Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See
Amandayan, Yunnan, China
Friendship is a contract between two hearts. With hearts united, women can laugh and cry, live and die together
I have loved every book that I have ever read by Lisa See and often recommend The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane to anyone interested in learning more the ancient cultural and spiritual role of Tea in China and the magic of old tea trees. This book, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, set in China in the 14oods, was inspired by a true story of a female doctor in China during a time when women were considered the property of their husbands, footbinding, arranged marriages and concubines were the norm and Confucius’ sentiment “an educated woman is a worthless woman” was generally accepted.
We call licorice root the Emperor of Herbs, because it mixes well with other ingredients and fights against poisons in all forms, whether metal, stone or herb.
The story tells how Yunxian, the main character, comes to be a well respected female doctor with agency over her life and those of many other women and children in China. Aside from being a beautifully-written and well-researched account of Chinese culture, the power of sisterhood and women’s friendships, it shares interesting information on many traditional herbal remedies like Decoction of Four Substances: angelica root, lovage, rehmannia and white peony root and and Decoction of Four Gentlemen: ginseng, licorice, poria mushroom and atractylodis rhizome ) as well as insight into the meaning of Chinese Astrology. Of course, tea is threaded throughout the story making this one a great one to share with a cup of Chinese green tea like Yellow Bird.
Frozen pagoda at the Forbidden Palace in Beijing
Here are some of my favorite excerpts from the book:
On friendship:
“It takes a lifetime to make a friend, but you can lose one in an hour,” she recites. “Life without a friend is life without sun. Life without a friend is death.”
“It takes a lifetime to make a friend, but you can lose one in an hour,” she recites. “Life without a friend is life without sun. Life without a friend is death.”
On life:
“There is soft happiness in sadness and deep sadness in happiness.”
On wellness:
“Exactly. You must put aside the idea of function,” Grandmother Ru explains. “We are not concerned with veins and arteries, muscles and bones, or organs with specific occupations. We are looking to find how illnesses arise from imbalances in the bodily form of yin and yang.”
“We have the blood we can see when our skin gets cut,” I say, “but Blood is a bigger essence. In women, Blood is the leader. It is what allows a woman to become pregnant and feed a fetus. It turns into mother’s milk upon her giving birth.”
“Physicians like myself must consider a woman’s emotions, how they caused the affliction, and how they might affect treatment,”
“When there is pain, the body has no freedom of movement. Without pain, the body is free.”
On women:
“I always think about the tie between emotions and the body. Fierce joy attacks yang; fierce anger damages yin. If I were to write a book, I’d want to include Liver-related conditions that are affected by the different types of anger we women must hide from our husbands, mothers-in-law, and concubines. And then there are the ailments connected to Lung emotions—sadness and worry.”
“The memories of the agony you felt during your footbinding will never leave completely. There will be days from now until you die when the anguish will visit—if you’ve stood too long or walked too far, if the weather is about to change, if you don’t take proper care of your feet.”
“These male doctors—all devout followers of Confucius—recite their sayings about treating women and how many women will die in childbirth, but they have no understanding of what that means.”
On purpose:
“I’ve been lucky to have been cared for and loved since childhood by a circle of women. Now it’s time for me to create a wider circle, so I can do for my daughters and other women in the household what Grandmother, Miss Zhao, Meiling, and even Poppy have done for me”
Make it stand out
Ripe puerh in a dried mandarin shell
And, the publisher's overview of the book:
According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.
From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.
But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.
How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? A captivating story of women helping each other, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a triumphant reimagining of the life of one person who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.