Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T12:03:38.252Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Migration, Identity, and Colonial Fantasies in a Fifth-Century Story Collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2021

Xiaofei Tian Open the ORCID record for Xiaofei Tian [Opens in a new window]
Xiaofei Tian*
Affiliation:
Xiaofei Tian ([email protected]) is Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University.
Get access

Extract

At the turn of the fifth century, a story about a man contesting real estate with a ghost circulated in several different versions in South China. In one of the versions, a young man discovered three lacquer coffins when digging a tomb for his deceased father and had the coffins reburied elsewhere. That night, he dreamed of Lu Su 魯肅 (172–217), the powerful minister in the southern Kingdom of Wu, who angrily announced that he would exact revenge. He also dreamed of his late father, who told him that Lu Su was fighting with him over the gravesite. Later, the young man found copious blood on his father's seating mat.

Keywords

anomaly account (zhiguai)ethnicitygenderidentitylocal cultMan peoplesmigrationsettler colonialismsexualitysocial class
Type
Forum—Migration in Early Medieval China
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 80 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 113 - 127
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Liu Yiqing 劉義慶, Youming lu 幽明錄, comp. Lu Xun 魯迅 and collat. Wang Genlin 王根林, in Han Wei liuchao biji xiaoshuo daguan 漢魏六朝筆記小說大觀 [A collection of Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties stories] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1999), 724 (subsequently Liu 1999). See also Liu Yiqing, Youming lu, annot. Zheng Wanqing 鄭晚晴 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1988), 121 (subsequently Liu 1988).

2 Mather, Richard B., “Intermarriage as a Gauge of Family Status in the Southern Dynasties,” in State and Society in Early Medieval China, ed. Dien, Albert (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990), 211–28Google Scholar.

3 Tan Qixiang 譚其驤,“Jin Yongjia luanhou zhi minzu qianxi” 晉永嘉亂後之民族遷徙 [The ethnic migration after the chaos during the Yongjia era of the Jin], in Changshui cuibian 長水粹編 (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2000), 272–98.

4 Tian, Xiaofei, “Representing Kingship and Imagining Empire in Southern Dynasties Court Poetry,” T'oung Pao 102, nos. 1–3 (2016): 1–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 He Da'an 何大安, “Liuchao Wuyu de cengci” 六朝吳語的層次 [The layers of the Wu dialect in the Six Dynasties], Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Lishiyuyan yanjiusuo jikan 中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊 64, no. 4 (1993): 867.

6 Shen Yue 沈約, Song shu 宋書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 2078; Xiao Zixian 蕭子顯, Nan Qi shu 南齊書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1972), 484, 1007.

7 Liu Yiqing, Shishuo xinyu jianshu 世說新語箋疏, annot. Yu Jiaxi (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1993), 29.

8 Tian, Xiaofei, Beacon Fire and Shooting Star: The Literary Culture of the Liang (501–557) (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 27–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 William Crowell, “Northern Émigrés and the Problem of Census Registration,” in Dien, State and Society in Early Medieval China, 184.

10 Lü Chunsheng 呂春盛, “Wei Jin nanbeichao shidai de Laozu yu xi'nan tuzhu shehui de bianqian” 魏晉南北朝時代的 “獠族” 與西南土著社會的變遷 [The Lao people and the transformation of the indigenous society of the southwest in the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern dynasties], Chengda lishi xuebao 35 (2008): 53.

11 Wright, Arthur F., “The Sui Dynasty,” in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 3, ed. Twitchett, Denis (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 49Google Scholar; and Stephen Owen, “Xia Jiangnan: Guanyu Dong Jin pingmin de huanxiang” 下江南: 關於東晉平民的幻想 [Going south: fantasy about the Eastern Jin plebian], in Xia Jiangnan: Suzhou daxue haiwai Hanxue yanjianglu 下江南: 蘇州大學海外漢學演講錄 [Going south: Overseas Sinologists’ lectures at Suzhou University], ed. Ji Jin 季進 and Wang Yao 王堯 (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2011), 27–41.

12 Veracini, Lorenzo, Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Zhang, Zhenjun, Hidden and Visible Realms: Early Medieval Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), lii–lviCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Campany, Robert Ford, A Garden of Marvels: Tales of Wonder from Early Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015), xxiv–xxviCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 For a comprehensive study of the zhiguai writings in early medieval China, see Campany, Robert Ford, Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

16 Gan Bao 干寶, In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record, trans. Kenneth J. DeWoskin and J. I. Crump (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996).

17 Li Jianguo 李劍國, Tangqian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi 唐前志怪小說史 [A history of pre-Tang zhiguai] (Tianjin: Tianjin jiaoyu chubanshe, 2005), 392.

18 That the prince's staff had contributed to the compilation of YML is a speculation entertained by some scholars. See Liu Sai 劉賽, “Jingzhou ji yu Youming lu chengshu guanxi zhi kaocha” 盛弘之荊州記與幽明錄成書關係之考察 [Sheng Hongzhi's Record of Jingzhou and its relationship to the composition of You ming lu], Zhonguo dianji yu wenhua 2 (2008): 18. See also Zhang, Hidden and Visible Realms, xlvi.

