Hua Mulan

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"Mulan" redirects here. For other uses, see Mulan (disambiguation)
This article is about a person named Hua Mulan who might be historical or fictional. For the Disney film based on this person, see Mulan (1998 film). For the protagonist of said film, see Fa Mulan.
 This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.
Hua Mulan
Hua Mulan.jpg
Oil painting on silk, "Hua Mulan Goes to War"
Traditional Chinese 花木蘭
Simplified Chinese 花木兰
Hanyu Pinyin Huā Mùlán

Hua Mulan is a heroine who joined an all-male army, described in a famous Chinese poem known as the Ballad of Mulan. The poem was first written in the Musical Records of Old and New from the 6th century, the century before the founding of the Tang Dynasty; the original work no longer exists, and the original text of this poem comes from another work known as the Music Bureau Collection, an anthology of lyrics, songs, and poems, compiled by Guo Maoqian during the 12th century. The author explicitly mentions the Musical Records of Old and New as his source for the poem. Whether she was an historical person or whether the poem was an allegory has been debated for centuries—it is unknown whether the story has any factual basis.

The time setting of the story is uncertain. The earliest accounts of the legend state that she lived during the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534) but there has been no proof. However another version reports that Mulan was requested as a concubine by Emperor Yang of Sui China (reigned 604–617). Evidence from the extant poem suggests the earlier interpretation.

The poem is a ballad, meaning that the lines do not necessarily have equal numbers of syllables. The poem is mostly composed of five-character phrases, with just a few extending to seven or nine.

There are three uses of onomatopoeia in the poem. The sound of Mulan's weaving (or her lamentations) is 唧唧 jī-jī (i.e., "click-clack"); the Yellow River babbles 濺濺 jiān-jiān (i.e., "splish-splash") to her as she departs from it; at the military encampment the horses cry 啾啾 jiū-jiū (i.e., they whinny).

The story was expanded into a novel during the late Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Over time, the story of Hua Mulan rose in popularity as a folk tale among the Chinese people on the same level as the Butterfly Lovers. It is one of the first poems in Chinese history to support the notion of gender equality, but has also been interpreted by authors such as Maxine Hong Kingston (The Woman Warrior) to represent Chinese culture as sexist. In 1998, Disney released an animated movie entitled Mulan based on the story.

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[edit] Name

The word mulan refers to the "Magnolia liliiflora". (mù by itself means "wood" and lán means "orchid".) The heroine of the poem is given many different family names in versions of her story. According to History of the Ming, her family name is Zhu, while the History of the Qing say it is Wei. The name Huā (meaning "flower") has become the most popular in recent years in part to its more poetic meaning. Her complete name is then 花木蘭, transcribed as Huā Mùlán in Pinyin and Hua1 Mu4-lan2 in Wade-Giles.

The Disney animated film popularised the version "Fa Mulan". This "Fa" pronunciation of " 花 " is found in various Chinese languages including Cantonese whilst in Mandarin it is pronounced "Hua". "Mulan" is the phonetic translation from Mandarin.

[edit] Hua Mulan in popular culture

[edit] English language literature

  • Maxine Hong Kingston re-visits Mulan's tale in her text, The Woman Warrior. Kingston's version popularized the story in the West and led to an adaptation by Disney, but contained many arbitrary changes that have been widely criticized by other Asian-American scholars such as Frank Chin.
  • Yao Mulan, Lin Yutang's main character in his English novel Moment in Peking, is named after the legendary warrior.
  • In the alternative-history fantasy series Temeraire, by Naomi Novik, specifically, the book Throne of Jade, the legend of Mulan is (indirectly) referred to, as a woman taking her father's place in the military, taking the role of an aerial commander on dragonback. In deference to this honored legend, all officers in the Chinese Aerial Corps are women, which sets it apart from the English Corps, which uses female officers only for Longwings, a dragon breed which refuses male captains.
  • Cameron Dokey created 'Wild Orchid', a retelling of the Ballad of Mulan as part of the Once Upon A Time (novel series), a series of novels published by Simon Pulse, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
  • In The Dragonstone by Dennis McKiernan, the character Aiko is a Hua Mulan inspired warrior who sneaks off to battle against imperial decree.

The Legend of Mu Lan: A Heroine of Ancient China (http://www.heroinesinhistory.com/mulan.html) was the first English language picture book featuring the character Mulan published in the United States in 1992 by Victory Press.

[edit] Films

The story of Hua Mulan has inspired a number of film and stage adaptations without taking into account pre-modern Chinese plays and operas about the subject. These include the following:

[edit] Miscellaneous

[edit] Games

Mulan has inspired a number of video games and characters adaptations taking Mulan into modern Chinese culture and across the globe. These include the following:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ c o n e n t

[edit] External links

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