{"id":8713,"date":"2017-09-04T17:42:32","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T07:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/?p=8713"},"modified":"2022-08-12T09:55:56","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T23:55:56","slug":"spectres-in-the-seventh-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/journal\/spectres-in-the-seventh-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Spectres in the Seventh Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fifteenth Day of the Seventh Lunar Month \u4e03\u6708\u5341\u4e94 is called variously Zhongyuan \u4e2d\u5143\u7bc0, Half Month \u4e03\u6708\u534a and\u00a0Ullambana<\/a>\u00a0(\u0909\u0932\u094d\u0932\u092e\u094d\u092c\u0928; \u76c2\u862d\u76c6\u7bc0, or simply \u76c2\u862d\u7bc0). It is a juncture during\u00a0which elements of Taoist and Buddhist belief mix, both for the salve of the quick\u00a0and the uplift of the dead. <\/span><\/p>\n

This day is also popularly known as Ghost Festival \u9b3c\u7bc0 for it\u00a0<\/span>marks the end of a two-week period during which the spirits of the departed, the recently dead, as well as ancestors, are freed by the King of Hell \u95bb\u7f85\u738b who orders the opening of the Gates of the Nether World \u9b3c\u9580\u95dc so they can\u00a0return to the realm of the living to receive succour and await further judgement.<\/p>\n

The Seventh Month is also known as Ghost Month \u9b3c\u6708, but it is particularly during the All Souls fortnight that the divide between the living and the dead is said to\u00a0be\u00a0more porous than usual. The living recall their loved ones, and make offerings to them to ease their existence in the afterlife, as well as propitiate the malign influences that are set abroad, so as to ward off evil.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Zhongyuan (Fifteenth Day of the Seventh Month), from calligraphy dated 724CE. Source: Stele of the Censor in the Temple \u5fa1\u53f2\u81fa\u7cbe\u820d\u7891, from 5 September 2017, Palace Museum Calendar<\/i> \u6545\u5bae\u65e5\u66c6.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is latest in our series of New Sinology Jottings \u5f8c\u6f22\u5b78\u5284\u8a18<\/a>. In it\u00a0we commemorate the Festival of the Ghosts through an overview of literature, art, film and politics.<\/p>\n

These Jottings are\u00a0written in the spirit of\u00a0New Sinology, encouraging\u00a0an understanding of the Chinese world that does not artificially sequester an appreciation of culture, thought and religion from an understanding of politics, society and economics. It is a form of Sinology that has evolved during the present era of reinvented Chinese traditions; it is an approach that constantly recalls the diverse strains of history and culture that underpin the multiverse of China, a polyphonous world\u00a0that the party-state of the People’s Republic attempts to dominate, silence, corral or eliminate.<\/p>\n

New Sinology Jottings are not some kind of self-indulgent chinoiserie or post-imperial gewgaw. Their aim is not to provide readers with a light dusting of China literacy. Rather they take China past and China present seriously as\u00a0they help readers appreciate, in a modest fashion, the skein of influences, ideas and traditions that continue to enliven the Chinese world. We hope also that these ruminations on China’s tradition of wen shi zhe<\/i> \u6587\u53f2\u54f2 (literature-history-thought) resonate with the reader’s understanding of other global cultures.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology is\u00a0situated north of Wairarapa Moana, the lake after which the district is named.\u00a0\u00a0The Chinese name of the Academy\u00a0is \u767d\u6c34\u66f8\u9662,\u00a0\u767d\u6c34, ‘white water’, being a translation of wairarapa<\/em>, te Reo Ma\u014dri for\u00a0‘glistening waters’.\u00a0In adopting\u00a0this Chinese name we were mindful of the history of Baishui county in Shanxi province \u965d\u897f\u7701\u767d\u6c34\u7e23. According to legend Baishui is the birthplace of Cang Jie \u5009\u9821, a figure famous for having invented the Chinese writing system (\u5009\u9821\u9020\u5b57). The advent of writing was said to have been such a momentous event \u2014 one that bought both weal and bane to the world \u2014 that \u00a0‘millet rained from the heavens and ghosts wailed at night’ \u5929\u96e8\u7c9f \u9b3c\u591c\u54ed.<\/p>\n

