[In the following essay, Evans examines the characters and events in Li Ju‐chen's novel and concludes that the work is an important piece of social criticism.]

LI JUHCHEN AND HIS NOVEL

The influence of the West on the thinking of Chinese intellectuals too often has tended to obscure the period prior to Western contact, for it has lulled students of Chinese history into overlooking the diversities within the Chinese scene itself. The novel Ching‐hua yuan (The flowers in the mirror) by Li Ju‐chen, published by about 1828, provides an intriguing challenge to the view that dissent came only after the Western impact.

Since the source of information about the social and political thought of Li Ju‐chen was a novel, conclusions about his social message are impossible to substantiate fully. As a result much of this paper is necessarily inferential. Whereas the philosopher or the political propagandist is moved to make his position definite, the author of a piece of fiction leaves much for the reader to glean for himself. It is my belief that much can be deduced from the novel Ching‐hua yuan through interpretation of the description of characters and events, and that the implications of the novel make Li Ju‐chen an important figure of social dissent in the early nineteenth century.

The framework that he used for his ideas makes this study a difficult one in quite another way as well. It would be extremely useful and interesting to know more about the life and personal contacts of Li Ju‐chen: in what school of thought did he belong, if any? Who were his friends? What ideas did they hold? What impact did his ideas have? Yet, because he was a dissenter who disliked the “eight‐legged” essay style, he failed to make a name in the world of officialdom, a world he could only have entered through the very examination system which he thought too narrow. He dared to spend 10 years writing the very least “serious” and “respectable” kind of literature, a novel. Even in his special field of learning, phonetics, his ideas were unorthodox. For these reasons information about him is extremely scarce; he is not listed in any of the official biographies. Interesting dissenters are often the most difficult to investigate, since none of the orthodox channels provide us with information about them. This fact often deepens the impression that there was actually little dissent.

Li Ju‐chen was born in Ta‐hsing prefecture in Chihli about 1763. He followed his elder brother Li Ju‐huang to Hai‐chou prefecture in 1782 where the latter served as salt receiver at Panp'u until 1803. There Li Ju‐chen met Ling T'ing‐k'an, a friend of Juan Yüan, and studied literature and phonetics under him. Li Ju‐chen later said that he obtained the “utmost benefit” from Ling's instruction. In Hai‐chou he also met Hsü Ch'iao‐lin and Hsü Kuei‐lin (c. 1778‐1821, chü‐jen of 1816) who became his brothers‐in‐law. After an interlude of a few years in the position of assistant magistrate in Honan, Li Ju‐chen settled in the north, in or near Peking.¹ Perhaps because of his lack of patience with an examination system based on the “eight‐legged” essay he failed to receive any degree higher than that of hsiu‐ts'ai.

The study of phonetics had been well developed by this time but the major emphasis was on researching ancient sounds rather than studying current phonology. Li Ju‐chen was unique for his attention to actual usage, to the modern sounds, and for his daring to change from the ancient pronunciation. He established a system of 33 initial sounds and 22 final sounds based on current usage.²

Although Li was unorthodox as a phonetician, it is in his novel Ching‐hua yuan that his originality in the sphere of social and political thought is apparent. According to Lu Hsün, “Not only did he dare to change from the ancient [methods] with regard to the study of phonetics, but he occupied a place in the ranks of scholars, was very learned, and yet he dared to write fiction.” (Italics added).³ His novel was the result of almost 10 years of labor (1810‐1820) and when first completed, copies were made to be circulated and read in manuscript. A printed edition appeared at least by 1828. In 1829 the book was reprinted in Kwantung, supplemented by 108 pages of illustrations. In 1888 the Tien‐shih chai (a publishing house famous for its lithographic work) of Shanghai printed it lithographically with new illustrations and a preface by Wang T'ao. The Ya‐tung shu‐chü (Shanghai) printed a punctuated edition in 1923 with a long introduction by Dr. Hu Shih.⁴ It is this last edition and a 1955 Peking edition that I have used for the purposes of this paper.