19 Xiao, Nan Qi shu, 1007.

20 Shen, Song shu, 2396.

21 Shen, Song shu, 1996–98. See also Chen Yuping 陳玉屏, Wei Jin nanbeichao binghu zhidu yanjiu 魏晉南北朝兵戶制度研究 [A study of the institution of military household in Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern dynasties] (Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe, 1988), 148–49.

22 Shen, Song shu, 1998.

23 Shen, Song shu, 2396.

24 Fan Ye, Hou Han shu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), 2829.

25 Shen, Song shu, 1998.

26 Liu 1999, 744. All translations from You ming lu in this article are my own.

27 Shen, Song shu, 2266; Fan, Hou Han shu, 2860.

28 Liu 1988, 18.

29 Liu 1999, 692.

30 Tao Yuanming 陶淵明, Tao Yuanming ji 陶淵明集 [Tao Yuanming's collection], annot. Lu Qinli 逯欽立 (Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju, 1987), 165–66.

31 Shen, Song shu, 2396.

32 Tang Zhangru 唐長孺, Wei Jin nanbeichao shi luncong 魏晉南北朝史論叢 [Studies in Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern dynasties history] (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2000), 622–35.

33 Fang Xuanling 房玄齡 et al., Jin shu 晉書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 1782.

34 Liu 1999, 697–98.

35 See Liu Shufen 劉淑芬, “Jiankang and the Commercial Empire of the Southern Dynasties: Changes and Continuities in Medieval Chinese Economic History,” in Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200–600, ed. Scott Pearce, Audrey Shapiro, and Patricia Ebrey (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001), 35, 49–51.

36 Liu 1999, 704.

37 Kang 康 was a Han Chinese surname often adopted by the Sogdian people from Kangju, a Sogdian kingdom in Central Asia. The term used in the story to refer to the man is Hu 胡.

38 Liu 1999, 718.

39 Wei Shou 魏收, Wei shu 魏書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuj, 1974), 2281; Fang et al., Jin shu, 2792.

40 Xie Mingxun 謝明勳, “Liuchao zhiguaixiaoshuo ‘hua Hu’ gushi yanjiu” 六朝志怪小說“化胡”故事研究 [A study of the ‘transformation into Hu’ stories in the Six Dynasties zhiguai], Donghua hanxue 1 (2003): 45–69.

41 Li Yanshou 李延壽, Nan shi 南史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 1462.

42 Tian, Beacon Fire, 26–38.

43 Liu 1999, 708–9.

44 Liu 1999, 721.

45 Xiao Tong 蕭統, Wen xuan 文選 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994), 1816.

46 Mather, “Intermarriage as a Gauge of Family Status,” 211–28; Tian, Beacon Fire, 37–38, 51–52.

47 Zhu Zhiwu 朱智武, “Nanjing Sijiashan chutu Xieshi muzhi yanjiu: liuchao liuyu guizu de wange” 南京司家山出土謝氏墓志研究: 六朝流寓貴族的輓歌 [A study of the tomb inscriptions of the Xie family excavated at Sijiashan of Nanjing: A dirge for the Six Dynasties displaced aristocrats], in Huiwang rumeng de liuchao: liuchao wenshi lunji, ed. Li Hongtian (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2009), 388.

48 Liu, Shishuo xinyu jianshu, 24.

49 Liu 1999, 741.

50 Shen, Song shu, 1236.

51 Cook, Constance A. and Major, John S., Defining Chu: Image and Reality in Ancient China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999), 3–4Google Scholar, 136; Ban Gu 班固, Han shu 漢書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1970), 1666, 2760.

52 Liang Mancang 梁滿倉, “Lun Jiangshen zai liuchao diwei de gonggu yu tigao” 論蔣神在六朝地位的鞏固與提高 [The consolidation and elevation of the status of the god Jiang Ziwen], Shijie zongjiao yanjiu 3 (1991): 58–68.

53 Yao Xiaodong 姚瀟鶇, “Jiang Ziwen Xinyang yu liuchao zhengzhi” 蔣子文信仰與六朝政治 [Jiang Ziwen worship and Six Dynasties politics], Xueshu yanjiu 11 (2009): 111–16.

54 Shen, Song shu, 1857, 2433; Xiao, Nan Qi shu, 105.

55 Liu 1999, 705.

56 Liu 1999, 717.

57 Fang et al., Jin shu, 242.

58 Liu, Shishuo xinyu jianshu, 647.

59 Liu 1999, 714.

60 Liu 1999, 730–31.

61 Liu 1999, 711.

62 See, e.g., Stoler, Ann Laura, “Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Gender, Race and Morality in Colonial Asia,” in Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era, ed. di Leonardo, Micaela (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 51–101Google Scholar.

63 See, e.g., Fang et al., Jin shu, 1220.

64 Liu 1999, 706.

65 Liu 1999, 725.

66 Wei Zheng 魏徵 et al., Sui shu 隋書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1973), 1055.

67 Liu, Shishuo xinyu jianshu, 53.

68 Liu, Shishuo xinyu jianshu, 12.

69 Liu 1999, 73.

70 Xiao, Nan Qi shu, 890.

71 Liu 1999, 703, 719.