family just as she is about to leave it.

Swept away by the celebratory rituals, Winnie weds Wen Fu and dreams that she can build a good life with him. In the early years of her marriage, she tries hard to be a good wife, even after Wen Fu starts to physically and verbally abuse her.

Like many other well-to-do young men seeking glory in the fight against the Japanese, Wen Fu joins the air force and moves to Hangchow to be trained by the elite American Volunteer Group. Once in Hangchow, Wen Fu continually criticizes, berates, and even rapes Winnie. Her sole consolation is her friend, Hulan (who later takes the name Helen), whose husband, Jiangao, is Wen Fu’s superior.

The two couples end up fleeing across country with the air force base, which keeps moving to evade the Japanese. Wen Fu’s abusive behavior escalates with the war, especially after he suffers a head injury in a serious automobile accident. Winnie meets a kind Chinese American man, Jimmy Louie, at a dance. He gives her an American name, and the flicker of attraction between them gives Winnie a taste of the possibility of a better life.

Once the dance is over, however, Winnie goes back to her husband, who hits her for flirting. Wen Fu’s flare-ups never abate, even after the birth of his daughter, Yiku, whom he also abuses. Winnie, seven months pregnant with another child, watches Yiku die from a fever when Wen Fu refuses to allow a doctor to treat her. When the new child is born, a son, she names him Danru—”’nonchalance’—a good Buddhist name, as if this baby would never be attached to anything in this life, not even its own mother” (The Kitchen God’s Wife, p. 268).

After the war, Winnie and Wen Fu move to Shanghai and find out that her father, speechless from a stroke, had pledged allegiance to the Japanese to keep his factories and then, once they were defeated, had lost the bulk of his fortune as punishment for betraying his country. She also discovers that her dowry, intended for Wen Fu and herself to use in their own house-hold, was stolen by Wen Fu’s family, who swooped in like vultures and set up camp in her father’s house to bilk him of the rest of his money. When Winnie’s son dies during an epidemic, her life becomes intolerable. Two chance reunions—with Jimmy Louie and Peanut, who has become a Communist to escape her own terrible marriage—finally give her the courage to change her life.

As Winnie finishes her incredible story, which reveals that she was raped by Wen Fu shortly before leaving China, Pearl reaches the inevitable, disturbing conclusion about who her real father is and gains insight into her strained relationship with her mother. Winnie vows to help Pearl fight multiple sclerosis with traditional Chinese medicine, and both women seem to gain a deeper understanding of each other. The surprise ending about Helen’s health suggests that a white lie can be a noble gift.

Marriage as a business deal

The traditional Chinese view of marriage had little to do with love or romance.

You see, Wen Fu decided he really did want to marry Peanut, not because he loved her sincerely—he wanted to marry into her family. And really, he was no different than most men back then. Getting married in those days was like buying real estate.

(The Kitchen God’s Wife, p. 134)

The importance of the clan, as expressed in Confucian thought, gave rise to the idea of marriage as a business deal that benefits the family, not the individual. Families were tightly knit units in China, and the merging of two families carried farranging implications. A rich daughter-in-law was highly prized in traditional Chinese society— the bigger the dowry she brought to her new family, the better. Wives were either “given” by their own family or “taken” by their husband’s and, like Winnie in the novel, had very little choice in the matter. It was the father’s duty to approve the match and make sure he was giving his daughter to a good family. As Winnie tells Pearl:

I found out: My father knew all along the Wen family character was not so good. So by allowing me to marry into the family, he was saying I was not so good either.

(The Kitchen God’s Wife, p. 150)

Once the woman married into the new family, she assumed the bottom position in the hierarchy. Some men had many wives, and each wife’s status in the household depended on how long ago she was married—younger, newer wives had less power than the older ones. The clan operated like a government, with the husband as the chief:

A lineage community was a society and government unto itself. The rights of family heads over their wives and children—including both the right to punish by banishment or beating and the control of familial property— were recognized by law.