The hundred chapters of the novel can be divided into four basic sections. The first part (chapters one to six) provides the supernatural framework and the information that a hundred flower spirits are going to be incarnated as women in the “Celestial Empire” and the outlying foreign lands. They become the hundred “talented women” around whom much of the novel revolves.

Part two is concerned with the travels of the scholar T'ang Ao, who is seeking Taoist salvation by carrying out a task set for him by a Taoist monk: that of journeying abroad to bring back those of the hundred flowers which have drifted into foreign lands. Most of this section involves a description of the exotic peoples, places, plants, and animals encountered by T'ang Ao and his companions, who manage to meet and offer help to several of the incarnated flower spirits.

The third part contains an account of a similar journey made by T'ang Ao's daughter, T'ang Kuei‐ch'en (who is actually the incarnation of the Fairy of the Hundred Flowers), to find her father, who has remained abroad on the magic mountain of Little P'eng‐lai, a Taoist Utopia. This section completes the reunion of the flower spirits: the hundred “talented women” gather in China to take part in the imperial examinations for women established by Empress Wu.

Part four narrates the participation of the hundred talented women in the successful rebellion against Empress Wu, led by their fathers, brothers, husbands, and fiances. T'ang Kuei‐ch'en has by this time joined her father in Little P'eng‐lai.

Although literary criticisms have been made of the book on the basis of its potpourri of thousands of allusions and bits of scholarly knowledge, (a characteristic that makes translation of large parts of it virtually impossible) the consensus is that although it does not quite rank with Hung lou meng (Dream of the red chamber) and Ju‐lin wai‐shih (The scholars), it has much merit in its own right.⁵ There are weaknesses in Li's handling of character portrayal: although the three men who are the major protagonists during the second and most important part of the book have definite individuality, the great majority of the characters (such as the talented women) are not clearly drawn. However, this may be explained by the fact that the purpose of the author is not to develop individual personalities, but to use characters to carry out the plot, and to borrow their mouths to enunciate problems.⁶ The author creates satire by presenting the outlandish customs of the people encountered in the foreign travels of T'ang Ao, the merchant Lin Chih‐yang, and a ship's navigator, Tuo Chiu‐kung, but despite the weirdness of the people, birds, and vegetation they meet, the descriptions are very realistic—the details of daily life and appearance make the most exotic countries believable.

The voyage to the various “outlandish” countries which T'ang Ao makes with his brother‐in‐law Lin and the wise Old Tuo provides the most effective vehicle by which Li Ju‐chen can propagate his ideas about the ills of Chinese society: here lies the opportunity to criticize Chinese customs through contrast or hyperbole. Although many more minor criticisms are voiced in this way, the two major areas of dissent with prevailing customs are the position of women and the examination system, the first receiving greater emphasis. Lu Hsün quotes Hu Shih as saying that Ching‐hua yuan “is a story discussing the question of the feminine [role]. As to the solution of this problem, he [Li] advocates a system of equal treatment of men and women, equal education, and equal selection [for official posts].”⁷

EQUALITY OF WOMEN

Li Ju‐chen utilizes many different perspectives in dealing with a subject which had received little attention in Chinese literature. In the Country of Gentlemen, referred to by Hu Shih as Li Ju‐chen's “Utopia,” merchants try to sell their wares for as little as possible while their customers insist on paying more—in short, the fierce bargaining of Chinese finance is completely reversed. After marvelling at such bizarre transactions and at the extreme courtesy of the inhabitants, T'ang Ao and Old Tuo encounter the two prime ministers of that country, Wu Tzu‐ho and Wu Tzu‐hsiang. They are established as learned and refined men who entertain original and sensible opinions of social values and customs.⁸ These men ask in turn about Chinese customs with which they disagree, and conclude with observations on the custom of foot‐binding:

I hear that in your esteemed country, the women's feet are bound. When young girls' feet are being bound, the pain is something terrible. Their skin is inflamed and the flesh decomposes, smeared all over with blood. At this time they moan and cry, and can neither eat in daytime nor sleep at night for the pain, and develop all kinds of sickness. I thought that these must be bad girls being punished by their mothers for filial impiety, and therefore [they] submitted to this kind of torture which is only better than death. Who would suppose that this was done for their benefit to make them look beautiful, as if girls could not be beautiful without small feet! Now it seems to me when you cut off a superfluous part of a big nose or slice off a part of a high forhead, you would consider that man disfigured; and yet you regard girls who have disfigured feet and walk with a kind of tortured gait as beautiful! … When one comes to think of it carefully, I don't see what's the difference between footbinding and a regular form of torture for criminals. I am sure this would never be approved by the sages and the truly wise. Only by all the gentlemen of this world agreeing to stamp out this custom can an end be put to it.⁹

The arguments of the prime ministers are persuasive, but the most effective exposé of the position of women and the need for change is made through narrative description of the reversal of normal Chinese roles in the adventures of the travellers in the Country of Women. In this realm the women dressed like men and managed the affairs of business and of the state. The men stayed at home wearing powder, rouge, and all the various “feminine” adornments, and were constrained by all the rules that in China normally applied to women. The following piece of satire, translated by Hu Shih, provides us with a sense of the degree of feminine modesty and propriety that were traditionally expected—a constraint unparalleled even in Victorian England. As T'ang Ao and Old Tuo were sightseeing in the Country of Women, marvelling at the reversal of sexual norms, they were abruptly accosted by a middle‐aged “woman” sitting in a doorway: “There are beards on your faces, you must be two women. How dare you run about in gentlemen's dress! You pretend to be peeping at women, but in reality you are looking for men. Why don't you look into a mirror and remind yourselves of your sex? O you women of no sense of shame!”¹⁰

The Chinese male attitude of superiority is established by a remark by the merchant Lin: “Lucky I wasn't born in this country … Catch me mincing around on bound feet!”¹¹ However, he is forced to become painfully aware of the undesirability of filling the female role—while selling cosmetics at the palace, he is seen by the “king” (a woman, by normal standards) who becomes attracted to him and has him held captive and adorned for her pleasure, intending to make him her consort. After Lin Chih‐yang had had his ears pierced by two bearded “maids,” a black‐bearded fellow entered with a bolt of white silk:

Kneeling down before him, the fellow said, “I am ordered to bind Your Highness's feet.” Two other maids seized Lin's feet as the black‐bearded one sat down on a low stool, and began to rip the silk into ribbons. Seizing Lin's right foot, he set it upon his knee, and sprinkled white alum powder between the toes and the grooves of the foot. He squeezed the toes tightly together, bent them down so that the whole foot was shaped like an arch, and took a length of white silk and bound it tightly around it twice. One of the others sewed the ribbon together in small stitches. Again the silk went around the foot, and again, it was sewn up.

Merchant Lin felt as though his feet were burning, and wave after wave of pain rose to his heart. When he could stand it no longer, he let out his voice and began to cry.¹²

After his eventual escape the merchant Lin spoke to his wife of the treatment he had received:

I was beaten and hung upside down in the tower and had my ears drilled through. All these tortures, however, were comparatively easy to stand. What I absolutely could not stand was to have my two big feet bound until the bones were cracked and the tendons torn, leaving nothing except a bony skeleton covered by a thin skin. And when I moved about in the day or at night, my toes smarted until I was ready to die with pain. Just think that I have escaped from such a humiliation, which I am afraid even among the ancient people very few persons could stand!¹³

The obvious answer to his heroics is that women have had to stand this pain and humiliation as a matter of course for years.

