Smith, Arthur H., Proverbs and Common Sayings from the Chinese (Shanghai, 1914). Often reprinted (e.g. in Dover paperback), this learned and witty collection does much to illuminate some of the darker corners of Strange Tales.

Smith, Richard, Fortune-Tellers and Philosophers (Boulder, CO, 1991).

Staunton, Sir George Thomas (trans.), Ta Tsing Leu Lee: Being the Fundamental Laws and a Selection from the Supplementary Statutes of the Penal Code of China (London, 1810). Reprinted in Taiwan more than once in recent years, this superb translation brings to life many of the byways of behaviour and misbehaviour of Qing-dynasty China, providing an objective counterpoint to Pu Songling.

Van Gulik, Robert, The Lore of the Chinese Lute (Tokyo, 1940). Almost any work by the Dutch diplomat-sinologist is helpful in fleshing out the cultural world of Strange Tales. I have chosen this and the following two books.

-, Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Period (Tokyo, 1951).

-, Sexual Life in Ancient China (Leiden, 1961).

Watson, Burton (trans.), The Tso Chuan: Selections from China's Oldest Narrative History (New York, 1989). Readable modern versions of an ancient classic often alluded to by Pu Songling.

-(trans.), The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York, 1968). The Taoist philosopher, another of Pu Songling's mentors from the past.

Watters, Thomas, 'Chinese Fox-Myths', Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society VIII (1874).

Werner, E. T. C., A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology (Shanghai, 1932).

Wile, Douglas, Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics (Albany, 1992). A useful modern supplement to van Gulik's earlier study. Both books are helpful in understanding the attitudes underlying the idea of the fox-spirit.

Notes.

In these Notes, matters of general and critical interpretation are dealt with first, followed by brief explanations of detailed terms. The reader is advised that many general terms are described in the Glossary. The traditional Chinese commentators referred to can be found in Zhang Youhe's Variorum edition (1962), while the modern commentators can be identified from the list of editions given under Further Reading.

1.

HOMUNCULUS.

This is one of several tales dealing with the foibles of practising or would-be practising Taoists (see Glossary), and the pitfalls of spiritual and alchemic self-cultivation. The yogic practice referred to here, daoyin, is an ancient one, which combines physical and breathing exercises and self-massage. It is the ancient term for the sort of thing now more commonly known as qigong. Joseph Needham, in one of his many extraordinary excursions into Chinese alchemy, has this to say about the physiological side effects of such prolonged breathing exercises: 'There can be no doubt that this technique produced considerable anoxaemia with all its strange effects buzzing in the ears [the literal title of this tale is "The Man Within the Ear"], vertigo, perspiration, sensations of heat and formication [a sensation as of insects crawling under the skin] in the extremities, fainting and headache' (Science and Civilisation in China, 22 vols. (Cambridge, 1954), vol. V, part 5, pp. 1445).

In the symbolic language of Inner Alchemy (neidan), Cinnabar (dan) represents the combined Yin and Yang energy, nurtured in the lower Cinnabar Field (dantian, roughly the solar plexus), by means of various meditative and breathing techniques. This Inner Elixir and the Homunculus are one and the same thing. They are the outcome of this alchemic process, the Taoist 'inner child' or 'immortal foetus', which takes many months to mature. If the practitioner consciously (and prematurely) thinks 'with secret delight' of the achievement of immortality, demons may seize the occasion to enter his heart, possessing him and thereby undoing all his previous progress. (For a famous and more detailed description of a similar state of possession, see Chapter 87 of Cao Xueqin's The Story of the Stone (trans. David Hawkes and John Minford, 5 vols. (Harmondsworth, 197386)), in which the nun Adamantina has a seizure during Zen meditation.) He Shouqi (1823) and Dan Minglun (1842) comment that this is an accurate description of what sometimes happens to unorthodox or fake Taoist practitioners. Their pretentious vanity exposes them to strange apparitions, and ultimately they make fools of themselves. True spirituality is something quite different. The phenomenon is all too familiar in more recent times in the West, stemming from what Chogyam Trungpa (194087), the modern Tibetan Master, has called Spiritual Materialism, 'the Ego attempting to acquire and apply the teachings of spirituality for its own benefit' (Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (London, 1973)). As Carl Jung (18751961) put it, 'Yoga in Mayfair or Fifth Avenue, or in any other place which is on the telephone, is a spiritual fake' (Psychological Commentary to The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation (New York, 1954)). The life of 'the Beast', Aleister Crowley (18751947), is a rich source of similar adventures, examples of esoteric practice distorted by vanity and the desire for psychic power. It is because this story seems so modern and universal that I have moved it here from the second place that it occupies in the author's manuscript.

