Red Mandarin Dress

Chinese version had a fascinating title: A Pair of Mandarin Ducks’ Dream Re-dreamed. In classical Chinese poetry, a pair of Mandarin ducks stood for inseparable lovers. So this must be a love story. She put the movie into her shopping basket.
    In the domestic section, she picked up A Nurse’s Diary , a movie made in the fifties. She remembered having seen a poster of the young nurse wearing a mandarin dress. Another love story, judging from the glamorous DVD cover. She also chose Golden Lock , a Hong Kong movie based on a novel by Ailing.
    But she failed to find a documentary movie about the dress, nor any movie with a title directly connected to it.
    The moment she got back home, she turned on the DVD player. There were still a couple of hours before she had to worry about dinner. She took off her shoes and socks, stretched herself out on the sofa, and covered her feet with a cushion.
    She watched Random Harvest for only ten minutes. Too old-fashioned Hollywood for her. What would Chen think about the movie, she wondered.
    A Nurse’s Diary was a different story: it was about a group of young people dedicated to building a new socialist China. By today’s standards, it didn’t come close to being a romantic story. The young nurse was too busy making the revolution to have many romantic thoughts. In fact, romantic affairs were far from encouraged at the time. The movie appealed to Peiqin, however, particularly for the idealistic theme song: “‘Little swallow, little swallow, / you come back here every year. / Can you tell me why?’ / The little swallow replies, / ‘The Spring is most beautiful here,’ . . .”
    The most beautiful “here” in the song, she contemplated, must refer to somewhere along the northwest borders, still impoverished, undeveloped, forsaken. No one would ever think of going there today.
    “The Spring is most beautiful here.” On the screen, the slender nurse, played by the actress Linfeng, was humming the song, her face lit up with the passion of the socialist revolution. Years later, Linfeng emigrated to Tokyo, where she was said to be running a Chinese vegetarian restaurant. There she sang the song occasionally for overseas Chinese customers, her figure out of shape and too much makeup on her face. Of course, it would be naïve to expect an actress to keep playing such a role—or showing such a figure—all her life.
    As it turned out, in the movie the dress was worn by the nurse’s mother, a middle-aged lady of the upper class in the old society, still resistant to the socialist revolution. But Peiqin was not exactly disappointed. As in her initial impression, mandarin dresses—in movies and in life—were mostly for those women moving about in fashionable upper-class.
    As she was about to watch Golden Lock , her glance fell on a book she had brought home. The white-haired author looked strangely like her late father. She read the short biographical information beneath the picture on the cover. “Shen Wenchang, a well-known poet before 1949, and after 1949, an internationally known expert on the history of Chinese clothing.”
    She opened the book, but it touched on the mandarin dress in only two short paragraphs. In the notes at the back of the book, she did not find a single scholar dealing exclusively with the mandarin dress. So perhaps the best she could get would be a paragraph here and there.
    The old man must be in his eighties. She put down the book, gazing at the picture. If only she could consult an expert like him, she thought wistfully.
    Around dinnertime, the phone rang. It was Chen, who expressed regret upon learning that Yu was still at work.
    “Yu’s been so busy the last few days that he often comes back late. Don’t worry about him,” she said. “How is your paper going?”
    “Slowly but steadily. I am so sorry about the timing, but it may be the last chance to try my hand at something different,” Chen said. “How are things with you?”
    “Not that busy. I’m just reading some books. Everybody is talking about the red mandarin dress, so I thought I might learn something about it.”
    “You are trying to help again, Peiqin. Have you found anything interesting?”
    “Nothing yet. I’ve just started reading a book on the history of Chinese clothing. The author used to be a poet too.”
    “Shen Wenchang?”
    “Do you know him?”
    “Yes. A great scholar. There’s a new documentary movie about him.”
    “I haven’t seen that movie. Oh, I