Postscript

Postscript

In the opening of my third essay on the *Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars*, I stated that the "ma huzi" used to frighten children in Beijing should actually be "ma hu zi"—referring to Ma Shumou, and that I took him to be a barbarian (*hu*). I now know I was wrong. The character *hu* should be *hu* (a different character), which was Shumou's given name. This is found in *Zixia ji*, volume two, by the Tang-dynasty author Li Jiweng, under the title "Against the 'Ma Hu' Theory." The original text reads:

"The common custom of frightening infants by saying 'Ma Hu is here!'—those who do not know its origins take it to be a reference to a bearded, ferocious deity, which is incorrect. In the Sui dynasty, there was a general named Ma Hu (Shumou) of a cruel and merciless temperament. When Emperor Yang ordered him to dig the Bian Canal, his power and terror were so great that even young children dreaded him at the sight of his banner and would frighten one another by saying, 'Ma Hu is here!' Children's pronunciation was imprecise, and *hu* became *hu*. For example, during the reign of Emperor Xianzong, the general of Jing, Hao Pin, was feared by all in the frontier regions; when their infants cried, threatening them with Pin's name would stop them. Again, during the reign of Emperor Wuzong, children in the neighbourhoods would threaten one another by saying, 'Xue Yin is here!'—all cases of the same kind. And does not the *Wei Zhi* provide clear evidence of Zhang Wenyuan's coming from Liao?" (Original note: Ma Hu's temple was in Suiyang. Li Pu, the military governor of Fu Fang, was a descendant of his. Li rebuilt his stele.)

So my understanding turns out to be exactly the same as that of the Tang-dynasty "those who do not know its origins," inviting ridicule a thousand years ago. Truly I deserve the blame, and can only laugh bitterly. But I wonder whether the stele at Ma Hu's temple or its inscription still exists in Suiyang or has been preserved in local gazetteers? If so, we might see achievements of his that stand in opposition to those recorded in the fiction *Kaihe ji*.

Because I was looking for a few illustrations, my friend Chang Weijun gathered many materials for me in Beijing, several of which I had never seen before. One was the *Two Hundred and Forty Filial Exemplars*, drawn by Hu Wenbing of Suzhou in the year Jimao (1879) of the Guangxu reign—the original book has a note saying, "The character *xi* is pronounced like *xi*." I truly could not understand why he did not simply call it forty and had to go to such trouble. The "Guo Ju Buries His Son" episode, which I had opposed, had already been deleted by him several years before I was born. The preface states:

"The *Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars* printed by the bookshops is excellent. However, the episode of Guo Ju burying his son, measured against both Heaven's principle and human feeling, is truly not fit to be taught. ... Presumptuous as I am, Hu, not knowing his own limitations, rashly undertook to edit it. Wherever something is overcorrected or done deliberately for reputation's sake, I have excised it without exception; I have only selected those deeds that are not contrary to what is proper and that everyone can emulate, classifying them into six categories. ..."

This old gentleman Hu of Suzhou truly deserves my admiration for his resolve. But I suspect that many others have held this view, and for a long time—only they have mostly lacked the courage to delete and revise it outright and commit it to print. For instance, the *One Hundred Filial Exemplars*, engraved in the eleventh year of the Tongzhi reign (1872), has a preface by Ji Chang Zheng Ji, which says:

"Moreover, in recent times, the ways of the world have daily declined, and customs have grown dissolute. People do not know that filial piety springs from natural human feeling, but instead treat filial piety as something separate and manufactured. Furthermore, they choose to regard the ancients' casting themselves into furnaces and burying their children as cruel and against principle, and cutting flesh from one's thigh or drawing out one's intestines as damaging one's parents' physical remains. They have never thoroughly examined the fact that filial piety resides only in the heart, not in outward acts. There is no fixed form for being filial, no fixed deed for practising filial piety. The filial piety of the ancients is not necessarily what is appropriate today, and today's filial piety cannot be bound by the deeds of the ancients. For the times and the place differ, and the people and their circumstances each vary; yet the heart with which one strives to be filial is the same. Zi Xia said: 'In serving one's parents, one must do one's utmost.' So when Confucius's school asked about filial piety, how could their answers ever have been uniform?"

So it is abundantly clear that even during the Tongzhi period there were already those who regarded burying one's child and similar acts as "cruel and against principle." As for what this Mr. Ji Chang Zheng Ji meant, however, I still do not quite understand—perhaps he was saying that these deeds need not be emulated today, but neither need one say they are wrong.

