Culture Wars

I took the boys to the library yesterday, and I checked out several books for myself. I really like to read, but for many years now I have not had the opportunity to read in the way that I like. Now that the boys are older, and I have started to feel like the home place is settling down, I have begun to read again.
One of the books I checked out is East Wind, West Wind by Pearl S. Buck. In American Lit last year we read The Good Earth by Buck, and I really enjoyed it. It isn't an upper of a story, but it is well-written and intriguing. So as I searched for a book yesterday, I thought I would try another of Buck's famous books.
I woke last night and couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to read a bit. A bit turned into three hours of the entire book! It was also an intriguing book to me. This one is about a Chinese family, around the 1920's I think, which is struggling with the changes in society and family. The women see their role in society very clearly, and though to us Westerners it seems like a stifled existence, to the Chinese women it is the way things are to be. Once change begins to occur, the women are off kilter.
The main character, a young bride, is confused when her university educated husband wants them to be equals. How could they be equals, she wonders. She imagines it as a strike against her people and her country. She believes her husband is unhappy with her to request such a thing.
Pearl S. Buck grew up in China, though she was American. She was able to see the world through both sets of eyes, Eastern and Western. Not many of us have been so blessed. May we each learn to listen carefully and openly before we declare another's way of life incorrect. Perhaps they like their way of life and believe ours to be barbaric.