Just a quick note to let you all know that the new blog is up on Blogger. "Fish Traps & Rabbit Snares: A Writer's Blog" can be accessed through the link on the Inn's homepage.

I've decided to do this new blog out there in "civilization" as a way to bring more people into the Inn. I figure that the Inn is difficult to find and that being out in the "mainstream" of the Web will improve the chances for more visitors.

Hope you visit and take advantage of the new setup's interactive features so we can all participate in discussions about wuxia and the writer's life.

See you there! Zaijian! Manzuo!

THE INNKEEPER

Wandering Blades Blog

Welcome back to the Inn!

Sorry I've been away so long, but Chinese interest in Dream of the Dragon Pool has really picked up with a number of full feature articles about me and the novel in Chinese newspapers. The links to one article are posted on the Inn. I've also been working away at bring the novel to a wider audience.

And on that note, I've decided to upgrade this blog with the more advanced version that this hosting site offers. I understand that the material in this present blog will remain, but that it will be "unlinked" and the new one linked in its place. With the new features, we will be able to have a "proper" blog in which, hopefully, the guests at the Inn will be able to engage me and the other guests in a forum-like atmosphere and discuss things near and dear to our hearts. We'll be able to create our own online "jianghu."

To further that goal, I will be taking up a very interesting article recently published in the Boston Chinese News, a newspaper devoted to a wide range of subjects. In their Sept. 7th issue their is a long article about the nature of wuxia written by a Chinese intellectual and friend, who credits me and three other friends with inspiring him to write on this subject. The article, however, is written in rather dense Chinese with our email correspondence regarding my definition of wuxia reproduced in English. I am working on a rough translation of his seven major aspects of wuxia and that will be my discussion topic over the next few weeks once I have this new blog up. I'm hoping for the end of this week - we'll see. In the meantime, the article can be found at www.bostonchinesenews.com, Sept. 7th issue, pp. A1 & A2. You can download them as PDF files.

Further, I am working on revising all my published short stories which I've posted at the Inn. I've already started on the revision of "The Wedding Gift." I'm hoping to eventually publish all of the stories in book form as a collection of Chinese style ghost stories. I'd enjoy involving my readers in this and hope the new blog will encourage such an interaction. I appreciate the many visitors who frequently return to the Inn and, of course, encourage new visitors to join us in this highly entertaining and imaginative genre of storytelling.

Till the New Wandering Blades Blog arises!

Zaijain! Manzou!

The Innkeeper

Wandering Blades Blog

Welcome back to the Inn! An interesting discussion has started on a forum that I participate in: www.wuxiasociety.org. A reader, "Grundle", wrote this interesting note regarding my novel:

I can't help but think of the fate of Xiao Xiyi Lang book one. I truly thought that it would effectively introduce English readers to the wonderful genre of wuxia. Alas it faded into obscurity rather quickly. It is a shame, really, since it is such a wonderful book.

I truly hope that more people latch on to your work. Not only will it be a realization to many of our dreams (Wuxia becoming more mainstream) but it would also be an excellent benefit for all your hard work, which is well deserved.

I read the first chapter on the web-site and I must confess that I was jilted by the beginning. I found it difficult to get through the first couple of pages. I felt as though I was given many names, places, and to some extent events without much context, but once I was amidst the fog on the mountain-side I was finally drawn into the book. You took a very brave approach to writing this book. I have often wanted to do something similar which has led me to spend countless hours trying to decide how best to present a work of this type to a Western audience.

Do you preserve the Chinese naming convention and potentially alienate readers who know nothing about Chinese names and pronunciations? How much Chinese culture do you mix into your work? For most westerners they are woefully ignorant of the subtleties of that rich culture, so then should you present it slowly as if to teach them bit by bit, or do you throw them in all at once? How much fantasy do you introduce into your literature? This has the potential to alienate your purist wuxia audience who think that too much would be crossing the line. I have not read very many "fantastical" wuxia works, but I do remember one translation I happened upon called the Sword in the Willows (I think). It was very fantastic (i.e. flying etc.) and I really wish I could have finished reading it Wink

I realize that I may be opening a can of worms, but I do think that these items bear further discussion. One common thread that I think we can agree on that makes Wuxia such a strong genre is the focus on the Character of a particular person. It is no such much the events that he encounters, but the magnificent way in which he/she deals with them according to his Character. In any case, I believe I have pontificated enough, what are your thoughts?

p.s. I got my copy of the book. It should arrive tomorrow Very Happy I finally get to scratch the itch once again

AND, I answered him with this, which I thought might be of interest to Inn visitors:

Hello Grundle,

Thanks for taking the time to write and to write such an interesting comments and for buying a copy of my book.

