A Black Bear Writes 狗熊寫字

乾隆辛巳，虎丘有乞者，養一狗熊，大如川馬，箭毛森立，能作字吟詩，而不能言。往觀者，一錢許一看。以素紙求書，則大書唐詩一首，酬以百錢。一日，乞丐外出，狗熊獨居。人又往，與一紙求寫。熊寫云：「我長沙鄉訓蒙人，姓金名汝利。少時被此丐與其伙伴捉我去。先以啞藥灌我，遂不能言。先畜一狗熊在家，將我剝衣捆住，渾身用針刺之，熱血淋漓。趁血熱時，即殺狗熊剝其皮包在我身上，人血狗血交粘生牢，永不脫落，用鐵鏈鎖我以騙人，今賺錢幾數萬貫矣。」書畢指其口，淚下如雨。眾人大駭，將丐者擒送有司，照采生折割律，立杖殺之。押解狗熊至長沙，交付本家。

余按：己未年京師某官奸僕婦，被婦咬去舌尖，蒙古醫來，命殺狗取舌，帶熱血鑲上，戒百日不出門，後引見奏對如初。元某將軍入陣，受刀箭傷無算，血涌氣絕。太醫某命殺馬剖其腹，抱將軍卧馬腹中，而令數十人摇動之，如食頃，將軍浴血而立，皆一理也。

In the year xinsi of Qianlong’s reign (1753), in Huqiu (in Jiangsu province) there was a beggar who kept a black bear which was as big as a Sichuan pony, had fur thick like a forest, and could write words and recite poetry, but was unable to speak. Onlookers could pay a coin and be allowed a glimpse, or bring plain paper and have a Tang dynasty poem written out elaborately for a hundred cash.

One day the beggar went out, and the bear was left on its own. Someone came along with a sheet of paper wanting it to write. The bear wrote, “I’m a schoolteacher from Changsha, my surname is Jin and my given name is Ruli. When I was a young man I was kidnapped and taken away by this beggar and his accomplice. First they gave me a muting drug, so I couldn’t talk. They had been keeping a black bear in the house, and they stripped my clothes and tied me up, pricking me all over with a needle so I was soaked in warm blood. Before it cooled, they killed the bear, peeled off its skin and wrapped it around me, and the bear blood and human blood made it stick fast so I could never take it off. They shackle me and make me deceive people, and I have earned them several tens of thousands strings of cash in profit.” After he finished writing he pointed to his mouth, and his tears fell like rain. The assembled crowd were astonished, and they took hold of the beggar and dragged him before the local officials; in accordance with the laws on witchcraft he was executed by flogging. The bear was escorted back to Changsha and handed over to his family.

Author’s note: In the year jiwei a certain official in the capital who had an evil servant woman, and she bit off the tip of his tongue. A Mongolian doctor came and directed him to kill a dog, take its tongue, and use hot blood to attach it. He warned the patient not to step outside his door for a hundred days. Afterwards the official could present memorials just as before.

During the Yuan, a certain general received a great many wounds in battle; blood spurted and he was about to breath his last. A doctor ordered the killing of a horse, had its stomach opened, laid the general within it, and had several dozen people shake it. After a moment the general stood up, bathed in blood but otherwise quite recovered.

Yuan Mei 袁枚, Wang Yingzhi 王英志 (ed.), Yuan Mei Quanji 袁枚全集 [The Collected Works of Yuan Mei] (Nanjing: Jiangsu Guji Chubanshe, 1993), Volume 4: Zi Bu Yu 子不語, juan 9, pp. 164-65.

Translator’s note: Such medicinal practices are not unheard of in early modern Inner Asia – for discussion of a range of textual references, some perhaps more alarming than the above tales, see Francis Woodman Cleaves, ‘A Medical Practice of The Mongols in The Thirteenth Century’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 17 (1954), 428-444.

(This article is available, to those of us with institutional affiliations, via JSTOR at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2718323)

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A Flying Vampire 飛僵

飛僵

穎州蔣太守，在直隸安州遇一老翁，兩手時時顫動，作搖鈴狀。叩其故，曰：「余家住某村，村居僅數十戶。山中出一僵尸，能飛行空中，食人小兒。每日未落，群相戒閉戶匿兒，猶往往被攫。村人探其穴，深不可測，無敢犯者。聞城中某道（土）[士]有法術，因糾積金帛往求捉怪。道士許諾，擇日至村中，設立法壇，謂眾人曰：「我法能布天羅地網，使不得飛去，亦須爾輩持兵械相助，尤需一膽大人入其穴。」眾人莫敢對，余應聲而出，問何差遣，法師曰：「凡僵尸最怕鈴鐺聲，爾到夜間伺其飛出，即入穴中，持兩大鈴搖之，手不可住；若稍歇，則尸入穴，爾受傷矣。」漏將下，法師登壇作法，余因握雙鈴，候尸飛出，儘力亂搖，手如雨點，不敢小住。尸到穴門，果猙獰怒視，聞鈴聲琅琅，逡巡不敢入；前面被人圍住，又無逃處，乃奮手張臂與村人格鬥。至天將明，仆地而倒。眾舉火焚之。余時在穴中未知也，猶搖鈴不敢停如故。至日中，眾大呼，余始出，而兩手動搖不止，遂至今成疾云。」