The artist Xu Bing’s \u5f90\u51b0 Ghosts Pounding the Wall<\/em> \u9b3c\u6253\u5899 reminds viewers of the ghosts wailing in the darkness, deprived of their easy manipulation of humanity by Cang Jie’s\u00a0invention of writing. The title of the work\u00a0\u2014 a collective rubbing made at the Great Wall outside Beijing in 1990 \u2014 refers to\u00a0the folk idiom gui da qiang<\/i> \u9b3c\u6253\u7246: a wall \u7246\u00a0built \u6253 by a ghost \u9b3c to entrap\u00a0travellers at night. These devilish devices so confounded travellers that no matter how hard people tried\u00a0to escape they found themselves\u00a0doomed to run in circles, caught forever in the invisible confines of the ghost’s wall. This is an appropriate\u00a0analogy for our own meditation on Ghost Festival; it also captures the spirit of the\u00a0nocturnal wailings of many of the writers and artists we introduce\u00a0below.\u00a0(On Xu Bing’s work, see Wu Hung, A Ghost Rebellion<\/a>, Public Culture, 1994:6.)<\/p>\n

Xu Bing’s Ghosts Pounding the Wall<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

***<\/p>\n

My thanks to John Minford for permission to quote\u00a0material from his translation of Pu Songling’s\u00a0Strange Tales from a\u00a0Chinese Studio<\/em> and his anthology of classical Chinese literature. Lois Conner kindly provided me with a photograph she made at\u00a0the City of Ghosts, Fengdu \u9146\u90fd, on the Yangtze River, and Gloria Davies suggested two excerpts from her book\u00a0Lu Xun’s Revolution: writing in a time of violence<\/i><\/a>. Annie Ren helped with Chapter 102 of The Story of the Stone<\/em>\u00a0and Callum Smith, the designer of the Heritage<\/em> sites, set up the mini-anthology on ghosts.\u00a0I am particularly grateful to Christopher Rea, whose work has previously featured in China Heritage<\/em> (see \u5e7d\u9ed8: You Having a Laugh?<\/a>), for acting as our guide to the\u00a0spectral realm of China.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Geremie R. Barm\u00e9, Editor, China Heritage
\n<\/i>Fifteenth Day of the Seventh Month of the
\nDingyou Year of the Rooster 2017
\n4 September 2017
\n\u4e01\u9149\u96de\u5e74\u4e03\u6708\u5341\u4e94\u65e5\u4e2d\u5143\u9b3c\u7bc0<\/p>\n

\n

Pounding on a Tub and Singing\u00a0\u9f13\u76c6\u800c\u6b4c<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Zhuangzi’s wife died. When Huizi\u00a0went to convey his condolences, he found Zhuangzi\u00a0sitting with his legs sprawled out, pounding on a tub and singing.\u00a0‘You lived with her, she brought up your children and grew old,’ said Hui Tzu. ‘It should be enough simply not to weep at her death. But pounding on a tub and singing \u2014 this is going too far, isn’t it?’ \u838a\u5b50\u59bb\u6b7b\uff0c\u60e0\u5b50\u540a\u4e4b\uff0c\u838a\u5b50\u5247\u65b9\u7b95\u8e1e\u9f13\u76c6\u800c\u6b4c\u3002\u60e0\u5b50\u66f0\uff1a\u8207\u4eba\u5c45\uff0c\u9577\u5b50\u8001\u8eab\uff0c\u6b7b\u4e0d\u54ed\u4ea6\u8db3\u77e3\uff0c\u53c8\u9f13\u76c6\u800c\u6b4c\uff0c\u4e0d\u4ea6\u751a\u4e4e\u3002<\/p>\n

