Traditional Chinese legend, retold in simple Mandarin
Strange Tales for Beginners
聊斋小故事
Strange Tales for Beginners (聊斋小故事, Liáozhāi xiǎo gùshi) is a story from the Chinese classic by Pu Songling, retold in simple Mandarin as a 5-chapter story with audio for learners at about HSK 1 (Beginner).
Retold from Pu Songling's classic collection: five short strange tales, from a magic pear tree and a boy who steals a peach from heaven to a duck thief who grows feathers and a girl in a painted wall.
Meet the voices
- Narrator · 旁白 — The warm storyteller who opens and closes the tales.
- Lao Zhao · 老赵 — A proud, stingy pear seller.
- The Taoist · 道士 — A ragged old man who knows real magic.
- Uncle Wang · 王大哥 — A kind man who buys the Taoist a pear.
- Lao Liu · 老刘 — A showy street magician who loves a big crowd.
- Xiao Bao · 小宝 — The magician's small, brave and scared son.
- Grandma Qian · 钱奶奶 — A sharp-eyed grandmother who loves her duck.
- Da Niu · 大牛 — A big, clumsy villager with a guilty stomach.
- Lao Zhou · 老周 — A brave butcher who is smarter than the wolves.
- Mr. Zhu · 朱先生 — A dreamy young scholar who falls into a painting.
- Yu'er · 玉儿 — The girl in the painted wall.
- The Old Monk · 老和尚 — A calm monk who looks after the temple.
- The Guard · 守卫 — A gruff guard inside the painting.
5 chapters, one journey
Chapter 1: The Pear Tree
种梨
A hungry Taoist begs one pear from a stingy seller. What he does with the seed makes the whole street gasp, and then he says something about heaven.
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Chapter 2: A Peach from Heaven
天上的桃
It is winter, and a magician says his little boy will fetch a peach from heaven. The rope goes up. The boy goes up. Then the rope falls.
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Chapter 3: The Duck Thief
偷鸭子的人
Grandma Qian's white duck is gone, and she has a promise for the thief: feathers. The next morning, someone in the village wakes up very fluffy.
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Chapter 4: The Butcher and the Wolves
屠夫和狼
Butcher Lao Zhou walks home in the dark with only a few bones and a knife, and two wolves are following him. How clever can one tired man be?
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Chapter 5: The Painted Wall
画里的花园
Scholar Zhu can't stop looking at a girl in a wall painting. One day she looks back, and the painted garden opens like a door.
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Key words in Strange Tales for Beginners
Behind the story
These tales come from Pu Songling, a writer who lived in the 1600s and early 1700s. He called his study Liaozhai, and his collection of strange stories is known as Liaozhai Zhiyi (聊斋志异), or Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.
The book has hundreds of stories about ghosts, foxes, magicians and magic that pops up in ordinary village life. Legend says Pu Songling served tea to travelers on the road to hear their stories. Many Chinese students meet the tale of the wolves (狼) in school, and the stories still turn into films and TV shows.
Did you know?
- The Chinese title 聊斋志异 means roughly “strange records from the Liaozhai studio”.
- Pu Songling worked on the tales for much of his life, and the book was printed only after his death.
- The wolf story in this book is short enough that many students learn it in class.