鏡花緣

by 李汝珍

本书截取《镜花缘》原著前半部分的内容，描写了唐敖、多九公等人乘船在海外游历的故事，包括他们在大人国、女儿国、厌火国等国的经历。本书借助神幻诙谐的创作手法引经据典，勾勒出一幅绚丽斑斓的彩色图画。作品具有一定的进步意义，体现了作者对当时社会环境和制度局限性的深入思考。

Genres: China, Fiction, Classics, Fantasy, Feminism, Literature, Chinese Literature

Published July 1, 1996

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ancient Chinese classic written sometime before 1830. Amazingly for its era, one of the main themes of the book is a fictitious national literary contest run by a rare female emperor for young women writers and poets. The contest is set in the era of Empress Wu (684-705) but, as we are told in the introduction, there was no such contest in actuality, so apparently the author was proposing that one be held. Much of the book concerns the contest: who entered, who won awards and went on to the next levels, the banquets at which they were honored, etc.

Another theme is voyages to strange lands. In these lands, the people encounter strange mythological creatures and maybe gods – you just never know. Like the Greek and Roman gods we are familiar with, the Chinese gods can come to earth and assume human form; sometimes gods send other gods down to earth as punishment. And high-achieving humans can become gods. The voyages to strange lands are like Gulliver’s Travels. There is a land of people without stomachs, one of two-faced people, a land of sexless people and a land where women rule and men spend their time making themselves attractive with cosmetics. There is a land of honest men who argue with shopkeepers that they need to pay more for the products they are buying, and so on. It makes me wonder if the author had seen a translation of Jonathan Swift’s work (1726).