Zhuangzi said, ‘You’re wrong. When she first died, do you think I didn’t grieve like anyone else? But I looked back to her beginning and the time before she was born. Not only the time before she was born, but the time before she had a body. Not only the time before she had a body, but the time before she had a spirit. In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery a change took place and she had a spirit. Another change and she had a body. Another change and she was born. Now there’s been another change and she’s dead. It’s just like the progression of the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter. \u838a\u5b50\u66f0\uff1a\u4e0d\u7136\u3002\u662f\u5176\u59cb\u6b7b\u4e5f\uff0c\u6211\u7368\u4f55\u80fd\u7121\u6982\u7136\u3002\u5bdf\u5176\u59cb\u800c\u672c\u7121\u751f\uff0c\u975e\u5f92\u7121\u751f\u4e5f\u800c\u672c\u7121\u5f62\uff0c\u975e\u5f92\u7121\u5f62\u4e5f\u800c\u672c\u7121\u6c23\u3002\u96dc\u4e4e\u8292\u82b4\u4e4b\u9593\uff0c\u8b8a\u800c\u6709\u6c23\uff0c\u6c23\u8b8a\u800c\u6709\u5f62\uff0c\u5f62\u8b8a\u800c\u6709\u751f\uff0c\u4eca\u53c8\u8b8a\u800c\u4e4b\u6b7b\uff0c\u662f\u76f8\u8207\u70ba\u6625\u79cb\u51ac\u590f\u56db\u6642\u884c\u4e5f\u3002<\/p>\n

‘Now she’s going to lie down peacefully in a vast room. If I were to follow after her bawling and sobbing, it would show that I don’t understand anything about fate. So I stopped.’ \u4eba\u4e14\u5043\u7136\u5be2\u65bc\u5de8\u5ba4\uff0c\u800c\u6211\u566d\u566d\u7136\u96a8\u800c\u54ed\u4e4b\uff0c\u81ea\u4ee5\u70ba\u4e0d\u901a\u4e4e\u547d\uff0c\u6545\u6b62\u4e5f\u3002<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 Zhuangzi<\/em>, ‘Perfect Happiness’\u300a\u838a\u5b50\u00b7\u81f3\u6a02\u300b,
\ntrans.\u00a0Burton Watson<\/a>.<\/div>\n

***<\/p>\n

In the following mini-anthology we include work from some of China’s most famous collections of ghost stories and strange tales, a comic episode from The Story of the Stone<\/em>, reflections on death, ghosts and revenge by Lu Xun, samples of Cultural Revolution-era invective, a meditation on burnt offerings to the dead, two of the most powerful poems in Chinese on death and the afterlife, and a few observations on the Chinese Way of Death from a Beijing\u00a0undertaker.<\/p>\n

We also append\u00a0a vocabulary list for those interested in how ghosts\/\u00a0gui<\/em> speak through Chinese.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Editor<\/p>\n

\n

Spectres in the\u00a0Seventh Month<\/strong><\/h2>\n

People may treasure\u00a0The\u00a0<\/em>Dream of the Red Chamber<\/i> in their hearts, but they live in the\u00a0world of The\u00a0<\/em>Water Margin<\/i>; they might yearn for\u00a0friendships like the Brotherhood of the Peach Garden in the Three Kingdoms<\/i>, but they encounter the evil spirits and ghosts of Journey to the West<\/i>.\u00a0\u4eba\u554a\uff0c\u9577\u4e86\u9846\u7d05\u6a13\u5922\u7684\u5fc3\uff0c\u537b\u751f\u6d3b\u5728\u6c34\u6ef8\u7684\u4e16\u754c\uff0c\u60f3\u4ea4\u4e9b\u4e09\u570b\u91cc\u7684\u6843\u5712\u5f1f\u5144\uff0c\u537b\u7e3d\u9047\u5230\u4e9b\u897f\u904a\u8a18\u91cc\u7684\u5996\u9b54\u9b3c\u602a\u3002\u2014 popular saying<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

***<\/p>\n

<\/span>Contents<\/strong><\/h2>\n