Editing Pearl S. Buck (section)

== Early life and education ==
[[File:Pearl Buck Birthplace 2.jpg|thumb|The Stulting House at the [[Pearl Buck Birthplace]] in [[Hillsboro, West Virginia]]]]
Originally named Comfort,<ref>Lian Xi, ''The Conversion of Missionaries'', University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1996) 102 {{ISBN|0271064382}}.</ref> Pearl Sydenstricker was born in [[Hillsboro, West Virginia]], to Caroline Maude (Stulting) (1857–1921) and [[Absalom Sydenstricker]], of Dutch and German descent respectively.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Smylie |first=James H. |date=January 2004 |title=Pearl Buck's "Several Worlds" and the "Inasmuch" of Christ |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004057360406000407 |url-access=limited |journal=Theology Today |volume=60 |issue=4 |pages=540–554 |doi=10.1177/004057360406000407 |quote=Absalom Sydenstricker, of German ancestry, was born into a strict Presbyterian family of Greenbrier County, Virginia... Carie, Pearl's mother, was born a Stulting in Hillsboro (where Pearl also was born), of Dutch stock leavened by French yeast stirred into the ancestral mix.  |access-date=January 22, 2024}}</ref> Her parents, [[American Southern Presbyterian Mission|Southern Presbyterian]] [[Mission (Christian)|missionaries]], were married on July 8, 1880 and moved to [[China]] shortly thereafter, but returned to the United States for Pearl's birth. When Pearl was five months old, the family returned to China, living first in [[Huai'an]] and then in 1896 moving to [[Zhenjiang]], which was then known as Chingkiang in the [[Chinese postal romanization]] system, near the major city of [[Nanjing]].<ref>{{citation|first=David |last=Shavit|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=1990|isbn=0-313-26788-X|title=The United States in Asia: a historical dictionary|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=IWdZTaJdc6UC|page=480}} (Entry for "Sydenstricker, Absalom")</ref> In summer, she and her family spent time in [[Kuling, Jiujiang|Kuling]]. Her father built a stone villa in Kuling in 1897, and lived there until his death in 1931.<ref>{{cite web |title=赛兆祥墓碑 |url=http://www.mylushan.com/Stone/2009108/200910819545821.html |website=mylushan.com |access-date=22 July 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Pearl S. Buck house in Zhenjiang |url=http://www.sexualfables.com/Pearl-Buck-house-in-Zhenjiang.php |access-date=22 July 2021}}</ref> It was during this annual summer pilgrimage in Kuling that the young girl decided to become a writer.<ref name="kulingamericanschool.com"/>

Of her siblings who survived into adulthood, [[Edgar Sydenstricker]] had a distinguished career with the [[United States Public Health Service|U.S. Public Health Service]] and later the [[Milbank Quarterly|Milbank Memorial Fund]], and Grace Sydenstricker Yaukey (1899–1994) wrote young adult books and books about Asia under the pen name Cornelia Spencer.<ref>{{cite news |title=Grace Sydenstricker Yaukey papers, 1934–1968 |url=http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv07534 |access-date=January 17, 2019 |publisher=Orbis Cascade Alliance}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Grace S. Yaukey Dies |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/1994/05/05/grace-s-yaukey-dies/d79e3e98-da61-435e-9b75-e7e5b23efc05/ |access-date=January 18, 2019 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=May 5, 1994}}</ref>

Pearl recalled in her memoir that she lived in "several worlds", one a "small, white, clean [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterian]] world of my parents", and the other the "big, loving merry not-too-clean Chinese world", and there was no communication between them.<ref>Pearl S. Buck, ''My Several Worlds: A Personal Record'' (New York: John Day, 1954) p. 10.</ref> The [[Boxer Uprising]] (1899–1901) greatly affected the family; their Chinese friends deserted them, and Western visitors decreased. Her father, convinced that no Chinese could wish him harm, stayed behind as the rest of the family went to [[Shanghai]] for safety. A few years later, Buck was enrolled in Miss Jewell's School in Shanghai, and was dismayed at the [[Racism|racist]] attitudes there of other students, few of whom could speak any Chinese. Both of her parents felt strongly that Chinese were their equals; they forbade the use of the word ''heathen'', and she was raised in a bilingual environment: tutored in English by her mother, in the local dialect by her Chinese playmates, and in classical Chinese by a Chinese scholar named Mr. Kung. She also read voraciously, especially, in spite of her father's disapproval, the novels of [[Charles Dickens]], which she later said she read through once a year for the rest of her life.<ref>Peter Conn, ''Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography'', Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996) 9, 19–23 {{ISBN|0521560802}}.</ref>

In 1911, Buck left China to attend [[Randolph-Macon Woman's College]] in [[Lynchburg, Virginia]], where she graduated [[Phi Beta Kappa]] in 1914 and was a member of [[Kappa Delta]] sorority.