{"id":6461,"date":"2015-04-30T15:24:28","date_gmt":"2015-04-30T15:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.froginawell.net\/frog\/?p=6461"},"modified":"2015-04-30T15:24:28","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T15:24:28","slug":"zhuangzis-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/2015\/04\/zhuangzis-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"Zhuangzi’s brain"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been reading Wilt Idema The Resurrected Skeleton: From Zhuangzi to Lu Xun<\/i><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>.\u00a0 <\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>The book is a translation of various versions of the story of Zhuangzi and the skull, ranging from the original text to Lu Xun. Idema has been collecting these stories for a long time, and this is the only English language book I know of that traces one set of stories through 5,000 years <\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>of Chinese literature. This is the perfect book if you want a tour of Chinese literature with Zhuangzi and Wilt Idema as your guides.<\/p>\n

You can read the original story here<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>. Originally it was about Zhuangzi having a conversation with a skull and getting a lecture on the pointlessness of most of the things humans worry about.<\/p>\n

This story was of course re-worked many times. The skull grew into a skeleton, and the Quanzhen Daoists used pictures of it as a visual aid as they evangelized.<\/p>\n

\n

Skeleton, O skeleton, your face is oh so ugly.<\/p>\n

All because in life you loved women and wine.<\/p>\n

Cunningly smiling you took your fill of meats and furs.<\/p>\n

So your blood and flesh gradually melted away.<\/p>\n

Gradually wasted away\u2014but still you continued to lust.<\/p>\n

Lusting for riches, spending your semen you reaped no rewards.<\/p>\n

Your desires were without limit but your life had its term.<\/p>\n

And now today you have become this skeleton.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The story also eventually gained some add-on stories that became associated with it, one of which is the story of Fanning the Grave. This first appears in the Ming in Feng Menglong<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>‘s collection of stories. Here Zhuangzi meets a woman who is fanning a grave mound, and finds out that she is hurrying to dry her husband’s grave so that she can re-marry. This of course is a naughty thing to want to do, but Zhuangzi uses his magic powers (he is more capable of magic stuff than he was in the oldest versions) to quickly dry the grave and takes the fan back to his wife. She reviles the widow and tears up the fan. Zhuangzi promptly dies, and as soon as he is safely in his coffin a handsome young prince shows up who had been hoping to study with the master. Zhuangzi’s wife falls in love\/lust with him, but then the prince falls ill and it turns out that only the brain of a living or newly dead person can save him. The widow takes an ax and opens Zhuangzi’s coffin, only to have him sit up an announce that he is alive and that the prince and his servant are in fact Zhuangzi. His widow is so ashamed she hangs herself, and Zhuangzi bangs on a pot and sings a song about the importance of not getting attached to life.<\/p>\n

Fanning the grave is sort of a disappointing add-on for a modern reader, since Zhuangzi is the only classical philosopher I can think of who even has a wife. Fanning the Grave is clearly based on this<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>. In the original, when Zhuangzi is drumming on a pan and singing after his wife died Huizi upbraids him ‘You lived with her she raised your children, and you grew old together\u201d (\u8207\u4eba\u5c45\u9577\u5b50\uff0c\u8001\u8eab\u6b7b\uff0c\u4e0d\u54ed\u4ea6\u8db3\u77e3\uff0c\u53c8\u9f13\u76c6\u800c\u6b4c\uff0c\u4e0d\u4ea6\u751a\u4e4e<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>.)<\/span><\/span><\/span> This is literally the only example of talking about affection between husband and wife that I can think of in a classical philosopher. To turn it into a misogynist story about the evils of women is kind of a bummer.<\/p>\n

The Feng Menglong version, which Idema only summarizes, is actually more interesting than that. In the Ming version this is actually Zhuangzi’s third wife, (one died and one he divorces for an undisclosed misdemeanor) and she upbraids him for this. “Women of moral rectitude are superior to men.” Zuangzi himself comes off as more of a companionate marriage husband in the Ming version than you might think. The widow uses the prince’s servant as a go-between as she tries to arrange a match with the prince, and the servant (i.e. Zhuangzi) gets paralytically drunk after she charges him with arranging a match. Maybe he was actually disappointed by her behavior? Rather than just seeing it as a confirmation of the evil of women? After the whole thing happens he burns the house down and never marries again, and the event causes him to finally achieve the Dao as he leaves all of human existence behind. It not impossible to read this as a story of a love marriage gone wrong.<\/p>\n

