Pearl Buck in China (53 page)

Xu Zhimo:

appearance,
173

background,
174

the “Chinese Shelley,”
173
–74

early death,
175

and
The Good Earth,
188

lectures at Southeastern University,
175

literary career,
174

meets PB,
173

relationship with PB,
174
–75,
278
n
175

Yangtse River,
1
,
19
,
24
,
28
,
32
,
34
,
65
,
69
,
128
,
154
,
197
–98

Yangzhou,
4
–5

Yaukey, Grace Caroline (
née
Sydenstricker; PB’s sister):

on bandit attacks in Nanxuzhou,
102

birth,
26

in the Chinese Revolution,
78

on the deaths of Arthur and Edith,
10

disabled third child,
220

education,
60
,
79
,
85
,
116

The Exile’s Daughter,
18
,
157
,
248

after the famine,
63

on her father,
19
–20,
80
,
143
,
144
–45

and her father’s death,
198

and her mother’s death,
118
–19

and her mother’s illness,
80
–81

in Japan,
162
,
163

last child of the Sydenstrickers,
28

looks after Carol,
118

marriage,
126
,
154

in Paris,
69

on PB’s appearance,
42

and PB’s separation from Carol,
183
,
190

personality,
63

visits Green Hills Farm,
223

as a writer,
8
,
220

Yaukey, Jesse,
155
,
223

Yaukey, Richard,
158

Yaukey family,
155
,
164
,
188

Yellow River,
12
,
29
,
32

Yokohama, Japan,
218

Yueyang, Hunan,
154

YWCA conference (Bryn Mawr, 1913),
73
–74

Zhao Jiabi,
186

Zhao Yanan,
189

Zhenjiang,
71
,
72
,
89

Absalom as the only white man in the region (1900),
30
–31

Absalom returns to (1896),
20

Absalom sent to (1886–7),
20

British Club,
38

Carie’s death in,
118
–19

cholera in,
57

described,
20
,
21
,
22
–24,
26
,
52
,
111

Famine Relief Committee,
62

home of the Sydenstrickers,
3
,
20
–23,
28
–29,
178
,
221
,
268
n
79

local accent,
98

Methodist Girls’ School,
61
,
62
,
63

migrant workers in,
52

Mission meetings,
42
–44

PB returns to (1914),
80
–81

Presbyterian High School for Boys,
81
,
82
–83

refugees,
61

stone tablet in Absalom’s honor,
198

Zhou Enlai,
251

1
Pearl’s parents, Caroline (Carie) Stulting and Absalom Sydenstricker, at the time of their marriage and departure for China in 1880.

2
Absalom and Carie with their three surviving children—thirteen-year-old Edgar, two-year-old Pearl, and the new baby, Clyde—after their flight to Shanghai in 1895.

3
The Sydenstricker family reunited after the terrorist uprising of 1900: Pearl, Absalom, and Carie with her seventh and last baby, Grace, presided over by Wang Amah.

4
Pearl, aged nine, on her first visit to America in 1901: “slender face, broad forehead, pointed chin, straight, stubborn mouth, narrow nose, and gray-green eyes beneath black brows that contrasted with the near-fair hair.”

5
A traveler approaching the thousand steps cut into the cliff on the road to Kuling, China’s first mountain resort, founded by Pearl’s father and others as a life-saving station.

6
The scholar, Mr. Kung (Kong), who taught Pearl to write calligraphy and read Confucius: a posthumous portrait by Li Weicheng, president of the National Painting Academy of Zhenjiang.

7
Absalom Sydenstricker in the robes of a Chinese scholar. Six feet tall, red-haired, red-skinned, and blue-eyed with a beaky nose, his appearance astounded and often terrified village people who had never seen a foreigner before.

8
Carie, Grace, and Pearl Sydenstricker in 1910, the year Pearl returned to the United States, entered college, and set about remaking herself for the first time as an American.