Mrs. Spring Fragrance: and Other Writings

by Sui Sin Far, C Pam Zhang (Introduction)

A rediscovered classic of linked short stories set in San Francisco's Chinatown, portraying Chinese Americans as they fall in love, encounter racism, and wrestle with their new, hyphenated identities--a century before writers like Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan.

Set in early twentieth-century Chinatown, Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings is the story of Chinese men and women living in the United States as they wrestle with prejudice and forced detention; choose to become wholly Americanized or stay true to their cultural heritage; meet both kind and predatory Americans; and find love, purpose, and understanding within their families.

By turns ironic and heart-rending, these stories are windows into the lives of everyday people in an unforgiving, often racist city who find solidarity and hope in the most unexpected places.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, China, American, Asian Literature, Literature

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1995

About the author

Sui Sin Far is the pen name for author Edith Maud Eaton.

Reviews

[Kate♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5stars

I'm lowkey blown away by this short story collection. Most things I read for school I honestly don't care about/don't want to actually read/dont enjoy that much. ESPECIALLY short story collections because i HATE short stories. But these stories were so fucking powerful, beautifully written, and also weirdly contemporary? I would say every single story could have been set in 2018 not 1912 and I wouldn't have questioned it at all.

Also I swear every history/history lit class I take just makes me more and more like fuck you america I can't wait to move away from here and never come back! :)

DISCLAIMER WE DID NOT READ EVERY SINGLE ESSAY/STORY IN THIS COLLECTION (though I might go back and read some that we didnt get to!)

Specific Story Ratings:

Mrs. Spring Fragrance
4/5stars
A satirical story about moving to America as a Chinese person - also about the love between two people and giving up customs from previous lives.

In the land of the free
5/5 Stars
Wow this story hit HARD. It’s almost the exact story of many parents and children who were separated at the boarder only recently - the parents do everything they can to get their child back, and when he comes back he has no clue who his own mother is. Absolutely heart wrenching. America is disgusting

Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian;
4.5/5stars
very powerful essay about what its like being half white and half chinese in any part of the world she lived or visited

What About the Cat?
4.5/5stars
this seems like it should be a fairy tale told to kids i swear its short and sweet and shows a big message

It's wavering Image
4.75/5stars
a very important story about the importance of knowing who YOU are and not listening to people when THEY tell you who/what you are.

The Smuggling of Tie Co
2.5/5stars

Lin John
3/5stars
I think these two stories went over my head cause i didn't see the point of them at all - will update if my class discussion changes my opinions

Pat and Pan
4.5/5stars
why is america so obsessed with americanizing everyone and destroying people's cultures its fucking disgusting this country fucking sucks and this book is 100% supporting me in that

[Camelia Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sui Sin Far is the pen name for Edith Maude Eaton, a late 19th and early 20th century writer of European and Chinese ancestry. She was the first Canadian/American writer who depicted Chinese American in a positive light. A modern day reader may easily forget the historical background of her writings. In the era of Chinese Exclusion Act when Chinese were openly discriminated, alienated and criminalized, her voice was undoubtedly brave and unique.

Her writing is light, brisk and humorous, even when dealing with serious topics. My favourite is the title story.

[Matthew Gurteen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can appreciate what these stories are in the canon of English literature. I also find the author's life incredibly fascinating, and I would love to read more about her in the future. Neither of these points translates to the content of the stories, however. For the most part, I found the stories in 'Mrs. Spring Fragrance: and Other Writings' dull and repetitive. I understand that this is essentially the point, and I am not blind to the myth-like writing style. I could not get invested in any of the characters, however. Overall, I can see why people like this book. It was not for me, however. I would recommend it to anyone interested in Chinese literature.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This author is new to me, and I am so glad I found her book. It was a random find on a cruise vacation, left by someone else. Because it was Asian Heritage Month when I traveled, there was a great selection of books about Asian culture, and this one appealed to me because of its autobiographical nature. The author uses a pen name and discusses what it was like to have one parent from China and one an Englishman, but she uses humorous stories to prove her points. Every chapter/story was like an Aesop fable with a moral for the reader to remember. I saw many references to God and a Christian faith, which I imagine was extremely important in the hard times of the early 1900s, being in a home country of China and then moving to San Francisco and other US cities and experiencing such racism. It really comes down to a lack of knowledge by other people. Sui Sin Far's stories show how much time has changed, if readers reflect on what life is like in 2025 with so much more freedom and equality for women, and yet, some things haven't changed since the book was written. In many cultures, the wife is there to feed the husband, have children, and not be seen. That repression is often worse in areas where half the population was Chinese and the other half English. How did a woman know where she fit in? With language barriers, rules on working outside the home, being displaced from home and family (in China) to come be with the spouse and then feel lost - heartbreaking.