In a study of Ming and Ch'ing fiction published in Hong Kong in 1957, Wu Shuang‐i writes: “The story of the Country of Women clearly illustrates that Li Ju‐chen's imagination is strong and transcendent. None of the old rules of feudalism restrained him. He bravely described a society in which women fulfilled the most important roles, which was completely opposed to the society of his times, a society in which men filled the most important roles.”¹⁴ And Li Kuo comments that Li Ju‐chen, by using descriptions, causes the men of his times, who have become accustomed to hold the honoured position in society and who believe that women rightfully occupy their lowly place, to feel the pain of having their ears pierced and their feet bound.¹⁵

Li Ju‐chen was apparently also strongly opposed to the masculine practice of taking concubines, or at least was able to see it through a woman's eyes. In the Country of Two‐Faced People this attitude is clearly expressed through the words of an irate wife who was berating her hen‐pecked husband:

Suppose I take a few male concubines and gradually leave you in the cold, would you like it? You men are all like that. When poor, you remain good husbands and have some respect for your wives, but once you are high up and rich and powerful, then off you go like a different person. You begin to think a lot of yourself and look down upon your friends and relatives and even begin to forget about your wife. As you are, you are all thieves and scoundrels and if I have your body slashed into ten thousand bits, you certainly deserve it! What do you know about the doctrine of “reciprocity”? I'll have you flogged for thinking only of yourself and not of others, and I am going to flog this idea of “reciprocity” into your head before I quit … You either take or don't take concubines; but if you do, you must first get some male concubines for me before I'll give my consent.¹⁶

This is an unusually outspoken wife. The meeker, more traditionally “virtuous” woman in China continued to submit to the “double standard.”

Li Ju‐chen does not merely denounce sexual inequality; he takes pains to show that this oppression is unjust, that women do not deserve unequal treatment. While the description of the Country of Women and the episode in the Country of Two‐Faced People quoted earlier express his criticism of the oppression of women, a description of two black girls in the Country of Black‐Toothed People voices his praise for the abilities of women. In that country both men and women are sent to school and are allowed to take the civil‐service examinations. Women are sought as marriage partners not because of birth or wealth, and especially not for beauty, since the completely black people are described as exceptionally ugly (a piece of racism that passed unnoticed by Hu Shih, who agreed with the author's evaluation)¹⁷ but because of their learning. The two girls who talk to T'ang Ao and Tuo Chiu‐kung startle the latter with their extensive classical learning, leaving the men feeling inadequate.

Li Ju‐chen's sympathy for feminism is apparent in a much larger portion of the book than just these two or three chapters. A study published in Peking in 1960 states that this is the first time in Chinese fiction that women are made the leading figures, not only from the aspect of love, but also as participants in a political movement.¹⁸ The variety of their abilities rather than their beauty or virtue is emphasized throughout: among the hundred talented girls there are “knight‐errants” like Yen Tzuhsiao, mathematicians like Mi Lan‐fen, and courageous women like Hsing Yü‐tan.¹⁹

In The May Fourth Movement Chow Tse‐tsung quotes one writer: “The Chinese woman's achievement of a life of independent personality … was actually initiated by New Youth, and the May Fourth Movement provided the key to the achievement.”²⁰ Chow Tse‐tsung's description of the position of women mentions many of the things specifically attacked by Li Ju‐chen:

They were isolated from many social relations and activities. The law never regarded them as independent citizens. In fact daughters enjoyed no inheritance of property. Within the family, women occupied an inferior, passive, and obedient position. The traditional ideal of a woman was a dependent being, that is, “a helpful wife and wise mother” (hsien‐ch'i liang‐mu). Footbinding, which started at the latest in the first part of the tenth century, made women as weak and disabled as cripples. Although there were a number of women poets and painters in Chinese history, the traditional view of Chinese ethics was that “lack of learning is a credit to a woman's virtue” (nü‐tzu wu ts'ai pien shih te). One‐sided chastity was forced on women. Concubinage was permitted by law. Association with courtesans was in many cases regarded as proper to the intellectual life.²¹

Both in his description of the Country of Black‐Toothed People and in the decrees propagated by Empress Wu in a Chinese setting, Li Ju‐chen gives women a degree of political participation through their inclusion in the examination system that was not achieved until modern times. The decree of Empress Wu, translated by Hu Shih, contains the following observations:

I believe that the essence of heaven and earth is never endowed exclusively in any one sex in particular, and that advisors and counsellors to the throne may very well be sought in exceptional channels … Now the state examinations have long been open to men, while the women are still barred from participation in them. This speaks ill of the electoral system, and is not conducive to the encouragement of talents … Moreover, it is evident to‐day that the fine gifts of nature are no longer endowed in the male sex, and that virtue and goodness have long become the attributes of womankind … I have therefore consulted many a sagacious mind and decided to institute a new system of examinations for the women of the Empire.