The origin of this *One Hundred Filial Exemplars* is rather special—it was produced after the author encountered the *One Hundred New Odes to Beauties* by the "Yan Zi of Eastern Guangdong." Others prized feminine beauty, whereas he prized filial piety—the earnestness of his moral guardianship could truly be called supreme. Although it was "edited by Yu Baozhen Lanpu of Kuaiji," who shares with me the bond of being a fellow provincial—I must still honestly say: it is not terribly brilliant. For instance, the source he gives for Mulan's taking her father's place in the army is "Sui shi." No book by that title exists today; and if he meant the *Sui Shu*, it contains no account of Mulan's joining the army.

Yet in the ninth year of the Republic of China (1920), a Shanghai bookstore went and reprinted it in lithography, adding two characters before and after the title to make *Complete Illustrated Biographies of One Hundred Filious Men and Women*. On the first leaf there is also a line of small print: A Good Model for Family Education. And they added a preface by "Wang Ding of Wuxia, Carefully Written," which opens by expressing the same sort of lament as Mr. Ji Chang Zheng Ji of the Tongzhi period:

"Alas, since the eastward spread of European influence, scholars throughout the land have clamorously prattled about theories of liberty and equality, causing morality daily to sink further into decay and the human heart to grow ever more dissolute. With little sense of integrity and no shame, there is nothing they will not do; gambling on fortune's favour and courting danger, everyone thinks only of advancing by luck. Those who would polish their sense of honour and guard their own person—such people are rarely seen in the world. ... Rising to survey the cruelty and violation of principle in this age, it is almost as if the entire world were like Chen Shubao, utterly heartless. If this flood continues, where will it end?"

In truth, Chen Shubao was so muddle-headed that he seemed "utterly heartless"—or perhaps he was; but to drag him in to illustrate "cruelty and against principle" is, after all, rather an injustice to him. This is what several people said in criticising the episodes of "Guo Ju Buries His Son" and "Li E Casts Herself into the Furnace."

As for the human heart, there are indeed a few signs that it has begun to grow shallow. Ever since the appearance of *Secrets of the Sexes* and *A New Theory of Sexual Union*, quite a few books in Shanghai have taken to using "Man and Woman" in their titles. Now even *The Hundred Filial Exemplars*, whose purpose is "to rectify the human heart and ennoble social customs," has had such a prefix added. This is probably something Mr. Yu Baozhen Lanpu of Kuaiji—who sought to teach filial piety out of dissatisfaction with *A New Hundred Beauties*—could never have foreseen.

To proceed from filial piety, which is "the foremost of all virtues," to "man and woman" does seem a touch irreverent—a sign of shallowness. But I still want to take the opportunity to say a few words—while striving to be as brief as possible.

I dare say that even when we Chinese contemplate "the foremost of all virtues," we are by no means unlikely to think of man and woman. In times of peace and leisure, there are many idlers about; and whenever someone "sacrifices his life for righteousness," the person himself may be too busy to consider such things, but the living bystanders will always conduct a thorough investigation. Cao E's leaping into the river to find her father, and emerging after drowning with his corpse in her arms—this is recorded in the official histories and known to many people. But that single word "embrace" has given rise to problems.

When I was a child in my hometown, I once heard an old man tell it thus:

"...When the dead Cao E and her father's corpse first floated to the surface, they were embracing face to face. But the passers-by who saw it all burst out laughing, saying: 'Ha ha! Such a young girl embracing such an old man!' So the two corpses sank again; after a while they floated up once more, this time with their backs to each other, carrying each other piggyback."

There you have it! In a land of propriety and righteousness, even for a young—alas, "Cao E was only fourteen"—dead filial daughter to float up together with her dead father was attended by such difficulties!

I have examined the *Hundred Filial Exemplars* and the *Two Hundred and Forty Filial Exemplars*, and the painters were clever: what they depicted was Cao E before she had leapt into the river, weeping on the riverbank. But Wu Yourou's *Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars for Women* (1892) shows precisely the scene of the two corpses floating up together, and indeed painted "back to back," as in the upper portion of the first illustration. I think he probably also knew the story I had heard. There is also the *Later Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars with Commentary*, also illustrated by Wu Yourou, which includes Cao E as well, but depicts her in the act of leaping into the river, as in the lower portion of the first illustration.

Among the illustrated filial piety texts I have seen, both ancient and modern, there are quite a few filial sons who encounter robbers, tigers, fire, or storms, and nine times out of ten their method of dealing with it is "weeping" and "bowing."

When will the Chinese weeping and bowing ever come to an end?