This is a fascinating book but I don’t recommend it for the general reader. It’s long – 300 pages - footnoted, a bit repetitive, and handicapped by long lists even though, as we are told, it has been heavily edited. There are overly-detailed battles, a lot of Taoist philosophy and even several herbal remedies! So this is more for an Asian studies graduate student or someone looking to compare these strange lands with those of Gulliver’s.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've wanted to read this book for ages but it is quite hard to find. I managed to rescue a copy at work from disposal, which appeared not to have been read. The author is one of the great critics of the treatment of women in Chinese society and in many ways the book is designed to point out the injustice of the inequality between the sexes. In the book the women are all educated and achieve great success with their literary abilities. Set in the time of Empress Wu, she ordains that there should be examinations for women, and the 100 girls that are the focus of the novel, all pass the imperial examinations. However, after passing the examinations none of them enter government, but most of them marry, and in the course of events later in the story end up committing suicide when their husbands die. Likewise the author points out the pain of footbinding, and the frivolity of beauty. However, the main focus of the book is also to reclaim the throne for the Tang emperor and dispose of Empress Wu. So on the one-hand women should be treated better, but they should still know their place. The book was written as a satire and is intended to be very funny as it points out the absurdity and hypocrisy of many aspects of Chinese society. Even in this translation it does this well, not only in the section of visiting many lands, but also in the end with the self-defeating spells where the men all fall victim and die of gluttony, alcoholism, lust and avarice. (And of course the women are able to break the spell and save the day for the army). The main characters are the flower immortals that were cast down from heaven for obeying the wishes of Empress Wu, to make all the flowers bloom at once in defiance of the laws of heaven. The flower immortals are all reincarnated as young girls who are good scholars, and some good warriors from China and the strange countries around the sea. Part of the book also describes the visit by the main character's father to many different islands; this part of the book is why it is often referred to as the Chinese Gulliver’s Travels. Like most traditional Chinese novels it is 100 chapters long and unfortunately the only translation of it that I've been able to find in English (Even the dual language version) is about a quarter that. At least the translator will sometimes give brief descriptions of the parts that he skipped; though it often seems that these parts are very interesting and quite exciting. The biggest problem with the translation is as he puts it "I have tried to render a version which will appeal to the Western readers. The original version had some 400,000 words of which I have deleted most of the passages which have to do with classical texts and discussions of Chinese language, dissertations on history, poetry, phonetics, etc" which begs the question why would you be reading it if you weren't interested in Chinese, history, poetry and philosophy? It's like he said I'm taking out all the bits about Chinese culture cause people reading a book famous because of it's criticism of Chinese culture won't be interested in that! Needless to say I found that terribly frustrating and added it to my list of reasons to keep studying Chinese so that someday I can read it in the original. (I've already found an e-text version and with Pera-kun might be able to get through it in a year or two). There was an amazing part that was left intact where the danger of drinking tea was discussed at great length. I was of course reminded of Sheridan La Fanu and all the health benefits associated with Green Tea in today's health food circles. After discussing the history of tea, Purple Jade goes on at length to criticise it. "As for tea itself, apart from quenching thirst, nothing good can be said about it. In the Book of Medical Plants, it says tea will take off fat and make a person thin. Tea often makes all kinds of illness converge in the body. In my father's book, he also counsels people not to drink too much tea. He often tells me, it is better to drink less tea than more tea, and to drink no tea than little tea. There are a few good teas, and many bad ones. If tea is good, it is habit-forming, and too much tea-drinking will impair the principle element in the body and cause the blood and vital essences to be reduced, and cause stomach troubles, stones in the stomach, as well as paralysis, both the painful kind and the kind which is not painful. It will cause the small intestines to swell and be obstructed. People who have diarrhoea or vomit or stomach ache, or are thing and swallow-complexioned due to internal injury can often find that tea is the cause of it. But few people know this, and seldom blame tea for their illness. The ancients lived a long time, but nowadays people do not enjoy such longevity. That is because tea and wine are taken in too great quantities and do harm to the internal organs. Thos who like tea and wine always burst out laughing when they hear this argument, and say that it is not true. People say that tea is a greater purger of the impurities of the body, but are not aware of its hidden bad effect, which works slowly in the body." Despite the abbreviated translation it was very enjoyable, a delightful read, and one I really look forward to reading all of someday.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before a friend gave me a copy of this book, I’d never heard of it. It’s a classic of early 19th century Chinese literature, in which the author satirises his times using the setting of the Empress Wu’s reign (684 to 705 AD). The narrative comprises roughly three parts, each centring on different characters. In the first, a man named Tang Ao goes on a long journey to many strange places. This part is structurally similar to Gulliver's Travels. In the second, Tang Ao’s daughter Little Hill searches for him then gathers a sisterhood of other young women, who all take the new opportunity of participating in imperial examinations for women. In the third part, resistance to Empress Wu’s rule rises into rebellion and an army marches upon her stronghold. Each part has a quite distinctive atmosphere, with the first being the lightest and most comedic. Fairies and magic often appear throughout. All parts share motifs of working to overcome adversity, filial piety, and the vicissitudes of pursuing a virtuous life. I found the whole thing entertaining, witty, and involving. The translation is very accessible. I read the vast majority in a single evening, without specifically intending to. The profusion and importance of female characters is delightful, especially as so many of them are scholars and swordfighters. Li Ju-Chen does not conceal his feminist agenda.

One of the most effective sections concerns Tang Ao’s visit to the Country of Women, in which gender roles are completely reversed:

”Look at them!” said Old Tuo. “They are perfectly normal-looking women. Isn’t it shame for them to dress like men?”
“Wait a minute,” said Tang Ao. “Maybe when they see us, they think, ‘Look at them, isn’t it a shame that they dress like women?’”
“You’re right. Whatever one is accustomed to always seems natural.”