Sui Sin Far makes it clear through her stories that the Chinese have more character and grit. Many of the Americans were looked at as wanting to make money or have something to show up at the expense of morals, and usually, conning or trickery was involved.

Having lived in both countries, I could really relate to the characters in each story and finding a place to belong.

Best quote: "I have no nationality and am not anxious to claim any. Individuality is more than nationality. 'You are you and I am I.'"

[S P · Rating 3 out of 5]

from The Inferior Woman
“‘These mysterious, inscrutable, incomprehensible Americans! Had I the divine right of learning I would put them into an immortal book!”’ (21)

from The Wisdom of the New
‘The American Chinatown held a strange fascination for the girl from the seacoast village. Streaming along the street was a motley throng made up of all nationalities. The singsong voices of girls whom respectable merchants’ wives shudder to name, were calling to one another from high balconies up shadow alleys. A fat barber was laughing hilariously at a drunken white man who had fallen into a gutter; a withered old fellow, carrying a bird in a cage, stood at the corner entreating passersby to have a good fortune told; some children were burning punk on the curbstone. There went by a stalwart Chief of the Six Companies engaged in earnest confab with a yellow-robed priest from the joss house. A Chinese dressed in the latest American style and a very blond woman, laughing immoderately, were entering a Chinese restaurant together. Above all the hubbub of voices was heard the clang of electric cars and the jarring of heavy wheels over cobblestones.’ (40)

from Leaves from the Mental Portfolio
‘So I roam backward and forward across the continent. When I am East, my heart is West. When I am West, my heart is East. Before long I hope to be in China. As my life began in my father;’s country it may end in my mother’s. After all I have no nationality and am not anxious to claim any. Individuality is more than nationality. “You are you and I am I,” says Confucius. I give my right hand to the Occidentals and my left to the Orientals, hoping that between them they will not utterly destroy the insignificant “connecting link.” And that’s all.’ (169)

[Emma Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sui Sin Far's writings were fragmentary and a good quantity of investigative work was required to unearth her journalism. What I loved about this collection was not only Sui Sin Far's writing, still surprisingly relevant despite changes in times/context, but also the sense of loving re-excavation that the collection's editors evinced. They have posited Sui Sin Far as the 'grandmother of Asian-American literature', successfully placing her at the head of a tradition that did not exist during her lifetime. I especially loved how they emphasised her 'trickster' nature, how she moved between identities, registers, and styles to catch the attention of whatever audience she needed to engage. To fulfil her primary goal of defending the Chinese in America, Sui Sin Far sometimes, by necessity, had to cloak her statements in Orientalism and antifeminism.
Sui Sin Far lived at the margins of society in the 1890s-1910s. She had to write to pay the bills, all the while racked by illness. But her life was sustained by a sense of passion, purpose, and sureness in herself despite every circumstance, and it is this sense that still illuminates all her writings from within. She leaps off the page-her conviction, her righteous anger, her passion, her sensitivity to context, her courage, and her humour- in a way that I don't think many modern Asian-American writers are able to do.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in 1912, these deceptively charming stories reveal the forces of racism, gender inequality, and assimilation at play in the bubbling multicultural stew of Seattle’s and San Francisco’s Chinatowns, over a century ago. Sui Sin Far was the Cantonese pen name adopted by Cheshire-born Edith Maude Eaton (1865–1914), whose mother was Chinese and whose father was a white Briton. In a brief, insightful introduction to this volume, novelist C Pam Zhang observes that Sui Sin Far’s prose has the cadence and elevated perspective of fable, resulting in stories that feel like a curious mix of social realism and fairy tale. Written at the height of the virulent anti-Asian “Yellow Peril,” when Sui Sin Far lived in the States, these diverting family dramas of romance, sacrifice, and cultural conflict and confusion sought to portray nuanced Chinese American characters and to reconcile people of all races. Sui Sin Far poignantly expresses this motive in her memoir/essay “Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of a Eurasian,” also in this volume. Combining quaintness with flashes of subversion, this collection is both a vital historical snapshot and a depressingly timely reminder of fundamental human dignity across race and culture.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two immigrant sisters at the turn of the century, both writers, faced numerous challenges. For one, they were half Chinese in an era when immigration was a hot-button topic - just like today. Yet they both succeeded in carving careers as writers of exotic fiction. Maude Eaton, whose pen name was Sui Sin Far, wrote stories of the Chinese communities in Seattle and San Fransisco. We're not reading great literature here, but we are seeing the complexities faced by thousands of Chinese-American women who were marginalized and caught between two cultures.
Her sister Winnifred wrote under the name Onoto Watanna, and for some reason, decided that her persona and bailiwick would be Japanese, although she was half Chinese and not at all Japanese. Again, her stories are what I'd call ladies' magazine fare, standard romances cloaked in a bit of exoticism - but! Winnifred had the good luck to use a publisher who put money into the truly superb decorative bindings of her books. Google image her to see what I'm talking about.

