In pre-World War II China the attitudes of the people are somewhat different to those of the Western civilizations. This must have resulted in yet another transformation that LuLing has had to go through in her life. The first time she met foreigners was in the orphanage and she was dumb found. Years later, LuLing was the one who had to become a foreigner in another country, America. This is the irony of the transformation. There are also many characteristics of people’s behaviours in China in these early 20th century years. The fact that in order to show someone how much you cared about them you had to criticize them in some way is some what unfamiliar to many of us readers. These circumstances must add on a great deal to the psychological shape-up of younger children like LuLing at the time. Earning no real self-fulfilment during her growing-up in the Ling family, must have made her hungry for appraisal. This is why comments like “You are a careful worker,” made by Kai Jing stimulated LuLing’s emotions in this way. We see that this has contributed to Ruth’s shaping of character since she also failed to gain much praise or sympathy from her own mother. She does not realize that this is because of the way her own mother was brought up.
Perhaps the greatest similarity between past and present LuLing is the superstition. From an early age, LuLing developed a superstitious idea about this curse that has been haunting her mother’s side of the family. Since people in China at the time were great believers in curses like this one and ghosts and so on it must have been very easy for LuLing to believe in this. There is evidence though in the text that she is intelligent. She has proof of her academic success over her sister and later on in the manuscripts we read about some shrewd ideas that she has come up with. The belief in curses and ghosts was implanted into her from the whole beginning and she still lives with that same belief today. In fact she has added something of her own…speaking to Precious Auntie through Ruth and the sand tray. She has never stopped believing in the curse even though Kai Jing tried to convince her that this was all in her head. He was obviously a scientist and knew for a fact things like these are just hoaxes. However she was not convinced. This is because of all the terrible things she and her mother have been through. She cannot admit that her grandfather, grandmother, great-uncle, father, mother, husband and future husband’s deaths were bad luck. A curse must have done it, or at least that is what she blamed it all on. This curse is perhaps the reason LuLing was obsessed with death. Her famous quote “Maybe I die soon” shows that she was ready to die and she knew this could happen at any time because nobody could tell when this curse was going to strike again. The fact that she constantly repeats this means that she believed so much in this curse, that it had taken control of her life. Ruth found out just how much this means to her mother and has managed to harness it and use it to manipulate her when she really wanted something. There are many examples of just how superstitious LuLing was in her Immortal Heart days. One example is the blind beggar girl. She linked up any old gibberish that she wrote with Precious Auntie. The burning down of the ink shop is yet another example. We are not told whether she believed in the ghost catcher when he claimed to have caught Precious Auntie’s ghost. We also know the reason why she still believes in this curse. The dragon bones that Chang took from Precious Auntie’s dowry had belonged to Peking man and were never put back where they belonged. It is Chinese superstition that a family will be cursed if the bones of the dead are separated by someone.
The intelligence that was just mentioned proves yet another difference between the two LuLings. One is very clever, has academic success and has a well developed memory as we can see from the manuscripts. The other is very slow, is constantly confused and suffers from Dementia. And yet we do see some signs of the young LuLing within the old one. One example is when she points out “What’s wrong” on the Full Moon Festival. This shows that LuLing is still very observant. She would have to be otherwise she would never have been able to write down these manuscripts from memory.
One change that was mentioned above and needs to be elaborated on is when LuLing joined the orphanage. This is where she learnt to have responsibility and look after herself. She also had a much happier life there than she did back home. This was of course until her husband was killed. LuLing and her sister GaoLing grew closer and closer together after Precious Auntie’s death. It is as if discovering that they were never really true sisters inspired them into becoming that. We see their relationship improve even further when GaoLing joins the orphanage to run away from Fu Nan. The significance of this is that this relationship was never shown between modern LuLing and modern GaoLing. One would never be able to guess just how close they were to each other earlier in their life.
All in all, we must understand that the time LuLing spent in the orphanage changed her personality completely. It was the beginning of a new LuLing; a LuLing that was destined to encounter many more changes during the rest of her life. These are the things that she learnt from her life in the orphanage: respect for other people, responsibility, how to take care of herself, how to love, how to feel pain. She also learnt about the world outside China, she learnt about science and why some people do not believe in her curse, she learnt about Christian religion and how (thanks to the influence from the people around her) perfect it is. She was now able to think for herself and to explore more subjects. The LuLing that came out of that orphanage cannot possibly be the LuLing that Ruth grapples with on a regular basis. And yet they are the same person.