2.

AN OTHERWORLDLY EXAMINATION.

He Shouqi (1823) and Dan Minglun (1842) both see this tale as an allegorical portrayal of virtue rewarded. Feng Zhenluan (1818), quoting the words of a Buddhist Layman by the name of Half Crazy, takes a somewhat subtler view: the tale's emphasis on motive, or mind (xin, Song Tao's 'laudable feelings'), belongs to the shared wisdom of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Feng is surely right to place Pu Songling in the grand tradition of Ming 'syncretism', where mainstream neo-Confucianism was transformed by the spiritual insights of Taoism and Zen Buddhism, a tradition which reached its climax in the great philosopher Wang Yangming (14721529): 'There is no object, no event, no moral principle, no righteousness, and no good that lies outside the mind.' Wang, although a neo-Confucian, famously achieved enlightenment and inner peace as the result of a period of BuddhistTaoist-style meditation in the wilds of south-western China. For Wang, Confucian Benevolence is Compassionate Love, 'the development of an innate feeling of sympathy and commiseration, initially manifested in the love for one's parents'. (See Fung Yulan (Feng Youlan), A History of Chinese Philosophy, trans. Derk Bodde, 2 vols. (London, 19523), II, pp. 607ff. See also the excellent essays relating to Wang Yangming's thinking in Wm. Theodore de Bary (ed.), Self and Society in Ming Thought (New York, 1970).) It is for this love that Song Tao is rewarded in this tale.

examination for the second degree: For the various degrees and examinations, and the formal Eight-Legged Essay, see the Glossary. In this and in many other tales, Pu Songling reflects the lifelong obsession of the Chinese mandarin class with their own bureaucratic system, an obsession which extends well into the Other World. It is no doubt for this reason that he placed this story at the very beginning of the collection a place it occupies in all extant editions.

Guan Yu: (192220), the famous general of the Three Kingdoms period, who in 1594 was elevated to the rank of God of War by the Ming Emperor Wanli. His efficacy against demons was recognized by Taoists and Buddhists alike, and his sphere extended far beyond warfare to include (as here) justice and civil administration.

City God: Every town and city had its Tutelary God (chenghuang), responsible for the town's welfare, peace and prosperity.

3.

LIVING DEAD.

recently died: 'Bodily spectres must as a rule be corpses still fresh and undecayed... They rise especially before burial has hampered their movements by an envelope of solid wood and clay. Even tender women may then rage most fearfully' (J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, 6 vols. (Leiden, 18921910), V, p. 734).

a lamp burning: 'This ancient custom is observed by modern Chinese down to the lowest classes... One of the first cares of the family is to place a lighted candle in an ordinary candlestick near the feet of the deceased... The disembodied soul, being naturally under the influences of those dark, unseen [Yin] regions, would even in the broadest daylight be quite unable to find its way through them to the corpse and to the sacrifices which are to be offered there every day for its benefit, did not the family remedy the evil [by lighting a candle]... They strengthen the soul by means of a little artificial Yang, to wit, by light and warmth emanating from the candle or the lamp' (De Groot, The Religious System of China, I, p. 21).

the wooden fish: A hollow, fish-shaped block beaten with a clapper by Buddhist monks while reciting sacred texts and liturgies.

inquest: In traditional China this was conducted by the local Magistrate, whose duties included those of District Coroner.

4.

SPITTING WATER.

Song Wan of Laiyang: (16141673), obtained his third (jinshi) degree in 1647 and became one of the leading poets of the early-Qing dynasty. Wang Shizhen (16341711), a great admirer of Pu Songling and his work, thinks this story apocryphal, because Song lost his mother when he was a mere babe in swaddling clothes. But it is certainly true that Song was nominated to a post in the Board of Finance shortly after 1647, during the disturbed times following the Manchu conquest, when Peking would certainly have been full of haunted and dilapidated mansions. Dan Minglun (1842) comments that Peking was full of spooky houses, and adds a little tale of his own in this connection.