Leaving aside what I think of the Feng Menglong story, Idema gives us a great collection of texts that show late imperial ideas of filial piety. Fanning the Grave was a very popular story, and we get a Manchu version of it in a text for bannermen and a Precious Scroll that Daoists used not only to tell stories about the pointlessness of life, but also to rant about the importance of filial piety. This may seem an odd thing to put into a Daoist text, but here it is, from a planchette writing. This bit is describing to a wife how she is in fact the daughter of the family she has married into, and thus she should not be loyal to her uterine family. This is a common theme in lots of discussions of Chinese families, but this is one of the most undergraduate-friendly readings to use for this.<\/p>\n

\n

\nYou have always been
\nThe bride of the son
\nOf your parents-in-law
\nBut were temporarily
\nLodged at your mother’s place
\nTo grow up into an adult woman,
\nAnd only after your marriage
\nDid you come home
\nTo the place to which you belong:
\nYour parents-in-law
\nActually are
\nThe two parents that gave you life.
\nIn offering tea
\nAnd presenting presents, (part of courtship ritual)
\nThey incurred many expenditures;
\nIn inviting matchmakers
\nAnd entertaining guests,
\nThey undertook much hard work.
\nThey love their son
\nAnd love his wife
\nWithout any distinction in kind
\nSince they hope that you,
\nHusband and wife,
\nWill provide for them in old age.
\nSo how is it possible
\nThat a good lad,
\nWho originally was a filial son,
\nWill not care at all
\nFor his father and mother
\nOnce he has been married to you?
\nEven though you
\nMay not sow dissension
\nBetween flesh and blood with your words,
\nIt will be because
\nHe dotes on you
\nAnd so damages his ambition and energy.
\nYou should therefore
\nSpeak to your husband
\nAnd explain to him in clearest terms,
\n‘If my parents-in-law
\nBrought me here
\nTo assist and support you, my master,
\nThat was first of all
\nBecause they wanted me
\nTo help you in serving your parents,
\nSo how can you,
\nBecause of me,
\nBe remiss in feelings of filial piety?’
\nThis is the way
\nIn which women
\nShould try to speak to their husbands;
\nThis is the way
\nTo love your husband
\nAnd help him fulfill his filial duties.
\nHow can you
\nFlaunt your power
\nAnd treat everyone without respect?
\nEventually
\nYou don’t pay
\nAny attention to your parents-in-law!
\nAny money
\nThat their son
\nWill make, you will hide at your place
\nTo buy clothes
\nAnd have food
\nWhile keeping that couple in the dark.
\nConcerned about appearances,
\nYou are obsessed
\nBy the clothes and jewels you’ll have,
\nSo when you have cash,
\nYou only make plans
\nFor the profit of your own little family,
\nOr you have your mother
\nOr younger brother and sister
\nLend the money out to gain interest,
\nAfraid that when your parents-in-law
\nGet their hands on it,
\nHis brothers will all divide it evenly.
\nYou say that it was you,
\nYour diligent spinning and weaving,
\nTogether with your colorful embroidery But
\nwho could know
\nThat by hiding this money
\nYou’re a witch that calls down disaster!
\nYou are unwilling to lend
\nYour parents-in-law
\nA single yarn, half a grain of rice;
\nAmong sisters-in-law
\nThese trifling matters
\nFill your eyes with a furious hatred.
\nAbusing your husband,
\nYou’re ‘a chicken that crows at dawn,’
\nA woman who wants to be the boss,
\nAnd when all matters
\nMostly go wrong,
\nIt is all because of your meddling.
\nJust have a look
\nIn the temple
\nAt the hell for pulling out tongues:
\nThe majority there
\nAre all women
\nWho suffer those atrocious tortures!
\nAnd then there are
\nThose foul-mouthed women
\nWho loudly commandeer their men,
\nEach day causing
\nTheir parents-in-law
\nTo have no moment of peaceful rest.
\nIf her parents-in-law
\nRevile her but once,
\nShe returns to them their curses tenfold;
\nIf they beat her once,
\nShe immediately threatens
\nTo wet her pants, hanging from a rope!
\nThis kind of person
\nSeeks her own
\nPunishments in the underworld courts,
\nAnd if she doesn’t die,
\nShe definitely will be
\nStruck dead by thunder and lightning!
\nSo I urge you,
\nWomen in the inner apartments,
\nTo listen to your parents and obey them<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Idema does not get into all the movies<\/a> that were made based on these stories in the 20th<\/sup> century, but the book is still a wonderful tour of all the many things this set of stories has been used for.<\/p>\n

\n

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I have been reading Wilt Idema The Resurrected Skeleton: From Zhuangzi to Lu Xun.\u00a0 The book is a translation of various versions of the story of Zhuangzi and the skull, ranging from the original text to Lu Xun. Idema has been collecting these stories for a long time, and this is the only English language…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[100,125,139,164],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-gender","category-literature","category-translation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9yoH3-1Gd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6461"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6467,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6461\/revisions\/6467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}