While in the Country of Women, Tang Ao’s brother-in-law Lin is kidnapped by the king, who wants him as her concubine. He is imprisoned and his feet are bound – a brutal and agonising process.
After following Tang Ao’s adventures in these allegorical places, the focus shifts to his fiercely intelligent and determined daughter, Little Hill. After trying to find her father, she returns home with an awesome gang of friends to take the imperial examinations. It is made very clear that opening them to women was a very good decision by Empress Wu, although she is still presented as an cruel and unjust usurper. She actually existed, but in reality never let women take the imperial examinations. Li Ju-Chen is perhaps commenting both on the wasted potential of intellectual women in general and on the anomalous empress, who did not use her illegitimate power to help other women. Although presented in a largely negative fashion here, Empress Wu was clearly a fascinating figure. She reminded me of the Dowager Empress Cixi, whose biography (Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China) similarly exhibits competence and ruthlessness in a system ostensibly controlled by men.

Little Hill, by this point renamed Daughter of Tang, and her army of elegantly named friends overcome many obstacles to take the examinations. I was very much invested in their efforts and impressive sense of solidarity. Yet it is revealed by magic to Daughter of Tang that most, if not all, of these clever young women will have difficult lives. In the third section, concerning the civil war against Empress Wu, their sisterhood is split up and tragedy strikes some of them. Consequently this part was least enjoyable. Luckily it was also the shortest and by that point I was entirely invested in events.

I must say, knowing nothing about the book in advance except that it was an 200 year old classic was not conducive to high hopes for it. I was very pleasantly surprised by how funny, clever, and feminist it was, even without the historical and cultural reference points to appreciate the finer points of its satire. The introduction and notes are very helpful. Even while ignorant of context, though, it is easy to enjoy exchanges like this:

”Miss Tang should be careful,” said Old Tuo. “That plant of hers may not be a magic plant of the Immortals, but of evil spirits. You should consider it carefully before taking it. Last time I took a ‘magic plant’ I was sick for days. Even now I feel more easily tired because of it.”
“That is because you had no business taking it,” retorted the nun. “For instance, something that agrees with a human being may disagree with a cat. It all depends on whether a person is suited to it. This plant is the magic plant of the Immortals, and those who are fit to take it will join the ranks of Immortals when they take it. But if a cat swallows it, who can tell what will happen?”
“Touché!” thought Old Tuo, seething with wrath.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

The story goes that in the North-South Dynasty, Princess Shan Yin asked her brother, the Emperor Liu Yi Fu, why, although he had so many wives, she had only one husband. The Emperor therefore presented her with thirty handsome men to be her 'Faces and Heads' meaning that they were handsome in the face, and had a full head of hair.

A while back on my review of The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai by Han Bangqing, I discussed how I deliberately go out of my way to acquire old and relatively unfamiliar (depending on one's enmeshment in the Anglo scheme of things) written works in order to quite possibly and fortuitously stumble across something that demonstrates the whole 'white people invented ethics/social justice/save the poor non white people from themselves/etc' paradigm to be the poor piece of trash ideology that it is. While this work is quite a bit more esoterically and fantastically removed from the wonderfully pragmatic yet compassionate viewpoint of Banqing's style of writing, even if one were the type to disdain introductions and other breeds of contextualizing apparatuses, the author's satirical intent with no small feminist bent would become clear relatively quickly, from the Star of Literature taking on the form of a woman without any loss of inherent qualities to a man being unwillingly and horrifically subjected to torturous and commonly female-coded body inflictions in the form of bound feet and pierced ears. Outside of that particular prerogative, the notes aren't wrong in comparing this to 'Gulliver's Travels', as the initial thrust of the narrative consisting of a main character journeying to many a nation filled with many a strange people, most of whom are being used in one way or another to lampoon and/or praise a particular aspect of the author's society of the time, is more than a bit familiar to anyone who's read anything of that particular work, voluntarily or otherwise. The society, however, is Qin dynasty China, and if you have a less than basic familiarity with Taoism, Empress Wu, and the Chinese imperial examinations, you're going to need all the help you can get to make your way through. Humorously playful as this is, there is a thread of real seriousness and quality that demonstrate why this work is as respected today as it is, and the fact that I didn't instinctively enjoy it due to lack of faculties on my part shouldn't be taken as reason to pass it by.

