Heroines of Jiangyong: Chinese Narrative Ballads in Women's Script (Donald R. Ellegood International Publications)

by Wilt L. Idema

Heroines of Jiangyong is the first English translation of a set of verse narratives recorded in the unique women's script (nushu) of rural Jiangyong County, Hunan, in southern China. This selection of Chinese folk literature provides a rare window into the everyday life of rural daughters, wives, and mothers, as they transmit valuable lessons about surviving in a patriarchal society that is often harsh and unforgiving. Featuring strong female protagonists, the ballads deal with moral issues, dangers women face outside the family home, and the difficulties of childbirth.The women's script, which represents units of sound in the local Chinese dialect, was discovered by scholars in the late twentieth century, creating a stir in China and abroad. This volume offers a full translation of all the longer ballads in women's script, providing an exceptional opportunity to observe which specific narratives appealed to rural women in traditional China. The translations are preceded by a brief introduction to women's script and its scholarship, and a discussion of each of the twelve selections.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction

Mass Market Paperback

First published December 26, 2008

About the author

Wilt L. Idema obtained his BA and MA from Leiden University. Following continued study in Sapporo (at Hokkaido University) and in Kyoto (at Kyoto University), and research in Hong Kong (at the Universities Service Center), he returned to Leiden, where he taught in the Department of Chinese Language and Culture. He obtained his doctorate in 1974, and was promoted to Professor of Chinese Literature and Linguistics in 1976. Since 2000, he has been teaching at Harvard as Professor of Chinese Literature. Wilt Idema's research initially was focused on the early development of Chinese vernacular fiction (Chinese Vernacular Fiction: The Formative Period, 1974), but later shifted more towards early Chinese drama (Chinese Theater 1100-1450, A Source Book, with Stephen West; 1982; The Dramatic Oeuvre of Chu Yu-tun (1379-1439), 1985; Wang Shifu, The Moon and the Zither: The Story of the Western Wing, with Stephen H. West, 1992). In recent years he also has published on Chinese women's literature of the premodern period (The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China, with Beata Grant, 2004). His current research is focused on China's rich tradition of popular narrative ballads. He is also the author, with Lloyd Haft, of A Guide to Chinese Literature (1997). For his voluminous Dutch-language translations, especially of classical Chinese poetry, he received the Martinus Nijhof Award for 1991, the highest distinction for literary translations in the Netherlands.

Reviews

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jiangyong county is located in the South West province of Hunan in China. It is a quite remarkable place as the women their formed their own women's societies and developed their own written phonetic script based on Chinese characters. The script developed over the years and now looks very different to Chinese characters. It was used in printed books, in embroidery and was learned by only a very few men. It was largely used by peasant women for other peasant women to tell them stories and proverbs. It has been studied in quite large depth by anthropoligists, many collections of the writing have been made, including many oral tales written down from memory of the women who lived in that county. There have been large collections published in China of the writing translated into Chinese. Idema used these to base his translations on. While translating a translation is far from ideal the stories are still interesting and worth reading.

I greatly enjoyed the tales within these books. All but one were Chinese folk tales I had previously been familiar with, but they were told from a different perspective. Here the women were given centre stage while the men went off to do their activities the stories focused on the women who were left behind. There were themes in the stories about life being hard, childbirth being painful, how husbands would leave and the woman had to remain faithful. There were a few twists that I particularly liked. One was in the story of Mengjian, after she'd brought down the great wall with her tears and found her husband's bones. She took them back home and slept beside them till she died. The other was in the story of the Butterfly lovers (though in this story they turned into Mandarin ducks not butterflies) and in this version when the girl's father told her that girls weren't allowed to study she gave two examples of women who'd done great things. One was Guan Yin the other was Wu Zetian. How she'd ruled China effecitevly and brought peace and prosperity to the land. I thought this was most interesting as in "normal" Chinese history Wu Zetian is villified as an Evil Empress/Emperor. But I liked the idea that women still held her up as an example of things that they could achieve, and of a strong and good woman. Considering how many years after her reign was this was particularly telling as it showed that despite the "male" "Confucian" approach to history she still lived on as a heroine in women's tales.

My favourite story though was Fifth daughter Wang. I'd not come across this story before but it was amazing. It was so inspiring and empowering. It started with a woman who wanted to be a very devout Buddhist but was married to a butcher. She reprimanded him for killing animals and he reprimanded her for her "extravegant" ways. She gave up worldly life and just took to reciting the Diamond Sutra. Her husband agreed to live apart from her as she was able to answer all her questions about the sutra. Eventually her fame spread to the king of hell who wanted to question her on it so sent his demons to "arrest" (ie kill) her and bring her to the underworld. There was a wonderful section on her going through hell being helped by the demons to avoid the tortures and traps there. Everything was, this is awful and this happens to these types of people, but she was good so she was safe. It was like Mu Lian, except with an evil woman and a noble man it was the noble woman who everyone admired. Eventually she makes it through the ten courts of hell and ends up before the final judge who says she can be reborn as a man. She asks to be reborn as a sedan driver so she won't harm anything. But he puts her as a scholar. She is reborn and wins the highest places in the examinations, she remebers her past life (as the demons helped her avoid the tea of forgetting) and tells her story to the Emperor and asks to return to her former husband. The Emperor appoints her as magistrate of that region and she summons her husband to her. They are happy to be reunited. He doesn't comment on the fact that she's now a man but accepts her as his wife as she has the same writing on her leg as his wife did before she died (which if you found a good calligrapher would be a good tattoo!). To reward them for her her and the rest of her family get sent off to live in the Taoist paradise where they have a castle under the sea. (It doesn't mention if she stays a man or goes back to being a woman). I just loved this story so much as it had her doing all the things that men do. The highest honors that men normally strive for she managed with ease. It was really a wonderful story.

I very highly recommend this book to people who are interested in women's history and women's stories. It's totally wonderful.

[Bryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

These were fascinating so many different ways -- as moral primers and popular ballads circulating in 19th and 20th century China, but then with an additional layer of interest as these were the versions collected and transcribed by a very particular group of women in a specific time/place, so it is a snapshot of what they thought was interesting/meaningful enough to take the time to memorise and write out in their own script. An excellent companion to the scholarly study Gendered Words: Sentiments and Expression in Changing Rural China which I am also reading just now.

[Lulu]

19th-20th (It is not known when Nüshu came into being, but it seems to have reached its peak during the latter part of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911).

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