All of the questions you asked here will be answered by reading my novel. In addition, my "Wandering Blades Blog" on my website addresses several of the issues you raise here.

Nonetheless, I would enjoy responding to several of your questions and points.

First, let me say that as far as I'm capable, it is all Chinese culture that is the material of my writing. Where I might be different, much as Li An was in "Crouching Tiger," is that I'm using so-called "Western style" novel (or in Li An's case, storytelling) techniques to tell the story. And for that approach, Character is one path and it is the one that I follow. If you check out the reviews on the novel (on my website), the first one on that page, comments that it is the characterization that she liked the most about the novel. This reviewer is not familiar with Chinese culture and the review was done for a Western oriented fantasy/scifi site. I think the huge Western response to "Crouching Tiger" was also to the characterization, and, of course, to the exoticism of the environment and the story.

But then, let's consider Tolkien's works, like "Lord of the Rings". Look at the character and place names! Are they not very "strange?" So I don't see why Chinese names would be any "stranger." I do try to make my character names simpler - and I have a blog about this - to help those not familiar with Chinese pronunciations, but hand and hand with that goes strong characterization. For example, there is killer in the story only known as "The Albino Assassin", he doesn't even have a Chinese name. And one of the main characters, the Grand Shamaness, Luo Jhy-yun, has her full name mentioned once, the rest of the time she is referred either as the "Shamaness Luo" or the "Shamaness."

So I am very aware of my audience and very careful not to lose them - I learned this from a writers group that I belong to. They know very little about Chinese culture, but are very good writers. So from them I learned how deep I could go into Chinese culture before I had to set things up with a more gradual approach. Basically, it is the art of writing. Regardless if it is a "foreign" culture or if it is a "foreign" part of our hearts - it's the writer's skill that takes the reader to those "distant" places without losing them.

As for the "fantastic", that's a really interesting subject. I do not think wuxia is like the Western concept of the fantastic. However, there is no Western genre to place wuxia in so they call it fantasy. My hope is that with more and more Western publication of wuxia this will change and much like Tom Clancy created the genre of the "techno-thriller", wuxia will be a genre of, perhaps, fantasy. And, I hope that it will be one that is associated with Chinese culture.

I have been writing that with Tolkien we are getting a northern European fantasy tradition, but there are other cultures that are easily as rich and certainly a lot more enduring time-wise that should be offered to the world. That's where I hope wuxia will go, that it will take its place next to the Tolkien tradition and represent the literary expression of the Chinese imagination.

While this is the vision, the "quest" is how to accomplish this. My approach is to use exclusively Chinese culture, history, and literature in a Western style literary approach. While Jin Yong and Gu Long and other native Chinese writers are brilliant expressions of wuxia, to directly translate them into English would end up producing a textbook of Chinese history and culture - how many people enjoy reading textbooks? The reason for that is, of course, because too much of what they use is totally foreign to non-Chinese readers. How to explain the historical illusions, the plays on words, etc. that make their works so rich in the Chinese language? Footnotes!

So for the English audience we have to adapt a different approach. But this is not impossible. As you might know from reading about my background on my website, I studied as a Buddhist scholar. I saw how the foreign religion of Indian Buddhism made the trip across not only the sands of the Silk Road but also the cultural "barriers" of India, Central Asian, China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and became one of the profound religious expressions of those different cultures. How did that happen? People adapted what was familiar and dropped off what was not. Sure it took thousands of years, but it worked. Nowadays things happen a lot faster - so, perhaps, the first step in this introduction of wuxia to the West starts with us here discussing and writing about these issues!

Best Wishes!