Hu Shih adds that by opening the examination system to women, Li Ju‐chen was advocating measures no less radical than extending the vote to them, for in China the civil service examinations provided channels of civic advancement and political participation.²²

SOCIAL CRITICISM, PRO AND CON

Although equality of women receives the most thorough treatment of any of the issues of dissent, Li Ju‐chen also devotes some attention to the examination system and to scholars. Although he begins his novel by saying that he is going to write about things of the women's chambers and romance between young men and women (a statement reminiscent of the opening paragraph of Hung lou meng) the results resemble much more closely the social criticism of Ju‐lin wai‐shih. Li Kuo comments that this may well be because Li Ju‐chen was a scholar who failed and therefore could understand such issues “as if he were seeing fire,” whereas he had much less knowledge about the tender feelings of youth.²³ He was intensely critical of “plagiarizing Confucians who criticize high‐flown essays and write with ‘false elegance’ in the eight‐legged style.”²⁴ In the chapter on the Country of White People he presents devastating satire directed toward people who speak like an “eight‐legged” essay; in that chapter and in the one about the Country of Pure Scholars he lampoons people who use an abundance of classical particles such as chih, yeh and hu. In the Country of Pure Scholars the miserliness of scholars impoverished by long years of study is ridiculed in a vivid portrayal:

[The old man—a scholar] rose … took a towel from his person and spread it on the table. He emptied the few salted beans which remained on the plate into it, and wrapped it up. There were two cups of wine remaining in the pot, and he said to the proprietor, “Keep this for me for tomorrow. If I find one cup less in this pot when I come back, I will make you pay for it ten times.” Then he scraped the left‐over sauced bean‐curd and wine‐cured bean‐curd into a dish, and gave it to the waiter. “Keep this for me,” he said.

On his way out, the old man saw a used tooth‐pick lying on one of the tables. He picked it up, wiped it, and slipped it into his sleeve.²⁵

Yet in this same Country of Pure Scholars the good points of an examination system of much broader scope than the empty practice of writing “eight‐legged” essays are presented. In this country there were a great variety of examination requirements. These included examination in the classics, history, the tz'u and fu forms, poetry and literature, essay‐writing, philosophy, musical composition, phonetics, law, mathematics, painting, and medicine. As long as a man specialized in one of these areas, he could obtain a scholar's cap and gown, although literary ability was still the most important quality for advancement.²⁶

Li Ju‐chen openly attacks certain ancient and honoured practices. The Chinese custom of geomancy (feng‐shui) is criticized through the remarks of one of the prime ministers of the Country of Gentlemen, Wu Chih‐ho, who observes that because of this custom the coffin of a father or mother often has to remain unburied for as long as two or three generations, particularly in families with small resources:

If the dead had any knowledge of these circumstances, is it likely that they would be able to rest in peace? The reason that people practice geomancy is that they want their descendants to be prosperous, but what good will this do? Great goodness can turn disaster into prosperity and great evil can turn prosperity into disaster. But expecting geomancy to bring about change—is this not like “Climbing a tree to find a fish?”