Acquiring less status quo works in the haphazard manner that I do sometimes entails dealing with extremely unusually put together editions, and my experience with this particular work fully attests to such. The elements of the front and back cover look increasingly oddly put together the more one looks at them, the font choices were interesting, to say the least, and there's never a hint that the work is in anyway abridged until one does the math based on wordcount and realizes, even though this edition weighs in at a more than healthy 550 words a page, it would have to be nearly two and a half times longer to encompass the full piece. While I'm usually more than a tad aggravated by such secretive shortenings of material (especially when Anglos have such a nasty habit of cutting down Chinese classics to a tenth of the size and pretending that's all one needs to read of them), if the editor is being truthful about how all the removed material consisted of even deeper delving into tenets of religion/medicine/the sort of digression material that likely requires a couple of degrees in China related paradigms to fully engage with, it's probably for the best that this was the work I read. For not only does this work properly weigh in at around 1600 pages at the standard of 250 words/page, it's also unfinished, and the more one moves past the initial Gulliver's Travel's-esque narrative of meeting and greeting and otherwise deeply community building with numerous capable girls and women, the more the narrative gets bogged down with hundreds of names, rapid fire plot twists happening to tens of characters at a time, and an increasing lack of focus on the main feminist bent. Until then, however, it really is a sign of how much modern day treatments of the history of literature still continue to warp my mindset that I considered it more than extraordinary for girls to kill tigers, fly around at the speed of sound, achieve enlightenment, draft imperial edits, administrate empires, and much more in a piece of fiction written during what some would consider to be the Georgian era. Add in the fact that, despite this edition's dubious looks, it really came through in terms of its contextualizing with regards to historical endnotes and cultural clarifications (even bringing up an example of differential calculus!), and I'm rather pleased that I gave this work a proper chance.

Valuable as this work is in the literary sphere, it's no stroll in the park, and I'm glad that circumstances have dictated that I start my post-challenge reading much earlier this year than I would have otherwise, as I'll need a good measure of more contemporary reading to regain my energy for tackling my next older and culturally far removed piece of lit. This piece is in equal measures gloriously fantastical and admirably righteous in its more sociocultural efforts, and it makes me wonder who the other members of its literary family tree are, and how accessible translations of said works into English are in this hypercontemporary day and age. At the moment, I've far too many other interests on my reading plate to do any specific diving into the question on my own, and besides, there's my complete and utter lack of skillset in any field relevant to this particular piece to take into account. However, it was my stubborn insistence on not making certain reading challenge structures easier on myself by following in the path of the same old, same old that led me to this work, and it'll be the continued dedication to such pursuits that slowly but steadily expands my awareness of works like these ever further. Diversity, diversity, diversity, but confining oneself to building a surface level 'they exist now!!!!' surveying of the latest publications isn't going to unstick centuries of ingrained self-complacency from its poisonously ivory tower moorings. Not a popular incentive for reading such texts, but considering all the fearmongering that the US is indulging in these days regarding China while simultaneously boo-hooing over anti-Asian terriorism within its borders, plenty of pompous white folks think they can have their racism and kill it too. This isn't the kind of piece that's likely to find its way onto those oh so hip 'Anti-(Insert Bigotry Here) Reading List' that neoliberally pop up in the wake of such symptoms of a kyriarchical military industrial complex, but honestly, that's all the more reason to read it.

'Why, if you can resist the temptations of wealth and wine, and suffer the mortification of the flesh, I should not be surprised if you were qualified to be a saint right away!' said Old Tuo.
'Yes but there has never been a saint with bound feet before,' Tang Ao joked.

If certain types of folks who constantly trumpet about 'unburying' pieces of literature actually put in real work, I'd have less of this kind of reviewing effort to do, but alas. It is so predictable on what occasions they choose to put their money where their mouth is, and those occasions are never far from the mainstream.

[Joshua Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this one but was ultimately disappointed. Marketed as a kind of early Fantasy novel written in China in the 19th-century, my interest was piqued. But ultimately, I felt the book was far too disjunct - especially in the second half of the book - to establish any sort of a compelling narrative.

