Daughter Of Fortune

Since the majority of the capital used to buy a new steamship is hers, Paulina christens the ship the Fortuna. Paulina meets with Captain John and Rose, finalizing her transport project. Captain John tells the women that their mutual friend Jacob returned to England a few years ago with dreams of forming a Utopian colony.

Eliza informs Mama Fresia of her plan to seek Joaquín in California even though she will be alone and pregnant. Eliza threatens to kill herself and haunt Mama Fresia if she does not secretly help her. Unable to purchase a ticket without alerting Captain John, Eliza plans to stow away on a ship. Eliza tries following a prostitute into a bar to learn how that woman might get aboard a ship. Horrified by the disorderly men, Eliza backs up and crashes into the Chinese cook, Tao Chi’en, she met earlier. After Mama Fresia and Eliza run away from the drunken sailors, Tao Chi’en asks if he can assist Captain John’s daughter. Eliza explains that she is Captain John’s niece and offers Tao Chi’en jewelry from her trousseau to help her hide on a ship bound for California. At first, Tao Chi’en rejects the idea of betraying Captain John or helping Eliza dishonor her family. When Eliza asks the Chinese man if he’s ever loved someone more than life itself, Tao Chi’en looks into her eyes and promises to get her on board the sailing ship Emilia. He tells Eliza to meet him at 10 o’clock at night, since the ship sails the next day.

Eliza and Mama Fresia invent an invitation to stay at the del Valle country estate for a week. Eliza’s suitcase contains her best summer dresses, trousseau jewels, some money, stout boots, her notebook, and Joaquín’s love letters. Eliza sadly bids farewell to the unaware Sommers siblings, her only family, because she believes she has stained the family reputation and does not want to watch them suffer. At a fisherman’s hut, Eliza meets Tao Chi’en and sadly parts with Mama Fresia. In the hut, Eliza removes her English lady’s clothing, disguising herself in a worn smock and baggy trousers. Eliza’s change of attire makes her feel that she is “beginning a new story in which she was both protagonist and narrator” (152).

Tao Chi’en hides Eliza in the deepest storeroom of the ship. As the ship’s cook, Tao Chi’en alone holds the keys to open the storeroom, regularly feeding Eliza and emptying her waste bucket.

Tao Chi’en is nine years older than Eliza. He was born to impoverished parents in a rural Chinese village. Until age 11, Tao was only known as “Fourth Son.” Generations of Tao’s male ancestors had been healers, passing their skill with medicinal plants from father to son. A happy child, Tao possessed an amazing ability to concentrate fueled by a passion for learning. By age seven, Tao understood the healing art of balancing yin (dark, passive, female energy) with yang (light, active, male energy). Corrupt tax officials and the diversion of gambling keep Tao’s family mired in debt. Tao’s father and First Son walk from village to village selling salves made from plants that Tao helps to collect.

The year 1834 is one of great misfortune for Tao’s family. After his two-year-old sister dies from an accident with scalding water, Tao’s mother died from a mysterious illness. Tao’s mother, a woman of “strength and patience” (155), kept the family together through every hardship. Tao’s father then sells his only surviving daughter, a seven-year-old who disappears from their lives. First Son dies from a rabid dog bite. Since Second Son and Third Son can fulfill the filial obligations, Fourth Son is viewed as only another mouth to feed. His father sells 11-year-old Tao to a caravan of merchants for 10 years of servitude. When a band of robbers attacks the caravan, Tao’s ability to heal an injured merchant improves his circumstances. The businessmen sell Tao to a famous zhong yi, a physician and acupuncture master, in Canton.

His aged master names his new apprentice “Tao,” meaning “the journey of life,” and gives Tao his own family name, “Chi’en.” The master trains Tao to be a skillful zhong yi, studying calligraphy, poetry, and languages, as well as theoretical Chinese medicine. When Tao walks to market in Canton, he often sees newborn females abandoned by their families as worthless. Tao’s master longs to have sons and considers adopting Tao but waits to see how he will mature. Two temptations plague Tao: gambling and women. When the British defeat China in the first Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking (1842) humiliates the Chinese, Tao’s master, already declining into senility and indebtedness, loses hope. Tao’s master dies by suicide by swallowing gold without adopting his talented apprentice. Tao grieves his venerated master, but he still owes one year of servitude, which the master’s creditors would use to enslave him. Tao escapes from Canton with a small amount of his master’s money, his golden acupuncture needles, and his case of medical instruments. 

Tao travels on a sampan to Hong Kong, where he intends to start a new life as a fully trained zhong yi. He dreams of buying an expensive wife with a sweet, submissive nature and “golden lilies,” which are tightly bound tiny feet. To increase his money in the shortest time possible, Tao gambles, but he loses all of his capital in under two hours. Convinced that his master’s spirit taught him a lesson, Tao hires a tattoo artist to inscribe “No” on the back of his right betting hand. Eventually, Tao develops a reputation as a healer and prospers with a regular clientele. Although Tao views British foreigners as ugly and barbaric, he realizes their power in Hong Kong and decides to study their language.

In the market, Tao meets Dr. Ebanizer Hobbs, an English physician who wants to learn the secrets of Chinese medicine, particularly the control of pain through acupuncture. Tao has never performed surgery and seeks to expand his knowledge of anatomy. The two men’s interest in experimentation develops into a rare, cross-cultural friendship.

At age 22, Tao saves enough money to buy a wife through an agent, after calling on the spirits of his mother and his master. When he removes the red silk kerchief from the fearful Lin’s face, Tao is surprised by his deep love for her, not realizing a man and a woman could share such joy. Tao thought that women were only for working or reproducing, but Lin is “a mysterious and complex person capable of disarming him with her irony and challenging him with her questions” (182).

Tao did not realize that Lin’s “golden lilies” weaken her health as her contorted feet prevent her from walking far. Lin’s pregnancy and her tuberculosis further undermine her strength. Tao and Hobbs do not trust midwives and plan to oversee Lin’s childbirth despite her plea to be helped by a woman. When Lin is in crisis with an asthma attack, Tao fetches an experienced midwife with instinctive knowledge. The baby is stillborn, but Lin’s life is saved.

A year later, Lin’s death drives Tao into despair and drunkenness. He takes more cases in the poorer sections of the port. Called to stitch up a dying Chinese sailor’s split skull, Tao is tricked into getting drunk. Tao is shanghaied onto a British ship, the Liberty, to replace the dead cook. Tao learns from Captain John Sommers that the British control a large part of the globe and that China is not the center of the universe. In 1849, Tao’s two-year contract ends when the Liberty arrives in Valparaíso, Chile. Captain Sommers offers to raise Tao’s wages if he will accompany him on a steamship to California, but Tao refuses because of his horror of its boilers. Captain Sommers then recommends Tao to Captain Katz, master of the ship Emilia.