In Wu Chih‐ho's opinion, families lacking means should carry out burial without delay; as for powerful families, a high mound free from flooding would make a beautiful spot. Parents could rest in peace and people's minds would be at ease.²⁷

Although such heterodox observations as these form an important part of the book, Ching‐hua yuan contains much traditional Confucian and Taoist thought. Much of the voyage centers around T'ang Ao's discovery of and discussion about herbs and plants which contribute to immortality. His decision to seek a Taoist solution to the problems of existence can be seen only in terms of the traditional polarity between self‐cultivation and working for the salvation of the world. While T'ang Ao chooses the former, the members of the successful rebellion against Empress Wu are obviously working within the context of the latter.²⁸

Many of the more minor social criticisms made through the vehicle of the novel are very Confucian in tone. For instance, in the Country of Intestineless People, the rich eat their fill and then directly afterwards eliminate the food. They order their maids to take the waste and eat it as food.²⁹ The author's opposition to this practice (and to all ill‐treatment of inferiors for which it is a symbol) fits neatly into the Confucian concept of jen, humanity toward others.

In the Country of Gentlemen, several of the criticisms of Chinese customs made by the prime ministers are in the Confucian spirit, Wu Chih‐hsiang's condemnation of the extravagant slaughter of animals and lavish feasting at the birth of a child, the third day after his birth, the full moon, the hundredth day, and the anniversary of his birthday, and the elaborate feasts and ritual at wedding and funerals coincides with traditional Confucian ideals of frugality. In the same chapter, the prime ministers criticize the practice of sending sons or daughters to enter Buddhist monasteries, a practice which they have heard is followed in China because of the belief that a sickly child who is made a “brother of Buddha” will be cured and that if he was likely to have been short‐lived, his life‐span will be increased.³⁰ This opposition to Buddhist beliefs is a familiar Confucian stand. Traditional Confucian morality is also reflected in an observation made about the harmful effects on women that result from having a superabundance of female relatives:

Without the wife's realizing what is happening, there are continuous events calculated to do her injury, whether it is being cheated of money, or having her clothes borrowed, until she finds that she has come to feel hatred. But since she fears to have the head of the household discover this, she must contain her anger and bite back any sound in order to conceal it. These are just the petty occurrences. The most horrible thing is: persons who are well acquainted with one's every move, one's intimate secrets, can use this knowledge to make plans and this can give rise to circumstances of adultery. Such [scheming] persons consider that he or she will gain wealth and good position from two places at once. In the beginning the woman is egged on by using wine to confuse her feelings or using lewd poetry to stir her heart, and as soon as the thing can be spoken of … this person boasts that a certain woman is beautiful beyond compare and makes a compact to deceive her by saying they will go to the temple or seduce her by “leading her to distant mountains to burn incense:” their methods are various … How many wives of good families have lost their virtue in this way?³¹

The four allegories at the end of the novel, treated in depth by H. C. Chang in Allegory and Courtesy in Spenser: a Chinese View, also present a traditionally strict Confucian morality. The way to the Empress Wu's capital, Ch'ang‐an, is closed to the rebels by four steep passes guarded by her nephews. The names of the passes are transparent disguises for the terms chiu (wine), se (beauty or lust), ts'ai (wealth), and ch'i (anger). The men who succumb to these empty passions lose all, and the allegories teach that resistance to temptation must come from within oneself. To quote H. C. Chang:

The elaborate ceremony they go through as a preparation for the breaking of each “formation” including the swallowing of the drug or the wearing of the charm, is a representation of the importance of the right attitude: in reverence and faith the young gentlemen invoke virtue (the saintly character) and put determination (drug or charm or the walnuts) within themselves or before their hearts, and are then ready to face temptation. For the tempted must yield of his own accord, through his own weakness, or temptation fails to touch him. In the allegory this is hinted at from the very beginning, when Wu Four‐Thought swears not to harm even a hair of their skins if they enter the maze and is confirmed when the Taoist nun tells Yen Tzu‐ch'iung that all [of] the four “formations” are only one “Self‐Exterminating Formation.”³²

The idea of the emptiness of lust fits the traditional Taoist supernatural framework, and is reflected in the literal translation of the title of Li Ju‐chen's novel: “the fate of the mirrored flowers.” What seems real is only an image in a mirror, providing us with a lesson, but having no substance in itself. This image is well‐known in Chinese writing: histories have been described as “mirrors” in the sense that they provide a record of the past which for those wise enough to look has contemporary significance.