[Chris Duval · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book lacks the kind of unity one would expect from a contemporaneous (1827) western novel, and the review will consequentially follow suit. The book divides into three sections (ignoring framing material). First, a set of voyages to mythical islands, where dwell grotesque parodies of humankind: people with bird’s heads or whatever. This reminds me of Gulliver’s Travels, save that the number of odd places is here more numerous and more cursorily described.* Sometimes these merely an adventure; other times they also serve for social criticism. The most famous of the latter** is the Country of Women, where sex roles are reversed, complete with a gruesome description of a compulsory foot binding of one of the male travelers.

The second section is the story of 100 women within China who prepare for and take the exams that will allow them to become scholar-officials. The author has modified the history of a Tang dynasty empress to have authorized this, and in the text he details the regulations for these exams to a degree that would constitute an indirect petition for his own time.

The third section is a myth, slightly grounded in history, of the overthrow of that same empress. The rebels proceed through a set of four passes, each guarded by an illusion spell that acts as an excuse for a morality mini-tale. These tales of temptation may have a long ancestry; to me, they brought to mind a story about the introduction of tea to China, wherein the Buddhist monk bolsters his nighttime resistance to Maya’s materialist offerings through caffeinated alertness.***
These major divisions are interrupted by diversions, some of them long lists such as that of the names of the 100 women, something which reminds me of Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel.**** An odder trope was a pair of math puzzles, one turning on the calculation of differences.

The remaining materials frame the story. The opening explains the 100 women as manifestations of flower spirits in the celestial bureaucracy, sent to earth as mortals for a punishment. This reminds me of the opening of Shui Hu Zhuan’s Water Margin (aka Outlaws of the Marsh).
The close explains the delivery of the materials of the ‘history’ to the author via a fairy gibbon. This reminds me similar devices of many in older European SFF, such as Shelley’s Frankenstein, which in the west became a convention for a while.

* Another way in which the book resembles Swift’s is in its categorization. Like Swift it is considered a classic and not fantasy, as though the two were exclusive to each other. I learned this about Li’s book as an audience member to a moderated panel on Chinese SFF. An established Chinese science fiction author had stated that there were no roots to Chinese speculative fiction prior to the 20th century. During Q&A I had raised this book as a possible predecessor to at least fantasy. The author looked confused and the moderator had to explain that the book was considered a classic in China even though it might be considered a fantasy in the west.

** This is what brought the book to my attention. See Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (Norton, 1991), pg. 146.

*** I believe I read this in Lin Yutang’s The Wisdom of China and India.

**** I recall for example a long list of European games in that early novel.

[Taro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good; I think this was an abridged version in translation; the original is supposed to be 100 chapters and this was 31.
Lots of laughs, and an imaginative story, though it seems to clump together in parts.
First 20 chapters we are introduced to new characters one by one: island of the week with a woman that wants to return to China for whatever reason. Then, all the sudden, chapters where groups of 10, 20 characters show up, just their names listed. I can't be sure if this was a translation/abridgement convention, it is very jarring.
Still, liked the strong female characters, and the "Country of Women" where gender roles are completely reversed. Along with an in-depth description of foot-binding, done to a male character, I'm sure Li put that in as a criticism.

Especially enjoyable was the chapter when the ladies (now all officially Ladies) go for a breakfast noodles party and it breaks out into something that resembles math questions in a textbook, complete with antique Chinese Differential Calculus diagrams.

Well, I enjoyed it. Lots of far out things happening.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

a) Thanks to Friend Vrixton for the heads=up.

b) Completed in 1827, is why it's not in Moore.

c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers...

d) New Englishing coming this Summer.

e) The gr=db is probably a total wreck.

f) Or is it just a new edition. Here's an hd from 1965 ::
http://www.amazon.com/Flowers-Mirror-...

g) 40 Ratings · 6 Reviews

h) Thanks to Friend Ryan Allen I've now found where to combine this new edition with earlier editions.

i) Hope maybe a Chinese=competent Librarian might clean up the gr=db a bit more.

