Raise the Red Lantern and Asian Chicken Soup

Da hong deng long gao gao gua (Raise the Red Lantern) (1991)

In modern China, the traditional preference for boys has resulted in 117 boys born for every 100 girls; by one estimate, this means there could be 24 million Chinese men unable to find wives by the end of the decade. Suddenly, marriageable women are a rare commodity. A woman’s fate in modern day terms probably doesn’t compare with 1920s China during the warlord era. On the other hand, some of the themes in Raise the Red Lantern are still true today, even in modern day USA.

The fate of women in my suburban biosphere is living at least a halflife of child care duties; carpooling kids to and from school and activities in their squadrons of minivans, overseeing homework, baking cupcakes for the class party, helping their kids navigate the social waters at school, and various degrees of homemaking. Whatever intrigue went into each woman’s situation, whatever boyfriend-stealing was involved in getting married, whatever fertility issues that were dealt with after that, and whatever home she managed to buy (affordable or not), all of that is back story. Sometimes these minivan moms and I would meet over coffee after dropping the kids off at school at The Blue Cow, a mom-n-pop coffee shop next to the neighborhood pool, in the space left after the WaWa burned down.

We might have all settled and be out of the game as it were, but all of us knew what girls and women were capable of. We’ve heard about the Mean Girls at school, and remember the earlier versions from our own childhoods. We knew of (or were) that nasty girl in high school who used her body to lure guys in her direction…because it worked. You either suffered because you were fat or ugly, or you suffered because you thought you were. We were no strangers to the phenomenon of May/December romances, either from the sidelines or from personal experience, so the beginning of Raise the Red Lantern, where Songlian has resigned herself to a life as a concubine to an older man, is not new. Neither is the framework of dividing the story into seasons; for mothers, everything is already broken down into seasons: the school year, the holidays, and summer vacation. A handful of the moms in my house drinking margaritas and having my ersatz Americanized Chinese food forms a clear-eyed group of women to reflect on the universal truths in Raise the Red Lantern.

SUMMER

The movie opens with Gong Li in long braids impassively looking ahead as she tells her stepmother that after three days of listening to her arguing over what they should do now that her father has died, she has resigned herself to her fate: Let me be a concubine. Isn't that the fate of a woman?

The fate of a woman in all time periods and all places: Selling your body is a means of last resort, youth and beauty are a commodity, and you should be glad a rich man wants you, even if it’s only for one thing. Songlian’s bargain – to trade once on her youth and beauty in exchange for security – reminds me of the story of a man who offered a woman one million dollars to sleep with him, and when she agreed, then offered her ten dollars instead. What do you think I am? The woman asked. We’ve established what you are, the man said. Now we’re just negotiating on price. Becoming a concubine of a rich man is not unlike the world’s oldest profession, here gussied up with traditional Chinese garb in embroidered satin – the cheongsam was created in the 1920s in Shanghai and was made fashionable by socialites and upper class women. Although Songlian walks the entire way from her home to the new compound in her schoolgirl skirt and white shirt, she will be transformed after her arrival into an elegant upper class woman in traditional dress. Once that internal price of selling out has been exacted, of course, the various hidden prices of the deal will begin to reveal themselves.

Master Chen, the husband and landowner in the film, is a nameless, faceless man who must be somewhere in his 50s, since First Mistress is older and they have a grown son (Feipu, or Young Master). Although he is central to every decision and calls all the shots, all the intrigue is between the wives, concubines, and maids in their rivalry to please the father figure, as though their lives depend on it. There can only be one favorite.

Director Zhang Yimou shoots the household courtyard from above, a rabbit warren where you can watch to see which hole the husband will choose to patronize that evening. His choice is witnessed by all, and heralds much fanfare and the raising of the red lanterns, a ceremony of lifting, hooking, and lighting lanterns outside the doors of the chosen mistress. The lucky girl also receives a foot massage by a toothless crone, Aunt Cao, and the final decision on the following day’s menu for the household. Songlian doesn’t eat meat, so when she has the lanterns, she asks for spinach, bean curd and sprouts, which everyone in the household must eat. When the Third Mistress has the lanterns, she will have to eat pork steamed in lotus leaves, or nothing.

