Censored by Confucius (3 page)

By the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties, the
biji xiaoshuo
had integrated both the
zhiguai
and the
chuanqi
traditions, resulting in brilliant collections of tales that combine the supernatural with the romantic. The most famous collection is the
Liaozhai zhiyi
(Strange tales from the leisure studio) by Pu Songling, who died in 1715, one year before Yuan Mei was born. In the West, Pu has enjoyed a long and sympathetic reception as a result of the continued publication of translations of his fiction. As early as 1880 an English translation by Herbert Giles of a selection of stories from the
Liaozhai zhiyi
was published, and later translators have rendered Pu's work into a variety of other languages. The popularity of Pu's
biji
ghost stories has therefore been assured not only in China but also internationally.
⁹
Yuan Mei and Ji Yun (1724-1805), probably the most accomplished and well known of the generation of writers after Pu, were also masters of the
biji
style. Indeed, during their own lifetimes Yuan and Ji were already so accomplished that they were celebrated in the expression
nan Yuan bei Ji
("Yuan in the south and Ji in the north"). The absence of a comprehensive
English translation of Yuan's
biji xiaoshuo
has clearly hindered promotion of his writings in the English-speaking world.
¹⁰
Although Yuan is more famous for his poetry than his
biji xiaoshuo
and Ji is known primarily for his compilation of the
Siku quanshu
(Complete library of four branches of books),
¹¹
both writers made significant contributions to the
biji
genre.

While Pu, Ji, and Yuan are often regarded as the greatest storytellers of the Qing dynasty, there are differences in their tales. These may be explained in part by the authors' different life histories. Unlike Pu, who was impoverished all his life, Yuan and Ji mixed with the wealthiest and most influential of the age and enjoyed official recognition of their talent within in the Qing bureaucracy. Both owe more to the
zhiguai
of the earlier dynasties than to the
chuanqi,
which Pu freely imitated. As a consequence, Yuan's
biji
stories are more dense and the language less colloquial, and in
deed more classical in style. They were clearly intended for an educated reader's own pleasure rather than for public
readings. Pu uses his fiction to vent his frustration and Ji uses his ghost stories to preach that virtue is rewarded and evil punished. While these sentiments can also be found in Yuan's tales, the resentment and didacticism found in the works of the other two are mostly absent (Shen 1988, p. 2).

Censored by Confucius:
Main Themes

Censored by Confucius
contains a number of recurring themes. Besides giving insight into Yuan Mei's artistic talent, these themes provide a wealth of information about life in the mid-Qing. Collected over a lengthy period, these stories purport to be actual events recorded by Yuan. The full range of life experiences, from family tensions through natural disasters, can all be accounted for by the existence of a supernatural realm. Some of Yuan's tales are full of jest and good humor; others leave the reader with a sense of revulsion. But they are always witty and unpredictabl
e. Both the moral and mystical orders that suffused the society in which Yuan lived are apparent throughout. The world created by Yuan's pen is one in which ghosts and spirits interact regularly with the corporeal world, sometimes in good humor and at other times with vengeful ferocity. An important part of these interactions is the certainty that inhumane treatment and hypocrisy will not be tolerated by the world of the dead.

One of the prominent themes in the collection is the injustice of the judicial system when controlled by heartless moralists or hypocrites. Tales such as "The Magistrate of Pinyang," "Quan Gu," and "The Female Impersonator" reveal the popular loathing of officials who impose harsh punishments on those accused of "sex crimes" such as premarital sex, adultery, or prostitution. In some of these tales the magistrate in question is depicted as deriving a vicarious, sadistic sexual pleasure in overseeing the punishment and humiliation of women. Punishments such as the beating of bared buttock
s, the parading of tiny shoes, and the raping of women with cudgels are all inflicted in the name of "justice" and "morality." In Yuan's tales, however, these official sentences emerge ultimately as unjust, inhumane, and completely immoral—little more than a conservative charade. These accounts of hypocritical, moralistic administrators often end with the victim's ghost extracting revenge. Through these tales of the miscarriage of justice by excessively moralistic magistrates, Yuan vigorously opposes the state's
right to interfere in what are essentially personal matters of private individuals. The magistrates, more often than not, are exposed as callously using the private affairs of others to buttress weak personal claims to superior moral standards.