MODERN EVALUATIONS OF CHINGHHUA YUAN

In a 1960 study of fiction, published in Peking, the claim is made that Li Ju‐chen has a “great tendency to conform to what is handed down, and this illustrates that the author's experience of life is limited.”³³ This argument is used to substantiate the statement that Li was still “standing on the field of the gentry” and had not succeeded in seeing things from a completely democratic viewpoint. Although I would agree, for the reasons given above, that Li Ju‐chen is indeed still bound by tradition, his work is representative of more than mere conformity and lack of experience. Most of the countries described by him are mentioned in the “Hai‐wai tung‐ching” (Classic of the regions eastward beyond the seas) section of the Shan‐hai ching (Classic of the mountains and seas) but this ancient text contains only a short sentence about each. In the case of the Country of Gentlemen the Shan‐hai ching describes it merely as a country in which “people yield to one another without strife.” Li Ju‐chen elaborates upon this statement, creating a land in which many scenes such as the following are observed:

When they came to the market they heard a soldier talking to a shopkeeper. He was holding something in his hand and saying, “What a lovely thing this is! But you are charging too little for it! How could I deprive you of it? Please do me the favour of making it more costly, so that I may buy it with an easy conscience. If you refuse, it will only mean that you do not consider me your friend.” …

The shopkeeper replied, “You known that we are not allowed to haggle here. All prices are one! I am afraid I shall have to ask you to shop elsewhere if you insist on paying more than the fixed price, for I cannot oblige.” …

“Really,” thought T'ang Ao, “customer and shopkeeper have changed places. Each is saying what the other would say in other countries.”³⁴

In the same way the chapters on the Country of Women were greatly elaborated from a single sentence in Shan‐hai ching. Li Ju‐chen is simply using traditional names as vehicles for his own ideas.

As far as lack of experience is concerned, much of the description of events is based closely upon his own observations. While he was an assistant magistrate in Honan, he participated in seeing that the dikes were properly maintained. T'ang Ao's advice to the administration of the Country of Women about preventing imminent flooding by repairing the dikes according to his instructions is based on Li's knowledge of such operations. The medical lore throughout the book is very probably also founded on his own practical knowledge. And certainly his criticism of the prevailing examination system is based on bitterly acquired experience.

Since the customs which he satirized were very much in evidence and official approval of the existing mores might not countenance direct opposition to them, the novel form with its pseudo‐historical setting, supernatural background, allusions to ancient texts and “travelogue” format, might well provide a necessary disguise for contemporary criticisms.

The 1960 Peking study also makes the accusation that the criticisms of society in Ching‐hua yuan are superficial: they do not make the source of these ills in society apparent nor does the novel get to the question of the social system as a whole.³⁵ This criticism contains a kernel of truth. We have already noted that much of the novel is traditional in character. We have also observed that in his criticism of the artificiality and ineffectiveness of the examination system, Li does not advocate its total abolition. As Hu Shih describes his position:

Li Ju‐chen realized very well that education for the sake of passing governmental examinations would not lead very far. This realization is shown in the fact that he humorously caricatured the atmosphere of stupid pedantry which permeates the Kingdom of Scholars … Nevertheless he thinks that such an education is better than no education at all. He tells that as a result of the examinations, all boys in that country are made to learn to read. “It is better that this knowledge of reading should lead them to higher attainments; but even if that were impossible, this knowledge would still be of use to them in qualifying them for their respective callings.”³⁶

Thus Li does not argue for putting an end to the examinations, as some modern Communist thinkers would prefer. In any event what he is advocating is not far from the current ideal of eradicating illiteracy.