As for painting styles, I believe the simplest and most archaic are to be found in the Japanese edition by小田海僊 (Oda Kaison), which was long ago printed in the *Dianshizhai Pictorial* and has become a domestic product, easy to obtain. Wu Yourou's paintings are the most delicate and the most engaging. But for historical subjects he is actually not well suited; he lived for a long time in the Shanghai concessions, and what he absorbed through constant exposure was best expressed in paintings of current events such as "cruel procuresses mistreating courtesans" and "hooligans extorting money"—these are truly full of vigor, making one see the foreign concessions of Shanghai right there on the paper. But the influence has been far from salutary; in many novels and children's books of recent years, female figures are all painted to look like prostitutes, and all children are painted to look like little hooligans—this is largely because people have looked too much at his illustrations.

And the deeds of filial sons are comparatively even harder to paint, because they tend to be tragic. Take "Guo Ju Buries His Son"—no matter how one paints it, it is difficult to make a child look so delighted that he willingly climbs into the pit. "Tasting the Excrement to Allay Anxiety" is likewise not easy to make appealing. Then there is Lao Laizi's "Amusing His Parents in Baby's Clothes"—while the accompanying poem says "joy fills the courtyard," the illustrations almost never convey the pleasant atmosphere of a happy family.

I have now selected three different specimens and combined them into the second illustration. The upper portion is from the *Hundred Filial Exemplars*, painted by He Yunti of Chen Village, depicting the episode "fetching water for the hall, then feigning a fall and lying on the ground, crying like a baby." It also shows "both parents breaking into smiles." The small middle section I have traced from the *Combined Edition of the Twenty-Filial Exemplars with Poetry*, painted by Li Xitong of Zhibei, depicting the episode "wearing multicolored garments and playing like a baby at his parents' side"; in his hand he holds a "rattle-drum," which is the key to these three words, "playing like a baby." But apparently Mr. Li felt that a tall old man performing such a trick did not quite look right, so he tried with all his might to shrink the figure and painted him as a small child with a beard. Even so, it remains dull. As for errors and omissions in the lines, one cannot blame the artist, nor can one blame me—one can only curse the engraver. Investigation reveals that this engraver, in the twelfth year of the Tongzhi reign of the former Qing dynasty (1873), worked at the "Hongwen Hall Engraving Shop, South End of the West Road, Provincial Administration Street, Shandong Province." The lower portion is from the Du Shan Fang edition of "the Renxu year of the Republic" (1922), with no painter's name, but a double-method painting: on one side "feigning a fall and lying on the ground," and on the other "playing like a baby," combining the two scenes but forgetting the "multicolored garments." The edition illustrated by Wu Yourou also combines the two scenes into one and also forgets the multicolored garments, except that Lao Laizi is somewhat fatter and has double buns on his head—but it is still dull.

People say that satire and sarcasm are separated by only a sheet of paper; I think the same holds true for charm and mawkishness. A child's playful coaxing of its parents can be delightful to watch, but when an adult does it, one cannot help finding it somewhat disagreeable. The affectionate manner in which an uninhibited couple dote on each other in public can, if it strays ever so slightly beyond the boundary of charm, easily become mawkish. It is no wonder that no one has been able to paint a good picture of Lao Laizi's affected antics. In a family such as those depicted in these illustrations, I could not bear to live for a single day. Just imagine—a seventy-year-old grandfather, year round, mawkishly playing with a "yao-gu-dong" rattle.

The people of the Han dynasty liked to paint or carve images of ancient emperors and kings, Confucius's disciples, exemplars of virtue, exemplary women, and filial sons in their palaces and in the stone chambers before their tombs. The palaces have of course not a single beam left standing; the stone chambers, however, occasionally still survive, and the most complete ones are the Wu Family Stone Chambers in Jiaxiang County, Shandong. It seems to me that the story of Lao Laizi was carved on them. But now, having neither rubbings nor the *Jinshi Cui Bian* at hand, I cannot verify this. Otherwise, a comparison between the present-day illustrations and those of some eighteen hundred years ago would be a rather interesting undertaking.

Regarding Lao Laizi, the *Bai Xiao Tu* contains this passage:

"...Lao Laizi also had the act of 'nong-chu' to delight his parents: he would play with a 'chu' at the side of his parents, hoping to bring them joy." (Original note: *Gao Shi Zhuan*.)

Who wrote the *Gao Shi Zhuan*? Was it Ji Kang, or was it Huangfu Mi? Again, having no books at hand, I could not verify this. Only recently, because I had come by a month's salary for nothing, I went so far as to buy the *Taiping Yulan* and searched it thoroughly, but in the end found nothing. Unless I was careless, the passage must have come from some other encyclopedia of the Tang or Song dynasties. But this does not matter much. What struck me as peculiar was the character "chu" in the text.

