Liaozhai: Fox and Ghost Loves

Meet the voices

• Narrator · 旁白 — Tells four of the strange tales Pu Songling wrote down more than three hundred years ago.
• Pu Songling · 蒲松龄 — The writer of Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, who opens and closes each tale in his own words.
• Ning Caichen · 宁采臣 — An upright young scholar from Zhejiang who lodges in an old temple near Jinhua and won't take what isn't his.
• Yan Chixia · 燕赤霞 — A plain-spoken lodger from Shaanxi who likes to sleep alone and keeps a small box that no one may open.
• Nie Xiaoqian · 聂小倩 — A lovely girl who died at eighteen and lies buried by the temple, where a demon forces her to do work she hates.
• Granny · 姥姥 — A bent old woman in faded red whom Ning sees one moonlit night in a little courtyard by the temple.
• The Woman of Forty · 妇人 — A woman of about forty who talks with Granny in the little courtyard by the temple.
• Ning's Mother · 老夫人 — Ning Caichen's mother, who waits at home for her only son.
• The Yaksha · 夜叉 — The fierce yaksha that Xiaoqian warns Ning about.
• Wang Zifu · 王子服 — A clever, fatherless young man from Luodian who falls for a laughing girl at the Lantern Festival.
• Yingning · 婴宁 — A girl of sixteen who laughs at everything, loves flowers and says just what she thinks.
• The Old Woman · 老太太 — A deaf old woman with a cane who lives in a village deep in the hills.
• Xiaorong · 小荣 — A quick, teasing maid in the house in the valley.
• Wu · 吴生 — Wang Zifu's cousin, who tries to find the girl with the plum blossom for him.
• Wang's Mother · 子服的娘 — Wang Zifu's widowed mother, who worries about him.
• Lord Wang · 王御史 — A proud, quick-tempered censor with one son, Yuanfeng, whom no family will marry.
• Lady Wang · 王夫人 — Lord Wang's warm, hot-tempered wife, who loves her son dearly.
• Yuanfeng · 元丰 — The Wangs' only son, sixteen and as sweet and trusting as a little child.
• Xiaocui · 小翠 — A lovely, clever girl of sixteen who comes to the Wangs as Yuanfeng's bride and loves games and jokes.
• Madam Yu · 虞大娘 — A poor woman named Yu who gives her daughter to the Wangs as a bride and asks nothing for her.
• The Fox in the Storm · 雷雨里的狐狸 — A fox that hides from a thunderstorm under Lord Wang when he is a small boy.
• Inspector Wang · 王谏官 — Lord Wang's old enemy, who lives ten doors away and waits for a chance to ruin him.
• The Emperor · 皇帝 — The emperor, who rules from his throne in the capital.
• The Girl in Green · 绿衣姑娘 — Xiaocui's elder sister, a saucy, laughing girl dressed in green.
• The Maid · 丫鬟 — Xiaocui's maid in the Wang house.
• Sang Xiao · 桑晓 — An orphaned young scholar at Red Flower Wharf who boasts that he isn't afraid of ghosts.
• The Neighbor · 东边的邻居 — The scholar who lives next door to Sang and loves a good joke.
• Lianxiang · 莲香 — A beautiful, quick-witted girl who knocks at Sang's study door one night.
• Li · 李姑娘 — A shy girl of about fifteen from a good family who drifts into Sang's study one evening.
• Mrs. Zhang · 张夫人 — The lady of the rich Zhang family, mother of a girl named Yan'er.
• Old Mrs. Wei · 韦大娘 — A poor old woman of the Wei family.
• The Wei Girl · 韦姑娘 — Old Mrs. Wei's daughter, a girl of fourteen.

25 chapters in 5 parts

Part 1: Nie Xiaoqian 聂小倩

Part 2: A Bag and a Blossom 皮袋和梅花

Part 3: Two Laughing Girls 两个爱笑的姑娘

Part 4: The Jade and the Shoe 玉和绣鞋

Part 5: Lianxiang and Li 莲香和李姑娘

Key words in Liaozhai: Fox and Ghost Loves

• 鬼 guǐ: ghost
• 寺 sì: temple
• 埋 mái: to bury
• 骨头 gǔ tou: bone
• 答应 dā ying: to promise; to agree
• 梅花 méi huā: plum blossom
• 妹妹 mèi mei: younger sister
• 哥哥 gē ge: older brother
• 病 bìng: to be ill
• 打扮 dǎ ban: to dress up

Behind the story

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (聊斋志异) is a book of nearly five hundred strange tales by Pu Songling (蒲松龄, 1640 to 1715). Pu passed his first exams young but never passed the higher imperial exams, and earned his living for most of his life as a private tutor. In his preface of 1679 he says he has always loved stories of spirits and ghosts: he writes down what people tell him, friends far away send him more by post, and he works at midnight by a dim lamp, at a desk as cold as ice.

This graded adaptation retells four of his love stories over 25 chapters, following his text: Nie Xiaoqian (聂小倩), Yingning (婴宁), Xiaocui (小翠) and Lianxiang (莲香). Pu himself opens and closes each tale, in lines taken from his preface, his notes and the short comments he signed “the Historian of the Strange” (异史氏).

Why foxes and ghosts? Old Chinese books say that a fox that lives long enough can take a human shape, a woman at fifty years and a beauty at a hundred, and that the dead can linger as ghosts when their bones lie far from home. Pu's foxes and ghosts are often lonelier and kinder than the people around them.

Did you know?

• 聊斋 (Liáozhāi) was the name Pu Songling gave his study, and 志异 (zhìyì) means “recording the strange”.
• Pu wrote his tales in classical Chinese, 文言 (wényán), the old written language of books and letters. This book retells them in simple modern Mandarin.
• The yaksha, 夜叉 (yèchā), came to China from India with Buddhism. In Water Margin, the fearsome innkeeper Sun Erniang is nicknamed 母夜叉 (Mǔ Yèchā), “the Female Yaksha”.