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Background: In recent years I have made more and more use of popular stories in some of my China-related classes. For class purposes, the issue is not literary value. Instead, the fact that some stories are virtually universally known in China suggests that they awaken interest in people raised in Chinese culture, and therefore are important artifacts for our understanding of Chinese life.
The present collection contains tales I have gradually assembled for class use. As folk tales, most exist in multiple forms. Here I have retold them in my own words, but have included the (simplified) Chinese characters for proper names and occasional other terms. In a few cases I have provided a full translation.
The stories overlap to some extent with some of the most famous Chinese novels, since the two genres have always borrowed liberally from each other.
Password-protected stories are reproduced or slightly modified from other sources for use by my students only.
China is famous for its calendrical festivals, most of which have stories associated with them. Sometimes the stories have to do with the origin of a festival; sometimes they link to themes of the event (such as love, or the moon); and sometimes they are set at festival time and come to be associated for that reason.
Lunar dates are here given as a month number followed by a day number. For example 01m15d refers to the first month, fifteenth day. Solar festival stories are blocked at the end of the list.
| Festival | Stories |
|---|---|
| The Là 腊 Festival (12m08d) | |
| Preparation for Lunar New Year (12m) | |
| Lunar New Year (01m01d) | |
| Lantern Festival (01m15d) | |
| Dragon Head Festival (02m02d) | |
| Dragon-Boat Festival (05m05d) |
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| Lovers' Day (07m07d) | |
| Mid-Autumn Festival (08m15d) and other moon-lore | |
| Double-Nine (Double-Yang) Festival (09m09d) | |
| Qīngmíng 清明 or Grave-Sweeping Festival (April 5) |
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| Winter Solstice (December 21-22) |
This section contains the plots of some commonly performed traditional Chinese operas. Most of the stories, which come from many different periods and sources, are widely circulated outside of the world of theatre, and the operatic versions, like modern film adaptations of famous stories, obviously seek to optimize opportunities for theatrical moments: mourning, battling, scheming, and so on, a process which often involves small modifications to the stories.
This is not a complete catalog of classical opera plots, of course. But all of them are quite famous, and indeed many of the characters in them are so well known that Microsoft's Chinese character input system correctly identified many of the names as I was typing them in, producing the correct characters with no need of further editing.
I have completely retold the stories here, based on their theatrical versions. In the interest of being concise and coherent, I have freely modified the texts and have added to the list from time to time, but my earliest and still main source was:
- LĬ Hăiyàn 李海燕
- 2001 Zhōngguó gŭdài xìqŭ gùshì. 中国古代戏曲故事。 (Ancient Chinese stories on traditional operas.) Beijing: Beijing University Press.
For theatrical purposes, most of these stories have standard Chinese titles, which are given here after the links.
It is in the nature of myths that they are told and retold through the ages, and that they therefore do not necessarily have a definitive form, and the earliest known version is not necessarily the most widely told. Many versions contradict each other, and sometimes characters appear in more than one myth in ways that are difficult to weave into a coherent story.
In these retellings I have tried to follow the most broadly told version, to keep the stories reasonably coherent, and to note major variations.
Chinese war stories tend to be set in the distant past and to glorify clever acts of deception over brute force or even bravery. Perhaps consonant with this, and in contrast to much European tradition, Chinese believe it is better to live to fight another day than to die to avoid compromising one's principles. There is also an unrelenting drumbeat on the theme of loyalty. In subtler retellings than the short versions here, conflicting loyalties can potentially be a significant source of psychological character development.
The stories here are arranged in historical order, more or less, and correspond with periods cathected by Chinese in recent centuries as times of great derring-do.
Most of these stories have a locus classicus. The tale of the Banquet at Swan's Gate, for example, is found in the Xiàngyŭ chapter of the Book of History (Shĭjì 史记·项羽), part of the Confucian Canon. Few people read it there, however. Throughout history most people have heard this story told orally, seen it as a play, or read it in a potted retelling. Most modern Chinese have probably read it in a version for children. The goal of this page being folklore rather than history, and recognizing the variation in retellings that therefore occurs, I have completely retold the stories here, using many sources. For most of them, my initial and main source was:
- XIĀO Hào 萧浩
- 2001 Zhōngguó gŭdài jūnshì gùshì. 中国古代军事故事。 (Ancient Chinese military stories.) Beijing: Beijing University Press.
The Xià 夏, Shāng 商, and Zhōu 周 dynasties are remembered by Chinese historians as the first three of the historical dynasties. No documents remain from the Xià period, which appears to have been a late Neolithic adaptation perhaps visible in the archaeological site of Èrlĭtóu 二里头. From the Shāng state we have our earliest evidence of Chinese writing: the famous oracle bones and inscriptions on bronze ritual vessels. By the Zhōu period there are extensive written records, including the Confucian Canon. The Xià and Zhōu dynasties each ended with a viscious tyrant of a monarch, generating folklore for centuries thereafterward explaining how he brought the dynasty to its end. (For an overview of the history of this period, click here.)