The Innkeeper


Please feel free to comment, either here at the Inn or drop in at the Wuxia Society - we are under the "News in Literature World" section, subtopic: "The Quest: Wuxia as an English Language Genre!"

Hope to see you there or here!

Also, I'll be back here soon with updates on the progress of Dream of the Dragon Pool - we are doing great! Check out the new addition to the Inn on reviews of the novel.

Man-zou! Zai-jian!

The Innkeeper

Wandering Blades Blog

Welcome back to the Inn. Sorry, it has been longer than usual. On the book front, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders all have Dream of the Dragon Pool up! So it’s getting “more” real – April 15th is the big day!

Since my novel is a “river story,” with Li Bo sailing up the Yangtze River on his quest with the Dragon Pool Sword, I thought to discuss ancient/medieval Chinese ships. In the story, Li Bo uses three river conveyances: an Imperial salt hauler – basically, a freighter; a gorge runner – a lighter, faster ship to pass through the famed Three Gorges; and a third highly unconventional water “craft,” which you’ll have to read the book to find out what it is!

Overall, traditional Chinese ship design was far in advance of the West till at least the 17th or 18th centuries A.D. As a matter of fact, the West borrowed much from the Chinese in further developing their modern ship designs. And, one could speculate that it was all due to bamboo, and the Chinese sensitivity to Nature – the Dao of bamboo?

Ship Architecture

The basic advance of the Chinese shipbuilders that seems to have literally laid the foundations for all future developments was the use of watertight bulkheads – just like the bamboo when split open, the joints form natural partitions inside the bamboo. They add strength and allow for flexibility. Thus, bamboo is one of the most popular materials used in Asia for almost every conceivable construction – from kitchen utensils to skyscraper scaffolding; and, most likely, to the earliest rafts (still in use in the rivers and their fast-flowing tributaries in Asia). Scholars now believe that the early Chinese got their ideas for ship construction from the simple bamboo.

Most traditional Chinese ships were built without keels. The shipwright lays out the frame based on the bulkhead placement and builds from there. The sides and bottom of the ship are formed by planking nailed to the bulkheads and reinforced by very solid “wales” (strakes, thicker planking) along the sides from bow to stern. Not only does this lead to a very strong, watertight interior hull (probably in use by the second century A.D. The West doesn’t figure this out till the end of the 18th century. This innovation also results in flat bottoms and blunted bows and sterns, which, in turn lead to further nautical advances. Meanwhile, the West doesn’t go to flat bottoms for larger ships till the 19th century when steel comes into use for ship hulls.

The flat stern sets the stage for another Chinese advance, the axial balanced rudder. While the rest of the ancient and not so ancient world was sailing around with various forms of steering oars/paddles, the Chinese were using a stern slung rudder that through an ingenious pulley system could be raised or lowered depending upon the sailing conditions (at least by the 2nd century A. D.; the first evidence of a stern rudder in the West appears in 1180 A.D.). Thus the rudder could be used to both steer and stabilize the ship, while also allowing it to sail in shallower waters without fear of hanging up the rudder.

During the Sung dynasty (10-13th centuries) the Chinese developed balanced rudders, where there was a portion of the rudder in front of the rudder post allowing the flowing water to assist in the steering. A further development was the fenestration of the rudder: holes were cut into the lower sections of the rudder to allow water to pass through it to reduce the water resistance to a turning rudder.

Chinese ships and boats were built according to the conditions of use and the conditions of the environment in which they would sail.

China has one of the longest histories of shipbuilding in the world. Wooden junks alone as described in historical records varied greatly in type, being estimated at about 1,000 by the mid-20th century. For coastal fishing alone, 200 to 300 types were noted. (Ancient China’s Technology and Science, Institute of the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, “Shipbuilding,” Zhou Shide, p.479, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, China, 1983)

Professor Zhou continues on to point out the skill of the ancient Chinese in adapting form to function:

The ancient shipwrights were remarkable for their ability to develop a great variety of models and types to suit different marine conditions…The Chinese shipwrights were good at devising new types of ships by combining the good points of various kinds of vessels. The Song Dynasty ship used in both inland and sea-going navigation combined the bottom of a lake-boat, the deck of a warship and the bow and stern of a sea going vessel. Again, in the reign of the Emperor Kang Xi in the early Qing, a type of freighter build in Fuzhou for timber shipping and know as the “Three Unlikes” was not like the sand ship, bird ship or egg ship but was a new model combining the advantages of all three. (Ibid., pp.482-483)

