Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio
Author(s)	Pu Songling
Original title	聊齋誌異
Translator	Herbert A. Giles, John Minford, etc.
Country	China
Language	Classical Chinese
Genre(s)	Fantasy short stories
Publication date	1740
Published in English	1880
Media type	Scribal copies/Print

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio or Liaozhai Zhiyi (also Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio or Strange Tales of Liaozhai, simplified Chinese: 聊斋志异; traditional Chinese: 聊齋誌異; pinyin: Liáozhāi zhìyì) is a collection of nearly five hundred mostly supernatural tales written by Pu Songling in Classical Chinese during the early Qing Dynasty.

Pu borrows from a folk tradition of oral storytelling to put to paper a series of captivating, colorful stories, where the boundary between reality and the odd or fantastic is blurred. The cast of characters include magical foxes, ghosts, scholars, court officials, Taoist exorcists and beasts. Moral purposes are often inverted between humans and the supposedly degenerate ghosts or spirits, resulting in a satirical edge to some of the stories. Ghosts and spirits are often bold and trustworthy, while humans are on the other hand weak, indecisive and easily manipulated, reflecting the author's own disillusionment with his society.

The stories differ broadly in length. Conciseness is the key, with the shortest stories under a page in length.

Publication history

The compilation was first circulated in manuscript form before it was published posthumously. Sources differ in their account of the year of publication. One source claims the "Strange Tales" were published by Pu's grandson in 1740. However, the earliest surviving print version was printed in 1766 in Hangzhou.

Pu is believed to have completed the majority of the tales sometime in 1679, though he could have added entries as late as 1707.

Theme

The main characters of this book apparently are ghosts, foxes, immortals and demons, but the author actually focused on people’s real life. He used those oddities to illustrate his ideas of the society and the government. He criticized the corruption and unjustness in the society and sympathized on those poor people. There are four main themes in this collection.

First is to complain the feudal system where everyone is not equal. The author exposed that many officers and rich people committed crime without punishment just because they had privilege. This theme can be found in these stories, such as “the Cricket”, “Xi Fangping”, and “Shang Sanguan” The author was angry with the unfairness of the feudal government.

Secondly, the author disclosed the rotten examination system at that time. Because Songling had taken imperial exams, he had real experience and found that the exams were unfair. Many students cheated and bribed to examiners or the officers who graded their paper. In addition, this education system has destroyed the scholars’ mind and ruined their creativity. Stories, such as “Kao San Sheng”, “Ya Tou”, and “Scholar Wang Zi-an”, contain this theme.

Third theme is to admire the pure and faithful love between the poor scholars and powerless women. Songling wrote many stories about the love between beautiful and kind female ghosts and poor students. The author highly praised those women who helped their lovers or husbands to achieve success and took care of their husbands’ life. Readers can find those good-looking and kind-hearted female ghosts or foxes in the stories like “Lian Xiang”, “Yingning” and “Nie Xiaoqian”.

Fourth is to criticize people’s immoral behavior and to educate people by those stories. The author embedded some moral standards and Taoist principles into the stories, so they are like parables, such as “Painted Skin” and “The Taoist of Lao Mountain”.

Translations

• Strange Tales from Liaozhai (tr. Sidney L. Sondergard). Jain Pub Co., 2008. ISBN 9780895810014.
• Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (tr. John Minford). London: Penguin, 2006. 562 pages. ISBN 0140447407.
• Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio (Zhang Qingnian, Zhang Ciyun and Yang Yi). Beijing: People's China Publishing, 1997. ISBN 7-80065-599-7.
• Strange Tales from Make-do Studio (Denis C. & Victor H. Mair). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1989.
• Strange Tales of Liaozhai (Lu Yunzhong, Chen Tifang, Yang Liyi, and Yang Zhihong). Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1982.
• Strange Stories from the Lodge of Leisure (George Soulie). London: Constable, 1913.
• Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (tr. Herbert A. Giles). London: T. De La Rue, 1880. ISBN 1-4212-4855-7.

Reception

Franz Kafka admired some of the tales in translation; in a letter to Felice Bauer (Jan 16, 1913) he described them as "exquisite". Jorge Luis Borges also strongly admired the story "The Tiger Guest", writing a prologue for it to appear in his Library of Babel, a collection of writings on his favourite books.^{[citation needed]}

Adaptations

Liaozhai Zhiyi has inspired many Chinese film adaptations, including those by King Hu (Painted Skin), Ching Siu-tung (A Chinese Ghost Story series) and the Taiwanese director Li Han-Hsiang.

See also

• Dark Tales
• The Fairies of Liaozhai
• Erotic Ghost Story

Further reading

• Chun-shu, Chang, and Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang (1998) Redefining History: Ghosts, Spirits, and Human Society in P'u Sung-ling's World, 1640-1715. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-10822-0
• Judith T. Zeitlin (1993). Historian of the Strange: Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, xii, 332p. ISBN 0804720851.

External links

• Selection of stories as translated by Herbert Giles, 1916 from Google Books
• Strange stories from a Chinese Studio, 1880, translated and annotated by Herbert A. Giles at Internet Archive
• Pu Songling at the Internet Movie Database
• Pu Songling at the Chinese Movie Database