(Lyman, p. 10)

The husband/father had every right in pre-Communist Chinese society to exercise full control over the children and his wives. Before Winnie’s marriage, her father advises her, “From now on, you must consider what your husband’s opinions are. Yours do not matter so much anymore. Do you understand?” (The Kitchen God’s Wife, p. 145). Women like Winnie had little recourse when their husbands became abusive. Divorces were difficult to obtain unless both partners willingly agreed to the separation. With the help of a friend who works in a telegram office, Winnie tricks Wen Fu into finally granting her a divorce.

The Kitchen God and his wife

In the beginning of the novel, Winnie presents Pearl with an altar, bequeathed by the recently deceased Auntie Du, dedicated to the Kitchen God. The Kitchen God’s origins may go back as far as the eighth century b.c. Also referred to as the “Stove God,” the Kitchen God acts as the “policeman” deity. It is believed that he watches the household from his position above the stove and submits a yearly report about each family member’s behavior to the supreme deity, who doles out bad luck to anyone who has misbehaved. To ensure a favorable report, the family offers the Kitchen God gifts and burns incense in his honor. When Pearl’s husband compares the Kitchen God to Santa Claus, Winnie responds: “He is not like Santa Claus. More like a spy—FBI agent, CIA, Mafia, worse than IRS, that kind of person!” (The Kitchen God’s Wife, p. 55).

Chinese religion teaches that deities were once mere mortals who became gods only after living virtuous lives on earth. It is thus somewhat unclear why Zhang, the rich farmer who jilted his faithful, dedicated wife Guo, was rewarded with the position of Kitchen God. As Winnie ponders, “Why should I want that kind of person to judge me, a man who cheated his wife? His wife was the good one, not him” (The Kitchen God’s Wife, p. 55). At the end of the novel, Winnie creates a separate altar for Pearl in honor of the Kitchen God’s dedicated wife.

CONFUCIUS: ARCHITECT OF CHINA’S SOCIAL ORDER

Many of China’s firm traditions and institutions are rooted in orthodox Confucianism, based on the teachings of Confucius (551-479 b.c.) According to Confucianism, the ideal social structure is a hierarchy in which everyone accepts their designated rights and moral responsibilities according to their position within the hierarchy. The family is regarded as the most important hierarchical unit, because moral and ethical values are passed down from generation to generation. Winnie blames Confucius for the misguided values that led her into a difficult marriage: “I don’t know why everyone thought Confucius was so good, so wise. He made everyone look down on someone else, women were the lowest!” (The Kitchen God’s Wife, p. 103).

Sources

When The Joy Luck Club (also covered in Literature and Its Times), Amy Tan’s first novel, became a huge success, Daisy Tan urged her daughter to write her story. The fictional characters in the Kitchen God’s Wife thus hark back to real-life counterparts:

Fictional Name	Real-life Source
Winnie Louie	Daisy Tan, Amy Tan’s mother
Pearl	Amy Tan
Phil	Amy Tan’s husband, Lou DeMattei
WenFu	Daisy Tan’s abusive husband in China
Jimmy Louie	John Tan, Amy’s father
Winnie’s mother	Jing-mei, Daisy Tan’s mother

The novel diverges from real life, however, in the fate of Winnie’s mother. At the beginning of the novel, Winnie’s mother takes her daughter to Shanghai for one last day together, then mysteriously disappears. In reality, Amy Tan’s actual maternal grandmother Jing-mei was raped and forced to become a concubine. Her life ended tragically—she killed herself by ingesting raw opium that she had placed in her New Year’s rice cake.

CHINESE MEDICINE: YIN/YANG IN BALANCE

The fundamental principle of ancient Chinese medicine, the yin/yang doctrine, originated with the Daoist (or Taoist) philosophy as put forth in the I Jing (or I Ching, or Book of Changes). Daoists believe that yin, the female dark element, and yang, the male light element, are complimentary forces present in every being. Unlike Western medicine, with its focus on viruses and bacteria attacking the body from outside of it, the yin/yang doctrine posits that the cause of disease is pumly internal. In order to remain healthy, one must possess a balance of yin and yang In every organ; sickness sets in when there Is too much of one element Treatment relies heavily on natural herbs and depends on whether the disease is a “yin condition,”, such as low blood pressure, or a “yang condition,” like high blood pressure.