The flat bottomed or “sand ships” were a basic design an initially built for use mostly in northern coastal waters (from the delta of the Yangtze River and north) where sand shoals abound, but were also used as river freighters. The shallow draft, flat bottoms, and retractable rudders helped these ships avoid beaching on the numerous sand shoals in those regions; and thus the name “sand ships.” While to the south, around the great open sea sailing ports in Fujian and Guangdong provinces, their deep-sea sailing ships had rounded bottoms for swifter more stable sailing:

North of the Hangchow [Hangzhou] Bay the coastal and sea-going craft are flat-bottomed and have a pronounced ridge with relatively large, heavy and square rudders which can be lowered well below the ship’s bottom or raised up high. They are thus fitted for frequent beaching in the shallow harbours or muddy estuaries of the north, where the tidal effects are most noticeable, while at sea the rudder acts as an efficient ‘drop-keel.’ South of Hangchow Bay the coastal waters are deeper, the inlets fjord-like, and the islands more numerous. Here the underwater lines of the vessels become progressively more curved, with the sharper entry, less pronounced ridge and rounder stern; at the same time the rudders, often supplemented by centre-boards, become sometimes narrower and deeper, sometimes drilled with holes and shaped like a rhomboid. (The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China, ed., Colin A. Ronan, vol.3, pp.93-4, ISBN: 0521252725)

Looking further into the hull designs of Chinese ships, we find another interesting reading of Nature by the Chinese. When the Europeans thought about hull design, they thought about fish. Seems natural, fish and water are “made for each other.” So European hulls were designed with a fish-shape in mind:

Broadly speaking, the European tendency has always been to set the greater fullness of the ship forward, towards the bow… (Ibid., pp.85-86)

Fish-shaped. But the Chinese insight differed. When they looked at a ship, they saw a duck. Fish swim in the water, ducks swim on top of the water – like a ship:

…while the Chinese tendency was to set it [the greater fullness of the ship] towards the stern. (Ibid.)

This insight was proven correct when ship design was scientifically tested by the Europeans.

Propulsion

In terms of the means of propulsion the Chinese were also far ahead of the rest of the world. Earlier in European history, with the Greeks and Romans there had been large ships with multiple masts, but these did not survive the fall of the Roman Empire. The Chinese, however, were sailing large ships with as many as five masts. The great European traveler Marco Polo confirms the Chinese advances in sail technology:

He gives evidence for the great mat-and-batten square sails, much greater in number than were carried by any European or Arab ship of the time, and their ability to make use of the wind coming from almost any quarter. (Ibid., p.118)

From at least the 3rd century A.D., Chinese ships were equipped with multiple masts. Most likely, this was due to their bulkhead construction methods, which provided strong anchoring positions for the masts. Further,

The Chinese also staggered their masts across the width of the ship in order to avoid the becalming of one sail by another. This is approved by modern sailing ship designers, but not adopted by Europeans during the period of importance of the sailing ship. Nor did the Chinese practice of radiating the rakes (tilts) of the masts like spines of a fan win acceptance in other parts of the world. (Ibid., p.268)

A Chinese seventeenth century description of classic mat and batten lug sail that was common on Chinese ships explains:

The sail is made by weaving together thin and narrow strips of the outer parts of the stems of bamboo, and (this matting is) divided into sections grasped by (parallel) bamboo battens. Thus the sail folds in tiers, ready to be (bent to yard and boom and) hoisted. A large mainsail in a grainship needs ten men to hoist it, but for the foresail two suffice…When the wind is favourable the sail is hoisted to its full height and the boat moves at a good speed like a racing horse, but if the wind freshens the sail is reefed (coming down by its own weight) in due order (section by section one after another)…In a gale only one or two sections of the sail are hoisted. (The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China, ed., Colin A. Ronan, vol.3, pp.195-196)

The Chinese mat and batten lug sail, (for example, the ones seen most frequently on the junks in Hong Kong harbor), are raised and lowered from the deck. Not only are they more efficient than the traditional early modern Western square riggers, the crew doesn’t have to climb the mast and hang off the spars sheeting the great canvass sails as the ship is being tossed around.