A Flying Vampire*

When Governor Jiang of Lingzhou was in Anzhou he met an elderly man whose hands shook constantly, as if he was ringing a small bell. When asked why, the old man said, “My home is in a hamlet, the inhabitants of which only number some ten families. A vampire came from the mountains; it could fly through the air and ate children. Each day before the sun went down, everyone was warned to close their doors and hide their children, but they were often taken anyway. The villagers went to its cave, but it was unfathomably deep and none dared enter.
They heard that in the city was a certain Daoist priest who could do magic, so they gathered gold and silks and went to ask him to catch the ghost.
The magician agreed and set a date to visit the village. He built an altar, and addressed the throng, saying, “My magic can spread out and hold it fast, preventing it from flying away, then you lot can take up weapons and help out; we especially need a big brave man to enter its cave.” The multitude did not dare answer, but I responded, stepping forward and asking why a man should be sent in. The Daoist said, “The thing all vampires fear above all else is the sound of hand-bells, so when night falls you need to wait for it to fly away, then enter the cave ringing two large bells. You must never let your hands stop; even if you rest for a moment, if the vampire enters the cave you will be hurt.”
Time passed, and the Daoist mounted his altar and began to work his magic, so I picked up a pair of bells and after the monster flew away I rang them crazily with all my might. My hands blurred like falling raindrops, but I didn’t dare rest for a moment. The vampire arrived at the mouth of the cave, and sure enough glared furiously, but hearing the clanging it hesitated, afraid to enter, but soon found itself surrounded by villagers, who raised their arms and set upon it. When the sky grew light, it collapsed onto the floor. The crowd then lit a fire and burned it.
Meanwhile I was in the cave and still unaware of all this, ringing the bell as before without daring to stop. At midday the crowd shouted and I left the cave, but my hands kept waving, and are still like this now.”

*The character 僵 jiāng has a central meaning of ‘stiff’ or ‘numb’, but in combination with 尸shī is often used for ‘corpse’, and in supernatural contexts has been used to refer to ambulant corpses, zombies, and the like. As this particular jiangshi is quite predatory and mobile, vampire seems a more useful term than the lumbering forms of the undead associated with the word ‘zombie’.

Yuan Mei 袁枚, Wang Yingzhi 王英志 (ed.), Yuan Mei Quanji 袁枚全集 [The Collected Works of Yuan Mei] (Nanjing: Jiangsu Guji Chubanshe, 1993), Volume 4: Zi Bu Yu 子不語, juan 12, pp. 230-31.

Spirits Steal Mantou 鬼搶饅頭

鬼搶饅頭

文林言：洞庭山多餓鬼，其家蒸饅頭一籠，甫熟，揭蓋見饅首唧唧自動，逐漸皺縮，如碗大者，頃刻變小如胡桃，食之味如麵筋，精華盡去。初不解其故，有老人云：「此餓鬼所搶也。起籠時以硃筆點之，便不能搶。」如其言，點者自點，縮者仍縮。蓋一人之點，不能勝群鬼之搶也。

Spirits Steal Mantou

Wenlin said: On Dongting Shan were many hungry ghosts, his family had just steamed a load of mantou, but when they lifted the lid they saw the steamed buns whispering to one another of their own accord and gradually shrinking, from being as big as a bowl down to the size of a walnut, as if their very essence was being devoured. To begin with nobody could understand what caused this, but an old man said, “These have been stolen by hungry ghosts. When you set up the steamer, mark them with a red dot; then they won’t be able to take any.” Following his instructions, each was marked, but they still shrank. One person’s mark alone can’t defeat the thievery of a horde of ghosts.

Yuan Mei 袁枚, Wang Yingzhi 王英志 (ed.), Yuan Mei Quanji 袁枚全集 [The Collected Works of Yuan Mei] (Nanjing: Jangsu Guji Chubanshe, 1993), Volume 4: Zi Bu Yu 子不語, juan 22, p. 424.

Black Peonies

黑牡丹

福建惠安縣，有青山大王廟。廟之階下，所種皆黑牡丹。花開時數百，朵朵皆向大王神像而開；移動神像，花亦轉面向之。

Black Peonies

In Hui’an County of Fujian Province was a temple to the King of Qing Shan. Below the temple stairs, the only things planted were black peonies. When the time came for the several hundred flowers to open, each bloom faced the statue of the king; when the idol moved, the flowers turned to face it.

Yuan Mei 袁枚, Wang Yingzhi 王英志 (ed.), Yuan Mei Quanji 袁枚全集 [The Collected Works of Yuan Mei] (Nanjing: Jangsu Guji Chubanshe, 1993), Volume 4: Zi Bu Yu 子不語, juan 4, p. 67.

熊跟燕子 (The Bear and the Swallow)

This is a silly story composed for class, that Laoshi pointed out should be a blog post. I don’t think it really bears translating, but gives me a excuse to paint a swallow for the blog (and actually include some Chinese for once). Apologies to all of those folks who don’t read Chinese (and double apologies to those that do).

從前從前有隻灰熊。牠住在森林裡，每天都去河裡吃魚。
有許多飛來飛去的燕子，常常取笑別的動物。看到熊，一隻燕子說：「嘿胖子！你為甚麼吃得那麼多？」
熊回答：「我必須增肥，要不然不能冬眠。」
「冬眠！」燕子說：「誰想冬眠！？跟我們一起去非洲吧！」
熊沉疑地問「我哪裡會去非洲呢？去非洲是非傳統。」
燕子笑著說：「 你的想法落伍了，你應該創新吧！反正，我爸爸說非洲離這裡不太遠。」
燕子飛走以後，熊決定跟著牠去。不過，森林很大，其實離非洲很遠。熊趕不上燕子，終於難過地回洞裡睡覺。幸虧牠吃夠了，要不然一定睡不覺。到了春天，熊醒了以後看到牠剛剛回來的朋友。
「好久不見，」燕子說：「你沒去非洲嗎？」
熊搖著頭回答：「我趕不上你，可是睡得真好。」
「我真羨慕你，」燕子說：「沒想到非洲那麼遠。我累得不得了。」
「這下子，」熊說：「我一定遵循傳統，讓別人創新。」