64.

THE GIRL FROM NANKING.

Wang Jinfan (1767): 'Was she a ghost or a fox? There is no knowing for sure. But her coming and going seem more like that of a fox.' Qiu Shengwei (1991) is in no doubt that she is a fox and that she represents the valiant women of the oppressed classes in feudal society.

He Shouqi (1823) analyses the story in terms of an interesting prescription/herb dialectic. A prescription is of no use without its constituent herbs; herbs are no use without the relevant prescription. The two complement each other. If one has the prescription but not the herbs, one must go in search of the herbs; if one has the herbs but no prescription, one must go in search of the prescription. When the girl says she would 'happily be his concubine', He Shouqi comments: 'A prescription in search of herbs.' When Zhao 'pin[es] for the girl greatly', he writes: 'Herbs in search of a prescription.' Zhang Zhenjun (in Ma Zhenfang, 1996) adopts He Shouqi's analysis, adding that the whole story probably evolved as a way of explaining a local folk remedy for warts. Like Wang Jinfan, he concludes that the girl is most probably not a ghost but a fox (from her way of coming and going), but unlike the majority of foxes (who tend to live in abandoned graves), this one lives in the bustling city and helps her father run a shop. Their conjugal love is of a very practical nature, notes Zhenjun, the woman being depicted as performing unromantic household tasks, both in Yishui and in Nanking. She was out on the road in the first place in quest of herbs. Zhao ends up providing them, and is rewarded (for his devotion and for the herbs) with a stock of miraculous remedies.

His luck is thin: Compare the following proverbs, all to be found in Plopper's invaluable Chinese Religion Seen through the Proverb: A man's heart may be lofty as Heaven; but his fate is thin as paper.

If a man's fate is to have only eight tenths of a pint of rice, though he traverse the country over, he cannot get a full pint.

A nine-pint measure will hold nine pints, and will not take an extra pint.

A man fated to receive a certain amount, if he obtains more will not be able to keep it.

Each glass of wine and each slice of meat is predestined.

65.

TWENTY YEARS A DREAM.

The commentators like the ending. Wang Shizhen (16341711): 'The story comes to an end and yet it does not end. Marvellous!' Feng Zhenluan (1818): 'Wang only appreciates this quality in the ending; actually the whole story is like that, fragmentary, inconclusive, loose, delicate, exquisite. Dan Minglun (1842): 'It is like hearing the sound of celestial music suddenly cease.'

Zhang Zhenjun (in Ma Zhenfang, 1996) praises the description of Locket, who reminds him of Lin Daiyu, the frail and melancholy heroine of The Story of the Stone. The platonic relationship between Yang and Locket, their days spent sharing literary and musical interests, is for him reminiscent of a certain genre in Chinese literature (see, for example, Shen Fu's Six Records of a Floating Life (c. 1809), trans. L. Pratt and Chiang Su-hui (Harmondsworth, 1983)).

Judith T. Zeitlin comments in her Historian of the Strange (p. 154) that in this story Pu Songling has inverted the old 'cliche of the leben-straum', replacing the conceit of 'life as a dream' with that of 'death as a dream'.

refinement and cultivation: Fengya encapsulates many of the qualities of the Chinese scholar-gentleman, and indeed evokes the whole cultural universe of Strange Tales. Ya (elegant, good taste, good form) implies a certain fastidiousness and restraint, an unostentatious distinction, qualities that derive from education and breeding. It is the opposite of su (vulgar, bad taste). As Lin Yutang puts it, 'When one drinks tea at a famous spring sitting on a rock with bare feet, it is said to be ya' (The Importance of Living (London, 1938), p. 444). At one point in this story, Feng Zhenluan (1818) comments that Locket, with her stylish literary and musical accomplishments, is an 'elegant ghost', whereas a little later when the boorish Martial Arts enthusiast Wang starts shouting at her, Feng comments on his 'vulgarity'. The word feng (literally wind) brings a touch of glamour to ya, a touch of the almost dandyish charm known as fengliu (literally 'wind-flowing').

lotus kernels: The allusion here is to the breasts of Yang Guifei, the famous consort of the Tang Emperor Xuanzong, which he described as 'soft and warm as freshly peeled lotus kernels'. (See the tenth-century work Kaiyuan tianbao yish, quoted in Zhu Qikai (1989), P. 331.) 'The Lianchang Palace': A ballad by the Tang-dynasty poet Yuan Zhen (779831) in which an old man recounts the upheaval of the An Lushan rebellion and describes the abandonment of the Tang Emperor Xuanzong's palace in Luoyang.

'trimmed the lamp at the west window': Li Shangyin (c. 81358), 'Lines to be sent home, written on a rainy night': You ask me, when shall I return?

No date is set.

On the Ba Mountains Night rain swells the autumn pond.

When shall we two trim the lamp At the west window?

When shall we talk about the Night rain on the Ba Mountains...

66.

MYNAH BIRD.