5.

TALKING PUPILS.

Here, for the first time in the book, Pu Songling adds his own concluding comment, giving himself the mock-grandiose title 'Chronicler of the Strange'. (He does this in almost two hundred of the nearly five hundred tales.) The title clearly alludes to, and gently spoofs, the one adopted by the great Chinese historian Sima Qian (c. 145c. 85 BC), who often appended comments at the end of the sections of his Historical Records, calling himself the Grand Chronicler or Historian. In this instance, Pu the Chronicler begins by telling another, related story (this was a habit with Chinese commentators): A certain country gentleman was out strolling with two friends when in the distance he saw a woman leading a donkey. 'Behold a fair damsel!' he said, playfully quoting the Book of Songs, and cried to his friends, 'Let's go after her!' They all ran ahead, laughing loudly, and soon caught up with the woman, only to discover that she was the gentleman's own daughter-in-law! He stood there speechless and red in the face with embarrassment, while his friends pretended not to have recognized the lady and began evaluating her looks in the crudest terms. Finally he stammered, 'This lady is the wife of my eldest son...' His friends stood where they were, masking their smiles with their sleeves.

Libertines often bring about their own undoing, and end up making themselves a laughing stock.

Was not Fang Dong's blindness a form of retribution inflicted on him by the spirit world? I have no idea which spirit presides over Hibiscus Town... No doubt a Bodhisattva incarnate... But the little mannikins, by making a new opening, prove that the spirits, however cruel, always give humans a chance to repent and make a fresh start!

PUPILS: The traditional Chinese expression for pupil (tongren) means literally 'man in the pupil', from the reflection of oneself that one sees in the eye of another.

Chang'an: The Tang-dynasty (618907) capital of China, often used in literature to refer loosely to 'the capital', in this instance by implication Peking.

Hibiscus Town: Lu Zhan'en (1825) points out that this is the name for a mythical realm. It is also one of the names for the city of Chengdu, in the mountainous western province of Sichuan, which was planted with countless hibiscus shrubs in the tenth century AD by the second ruler of the Latter Shu Kingdom, Meng Chang (known for his life of debauchery and extravagance).

6.

THE PAINTED WALL.

The Chronicler of the Strange comments: 'How wise was the monk to say that illusion has its source within man himself!... And how regrettable that his words did not inspire Sudden Enlightenment in the Graduate Zhu, that they did not move him to forsake the world and become a mountain-dweller, a hermit with hair flying in the wind!' Judith T. Zeitlin paraphrases Pu Songling well: 'Zhu does not withdraw into the mountains; his heart is too entangled with his illusions, illusions powerful enough to withstand simple rationalizations or religious truth' (Historian of the Strange, p. 193).

Master Baozhi: A Zen monk of the fifth to sixth centuries, renowned for his eccentric behaviour and for his extraordinary ability to appear in two or three places at once. Legend has it that he went roving from village to village, his hair tumbling down abundantly on his shoulders, barefoot and leaning on a pilgrim's staff, to which were attached a mirror, a pair of scissors and two silk tassels. During his peregrinations, he was endowed with the marvellous power of speaking in several languages.

Zeitlin perceptively remarks on the dominant and all-controlling presence of this statue in the monastery (though its existence is only lightly touched on). It directly links the Provincial Graduate Zhu's imaginary journey into the world of the Painted Wall to the process of enlightenment. Both the old monk-guide and the abbot preaching in the painting can be interpreted as manifestations of Master Baozhi, 'come to earth to enlighten suffering human beings' (Historian of the Strange, p. 191). It is worth a mention that the Provincial Graduate even shares the Zen Master's family name Zhu.

Apsaras Scattering Flowers: The Apsaras (tian-nu) are Heavenly Maidens, in Buddhist iconography female devas, or angels, to be seen (for example) in the cave-temple murals of Dunhuang. 'Apsaras Scattering Flowers' is a popular motif in Buddhist art, having its origin in the Vimalakirti Sutra.

7.

THE TROLL.