[Kevin Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really excellent translation of Flowers in the Mirror 鏡花緣, an important work of historical Chinese literature. The original text by Li Ruzhen 李汝珍 (ca. 1763 - 1830) contains a lot of interesting, but tangential content that Lin has paired down significantly. The resulting translation presents a more cohesive artistic vision for English readers, I think to very good effect, although hopefully one day a scholarly full translation will also be published.

In one of the most remarkable sections, the novel’s peripatetic protagonists arrive upon Women’s Country 女兒國, an uncanny matriarchy in a recognizably mythic imaginary mold. To everyone’s amazement, the apparently “inverted” gender norms of Women’s Country are observed first-hand. Soon, things go awry, and Merchant Lin is seized and forced to undergo foot binding, a brutal procedure depicted in torturous detail. I discuss on my blog possible authorial intentions in telling this particular story during the Qing Dynasty:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/myth-matriarchy-105243355

[Charlotte Dabb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful classic Chinese novel exploring, amongst other things, gender equality. It reads differently to a Western novel, is more fragmented and formal. Lovely.

[K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Wouldn't it be crazy to give up happiness on earth for an empty name in death!"

[Coffeetree · Rating 5 out of 5]

高中時，午餐都在早上就吃完了，然後中午喜歡跑到氣氛不錯的圖書館看書，這一套中國歷代經典系列就是在那時看的，印象中非常喜歡這一本。

[vicente elizondo · Rating 5 out of 5]

it is too late to be sorry

[Jon S · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book definitely fits its category, A Book With Magic.

The back cover of my copy claims Flowers in the Mirror is "virtually unknown in the European Languages heretofore." Given that I'm one of only sixty thingers with this book their library and the first to review it, little seems to have changed in the seven years since my copy was printed.

Li Ju-Chen's book in its abridged form is at times a tedious read, a simultaneously straight-forward narrative whose allegories and historical allusions are lost on those unfamiliar with Chinese history and culture (such as me). There is an overwhelming cast of characters (requiring multiple lists of familial relationships), most of whom make cameos with little or no explanation of who they are or their purpose in the story. The opening story of the Empress Wu ordering all flowers to bloom simultaneously, which results in the fairy of a hundred flowers to descend to Earth, disappears from the narrative until it is nearly over, by which point I had forgotten it.

The preface to my translation relates that the original book is over 400,000 words in length and that the translator has removed large portions due to its unrelatibility (my paraphrase of her reasoning) and added her own text to bridge the gaps. Even my highly condensed version was still as arduous a read as the journey the main characters take to distant lands, where they endlessly meet warrior women who save them from peril, are somehow related to or known by the main characters, have recently lost their parents, and have some need to accompany the main characters on their journey. The story ends with a battle between an army attempting to restore the emperor to the throne and several evil warlords. The fighting occurs across four passes; a warlord has cast a spell over each of the four. Members of the attacking army enter the pass and are overcome by the spell before anyone thinks to capture one of the warlord's warriors and learn why the warlord's soldiers are immune to the spell. The repetition of this pattern becomes unbelievable after its second—but not last—occurrence.

There are some interesting parts within the story, but without a cultural understanding, I feel I missed most of the significance of the events and characters. For instance, all the fairies are "of the hundred...," but the importance of one hundred goes unexplained and I wasn't curious enough to research it. Not a book I would recommend to anyone lacking an interest in immersing themself in the research necessary to understand the connection between the story and the historical time it takes place in.

[Bucket · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating read that I'm thrilled to have stumbled on. This is a Chinese classic (written ~1827) that, incredibly, passes the Bechdel test. The central focus is on young women taking part in literary tests to earn titles and fames, just like men did in Chinese society at the time. There are 100 women who pass, but a core group of a dozen-ish are our main focus.