Yuan's depiction of sexual pleasure is similarly challenging because it inherently rejects the need to pass moral judgment on people's sexual activities. While it has been argued that Yuan's morality was limited by his historical situation and that his tales are bound by the patriarchal attitudes of his times,
¹²
a casual reading of his stories shows that he clearly regards love and sexual pleasure as parts of the human condition that should be celebrated rather than denied or restricted. "The Cool Old Man" reflects this sentiment well in its depiction of an abbot, indeed a reincarnation of
Buddha, reveling in the pleasures of sex. The diversity of sexual practice in Qing China, and its acceptance by the public, is another recurring theme in Yuan's
biji xiaoshuo.
"Double Blossom Temple" illustrates this point well. A temple has been built by local villagers to honor a homosexual couple brutally murdered by the local ruffian. After many years a passing official orders the temple razed because he cannot countenance a monument to such an "immoral practice" as homosexuality. The ghosts of the murdered couple then appear to the official in a dream and challenge the purity of his mo
tives. How could an upright official be familiar with what went on between their sheets? they ask. The official's death is then predicted and the story ends with his execution.

Not all of the tales are as serious as these. Sexuality provides Yuan Mei with ample opportunity to exercise his lively sense of humor. Take, for example, "Little Mischief," in which a cheeky serving boy is seduced by the ghost of a young girl. He is so frightened when he discovers his lover is actually a ghost that he runs outside shrieking in alarm. Only after the entire household, women and men alike, come running to his aid does he realize he is stark naked. Similarly, in "Scholar Zhang" a timid scholar alone in his employer's garden late one night is nearly raped by a woman
whom he assumes to be a ghost. She fails to accomplish the deed because the scholar has collapsed in terror and is unable to maintain an erection, despite all her efforts to arouse him. Describing him and his member as "absolutely useless," she storms off in disgust. The humorous public humiliation of the sexual inadequacies of Scholar Zhang and the youngster in "Little Mischief reveal Yuan's enthusiasm for life and all its multifarious idiocies.

A belief in ghosts and their social hierarchy in the underworld is an important part of the Qing social order. To a certain extent Yuan Mei's ghost stories serve to empower the weak and vulnerable in society. Ghostly revenge against injustice is better than no revenge at all. Similarly, careful manipulation of the underworld by the living can generate tangible benefits for vulnerable people. See, for example, "A Ghost Buys Herself a Son," in which a new wife asserts her dominance and control over the household and ensures a rightful place for her son as the progeny of the deceased first wife
by claiming to be possessed by the spirit of the latter. Each day the first wife's ghost enters the body of the new wife and takes control of the household's affairs. In short, the authority the new wife lacks is supplemented by her assumption of the deceased wife's spirit. A similar worldly manipulation of the general popular belief in ghosts occurs in "The Wooden Guardsmen." In this tale a number of young coppersmiths are sodomized each night in their sleep for more than a month. The search for the culprit begins and eventually the statue of a sentry guarding a temple is blamed. One
of the victims recognizes the rapist's face, and the statue then has its feet nailed to the ground to prevent further assaults. Perhaps this was a convenient way for a human culprit to avoid discovery of what was rapidly becoming a highly risky nighttime pursuit.

Less contentious features of
Censored by Confucius
include the narration of strange natural phenomena. These are significant for their revelations about how seventeenth-century Chinese conceptualized themselves in the world. People who turn into animals, girls who turn into boys, huge windstorms, travels to strange lands, and shipwrecks are all featured in this collection. These tales ponder the mysteries of the natural world and the lands beyond China's borders.

Finally, the ghosts that fill this volume require explanation. The ghosts, demons, raccoons, and fox fairies of Yuan Mei's world are immensely human creatures filled with the full range of human quirks, virtues, and foibles. The bureaucrats of the underworld are just as likely to commit miscarriages of justice as their worldly counterparts. Take "The City God Gets Drunk" and "Swindled by the Earth God's Wife," in which gods invested with power and responsibility mismanage their affairs. Yuan's ghosts are no less likely to tolerate humiliation and injustice from moralistic me
ddlers than are his human characters. Human beings who fail to show appropriate respect for the dead often face the full force of the powers of the underworld. One such tale is
"Revenge of the Skull," in which a young man humiliates a skull by defecating in it. He is then chased by the skull and then dies a degrading death eating his own feces. "The Good Little Ghost" similarly sees the revenge of a ghost who can be described, in 1990s terms, as a victim of sexual harassment. The ghost seeks her revenge but unfortunately follows the wrong man home and drives an innocent man to his death. In sum, the world created by Yuan Mei in this contentious collection is lively, vengeful, funny, and frightening—and sometimes all of these at once.

We have chosen a representative selection of 100 tales from the full complement of 747 (excluding the sequel) with the intention of providing the reader with a taste of the richness of the
biji
genre as created by the genius of Yuan Mei.
¹³
This selection is intended to reveal the variation in themes, length, and narrative position possible within such brief jottings. Yet underlying these variations there remains the clear image of Yuan Mei as a man who was not to be drawn into petty moralism and who was a strong advocate of the right of each individual to self-determination.

