Pearl of China Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Pearl S. Buck and our BookBrowse Review of Pearl of China.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

About this book
Willow never dreamed that her childhood friend would become a world-renowned writer. In the impoverished Chinese village of Chin-kiang, a young pickpocket meets her match in Pearl Sydenstricker, the daughter of the village's only white man, a Christian missionary named Absalom. Willow and her Papa befriend Pearl's family to get a hot meal, but eventually Papa and Absalom become partners in recruiting the villagers to join the church. Meanwhile, Willow and Pearl strike up a friendship that will last a lifetime.

As Willow and Pearl come of age, their lives diverge: Willow is forced to become a concubine, and Pearl leaves Chin-kiang to study in Shanghai and America. When Pearl returns to the village, it is to marry Lossing Buck, an ambitious American agriculturist. As Willow and Pearl struggle with unhappy marriages, political unrest drives them out of Chin-kiang. The women reunite in Nanking, where Pearl begins writing fiction, determined to bring stories of the Chinese people to Western readers. Her talents draw the attention of Hsu Chih-mo, China's preeminent poet, but the writers' love affair is cut tragically short.

As Mao and his Communist Party take over the country, Pearl is exiled to America, never to return to her true home of China. And although Willow pays a steep price for her connection to the Western writer, she remains true to her friendship and her values.


For discussion

1. Pearl of China opens with a quotation from Pearl S. Buck: "I was never deceived by Chinese women, not even by the flower-like lovely girls. They are the strongest women in the world." Discuss how two strong-willed characters in Pearl of China, Willow and Madame Mao, display the fortitude that Buck describes. How are these two women's strengths similar and different? Who benefits—and who suffers—from these two women's powers?
2. Describe the changing fortune of Willow's family. When we first meet Willow, how is her family coping with poverty? How do their fortunes change over the course of the novel? How does Willow's peasant background eventually become an advantage?
3. Although Pearl is American, "beneath her skin, she was Chinese." (263) What Chinese qualities does Pearl exhibit in childhood and in adulthood? What American characteristics does she have? How is Pearl able to reconcile her Chinese heritage and her Western birth?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Bloomsbury USA. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.