The Spring & Autumn Period ( Chūnqiū 春秋) is the time when the old feudal order of the Zhōu 周 dynasty is breaking up, and wannabe successor states are squabbling for supremacy.
By the Warring States (Zhànguó 战国) Period many of the smaller states of south China have been consolidated into the state of Chŭ 楚. The players are therefore fewer than during the Spring & Autumn Period. The period ends with the conquest of all of China by the state of Qín 秦, the end of feudalism, and the creation of the imperial system.
The period of the short-lived Qín 秦 and long-lived Hàn 汉 dynasties still generates war stories, for there was not only the dynastic transition, but rebellion as well.
The collapse of the Hàn 汉 dynasty (period 06), like the collapse of most states throughout history, produced an era of powerful warlords competing for power, as well as loyalists to the old regime struggling to save or restore it.
This brief period is far and away the most popular subject of war stories that captured the imagination of generation after generation. Much of the saga of this era was captured in an influential novel, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sānguó Yănyì 三国演义), and there is probably no Chinese born later than 1300 who does not know the name of at least a dozen of the principal characters from this book and hence this period.
Click here for a quick and useful Background to the Three Kingdoms, including a brief outline of some of the most picturesque events and personalities remembered from this era.
The Sòng 宋 dynasty is remembered, like the Hàn 汉 (period 06) and the Táng 唐 (period 12), as one of the apogees of Chinese civilization.
However it was also characterized by constant conflict with the restless and expansionist pastoral populations to the north, whose successful occupation of most of North China finally forced the court to move south for refuge. Many of the stories of this period center on YUÈ Fēi 岳飞 and his family of remarkable military heroes in their battles against the expansion of these nothern states.
The Míng 明 dynasty reasserted Chinese independence after a longer period of Mongol administration in the preceding Yuán 元 dynasty (period 19). Most of the stories from this period relate to problems with coastal piracy or to the invasion from Manchuria that brought the dynasty to its ignominious close.
China has a tradition of folk morality that centers importantly on filial piety and the subordination of genealogical juniors to genealogical seniors. So pervasive is this value, that the fame of many celebrated historical figures rests mostly or even exclusively upon their filial piety.
There are countless moral tales on this theme, of which far and away the most famous are enshrined in a text called the "Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars." That famous collection of very brief stories has been reproduced and translated on this web site under the title The Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars.
The stories as represented in that collection are quite spare, and storytellers inevitably expand them. The "retellings" here are slightly expanded versions, incorporating some of the additional material that usually appears. The four-character titles are conventional tags found in nearly all editions of these stories.
What's an Arhat? Most Chinese Buddhist temples include statues of disciples of the Buddha, usually referred to as "arhats" in English. Although many hundreds may sometimes be represented, there is a set of eighteen who are found almost always. The list usually includes standard figures in a standard order, although there are occasional exceptions, where other figures are substituted for some of the "standard" eighteen.
Who's an Arhat? Sixteen of the "standard" set are Indians, with names that often have more than one transliteration into Chinese. Although statues may often be identified by the Indian name (in Chinese characters), all of them also have Chinese monikers that most people find more comfortable. For example, most Chinese find it easier to call the first figure in the series "The Arhat Who Rides a Deer" (Qílù Luóhàn 骑鹿罗汉) than "Arhat Pindola-bharadvaja" (Bīndùluó-báluō-duòdū zūnzhĕ 宾度罗跋啰惰阇尊者). The following list contains links to such stories as I have found for each arhat, plus his alternative Chinese names.
Any of these names may have the expression zūnzhĕ 尊者 ("senior monk") or luóhàn 罗汉 (or āluóhàn 阿罗汉) ("arhat") suffixed as a term of respect. Zūnzhĕ is slightly more formal and is usually found after transliterated Indian names. Luóhàn is more usual after Chinese colloquial names or titles. In this list, zūnzhĕ has been omitted from the already long Indian names to simplify the listing, but luóhàn has been retained in the colloquial Chinese names.
The listing retains the traditional "arhat numbers," with additional people, not usually included in the eighteen, listed at the end.
The following figures are sometimes included among the 18 arhats in place of some of those in the list above, but it seems safe to say that they are not part of the "standard" set. In most cases their stories are not included here.
The following titles are occasionally given when referring to figures among the 18 arhats, but I have not yet been able to establish with certainty whether any are consistently enough applied to be reliable identifications.
The stories listed here are not my renditions. Therefore access is unavailable except to my current students with the appropriate log-in and password.
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