to give yourself over to another body...that’s all you want, really. to be out of your own and consumed by another, to swim inside the skin of your lover. not have to breathe, not have to think. 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒏'𝒕 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒕𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓'𝒔 𝒏𝒐 𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒌.
Goodness, JIUMEI “JUNE” CROFT has arrived in London. SHE is 27, of the OXFORD CROFTS. Though they are NEW to the Season, we can only describe them as CHARMING and RESPONSIBLE, dear reader. Accompanied by HER PARENTS AND YOUNGER TWIN BROTHERS, they have settled in and are accepting social calls. But be warned: they are known for their VINDICTIVENESS. (Meggie, 28, she/her, PST)
In the late 1700s, trade between China and Great Britain was booming, and a man and a woman were falling in love in Hong Kong with only a handful of shared vocabulary. Chan Yufang was a young woman whose father was heavily involved in the silk trade, and James Croft was a young British man who was looking to make his fortune in silks and silver and opium. Their courtship was brief, largely due to the fact that Yufang spoke virtually no English, and James’ Cantonese was minimal at best. Still, despite their inability to communicate in fully formed sentences, the two fell in love by way of harried charades, meaningful stares, and lots and lots of food. They were married after having known each other for six months, and with the blessing of Yufang’s father on one single condition: James would never make Yufang leave the land of her family and her ancestors for England. Nine months after the wedding, Yufang gave birth to a daughter, who she named Jiumei, for her mother. James, whose accent was unalterable, and who could not manage to get his tongue around the strange way syllables were pronounced in the east, began to affectionately refer to his daughter as June May, and the name stuck.
When Yufang had recovered enough from the birth to travel, James broke his promise and departed Hong Kong for Oxford with his wife and infant daughter.
A stranger in a strange land, Yufang never adapted to life in England, and stubbornly refused to even attempt to learn more than a handful of English. She became something of a curious oddity in Society, another Oriental treasure that James had acquired in his business abroad and was eager to show off. Of course he loved his wife, but sometimes love isn’t quite enough, and after a few years of cold, awkward silences, Yufang began to thaw, but she would never fully trust James again. Though…she never seemed to really lose sleep over it.
It was in this awkward, stilted, uncomfortable environment that Jiumei grew up. By the time she was walking, her father was gone frequently on business, facilitating trade or managing property, and her mother was working with silk to make beautiful, intricate fabrics, one speaking English and broken Cantonese, and the other reflecting the languages in a broken mirror.
Soon, Jiumei became the newest treasure that her father could show off, his accomplished little daughter with an odd and unpronounceable name who could speak English and Cantonese fluently and sing like a trained songbird. He would parade her around at parties, showing her off to polite Society, and this was the first way that she learned how to love. To her father, this pride, this display, this was how he showed love and affection, and so to Jiumei, this was how the English loved.
Her mother’s love was equally difficult to parse and translate; a cold, hands off sort of love, a strict sort of love with no physical affection and a deep sense of dependency upon one another. Yufang showed her love for her daughter by peeling and chopping fruit for her, or by pushing letters to her and asking her to translate them from English to Cantonese. Jiumei became the link between her mother and Society, a link that Yufang has never let go of for a multitude of reasons, even after she grew pregnant a second time, and young Jiumei had to translate the doctor’s words during the long process of labor.
Acting as a go between for her parents more often than not, translating everything from love to anger from one end of the house to the other, Jiumei found herself endlessly caught in the middle of everything in her life. She was too foreign for the land of her father and too foreign for the land of her mother, the place where she was born and the place she would never return to. This colored her personality from a young age, where she began to learn to weave relationships and personalities into existence and together the same way her mother could weave silk. She knew that the way she should talk to her father was different than the way she should talk to her mother, which was different from the way she should talk to the men her father did business with, which was different from the way she should talk to the girls her age, and so on and so forth. She learned to be charming, not sincere; the truth was something that could be used against her if she didn’t maintain the upper hand in a situation, but charm would never fail her.
By the time she came of age, Jiumei had molded herself into a bright, charming, and delightfully accomplished young woman named June Croft. Her mother still refuses to call her anything but Jiumei, but after years of listening to English men and women butchering her name, she decided years ago to just let everyone call her June, much to her father’s relief and her mother’s disdain. She speaks English and Cantonese fluently, and can read Latin. She can play the sanxian, the traditional three stringed Chinese lute, as well as the harp, and is particularly adept at Chinese draw and discard card games (which will eventually become mah-jongg, in a few decades!), which she plays with her mother every weekend. She loves to read in both English and Cantonese, and frequently makes up stories to tell her younger twin brothers at bed time –– and to tell the Ton, when bored at parties.
Time will tell, however, if this more English version of herself will stick, or if, one day, she will weave herself a new, finely crafted identity; forever hiding herself behind a mask of silk, half truths, and empty charm.