It takes about forty minutes for the film to reveal its gruesome underbelly, a mysterious locked room on the roof: Bluebeard’s closet storing the bones of those who fell out of favor. Don’t worry about it, Songlian is advised. You’re new here, you’ll get used to it.

From Songlian’s point of view, it is like arriving at the Playboy Mansion with the advantage of novelty and youth, surrounded by people angling for good, better, or best. There are many close up shots of Gong Li’s perfect face, stoic in the beginning, gazing at herself in the mirror with a red lantern in her hand after her first night with the Master, silent tears rolling down her face. She has accepted her fate as a woman: her world has dwindled to getting along with others and serving the master, but it is clear from her haughty demeanor that she feels she deserves better.

The First Mistress, Yuru, has already borne a son for Master Chen (Feipu). Her days of youth and beauty have long since passed. She is beyond the insult, has done her duty and has retired, with a gaggle of cackling hens at her table that she can neither bond with nor control. Such sins, she mutters to herself after meeting the newest Mistress to the house. What do I matter? she asks. I’m just an old woman.

The Second Mistress, Zhuoyan, is initially friendly to Songlian, and is self-deprecating about her status in the house: How useless…I only have a daughter. Songlian will find out the truth of Third Mistress’s description of Zhuoyan as having the face of the Buddha but the heart of a scorpion and she learns of their rivalry during their pregnancies, vying to give birth first, the attempts to poison Third Mistress to get her, or at least her heir, out of the way, and using injections to speed up her delivery…to no avail, since, as Third Mistress says, She only had a cheap little girl born three hours after my son. She is the Mistress I can most easily see in today’s terms: overemphasizing her role by overcompensating; pureeing her own baby food, homeschooling, scrapbooking.

The Third Mistress, Meishan, a former opera singer, is the one unseated by Songlian as the  youngest and most favored of the master. Third Mistress still approaches her world the way a professional entertainer would: playing to her strength as a voice to ring from the rafters of the compound. It’s all playacting, she tells Songlian. You’re new here and the master isn’t tired of you yet. But if you don’t give him a son, you’re in for hard times. Whether student or opera singer, their fates are the same. Meishan isn’t too proud to trade luxury for sex – it’s a calculated decision, a way of continuing to manage her career.

Yan’er, Songlian’s maid, is so far down on the social ladder that Songlian’s life looks worth envying. She is the groupie, the hanger-on to the fringes of a world she can never hope to enter. Songlian has what she doesn’t want, what her maid Yan’er wants and can’t ever have. Yan’er exists on the edges, spying, sneaking around, and hiding in her room with her stash of red lanterns, closing her eyes and pretending, feet propped up on boxes, when the sound of the clacking foot massage of the day wafts across the courtyard. She hates Songlian for her easy entrance into the world she admires from afar, and keeps a voodoo doll of her nemesis to stab with pins.

Only the men have access to art and literature. Feipu, the Young Master, is the face of the next generation bearing witness to his father’s life, and to what his future will likely look like. There is also a glimpse of the even younger Young Master, Meishan’s son, reciting poetry to his father, clearly continuing the tradition of the men of the family. Songlian finds Feipu playing the flute on the roof, a young man her own age who shares her own interests. Later, he will witnesses her drunken rant when things spiral out of control.

Although Songlian only spent six months at university before having to leave, it’s enough to set her apart. Those six months will make her “the educated one” in the pecking order of the house. You’re better, Second Mistress will tell her, You went to university.

The Master answers to no one. Songlian is mad that he appears to be boinking her maid? The Master simply goes to the Third Mistress instead.

Going through her old suitcase, Songlian puts aside her modern schoolgirl blouse from her life before, and takes out a flute wrapped in tapestry with tassels, the only thing she has from her father. She is interrupted by Yan’er, and scrambles to hide the flute as if the suitcase contained something contrabnad, and blames Yan’er later when her flute goes missing. Only men play the flute, Yan’er says to her. Songlian raids Yan’er’s room and finds the red lanterns, and the voodoo doll. Since Yan’er is illiterate, Songlian figures out that it is Second Mistress manipulating behind the scenes. In spite of all the drama, it turns out that the Master is to blame for the missing flute: he tells Songlian he took the flute because he was afraid it would distract her, and had it burned in case it had been a gift from a boy at university.