Why did I say it is impossible for these two LuLings to be the same person? Several reasons have already been discussed. In the first section of the book we are introduced to this woman who has come of age and whose mind is not on track all the time. We are given many examples which point out one major characteristic of LuLing senior. She is suffering from some sort of confusion. Fair enough many older men and women are not exactly up to date with what is going on but some of LuLing’s actions do make us suspicious just like Ruth. After reading the manuscripts and re-read the first chapters you will think to yourself: “Is the LuLing that escaped from that orphanage with those children and so cleverly managed to deal with the situation the same LuLing that leaves the cold water tap on for days, hoping the water will eventually warm up?” The answer is yes. The reason for this consecutive change was medical. LuLing contracted dementia at some point in time which has caused her to ‘lose it’ more every day. There are many incidents that concur with this and prove it even more. However, this creates something like a blindfold for Ruth who can no longer distinguish whether what her mother says is true or another example of her confusion. This is best explained by recalling the doctor’s appointment when Ruth took LuLing to see Dr. Huey. LuLing showed that she was getting confused with the mental problems that the doctor gave her. But when then doctor asked her something personal, her birth date, she replied something that Ruth found shocking. Ruth thought LuLing was born in 1921 but if she had read the manuscripts she would have known that LuLing had said the correct answer: 1916. There are other examples in which Ruth does not realize that her mother is saying the truth. During the Full Moon Festival when LuLing had said that GaoLing was not her real sister and that Precious Auntie was her real mother, Ruth thought she had completely lost it. But one cannot deny the countless examples proving the dementia. This is why we are introduced to a LuLing which we cannot even begin to imagine being the same person as the LuLing we read about in the manuscripts.
One must not forget however that there are signs that the young LuLing is still in there somewhere. For example the fact that LuLing is still strongly superstitious. She has never stopped believing in this curse that has been following her family for so many generations. She has even tried to introduce Ruth to this curse when she will haunt her when her mother is dead. LuLing thought she was using Ruth to communicate with Precious Auntie’s ghost. Also she believed that the accident that Ruth had when she was six was a warning from Precious Auntie about the curse. This shows us a connection between the two LuLings.
Another connection between the two is the fact that LuLing teaches her daughter Ruth in the same fashion that she was taught by Precious Auntie. This knowledge is passed on from generation to generation. LuLing can see that she has now taken up Precious Aunties position as a mother and as a teacher and she must treat Ruth accordingly. This change in her personality is not completely random like some of the previous changes. In this case it involves her from moving up a level in the chain of command. She used to be at the bottom with people controlling her and telling her what to do. But now she finds herself a level higher. She now has the authority to control and command someone. Most of her life was spent at the bottom of the chain but now that she has risen, this has reflected upon her. This is why she is such a control freak with Ruth. Also, the fear of the curse following her daughter has increased LuLing’s desire to keep her away from all the harmful things in life. Knowing modern teenagers, we can appreciate the fact that this was an impossible task. LuLing never realized how different her daughter actually is from her. Growing up in different time periods has different effects on a person’s character. This is why Ruth finds her mother to be far too strict with her.