I suspect that this "chu" does not necessarily mean a small bird. Children like to play with human figures made of clay and silk or cloth; the Japanese also call them *Hina*, written as "chu." They have often preserved ancient Chinese words; and for Lao Laizi to play with a child's toy in front of his parents would be more natural than playing with a small bird. So the English word "Doll"—what we now call a "yang-nan-nan" or "clay figure," but in writing we have to call it "kuilei" (puppet)—was perhaps called "chu" in ancient times, and later fell out of use in China, surviving only in Japan. But this is merely my own conjecture; I have no solid evidence beyond it.

This act of "nong-chu" seems never to have been illustrated by anyone.

Another batch I collected consists of books containing images of the "Impermanent One." One is the *Yuli Chuanbo Chuan Jing Shi* (or without the last two characters), and the other is the *Yuli Zhi Bao Chao* (or *Bian*). In fact, both are more or less the same. As regards the collecting, I must first thank my friend Chang Weijun, who sent me the Beijing Longguangzhai edition, the Jian'guangzhai edition, the Tianjin Siguozhai edition, and the Lithographic Bureau edition, as well as the Nanjing Limingzhuang edition. Next, I thank my brother Zhang Maochen, who gave me the Hangzhou Manaojingfang edition, the Shaoxing Xuguangji edition, and the most recent lithographic edition. And finally, I myself obtained the Guangzhou Baojingge edition and the Hanyuanlou edition.

These *Yuli* texts come in elaborate and simplified versions, which agrees with my preface. But after I had examined all the illustrations of the Impermanent One, I was alarmed. For the "Living Impermanent One" in the books wears a flowered robe and a gauze hat, with a knife behind his back; whereas the one holding an abacus and wearing a tall hat is the "Dead Must-Comer"! Although their faces differ as fierce or kind, and their shoes as straw sandals or cloth (?) shoes, these are merely the painter's arbitrary choices. What matters most is that the inscriptions are all, without exception, the same: "Dead Must-Comer." Alas, this is clearly directed against me alone.

Yet I am not entirely convinced. In the first place, these books are not the one I saw in my early childhood; in the second place, I still firmly believe that my memory is not mistaken. But my attempt to tear out a page for an illustration has been silently and utterly thwarted. I had no choice but to select one specimen each—the "Dead Must-Comer" from the Nanjing edition and the "Living Impermanent One" the Guangzhou edition—and, in addition, to pick up a brush myself and add a drawing of the "Living Impermanent One" as I remember him from the Mulian opera or a religious procession, to make amends, as shown at the top of the third illustration. Fortunately, I am no artist; though my work is far from accomplished, perhaps readers will refrain from scolding me. Not long ago, thinking I would never come to this, I said several peculiar things about Mr. Wu Youru and his ilk; who could have imagined that before very long I would have to make a fool of myself? So I offer my defense here in advance and place it on record. But if it proves ineffective, then I shall simply copy President Xu (Shichang)'s philosophy: let nature take its course.

There was also something I could not quite accept: I felt that although the gentlemen promoting the *Yuli* were propagandists, they actually did not understand much about the affairs of the underworld either. For example, in depicting the circumstances of a person's death, the images were divided into two schools. One school showed only a single ghost emissary carrying a steel trident, called the "Soul-Seizing Messenger," and nothing else. The other school showed a Horse-Faced demon, two Wuchang—the Yang Wuchang and the Yin Wuchang—rather than the Living Wuchang and the Dead Youfen. If one were to say that these two were indeed the Living Wuchang and the Dead Youfen, then they would be inconsistent with the single portraits. Take A from the fourth plate: the Yang Wuchang is hardly wearing a flowered robe and gauze cap. Only the Yin Wuchang somewhat resembles the separately painted Dead Youfen, but he has set down his abacus and taken up a fan instead. This could perhaps be explained by saying it was probably summer at the time—but then why did he grow such a long, flowing beard? Could it be that summer epidemics were frequent, and he was so busy that he had not even the time to trim it? The source of this picture is the Tianjin Siguozhai edition, as jointly stated; the Beijing and Guangzhou editions are also not much different.