Events in History at the Time the Novel Was Written

Gaps within the “model minority”

According to the U.S. Census, by 1980 Asian Americans had become the nation’s best educated and most prosperous minority group, with a median family income that exceeded that of whites. Asian Americans were increasingly referred to as the “Model Minority,” a term coined by sociologist William Petersen in his 1966 New York Times Magazine article, “Success Story, Japanese American Style.” The perception of Asians as more successful, economically and socially, than other minority groups persists to this day and overlooks the fact that within the Asian population wide variations exist.

The fact is that Chinese Americans are of very different kinds. Chinese Americans themselves draw sharp distinctions: the American-born Chinese (the ABCs) tend to be college-educated, to have middle-class occupations, and to live outside of the inner-city Chinatowns; and the recent immigrants (the FOBs, “fresh off the boat”) tend to be poorly educated, deficient in English, to live in Chinatowns, and to ply the low-wage service trades or sweatshop manufacturing enterprises typical of the inner city.

(Daniels, p. 324)

These differences have prompted internal friction, even within the confines of Chinese families, as reflected by Winnie and Pearl’s problems in the novel. Winnie is intensely traditional, still clinging to the superstitions and rituals of her homeland, and has trouble accepting her daughter’s independent spirit. Pearl barely understands and sometimes scoffs at her mother’s ways.

In the end, Winnie gives Pearl a Chinese herbal medication to place on her skin to heal the imbalance she believes is causing Pearl’s multiple sclerosis. Pearl’s acceptance of this treatment is symbolic—it bridges the cultural and generational gap between herself and her mother.

China today

The Communist leaders of the 1949 revolution, stating their intentions to reform the political system to benefit “the people,” implemented massive changes in China’s economic and social policies. Under Mao, the government enacted the Marriage Law in 1950, which guarantees everyone the right to choose their own mate. In rural areas, however, the hierarchical familial structure described in The Kitchen God’s Wife remains virtually untouched by reform. Matchmakers like Auntie Miao in the novel continue to play an important role in arranging marriages, and a woman is still expected to move in with her husband’s family rather than setting up a separate household with her husband. Marriage rituals have undergone change in the city, however, where urban dwellers, especially students, are more likely to hold a liberal, western-influenced view of marriage.

Reviews

Tan’s best-selling novel The Joy Luck Club, published in March of 1989, won high praise from critics. Following up a huge first success is a difficult task for any writer. Some reviewers, such as one in Newsweek, argued that Tan failed to show her readers anything new, accusing her of just rehashing the theme of The Joy Luck Club —intergenerational tension between Chinese mothers and American daughters (Shapiro, p. 63). Other critics responded well to The Kitchen God’s Wife. The New York Times Book Review praised Tan’s storytelling ability:

Within the peculiar construction of Amy Tan’s second novel is a harrowing, compelling and at times bitterly humorous tale in which an entire world unfolds in a Tolstoyan tide of event and detail.

(Dew, p. 9)

Paying Tan perhaps the ultimate compliment, a review in Time magazine declared that The Kitchen God’s Wife exceeded the expectations that were raised by her magnificent first novel (Iyer, p. 67).

For More Information

Chen, Jack. Inside the Cultural Revolution. New York: Macmillan, 1975.

Ching, Julia. Chinese Religions. New York: Orbis, 1993.

Daniels, Roger. Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988.

Dew, Robb Forman. “Pangs of an Abandoned Child.” Review of The Kitchen God’s Wife, by Amy Tan. New York Times Book Review (June 16, 1991): 9.

Hyatt, Richard. Chinese Herbal Medicine: An Ancient Art and Modern Healing Science. New York: Thorsons, 1978.

Iyer, Pico. “The Second Triumph of Amy Tan.” Review of The Kitchen God’s Wife, by Amy Tan. Time (June 3, 1991): 67.

Lyman, Stanford. Chinese Americans. New York: Random House, 1974.

Shapiro, Laura. “From China with Love.” Review of The Kitchen God’s Wife, by Amy Tan. News week (June 14, 1991): 63.

Tan, Amy. The Kitchen God’s Wife. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1991.

Whelan, Russell. The Flying Tigers: The Story of the American Volunteer Group. New York: Viking, 1943.