The Master disappears for periods of time (Out making money? Seeing friends? Drinking in bars? Womanizing?) It is never explained, as he does not have to explain himself to anyone. However, when he returns, he expects each of the mistresses to be waiting docilely in her room (Why can’t she stay in her own house?), in case he chooses her if and when he returns home. When the Master returns one evening and learns that Songlian and Meishan are playing mahjongg, he goes to Second Mistress to spite them.

Mahjongg with Meishan is as rebellious as it gets. They are joined by Dr. Gao and his friend Mr. Wang. Songlian describes her life to them that she is one of the master’s robes that he can wear or take off.  Dr. Gao mentions Meishan’s former career and puts on opera music either as a tribute to her real self or to rub it in, it isn’t clear. Under the table, Dr. Gao and Meishan play footsie while on the walls behind them loom giant Chinese masks scowling over the table.

AUTUMN

By autumn, the landscape has changed to rain among the lanterns outside Songlian’s house. She attempts to confront the master. This place must be haunted, she says: That room on the roof. He is dismissive: Two people were hanged there, that’s all. Two women from the past generations who had illicit affairs. They argue about whether Yan’er is spying on them, and he goes off in a fit of pique to Second Mistress, who gloats later to Songlian that the Master told her she would look younger with shorter hair. It’s not clear whether Songlian cuts her ear on purpose or not while helping her achieve her shorter hairstyle, but Second Mistress plays up the injury to the Master, who caves into her sob story: Your sisters shouldn’t be like this – all right, I’ll stay with you a few nights.

Yan’er taunts Songlian about her ability to entice the master. Wait and see what I can do, Songlian says. Her plan is to fake a pregnancy, with the hope that it will happen naturally, having the master with her every night: pregnancy (real or fake) gives you automatic lanterns for the duration of the pregnancy.

WINTER

If you could stay pregnant all the time and have nothing but sons, your life would be as good as it gets in this house. While Songlian is treated as the precious vessel, Third Mistress gets a dig in at Second Mistress that Songlian might have a son, and thus outrank her, while First Mistress  looks on tiredly, wishing they would shut up. Second Mistress’s talent at massage will be used against her when Songlian requests a massage for her pregnant self.  Of course Master told her, Third Mistress says: Show us how well you take care of the master. Second Mistress goes through with the massage, but gets back at Songlian by feigning concern over her condition and calling Dr. Gao to examine her, blowing the whole scam out of the water. The most interesting part of that scene is Dr. Gao on his way to speak to the master, and seeing Meishan on the way. She makes reference to some prescription pills he has given her, and asks what’s going on. I’ll tell you later, Gao says.

Done in by red menstrual blood on her white pants, Songlian faces the Master’s wrath: How dare you! He will extinguish her life by having all of her lanterns covered with black shrouds. Even the lanterns inside her room are covered. Her days of enticement with her sexual novelty and youth are abruptly ended. She gets even by dragging Yan’er out into the snow, and having her kneel in front of the red lanterns on the white snow, until they have burned to the ground. 

She talks to Meishan on the roof later, both standing regally with their hands hidden in muffs. Don’t be so unhappy, Meishan tells her to just go on living despite the circumstances. On her twentieth birthday, Songlian forces Aunt Cao to get her some wine to celebrate and gets drunk. Aunt Cao tells her that Yan’er couldn’t blame her for her death, since it was her destiny. In a drunken rant, she reveals Meishan’s secret. Why did you tell? Aunt Cao asks Songlian. Because you hate the doctor?

Meishan pays the ultimate sacrifice for her transgressions (nothing happens, at least on-screen, to Dr. Gao). She is dragged from her room to be hanged. Songlian watches, hidden from view, to see what happens: the servants kill the woman, lock  the door, and run. Then, there is silence on the roofs, as Meishan’s beautiful voice has been permanently stilled.

