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I am deeply indebted to the works of several other scholars and journalists who havewritten about nu shu: William Chiang, Henry Chu, Hu Xiaoshen, Lin-lee Lee, Fei-wen Liu,Liu Shouhua, Anne McLaren, Orie Endo, Norman Smith, Wei Liming, and Liming Zhao. Nushu relies heavily on standard phrases and images—such as “the phoenix squawks,” “a

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pair of mandarin ducks,” or “the heavenly spirits matched the two of us”— and I, in turn,have relied on the translations of those listed above. However, since this is a novel, I didnot use the customary pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic rhyming scheme used in nu shuletters, so s, and stories. For information on China, the Yao people, Chinese women, andfootbinding

ngng, I would like to acknowledge the work of Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Benjamin A.Elman, Susan Greenhalgh, Beverley Jackson, Dorothy Ko, Ralph A. Litzinger, and SusanMann. Finally, Yue-qing Yang’s evocative documentary, Nu-shu: A Hidden Language ofWomen in China, helped me to understand that many women in Jiangyong County arestill living with the fallout of arranged, loveless marriages. All these people have theirown well-established opinions and conclusions, but please remember Snow Flower andthe Secret Fan is a work of fiction. It doesn’t purport to tell everything about nu shu ore lain all its nuances. Rather, it is a story that has been filtered through my heart, myexp

xpxperience, and my research. Put another way, all mistakes are my own.

Bob Loomis, my editor at Random House, once again showed himself to be patient,insightful, and thorough. Benjamin Dreyer, copy editor extraordinaire, offered some earlyand very good advice for which I am greatly obliged. Thank you to production editorVincent La Scala, who shepherded the novel, and Janet Baker, who carefully read themanuscript. None of my work would see the light of day if it weren’t for my agent, SandyDijkstra. Her faith in me has been unwavering, while everyone in her office has beenwonderful to work with, especially Babette Sparr, who handles my foreign rights and wasthe first person to read the manuscript. My husband, Richard Kendall, gave me thecourage to kee moving forward. This time around he also had to field questions fromnumerous peop

pple who, while I was away, kept asking him, “You let her go there by herself?” He had not thought twice about letting me follow my heart. My sons, Christopher andAlexander, who were physically apart from me during the writing of this book, continuedto be as inspired and inspiring as a mother could ever wish for.

A final thank-you goes out to Leslee Leong, Pam Maloney, Amelia Saltsman, Wendy Strick,and Alicia Tamayac—all of whom took very good care of me when I was housebound witha serious concussion and drove me around Los Angeles to doctors’ appointments and onother errands during the three months I couldn’t drive. They are a living example of asworn sisterhood and I truly could not have finished Snow Flower without them.

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