Even more interesting is the possibility that Chinese ships might have indirectly made the European “Age of Discovery” possible; G.S. Clowes, the historian of navel architecture, points out:

It was the introduction of the three-masted ship with its improved ability to contend with adverse winds, which made possible the great voyages of discovery of the end of the fifteenth century, of Columbus to the West Indies, of Vasco da Gama to India, and of the Cabots to Newfoundland; and it is a curious thought that this great development may really have been due to the introduction into Europe of accounts of the multiple-masted Chinese junks which traded so effectively in the Indian Ocean…(Ibid., p.119)

There is much more technical information in the Ronan volume about the construction of Chinese sails, but it is both beyond what is necessary here to convey a sense of the Chinese advances in naval technology, and also beyond my knowledge of sailing!

Besides wind propulsion, the Chinese, not later than the 1st century A.D., invented the self-feathering sculling oar, and “the treadmill-operated paddle wheel in the eighth if not the fifth century AD, and its great development in the Sung [Song] (twelfth century) for warships with multiple paddle-wheels and catapult artillery.” (Ibid., p.268)

Navigation

The ancient Chinese used two basic systems of navigation: celestial and magnetic. The Chinese scholar, Yan Dunjie sums it up when he writes:

Chinese sailors in ancient times learned to orient themselves on the sea by observing celestial bodies. It is mentioned in the Huai Nan Zi (The Book of the Prince of Huai Nan) that traveling aboard ship at see, one could tell east from west by locating the polar star. A similar remark is found in Bao Pu Zi (Book of Master Baopu) by Ge Hong in 284-364) of the Jin Dynasty (265-420). Ge Hong states that travelers on land who lost their way were guided by the south-pointing chariot, and if they lost their way on the sea they looked at the polar star. Fa Xian, a monk of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420) who returned from India by sea, said that on board ship, “we found ourselves in the midst of boundless waters, at a loss in telling east from west. We advanced by observing the sun, the moon and the stars.” This “dependence on stars at night and the sun in the daytime” continued till the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), when Chinese mariners learned to “look at the compass on a cloudy day.” (Ancient China’s Technology and Science, Yan Dunjie, p.494)

Though the exact date of the Chinese invention of the south pointing compass is unclear, it did come into use during the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.). However, it is only in the 12th century that we have clear confirmation of its use on Chinese ships. The actual use of the compass for nautical navigation probably happened a few centuries before the 12th century written source. And the Chinese record of astronomical observation is both ancient and remarkable.

This is only a meager attempt to outline the Chinese naval experience, for theirs was a long and brilliant history that far surpassed the rest of the world until recent times. In Dream of the Dragon Pool you’ll make the acquaintance of a few of these remarkable water crafts. In other adventures I have planned for you, we’ll sail into the ocean around the Middle Kingdom…but we’ll save that for another time.

Man-zou! Zai-jian!

The Innkeeper

Wandering Blades Blog

Welcome back to the Inn. HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!!!

No news on reviews for the Dream of the Dragon Pool, yet. I will keep this blog up to date on any forthcoming news regarding my novel. It looks like I won’t be able to update this blog every Monday as I had originally planned. I’ve now taken on two jobs – the kind that actually pay a salary – and don’t have enough time to do the blog on a weekly basis. However, I will attempt a monthly blog and this should be considered the first installment of that monthly schedule.

Today, I will finally continue the 11/26/06 Blog on the swordswomen within the xia literary tradition. Our narration of the xia literary tradition has arrived at the Tang dynasty, and I will use the previously cited article by Professor Sufen Sophia Lai, “From Cross-Dressing Daughter to Lady Knight-Errant: The Origin and Evolution of Chinese Women Warriors,” pp.77-107 [in Presence and Presentation: Women in the Chinese Literary Tradition, edited by Sherry J. Mou, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 1999 (ISBN: 031221054X)] as the platform for our introduction into Tang literary characterization of female wandering blades.