When the Master returns, he acts indignant and and downplays the tragedy: What did you see? You’ve gone mad. As if to prove his point, Songlian slips over to Third Mistress’s house and lights her lanterns, frightening the servants that her ghost is haunting her old living quarters. Meishan’s apartment, backlit with lanterns, looks like a jack o’lantern or one of those Chinese masks that used to oversee the mahjongg games. The shot ends with Songlian in room full of lanterns, blowing out a match, playing opera on a phonograph. She sits, listening as if awaiting the next stage of her fate as a woman.

There is no SPRING.

SUMMER, ONE YEAR LATER

The next summer opens with firecrackers heralding the Fifth Mistress’s wedding and the sounds of the foot massage clacking and the Fourth Mistress has lost her mind, wandering around the grounds in old schoolgirl clothes among the red lanterns. The final image is of the one who cracked under the pressure, never to be the same again.

Asian Chicken Soup

Every mom has a chicken soup fallback, even if it’s a can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle. My mom’s post-Thanksgiving turkey soup was a pot full of bones with water poured over top, with some carrots and celery thrown in to boil to death with the bones. The final color was a dishwater yellow-gray, with burbles of oil floating on the surface. For years, the gold standard of chicken soup came in a red Campbell’s can. It always tasted the same, with a salty background and indestructible noodles that kept their shape despite months soaking in the can or overheating on the stove. A sick day home from school always meant chicken noodle soup with saltines, ginger ale, and Tiger Beat magazine. For years, I didn’t see the point of homemade chicken soup – why bother with the dishwater version, when the perfect version already came in a can? Moms with better culinary skills have been making versions of chicken soup for years – my friend Dafna once brought me a large Ziploc bag full of authentic Jewish Penicillin from her mother’s kitchen, a homemade broth lapping around and flavoring one large Matzo ball.

Some chefs take this tack of anything goes, swearing on good results by approaching your soup like slopping pigs – use up what you have! Throw all your garbage in the pot! The truth is, the best soup comes from starting all the way from scratch, with the best ingredients you can get, and a minimal amount of refrigerator cleaning-out. The base of my Asian Chicken soup starts with sautéing two garlic cloves, a 2” piece of ginger minced down, and a bunch of scallions sliced into 2 tablespoons of canola oil. If you don’t have scallions, regular onions will do. You have to have the garlic and the ginger. From there, you can add carrots and celery and sauté until everything is wilted and soft. If you know you  are going to make this soup and are standing in the aisle at Trader Joe’s, you can buy a container of mirepoix – onions, carrots and celery all minced perfectly for soup and parfaited into a container for easy use, no slicing or dicing. To all this, add three cups of chicken broth, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of sherry, a pinch of sugar, one tablespoon of sesame oil, and a squirt of Sriracha to taste. The sauces will add a brown tinge and a meaty background note to the soup. Add half a rotisserie chicken, shredded and chopped into bite-sized pieces, and a cup of sliced snow pea pods, if you have them on hand. Salt and pepper to taste. You can make this entire soup vegetarian by leaving out the meat and using vegetable stock.

You can make your own chicken stock if you feel compelled to keep up with the Joneses, or the Martha Stewarts in your neighborhood. You boil the carcass of a roasted chicken with carrots, celery and onion in a Dutch oven until the chicken completely falls apart (keep a large Ziploc bag by the stove and from time to time, use tongs to pick out bones that have fallen away). Finally, strain the chicken water into a large bowl and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, skim off the fat and voila – chicken stock. It will have a gelatinous, jiggly quality to it that tells you it’s the good stuff.

Or, you can just buy the stock in a carton and get over it.

Here is the best part: about five minutes before you want to eat it, add three or four frozen gyoza dumplings per serving to the hot soup, little puckered purses of savory filled noodles. Any longer and the dumplings will disintegrate into its base elements. How does Campbell’s do their thing with those noodles? It’s probably like making sausage…we don’t really want to know. Serve the soup with saltine crackers. Sometimes it’s really all about the sameness of the crackers, even if the soup changes slightly each time.