In the first section, Tang Ao (a man) goes on a Gulliver's-Travels-esque journey and meets many of these young women. Sometimes he helps them out of precarious situations, and sometimes they help him. The strange lands they visit are much in line with the early feminist tone of the book. In particular, the Land of Women, where the gender-script is completely flipped, to the point that a man is powdered into a plaything for the female King, and has his feet bound.

In the second section Tang Ao's daughter, Little Hill, goes on a similar journey to find him and then gathers up all the young women to go take the tests. A sisterhood forms.

The last section bogged down a bit for me, with the four repetitive battles against vices. Overall though this was fun and refreshing. Just the sort of hidden gem I love to find in digging through the lesser-known classics.

[Daniel]

twitter

[庆忌 · Rating 3 out of 5]

前半段还显得作者有些见识，后半段是真的过于卖弄了，除了让人感觉冗长，没其它意思。

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The English version was published in 1965, but the original 100-chapter novel was published during the Qing dynasty in 1827. This fantasy novel is set in the reign of the Tang dynasty Empress Wu Zetian (684–705) but Ruzhen was critiquing the government of his own time by using fantasy to discuss how a society should behave and why sexual discrimination was destructive to community.
Empress Wu had pushed her own son off the throne that was rightfully his and become a tyrannical ruler. In this fantasy fairytale, the empress, on a whim, orders all the one hundred flowers of her kingdom to flower on a single day rather than in their proper season. The chief flower fairy, the Fairy of a Hundred Flowers, is loath to obey but fearful of the Empress she orders the 100 flower fairies to bloom and despite their misgivings they do. The bossy Empress has crossed a red line with this so the angry Gods determine to punish the Fairies for not refusing to comply. The Fairy of a Hundred Flowers and her one hundred flower fairies are sentenced to become mortal and live scattered across human world and endure the challenges of misogynistic societies. Various deities such as Lady Yuan, the Scarlet Child, the Golden Infant and the Green Maiden commiserate with the Fairy but say that her Hundred Flower Fairies brought it on themselves by not refusing to act against their rules. “If you think that you cannot help the things you do, I do not wonder that you are being sent to earth!” says Lady Yuan.
The Fairy of the Hundred Flowers assumes mortal life as daughter of a great philosopher Tang Ao who is a teacher and has no fear about speaking truth to power. The novel is immediately topical! The Empress demotes Tan Ao for speaking out against party line and rather than fight it he decides that he will give up the material world and go in search of Tao and immortality. He persuades his brother-in-law a merchant to take him along on his next voyage across the oceans in search of goods to sell and use the experience to find his own spiritual way.
Each fantastical country their ship visits incorporates some aspect of Ruzhen’s critique of his own society. Visiting the country of Long-armed People the philosopher sighs and says that this abnormality is what develops when people “stretch out their hands and try to grasp everything within reach that may yield a profit.” In another country each inhabitant walks on his or her own personal cloud which is colored according to their character. “Straightforward and honest people” have rainbow clouds and “secretive and conniving “people have black clouds. Ao notes that very few people are walking on black clouds so in this country being “kind-hearted and good-natured” must be the norm.
In the land of Flaming People, the inhabitants spew flames from their mouths and set the travelers junk on fire and they are rescued by mermaids. These mermaids had been rescued by Ao and his crew on a previous visit to another strange place, the Country of Black-bottomed People and these women are a part of a theme which runs through the novel namely that when women are freed from confinement and given equal power good things happen. As Ao travels in search of inner peace and immortality he rescues or raises the status of women wherever he arrives and some of those he frees are exiled flower fairies. When he finally climbs up a sacred mountain and disappears, his daughter, the incarnated Fairy of a Hundred Flowers, goes on her own journey seeking her father’s fate which takes her to equally fantastical but also pointedly named places such as the Country of Two-Faced People, a land immured in hypocrisy to the misery of all, and the much more positive Country of Women. Along the way she rescues and is often then rescued by the banished Flower Fairies.
This is a vastly enjoyable book once you relax into its fantastical approach to critiquing society and pointing to a better way to live as communities. The novel is long but colorful and humorous and you soon get engaged by its magic and become influenced by its message.