Bernard Read's free translations (they are really paraphrases, based on the drafts of his Chinese collaborators) from that extraordinary sixteenth-century survey of natural phenomena, the Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu) of Li Shizhen (151893), were published in several issues of the Peking Natural History Bulletin (193241). Read has this to say about the mynah bird in China (Chinese Materia Medica VI: Avian Drugs (1932), pp. 656): It loves to bathe in water. It has a timid look, hence the name qu. Its mating habits account for the second name quyu [used by Pu Songling]. The name hangao comes from its habit of flying in flocks when snow is about to fall. It nests in magpies' nests or in the hollows of trees, or in the rafters of houses. The head and body are black. It is spotted white under the wings. It has a human-like tongue, and when this is cut short with a pair of scissors it can learn to talk like a man. The young have yellow beaks which turn white later. According to the Zhou Li it never comes north of Ji'nan [in Shandong]. Its flesh, which is sweet, bland and nonpoisonous, can be eaten to cure bleeding piles. It can be roasted or powdered. It is also taken for stuttering and sighing, and regurgitation. It improves the mind. For a chronic cough it must be caught on the last day of the year. The pupils from the eyes of the mynah, when rubbed with milk and dropped in the eyes, clear the eyesight and enable one to see things at a very great distance.

It is interesting to note that Lu Zhan'en (1825) himself quotes much of this same source in his own note on the tale. Within the huge and timeless domain of Chinese letters known as biji or 'notebook literature', history, geography, philology, gastronomy, botany, pharmacology and storytelling were close neighbours.

The Prince: Zhu Qikai (1989) speculates that the princely household in question may have been that of Zhu Rongshun, Prince Lingqiu of the Ming dynasty, sixth son of Zhu Gui (13741446), Prince of Dai, who was himself the thirteenth son of the founder of the dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Rongshun was enfeoffed as Prince in 1424 and set himself up in Jiangzhou (Shanxi) in 1454.

Shanxi... Shaanxi Province: These two adjoining provinces in China's north-west have always posed problems of romanization. When they are written in Chinese characters, it can be seen immediately that they mean quite different things. The first province means literally 'Mountain (shan) West (xi)' or 'Mountainous West' (or possibly 'West of the Mountains', referring to the Taihang range of mountains) just as Shandong (Pu Songling's province) means 'Mountain or Mountainous East'. The second, on the other hand, means literally 'West (xi) of the Pass (shaan)', the pass being the celebrated Tong'guan Pass, strategically situated between the ancient cities of Chang'an and Luoyang, where the Yellow River turns eastwards.

But when the two words are spoken, all that sets the first apart from the second is its tone, the fact that its first syllable shan is in the first, level tone, whereas the first syllable of the second is in the third, sinking tone. Since the Hanyu Pinyin system does not indicate tones, both provinces would therefore have been written identically. Something had to be done, or administrative chaos would have ensued. In an attempt to mark the difference, it was decided to write the second 'Shaanxi'. This doubling of the vowel is left over from an earlier Chinese romanization system, in which all vowels were tonally spelt, thus: shan (first tone), sham (second tone), shaan (third tone) and shahn (fourth). (The old solution to this problem, before the days of Hanyu Pinyin, was to write the first Shansi, and the second Shensi.) Bi Jiyou: (162393), a native of Zichuan, Pu Songling's wealthy friend and patron, for whom he worked as secretary from 1672 until Bi's death. See Tale 50, 'Dying Together'.

67.

LAMP DOG.

Han Daqian: A man from Pu Songling's home town of Zichuan. His father had served as Vice-Commissioner in the Office of Transmission, while Han Daqian himself held a minor post in the Imperial Court of Entertainments, an institution loosely supervised by the Board of Rites.

68.

DOCTOR FIVE HIDES.

Wang Shizhen (16341711) also records this little anecdote in his collection Notes from North of the Pond (Chibei outan).

Chang Tiyuan: A historical person, a local magistrate in the Kangxi reign, mentioned in the local gazetteer of Luonan (Shaanxi), the county where he served. 'Official student' means first-degree graduate.

'Doctor Five Hides'... Spring and Autumn era: Baili Xi, a famous statesman who served under Duke Mu of Qin (reigned 659 BC), was called 'Doctor Five Hides' because at one point he was ransomed for the price of five ram skins. (See Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian, I, p. 96.) Lu Zhan'en (1825) gives chapter and verse on Baili Xi, in an extended note several times the length of the tale itself.

tribute student: These Senior Licentiates took a special examination and became eligible for official appointment.

69.

BUTTERFLY.

doll factory: Literally a 'kiln for baking tiles', girls being traditionally supposed to be content with playing with earthenware tiles, as opposed to boys, who played with jade. See the Book of Songs, no. 189.

70.

THE BLACK BEAST.

The Chronicler of the Strange, in a long note, interprets the story allegorically as a comment on the spineless grovelling and passivity of the people (tiger) towards the corrupt officials who exploit them (black beast). Contemporary Marxist commentators are quick to pick up on this.

Li Jingyi: Grandfather of Pu Songling's friend Li Yaochen (16431723). At an important stage in Pu's life (1664, the year after his second failed attempt to pass the provincial examination), he went to stay in the Li family residence, and read widely in their richly stocked library.

71.

THE STONE BOWL.