Strange Stories 11-20

By Pu Songling

This Smashwords edition of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio was transcribed from the 1908 Second Edition of a translation by Herbert A. Giles. Broomhandle Books has edited the stories to provide modern punctuation and styling so as to make them more accessible to a reader in this e-book format. In addition, Chinese personal and place names have been rendered into modern pinyin.

Stories 11-20 include:

Story 11. The Fighting Quails
Story 12. The Painted Skin
Story 13: The Trader’s Son
Story 14: Judge Lu
Story 15: Miss Yingning, or the Laughing Girl
Story 16: The Magic Sword
Story 17: The Shui-mang Plant
Story 18: Little Zhu
Story 19: Miss Quarta Hu
Story 20: Mr. Zhu, the Considerate Husband

• Language: English
• Publisher: Broomhandle Books
• Release date: Nov 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301711024

Pu Songling

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio is commonly known in China as the Liao Zhao. Although the volume of stories was completed in 1679, it circulated in manuscript only until printed and published in 1740. Since then many editions have appeared in Chinese and many translations have been made into foreign languages. The dates of birth or death for Pu Songling are unknown, but it is known that he reached the lowest (or bachelor’s) degree before age twenty. In 1651, ten years or so after his graduation, he had not progressed to an advanced degree. While it is unfortunate he did not personally progress in his academic standing, it is fortunate he used the time he had to write the tales contained in Strange Stories. Despite his failures in the more advanced competitive examinations, Pu Songling left a cherished manuscript, which for more than 300 years has gained him an enduring place in Chinese literature.

Book preview

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

Stories 11 -20

By Pu Songling

Translated by

Herbert A. Giles

Transcribed from the 1908 Second Edition

Prepared for Electronic Transmission with an Introduction by

TK Rolland

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 TK Rolland

Cover photograph by John Zhang

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to [e-mail]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Story 11.  The Fighting Quails

Story 12.  The Painted Skin

Story 13:  The Trader’s Son

Story 14:  Judge Lu

Story 15:  Miss Yingning, or the Laughing Girl

Story 16:  The Magic Sword

Story 17:  The Shui-mang Plant

Story 18:  Little Zhu

Story 19:  Miss Quarta Hu

Story 20:  Mr. Zhu, the Considerate Husband

INTRODUCTION

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, known in China as the Liao Zhai Zhi Yi, was a volume of stories completed in 1679, but circulated in manuscript only until printed and published in 1740. Since then many editions have appeared in Chinese and many translations have been made into foreign languages.

The dates of birth or death for Pu Songling are unknown, but it is known that he reached the lowest (or bachelor’s) degree before age twenty. In 1651, ten years or so after his graduation, he had not progressed to an advanced degree. While unfortunate he did not personally progress in his academic standing, Pu Songling left a cherished manuscript, which for more than 300 years has gained him an enduring place in Chinese literature.

This Smashwords edition was transcribed from the 1908 Second Edition of a translation by Herbert A. Giles, originally published by Kelly & Walsh, Limited with offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Yokohama. My own personal copy of this edition contains a note of ownership penned by Geo. Dorsey, Shanghai, May, 1911. I am grateful to Mr. Dorsey for keeping his volume so beautifully protected and intact. Besides preparing these stories for electronic transmission, I have attempted to edit them with a more modern format, including punctuation and styling, to make them accessible to today’s readers. In addition, I have rendered Chinese personal and place names into modern pinyin.

The 1908 edition of Herbert A. Giles translation contains a scholarly introduction detailing what little is known of Pu Songling. It contains even a translation of a personal document left behind by Pu. Along with copious footnotes and annotations, Giles included the document in order to provide an insight into the beautiful style of a gifted writer.

By choosing to publish one story at a time, Broomhandle Books hopes to accommodate readers in downloading particular titles of interest, thus saving them the trouble of moving through a large and unwieldy electronic document. The goal, however, is to complete transcription of the individual stories, add a linkable table of contents, and then group them into larger segments for downloading.

If the contents of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio intrigue you, obtaining a hard copy of the 1908 Second Edition is worth the cost. That edition contains much information not provided in this transcription. Herbert A. Giles’s valuable scholarship can be found not only in the introduction to that edition, but also in the footnotes and annotations that bring some of the book’s more difficult to understand literary allusions to life.

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

Story 11

THE FIGHTING QUAILS

Wang Cheng belonged to an old family in Pingyuan, but was such an idle fellow that his property gradually disappeared, until at length all he had left was an old tumbledown house. His wife and he slept under a coarse hemp coverlet, and the former was far from sparing of her reproaches.

At the time of which we are speaking the weather was unbearably hot; and Wang went to pass the night with many other of his fellow villagers in a pavilion which stood among some dilapidated buildings belonging to a family named Zhou. With the first streaks of dawn his comrades departed; but Wang slept well on till about nine o’clock, when he got up and proceeded leisurely home. All at once he saw in the grass a gold hairpin; and talking it up to look at it, found engraved thereon in small characters The property of the Imperial family.

Now Wang’s own grandfather had married into the Imperial family, and consequently he had formerly possessed many similar articles; but while he was thinking it over up came an old woman in search of the hairpin, which Wang, who though poor was honest, at once produced and handed to her.

The old woman was delighted, and thanked Wang, for his goodness, observing that the pin was not worth much in itself, but was a relic of her departed husband.

Wang asked her who her husband had been; to which she replied, His name was Wang Jianzhi, and he was connected by marriage with the Imperial family.

My own grandfather! cried Wang, in great surprise; how could you have known him?

You, then, said the old woman, are his grandson. I am a fox, and many years ago I was married to your grandfather; but when he died I retired from the world. Passing by here I lost my hairpin, which destiny conveyed into your hands.

Wang had heard of his grandfather’s fox wife, and believing therefore the old woman’s story, invited her to return with him, which she did. Wang called his wife out to receive her; but when she came in rags and tatters, with unkempt hair and dirty face, the old woman sighed, and said, Alas! alas! has Wang Jianzhi’s grandson come to this? Then looking at the broken, smokeless stove, she added, How under these circumstances, have you managed even to support life?

Here Wang’s wife told the tale of their poverty, with much sobbing and tears; whereupon the old woman gave her the hairpin, bidding her go pawn it, and with the proceeds buy some food, saying that in three days she would visit them again. Wang pressed her to stay, but she said, You can’t even keep your wife alive; what would it benefit you to have me also dependent on you? So she went away, and then Wang told his wife who she was, at which his wife felt very much alarmed; but Wang was so loud in her praises, that finally his wife consented to treat her with all proper respect.

In three days she returned as agreed, and, producing some money, sent out for a hundredweight of rice and a hundred weight of corn. She passed the night with them, sleeping with Mrs. Wang, who was at first rather frightened, but who soon laid aside her suspicions when she found that the old lady meant so well towards them.

Next day the latter addressed Wang, saying "My grandson, you must not be so lazy. You