[Laura McGaha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of FLOWERS IN THE MIRROR (by Li Ju-Chen). **SPOILER ALERT** SPOILER ALERT** It has been described as a work with a "combined nature of GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES, GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, AESOP'S FABLES and the ODYSSEY, with ALICE IN WONDERLAND thrown in for good measure." I would add that it also has the feel of PILGRIM'S PROGRESS (by John Bunyan).

Li Ju-Chen took nearly 20 years to write this novel -- published in 1830 and set in the late 600s (during the reign of Empress Wu) -- which details the many adventures of 100 flower fairies cast down to Earth to live as humans and their search to find each other. With a strong feminist theme, "this book is essentially a social commentary and a human satire. But it is also an historical romance, a fairy tale, an allegory, and in its original form, a built-in anthology of expertise in the various fields of the author's interests." [Introduction]

The story relates the travels of the Earth-bound fairies and their Earthly families as they journey from fantastical island to fantastical island.

The Country of Women -- where women wear the clothing of Earthly men and reign supreme as "king," etc. Men wear the clothing of women and are the subservient "wives."

The Country of Giants -- which refers not to physical size, but to the size of their generous hearts.

The Country of Tall People

The Country of Black-Toothed People

The Country of Restless People -- they never stop moving.

The Country of Long-Eared People -- with ears down to their waist.

The Country of Intestineless People -- where food literally goes in one end and out the other.

The Country of Black-Bottomed People -- white down to the waist; black from the waist down.

The Country of Dog-Headed People -- who spend all their time eating and drinking.

The Country of Sexless People -- no procreation; they just come back in a different life.

The Country of Deep-Eyed People -- with eyes in their hands so that they can see up high.

The Country of Little People -- 7" or 8" tall.

The Country of White People -- described only with a caution for "the many beasts there."

The Country of Scholars -- the non-educated are vagrants and ostracized.

The Country of Two-Faced People -- they have faces on the back of their heads and you can't trust what they say.

The Country of Split-Tongued People

Etc.

In keeping with the feminist theme, along the journey the girls learn that the Star of Literature is actually a woman, so they build a temple to her in her female human form; and Empress Wu declares that girls now have permission to take the Royal Exams and hold honorable positions at court.

Mixed in with these fantastical tales are recipes (for curing a hangover, curing epilepsy) and mathematical tricks for multiplication (what we now teach as the "lattice method"). Toward the end of the book, some of the girls and soldiers are on a quest to defeat the sons of Wu and encounter spells that prey on vices (alcohol, greed, lust, etc.)

While the book was tedious to read at times due to my modern need for quick subplot resolution, I am very glad to have read this book, and feel richer for the effort.

[Jing Gao · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book review, but just a thought. It's not the best reading material for people who do not have a thorough knowledge of Chinese history, philosophies, folklore, religions, and some classics (e.g. Mountains & Seas) the book constantly makes reference to. Without knowing those the story is a count of improbable voyages, and that's all. It takes a Chinese mind to enjoy the many apparent surreal and absurd places, creatures and encounters, and to read beyond the lines. Many Chinese readers today would forego this one for something more recently written, more direct and easy to understand.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this...it takes you on a whimsical journey filled with unique imagery that lingers once you're finished, while offering a glimpse into a bygone era. The author thought ahead of his time, and that voice shines through.

[Michael Colby · Rating 3 out of 5]

5/10 I actually liked this one more than I thought. It was often fun, had 1 million characters to try and keep track of, I lost the plot a couple times towards the end, and the last couple chapters went out with a whimper.

[helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lettura nel complesso interessante. La trama è molto elaborata, i personaggi curiosi. La prosa risulta a tratti faticosa, appesantita anche dai contenuti. Consiglio agli appassionati della letteratura cinese.

[Vrixton Phillips]

note to self and my friends: this was listed on wikipedia [along with [book:Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio|155054] ] as a Chinese Classic.

[Lulu]

1827