B was taken from the Nanjing Li Guangmingzhuang woodblock edition. The image is the same as A, but the caption is exactly the opposite: the Tianjin edition identifies it as the Yin Wuchang, while this one calls it the Yang Wuchang. But this is consistent with my own view. So if there is a figure in plain clothes with a tall cap, regardless of whether or not he has a beard, let the people of Beijing, Tianjin, and Guangzhou call him the Yin Wuchang or the Dead Youfen as they please, while we of Nanjing and I shall call him the Living Wuchang, each following his own convenience. "Name is the guest of substance"—it is of no great consequence.

However, I must add one more image, C, which is part of the Shaoxing Xuanguangji woodblock edition. There is no caption above it, and I do not know what the propagandists made of it. When I was a child, I often walked past the front of Xuanguangji and idled away time watching them carve pictures. They had a special fondness for arcs and straight lines and were quite unwilling to use curves, so the true features of Mr. Wuchang are difficult to determine clearly here. Only beside him stands another small figure in a tall cap, which can still be distinctly made out and is absent from other editions. This is the Aling I once mentioned, who appears during the religious processions. He even brings his son (?) along during office hours. I suppose he is probably having him follow and learn, so that when he grows up, he may "make no changes to the way of his father."

Besides seizing human souls, beside the desk of the Fifth-Yuan King, the fourth of the Ten Yama Kings, there almost invariably stands a character in a tall cap. As shown in D: 1, taken from the Tianjin Siguozhai edition, has a rather handsome appearance; 2, from the Nanjing edition, has its tongue hanging out, for some unknown reason; 3, from the Guangzhou Baojingge edition, has a broken fan; 4, from the Beijing Longguangzhai edition, has no fan, with a black streak beneath the chin—I cannot tell whether it is a beard or a tongue; 5, from the Tianjin Lithographic Bureau edition, is also rather handsome, but has been moved to stand beside the desk of the Seventh-Yama King, the Taishan King: this is very peculiar.

Moreover, in pictures of tigers devouring men, there is always a character in a tall cap holding a paper fan, secretly directing from the shadows. I do not know whether this is also Wuchang or the so-called "chang ghost"—but in the operas of my hometown, chang ghosts do not wear tall caps.

To study this sort of learning, where the three souls are distant and the seven spirits vast, and there is "no one to verify the dead," is very novel and extremely advantageous. If one were to collect materials, begin discussions, and compile and print all the various correspondence, one could probably publish three or four quite thick books and thereby be promoted to the rank of "scholar." But the title "Scholar of the Living Wuchang" lacks a certain dignity, and I do not wish to continue. I shall only make a dogmatic assertion here:

The thinking of the *Yuli* type is very crude: the "Living Wuchang" and the "Dead Youfen" together are the symbol of human life. When a person is about to die, only the Dead Youfen need arrive. For once he arrives, the "Living Wuchang" can then be seen as well.

But among the people there is also a type who call themselves "walkers in the dark" or "underworld emissaries"—living people who temporarily enter the underworld to help with official business. Because they assist in seizing souls, everyone also calls them "Wuchang"; and because they are living souls, they are distinguished by the prefix "yang." But from this point on, they became imperceptibly confused with the "Living Wuchang." Take A from the fourth plate: the one labeled "Yang Wuchang" is dressed in the ordinary clothes of a common person, clearly showing that he is an underworld emissary. His duty is merely to lead the ghost emissaries inside the door, so he stands below the steps.

Once there existed the "Yang Wuchang"—living souls entering the underworld—the "Yin Wuchang" was used to designate the Dead Youfen, whose duties were similar but who was not a living soul.

Although the performance of Mulian operas and the welcoming of deities in religious processions are said to be acts of prayer, they are at the same time a form of entertainment. What is portrayed should be an underworld emissary, but the ordinary state is too dull—there is no point in portraying it—and it would be better to make it more peculiar. So they dressed him in "that Wuchang's" costume—naturally, they did not originally know very clearly themselves. But from this point on, the error was further propagated. Therefore, what the people of Nanjing and I call the Living Wuchang is an underworld emissary wearing the clothes and cap of the Dead Youfen and bearing the real name of the Living Wuchang—a great deviation from the classics and an absurdity indeed.

I wonder what the erudite and accomplished gentlemen of this land think of this?

I had not originally intended to write an afterword at all; I merely wanted to find a few old portraits to serve as illustrations. But when that aim went unfulfilled, I ended up comparing and clipping while throwing in random remarks at the same time. The main text was written on and off over nearly a year, and this afterword was likewise written on and off over nearly two months. With the weather this hot and sweat pouring down my back, surely this cannot go on any longer—and so I bring it to a close.

July 11, 1927, written at the west window of my lodgings on Dongdi, Guangzhou.