Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of drug abuse.

“Even if I could wait, our whole era is being pushed onward, is breaking apart already, with greater destruction still coming. Our entire civilization—with all its magnificence, and its insignificance—will someday belong to the past.”

In the preface to the collection, Eileen Chang is explicit about the central theme that runs through the stories: Tradition and Modernity in a Changing Society. Chang notes that traditional society is coming apart in the aftermath of World War II and that the ancient mores of the nation are being left behind. She expresses a nuanced nostalgia for tradition that acknowledges both its “magnificence” and “insignificance.”

“In the wilderness that is coming, among the shards and rubble, only the painted-lady type from ‘Hop-Hop’ opera, this kind of woman, can carry on with simple ease. Her home is everywhere, in any era, in any society.”

The central characters in many of Chang’s stories are like the woman in the “Hop-Hop” opera she describes in the preface. They act within a traditional, historic mode while expressing modern ideals of independence. Their ability to adapt to changing Expectations of Women in the Republic of China while adhering to elements of classical culture makes them universal literary figures.

“These Oriental touches had been put there, it was clear, for the benefit of foreigners. The English come from so far to see China—one has to give them something of China to see. But this was China as Westerners imagine it: exquisite, illogical, very entertaining.”

A minor motif in some of the stories that is especially prominent in “Aloeswood Incense” is the role of Orientalism in the performance and assertion of Chinese traditions. In the Chinese Republic, upper-middle-class Chinese people are adopting Western aesthetic elements and values, like wearing suits instead of traditional Chinese clothing. However, Western visitors to China want to see what they believe “traditional” China looks like, even if it is inauthentic.