Notes

1. Yuan subsequently adopted the title
Xin Qi xie
(New wonder tales from Qi) for the collection when he discovered that a Yuan dynasty volume of stories titled
Zi bu yu
(Censored by Confucius) already existed. Yuan's collection, however, is still commonly known by its original title,
Zi bu yu.
(Wang Li et al. 1989, pp. 654—55).

2. Nivison comments on this invective, "Chang is probably as famous in China for his criticism of Yuan Mei as for anything he has written" (Nivison 1966, p. 264).

3. This beautiful property still exists and is a popular tourist spot

4. For a discussion of the debate between Yuan and Zhang Xuecheng see Mann 1994.

5. One famous funeral inscription is "Ji mei wen" (Funeral ode to my younger sister), in Zhu et al. 1987, pp. 1557-64.

6. In recent years some Chinese critics have claimed that Western modernism leans heavily on
zhiguai
writing (see Yu 1992).

7. The translation of this book by Cheng et al. 1985 contains reproductions of the wonderful illustrations to be found in the original.

8. For more detailed history of the
biji
genre, see Liu 1987.

9. Zeitlin (1993) provides an excellent discussion of Pu Songling.

10. A few tales from Yuan's
Zi bu yu
have been translated, but there has been no book-length translation. See Waley 1956, pp. 120-31 (six tales); Ebrey 1981, pp. 181-84 (six tales); Chan 1991, pp. 40-47 (ten tales from the first volume and its sequel); Lo 1992, pp. 78-85 (nine tales from the first volume and its sequel).

11. For a selection of Ji Yun's
biji,
see Meng Zhaojin and Ma Peixin's edition of Ji's
Yuewei caotang biji
(Meng and Ma 1983). For a discussion of Ji's craft, see Keenan 1987.

12. Wang Yijia, a Taiwanese scholar, has analyzed
Zi bu yu
from a feminist perspective (1989, pp. 213-28).

13. The edition we have used for this translation is the 1788 edition reprinted by Taipei's Xingguang chubanshe in 1989.

Bibliography

Birch, Cyril, ed. 1972.
Anthology of Chinese Literature.
New York: Grove Weidenfeld.

Chan, Leo Tak-hung. 1991. "Subjugating Spirits: Yuan Mei's
What the Master Would Not Speak Of" Asian Culture
19, no. 4: 40-47.

Cheng Hsiao-Chieh et al., trans. 1985.
Shan Hai Ching: Legendary Geography and Wonders in Ancient China.
Taipei: National Institute for Compilation and Translation.

Ebrey, Patricia. 1981.
Chinese Civilization and Society: A Sourcebook.
New York: Free Press.

Giles, Herbert, trans. 1880.
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.
Rpt. 1916. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh.

Keenan, David L. 1987. "The Forms and Uses of the Ghost Story in Late Eighteenth Century China as Recorded in the
Yueh wei ts'ao t'ang pi-chi
of Chi Yün." Ph.D. dissertation. Harvard University.

Lau, D. C., trans. 1979.
Confucius: The Analects.
Rpt. 1982. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin.

Legge, James, trans. 1893.
Confucian Analects.
In
The Chinese Classics,
vol. 1. Rpt. 1985. Taipei: Southern Materials Centre.

Liu Yeqiu. 1987.
Lidai biji gaishu
(An outline history of
biji
writing). Taipei: Muduo chubanshe.

Lo, Irving Yucheng, and William Shultz. 1986.
Waiting for the Unicorn: Poems and Lyrics Of China's Last Dynasty 1644-1911.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Lo Yuet Keung. 1992. "New Wonder Tales of Qi: Excerpts."
Renditions
(Spring): 78-85.

Ma, Y. M. 1986. "Pi-chi." Pp. 650-52 in
Indiana Companion to Classical Chinese Literature,
ed. W. H. Nienhauser. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Mann, Susan. 1994. "Learned Women in the Eighteenth Century." Pp. 27-46 in
Engendering China: Women, Culture and the State,
ed. C. K. Gilmartin et al. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Meng Zhaojin and Ma Peixin, eds. 1983.
"Yuewei caotang biji" gushi xuan
(Jottings of close observations from the thatched abode). Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe.

Nivison, David S. 1966.
The Life and Thought of Chang Hsüeh-ch 'eng (1738-1801).
Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press.

Shen Meng. 1988. "Qianyan" (Preface). In
Zi bu yu xuanzhu
(A selected annotation of
Zi bu yu
). Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe.

Spence, Jonathan. 1977. "Ch'ing." Pp. 259-94 in
Food in Chinese Culture,
ed. K. C. Chang. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Waley, Arthur. 1956.
Yuan Met: Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet.
London: George Allen & Unwin.

Wang Li et al., eds. 1989.
Zhongguo gudai wenxue cidian
(Classical Chinese literature dictionary). Nanning: Guangxi jiaoyu chubanshe.