Most scholars agree that it was during the Tang that the fiction short story form arose in Chinese literary history; I explained this in the 12/03/06 Blog, “The Wonder-filled Tang Dynasty – Intro.” And, as was also mentioned, wuxia, the heroic fiction tradition, was one of the genres that Tang fiction writers enjoyed writing about.

Further, within that tradition we find the rise of the swordswoman hero. If you’ve been following this blog, you know that this is not the first appearance of armed women in Chinese literature – remember (?), most notably, we had the female General, Fu Hao of the Shang dynasty, Sun Zi’s story about training the concubines of the Wu king for combat, the story of the Yueh Maiden swordswoman, and the well-known story of Mulan.

Professor Lai points us to the great Taiping guangji (Extensive Gleanings of the Reign of Great Tranquility) edited by Li Fang (925-96) where twenty-four tales of wandering blades are collected. Of those accounts, seven are about swordswomen:

“The Curly-Bearded Stranger” (“Qiuren ke”), “The Woman Inside a Carriage” (“Chezhong nüzi”), “Cui Shensi[’s Wife],” (“Cui Shensi”), “The Mysterious Girl of the Nie Family” (“Nie Yinniang”), “Red Thread” (“Hong-xian”), “The Merchant’s Wife” (“Guren qi”), and “Lady Jing the Thirteenth” (“Jing shisan niang”). (p.91)

According to Cao Zhengwen in The History of the Wandering Blades Culture (Zhongguo xia wen hua shi) there are five categories of xia: wandering blades (youxia), assassins (cike), princely wandering blades (qingxiang zi xia), righteous wandering blades (yixia), and bandits (dao). (p.90). Professor Lai believes that James J.Y. Liu’s list of xia ideals, that I referenced in an earlier issue of this blog (11/05/06), only partially applies to certain types of xia. (p.90).

She also points out that our Tang female wandering blades, as recorded in the Taiping guangji, “represent various social classes and embody all five categories of xia…

Red Wisk (Hongfu) in “The Curly-Bearded Stranger” is a courtesan who acts like a wandering knight; Cui Shensi’s wife and the merchant’s wife are avengers and assassins; Nei Yinniang, a general’s daughter and a governor’s protector, may be seen both as an assassin and a princely knight; Hongxian, a maid, and Lady Jing the Thirteenth, a widowed merchant, may be seen as righteous knights; and the woman inside a carriage is the first female bandit in Chinese literature. (p.92)

These examples are interesting as they point us back to our old friend the great Chinese historian, Sima Qian, who was the first Chinese historian to write of the xia and note some of the same points about their crossing social class lines and having diverse motives for their actions. Further, these examples of women warriors from the Tang also point to the differences with traditional warriors from the West (knights) and further East (the samurai) where xia association in the Chinese tradition is not restricted to a specific social-political class membership.

Regarding these Tang female xia, Professor Lai further points out:

These seven chivalrous ladies are unique characters in Chinese literature. Some of them can jump many feet high and walk on the walls like flying birds: some wield swords and daggers and are equipped with martial skills that allow them to come and go without being noticed. They are also physically stronger than ordinary men and financially independent and they are free to determine their own marriages. They work furtively at night, and they are described as enigmatic warriors who operate alone according to their own rules of justice. (p.92)

Professor Lai then asks how these women compare to the previous literary characterizations of heroic women by comparing them to the Mulan tradition which successfully weaves the “strong, independent woman” with the Confucian ideals of loyalty and duty:

These extraordinary female knights-errant are not only loyal and dutiful, like Mulan, but also characterized by intriguing beauty, spectacular physical strength, and even supernatural ability. This Tang genre not only cultivates a new range for Chinese fiction, but also establishes a new idealized, although somewhat eccentric, image of Chinese women warriors. (p.92)

In trying to understand why these “unique characters in Chinese literature”, this “somewhat eccentric, image of Chinese woman warriors” appear in the new Tang chuanqi (tales of wonder) literary genre, Professor Lai believes that it is due to the Tang “authors’ inability to reconcile an ideological paradox: female Confucian virtues and knight-errant temperament.” It is worth quoting Professor Lai’s argument in full as it is both an interesting interpretation, but also one that misses what is so unique about the Tang and its chuanqi literature:

Unlike Mulan, whose filial virtue and heroic deeds require her to disguise her gender, the lady knights-errant in the Tang chuanqi retain their gender identity on the one hand, while on the other they abide by the bao code of xia, which is not necessarily compatible with Confucian expectations of womanhood. As women, they are expected to fulfill their Confucian role; as knights-errant, they are allowed to transgress the Confucian code. It is within this paradox that these dehumanized women warriors are created. Therefore, we see these chivalrous ladies as inhuman creatures that lack human emotions, femininity, and maternal qualities. In a way, we can say that the Tang storytellers created intriguing women warriors by stripping them of their womanhood. (p.95)

It is hard to know where to begin with this, but let’s plunge in on the “inhumanity” aspect. If we accept, which I do not, that the xia code was based entirely on bao (reciprocation: either for a kindness or for revenge), then repaying a kindness with a kindness or an injury with an injury is certainly not “inhuman,” rather it is all too human.

If anything, these female characters, like their male xia counterparts, were very emotional in their social behavior. That their emotional expressions might lack “femininity” or “maternal qualities” seems to me to imply a specific definition of womanhood that nowadays might not be so universally supported, and that in the Tang dynasty was obviously not supported by a number of chuanqi writers.

Professor Lai’s interpretation of these Tang female fiction characters rests heavily upon the use of “Confucian expectations of womanhood” as a standard. Was the Tang using such a standard? The Confucian standard had been out of favor among a majority of Chinese intellectuals since the fall of the Han dynasty, since 220 C.E. It was the collapse of the Han “standard” that opened the way for the rise of both Daoism and Buddhism. By the Tang dynasty those two new “standards” were in full bloom.

Further, it was the Tang dynasty, as with the preceding Han, that the Chinese, to an unprecedented extent, embraced foreign cultures. And with the Tang, though not unique to the Tang, we have an imperial family that is heavily integrated with the Turkish culture that surrounded the ethnic Chinese in the northern and western reaches of their empire. It was this foreign/Turkish influence that also established a much more open standard for the definition of “womanhood.”

Thus we find in the Tang capital at Chang’an (present day, Xian) records of Tang princesses parading in the streets on horseback with their retinues of maidservants all dressed in male military attire. Horseback riding and polo were popular with women along with the latest in Indian sari fashions. These were heady times in China, times of unprecedented openness to foreign/international cultures; cultures that the great Silk Road brought from the farthest Western regions to the doorstep of the Chinese imperial capital.

And Chinese writers, like artists everywhere, were influenced by these culturally broadened horizons. It wasn’t Confucian standards that they were trying, and supposedly failing, to reconcile. They were setting new standards. To compare these new values to those of previous dynasties is to lose focus on the nature of the chuanqi literature.

Further, even if Confucian standards were on the mind of the Tang short story writers, it is a well known fiction technique to use conflict to build reader interest. What better way then to construct characters that conflict with the old Confucian ways of interpreting “womanhood”!

Jumping back to my blog of 12/03/06 (The Wonder-filled Tang Dynasty – Intro), remember what Professor H.C. Chang (The Literature of China 3: Tales of the Supernatural) wrote about the chuanqi characters:

The characters portrayed in the Ch’uan-ch’i tales are equally flamboyant and naive. The T’ang was an era in which scholars were not yet weak and helpless, nor ladies, stilted patterns of virtue. In the tales, the men are full-blooded and manly, abounding with energy and gusto, and extravagant in speech and behaviour. The tales, too, depict a world in which men and women engage spontaneously in social activity, far more readily than in later time and with far fewer scruples and inhibitions: they play music and dance, they ride and hunt, they exchange verses extempore, they flirt and love, all without the least trace of self-consciousness. Every man is a hero out to conquer, every woman a goddess, every residence a charmed place. And the supernatural is but an extension of this enchantment for the artless hero, who is not so much credulous as easily wonder-struck.

The Tang tales of wonder writers were certainly conflicted regarding Confucian standards of womanhood. NOT!

If you find these Tang female xia familiar figures in the wuxia movies you enjoy, then now you know where it all started – the wonderful Tang dynasty!

Have a great New Year!

XIN NIAN KUAI LE!!! Man-zou! Zai-jian!

The Innkeeper