We must not forget that we must not only look at the way Ruth grapples with LuLing when she is middle-aged but also when she was a teenager. She has had to cope with this different LuLing because of this curse and the way her mother has been psychologically shaped during her life. This difference from the LuLing in the manuscripts, who was used to taking orders and following what other people said, is of extreme significance. However we must not forget the several examples when LuLing as a child was not afraid to stand up to her nursemaid. She could already create a little chart of authority in her mind. She knew that she had to answer to Mother and that she was the one that she needed to please. She was looking for her recognition. Not Precious Auntie’s. As she became older she began to question her nursemaid’s authority over her. She was clearly not as important as any member of the family so why should she have to follow her instructions? The first time she failed to carry out Precious Auntie’s instructions was when she wanted to tell Mother something that Precious Auntie wanted to say. Before LuLing had the chance to do so, she was silenced by Mother and never tried again even though she was enthusiastically urged by Precious Auntie. The second time was when she said she gave the letter written by the nursemaid to Mother but she had actually disposed of it. The last time she tried to prove that Precious Auntie had no authority over her was when she was going to marry into the Change family completely against her nursemaid’s will. This of course resulted in her suicide. It is ironic to see how Ruth was challenging LuLing’s authority in a similar way with the cigarettes and several other examples. It is strange how LuLing does not remember how rebellious she felt when she was with Precious Auntie. This might have made her realize that Ruth was feeling exactly the same way. Or she might have realized that she was wrong not to follow Precious Auntie’s instructions and she does not want Ruth to make the same mistake as her. It is easy to find your mistakes once you have aged and have the ability to think back to your past actions and evaluate them. Of course, with the greater knowledge that can come only with age, one is able to see where he or she went wrong. However it was different for young LuLing and young Ruth. Old LuLing saw her mistakes and wanted to stop young Ruth from living through the same mistakes. So she turns strict for Ruth’s own good, but she does not realize this is making Ruth repeat her mistakes even more.
LuLing had been hungry to find out what secrets Ruth held from her. This is also something we would not have thought could be part of the LuLing in the manuscripts. One would imagine that LuLing knew how important it is for somebody to keep some things to themselves. She herself kept secrets from others. For example: the dragon bones. What if she herself had written down about the Monkeys Jaw and where exactly the dragon bones were hidden? What if someone decided to find out what secrets she kept and read her diary? She would find this act to be just as appalling as Ruth did. A very important quote says what effects this had on Ruth as a child “Didn’t Mom ever realize how her demands for no secrets drove me to hide even more from her?” Even Ruth herself points out that her mother kept secrets from her. “That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.” It is very important for us to realize the significance of what Ruth wrote in her diary and she knew that her mother would read it. It is something very similar to what LuLing had said to Precious Auntie and had lead to nearly the same outcomes. “You talk about killing yourself so why don’t you ever do it? I wish you would. Just do it, do it, do it! Go ahead, kill yourself! Precious Auntie wants you to, and so do I!” This had resulted in LuLing’s attempt to suicide. She her self had said similar words to Precious Auntie which must have hurt just as much if not more. However, Precious Auntie did not fail at committing suicide. It is the same scene relived over twice. It was all coming back to LuLing. What she had said and done to her mother was now being said and done to her by her daughter. This is pure irony. This is how much LuLing had changed. From being the culprit, she now became the victim. In fact one can see a lot of similarity between young LuLing and Ruth, and Old LuLing and Precious Auntie. This is how different LuLing had become: from daughter to mother, from rebel to control freak.
There is one more similarity that I would like to point out. This is between LuLing senior and Great-Granny. Those two figures have an amazing amount of connections even if LuLing was never related to Great-Granny. They both suffered from a disease which caused confusion. This could have been seen in Great-Granny when she kept on looking for her dead grand-son Hu Sen. They both had moments when they showed a sign of cleverness. LuLing probably looked at Great-Granny and found her condition very curious.
The final section of the book does not deal with LuLing that deeply but mostly about Ruth and the manuscripts. We find out that Ruth has decided to go and live with her mother so that she can be closer to her. This is what she feels she has to do because she is worried about her so much. Ruth had noticed another very interesting observation which proves that her mother is far more sensible when she is speaking in Chinese. Somehow she seems to understand more and is less confused when other people are talking to her. One example of this situation is when she asks what was wrong with Ruth on the Full Moon Festival. She spoke to her in Chinese and did not fail to see the worrying look on her daughter’s face. Lucky for Ruth she was not able to guess the real reason for her worries. When LuLing started to meet with Mr. Tang and she could freely speak Mandarin to him it became evident how much easier LuLing was able to think. She even managed to remember her mother’s name. It was as if she never really suffered from Dementia. But of course there are still the undeniable signs of the illness. For example when she describes the dragon bones to Art in Chinese and then translates what she had just said in English to Mr. Tang. Ruth herself pointed out to Mr. Tang when he said he wanted to meet LuLing “She won’t be the same woman who wrote those pages.” Ruth has realized how much different LuLing had been in her youth from the elderly mother that she has to take care of now.