[Maria]

I highly recommend this collection as a groundbreaking piece of Asian-American literature. Most of the stories examine gender, marriage, and parenthood among Chinese immigrant communities in Seattle and San Francisco. All of the stories have engaging premises, although the last ten or so are very short and could have used more development, in my opinion. The introduction by C. Pam Zhang is a great complement to the collection, as she emphasizes that Sui Sin Far composed these stories with white readers in mind and wanted to demonstrate the humanity of Chinese people. This introduction helped me contextualize some of the generalizations that I encountered in the stories, though I still think that certain stereotypes in characterization may be uncomfortable for contemporary readers. I also appreciate the personal essay from Sui Sin Far that is appended to the collection.

[Sharon Healy-Yang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sui Sin Far is the pen name of Edith Maude Eaton, who characterized herself as Eurasian for having an English father and a Chinese mother. The author grew up in Canada and the United States, witnessing firsthand the racist abuse of the Chinese (often because people didn't realize she was Chinese), as well as the true lives of Chinese Americans and Canadians. This collection contains short stories and children's tales that she popularly published in the early nineteen hundreds as a way of asserting the dignity and humanity of people who had been demonized as a "Yellow Peril" or inscrutable and unfeeling. Her stories subtly reveal the feelings and thoughts and humor of those people who had been dismissed and reviled. Her writings are subtle, playful, enlightening, humorous, and heartbreaking. I highly recommend a good read here.

[Tommy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not normally one for short fiction collections however, this one was better and more memorable than the others that I have read. Through her collected stories Sui Sin Far paints a picture of Asian American life at the time (duh!) but she also asks the question - to Americanize or not to Americanize? This clash of culture and assimilation is present throughout the book and presents itself in various and fresh ways. She also interrogates the immigration system, writing a story of a child detained at the harbor and of one's right to breathe "American air" in ways that are all too relevant more than a century after publication. The themes explored in this collection find themselves mimicked in later works of Asian American fiction or film and continuously topical to the modern reader, which elevates this collection to the status of a classic.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

SPRING FRAGRANCE is a collection of short stories by the first published Asian North American fiction writer, Sui Sin Far, that offers a glimpse into the lives of Chinese Americans in the early 20th century living in San Francisco and Seattle. The introduction by C Pam Zhang helps orient the readers to the fact that this book was written for White people to educate them about the Chinese American experience.

Far explores themes of cultural clashes, such as the patriarchal traditions of Chinese men toward Chinese women and cutting off vs. keeping one's queue. Other topics, like expecting immigrants to take up English and American culture while forever siloing them as an "immigrant/alien," are still relevant today.

Because SPRING FRAGRANCE is written for a White audience, the stories center on well-educated Chinese men & virtuous Chinese women and how they are "beneficial" to whiteness. After more than 100 years, I'm glad to see modern novels that tell inclusive stories of all immigrants and paint a much more diverse picture of all walks of life. Of course, there is still a lot of work to do, but I'm glad I could see the progress from SPRING FRAGRANCE to immigrant stories published recently.

[Sarah]

I don't think the writing is particularly spectacular but I am nonetheless glad I read this.

I like the variety of stories and while I didn't enjoy all of them, I did understand their purpose.

My favourite part was the last section, a personal essay by Sui Sin Far, titled "Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian." I also liked the introduction by C Pam Zhang.

I think this is a good snapshot of a certain community at a certain time, and also very indicative of the attitudes of American society that the author was struggling against.

[Tara Duong · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read about 7-8 of the short stories for class. i could not get over the fact that someone named edith eaton chose the pen name sui sin far... anyways, it was a good introduction into asian diasporic experience for white people but i found it difficult to relate to most of the stories even though i am asian american. i guess that shows that we really aren't a monolith??

[Hibou le Literature Supporter · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was this written by AI for white people to feel like they really enjoy and understand Chinese culture? Look, i think she was a trailblazer, half-white, half-Chinese, well-traveled, open-minded, smart, and a brave woman writing in the late 19th century, but I hope to never read another page of her writing.

[KC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating for Leaves From the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian

(Read for class)

[miri · Rating 4 out of 5]

rating is more for insight into what it was like to be chinese in 20th century america than the stories. really enjoyed though

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read the short stories. Enjoyed the discerning lens of the cultural critic. Many stories use the theme of marriage and relationships to examine the impact of different cultural values.

[Carla (literary.infatuation) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I LOVED Mrs Fragrance by Sui Sin Far, a collection of interconnected stories centering Chinese - Americans and Chinese - Canadians in Seattle, San Francisco and Montreal. This collection was first published in 1912, and it is WAY ahead of its time. Very important concepts that we are currently discussing today such as white gaze, white privilege, white supremacy and gatekeeping and erasure of biracial individuals are all covered here, with a feminist twist and women-centered. It was really mind-blowing.

[Jasmyn Maingi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um this was absolutely heartbreaking?

[Susan Eubank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here are the questions discussed at the Reading the Western Landscape Community Book Discussion on Zoom Wednesday, January 26, 2022, at 7:00 p.m. PDT.

• Icebreaker: Tell a brief story of one of your family members from the turn of the 20th century?
• Did the places, Seattle and San Francisco, resonate from other things you’ve read or experienced? Yes/No? Why?
• Do they seem like myths or fables as the introduction avers? Yes/No? Why?
• What did you think about the way the stories were told?
• Did it seem modern or of its time or something else? Yes/No? Why?
• What do you think the stories told, generally or with specific examples, about her or a life as a biracial person, and/or as an immigrant?
• What was she trying to tell us about Chinese marriage customs and relations between the married couples?
• Who is your favorite character? Why? Your least favorite? Why?
• What surprised you most about the book? Why?
• What did you think about her non-fiction writing at the end of this edition as opposed to the short stories? How did they differ?
• Any other ambiguities we need to clear up?
• Any other questions you have for the group?
• Favorite line, image, or passage?

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit overly sentimental when considered against some of the other writing at the time, but Sui Sin Far's best stories ("Its Wavering Image" and "In the Land of the Free") speak of a visible Asian American people striving to be recognized within a bureaucracy that too often segmented them and marginalized them. Several stories and nonfiction reports engage more contemporary concepts of the ethnic hybrid, where adolescents struggle to mediate between their American sides and their Chinese sides. Those are among Far's best work here.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sui Sin Far was one of the first major Asian-American authors in the U.S. The stories in this book are rich with themes that speak to the immigrant, specifically the Asian-immigrant, experience. It was one of the books that really opened up my eyes to the multi-cultural voices that exists (and existed) in America.

[Caitlin N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

For school. I read most of it and found it interesting. While the author has received some criticisms for accepting and perpetuating some ethnic stereotypes in her work, she was actually brave for her time in addressing the issues in these stories. Her use of irony is excellent in some of the stories, especially the titular Mrs. S.F.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm giving this four stars because it's a classic text -- very important to understanding the cultural politics of "Asian" identities early on in the 20th century. I wouldn't teach it often though, LOL

[Cassandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

these awesome little short stories give us a glimpse into the life of asian-american women at the turn of the last century.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the first collections of fiction to be published by a Japanese American woman in the U.S. Beautiful, witty, and insightful writings about Japanese American relations.

[Bette · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the stories in this collection, though the title story is by far the best.

[Sannie Hald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only read "the inferior woman"