It cannot be denied that many aspects of Li's novel are highly idealistic. The concept of trade and commerce for profit is not allotted a completely honorable place. Although Li Ju‐chen does give merchants a more equal position in a society dominated by scholars, and his treatment of the merchant Lin is sympathetic, the picture of the market scene sketched in the Country of Gentlemen makes the seeking of profit appear somewhat despicable. This point of view follows naturally from the philosophy of the “hollowness” of desire enunciated in the four allegories mentioned previously. But this Utopia is not at all harmonious with the natural tendencies of men. Li Hsün remarks: “If one were to make a living in this land, it would be a struggle; although the author is not joking, the reader cannot keep from smiling.”³⁷

A similar failure to “sift to the bottom” has been noted in Li's treatment of the question of the equality of women. In China the conviction existed that women were inferior and somehow lacking the moral judgement possessed by men. A passage of the Analects which reads: “The Master said, ‘Women and people of low birth are very hard to deal with. If you are friendly with them, they get out of hand, and if you keep your distance, they resent it.’”³⁸ seems to state the traditional view fairly neatly. While Hu Shih praises Li Ju‐chen for his espousal of the cause of equality of the sexes, Li does retain certain basic Chinese assumptions about the position of women. He fails to admit that women might be valuable people in their own right rather than merely valuable for their son‐bearing potential.

Of the twelve decrees that Li lists as being issued by the Empress Wu to improve the position of women, two would seem designed to continue the sexual inequality of women: chastity in widows and in betrothed maidens was to be rewarded by means of special decorations.³⁹

In Li Ju‐chen's scheme women are to be allowed to take the official examinations but continue to be forced to abide by the decisions of parents and brothers in the question of marriage. It is not merely that these people are older and therefore more capable of making a wise choice: the younger brother of T'ang Ao's daughter arranges a match for her.⁴⁰

Hu Shih claims that Li Ju‐chen purposely chose to set the story in the time of Empress Wu, because she

was talented, learned, had the government firmly in control and although her ten‐odd years of rule received much slander from scholastic pedants, it should be counted as a peaceful era in the Tang dynasty. She was able to promote scholarship and the arts, she could recognize men of talent, and was able to make a group of scholars and politicians respect her crown.⁴¹

Hu Shih says that Li Ju‐chen has nothing but praise for the empress, and is using the setting to campaign on behalf of women. Yet when we first meet her, the empress is portrayed as a willful, drunken vixen who does not flinch from using force to make the flowers ignore the regular process of nature.⁴² The uprising that puts an end to the reign of the empress is planned and led by young men outstanding for their virtue—brothers and fiances of the hundred “flower” girls. They refer to the empress as the Heart‐Moon Fox and describe her as a cruel usurper whose reign was prolonged, but not justified, by the amnesty, reduced taxes, and 12 edicts for the welfare of women proclaimed on her seventieth birthday.⁴³ Indeed, the use of the name “Heart‐Moon Fox” alludes to the fact that the empress is described by Li Ju‐chen as the incarnation of the ambitious spirit of the Heart‐Moon Fox:

The Emperors Tang Tai‐tsu and Tang Tai‐tsung were originally ministers in the Suei dynasty (589‐617 A.D.) who usurped the throne of Emperor Yang, and established the Tang dynasty (618‐905 A.D.) by killing, pillaging, and committing atrocities and debaucheries.

When Emperor Yang arrived at the nether world, he put his case against the House of Tang before the spirits and demanded justice … However, instead of decreeing that he should be reincarnated on earth to avenge himself, the Jade Emperor decided that an evil spirit should be sent to earth and let loose upon the House of Tang, and let things run their natural course. Thus it came about that the Spirit of the Heart‐Moon Fox was ordered to be born on earth, and eventually to become a “female emperor,” thus confounding the principles of Yin and Yang, and settle the score with the Tang family on behalf of Emperor Yang.⁴⁴

Part of the reason for Li Ju‐chen's failure to revolutionize all his ideas about women may have been the effect of conditioning. He himself notes such results in observations about the Country of Women made by T'ang Ao and Old Tuo:

“Look at them!” said Old Tuo. “They are perfectly normal‐looking women. Isn't it a shame for them to dress like men?”

“Wait a minute,” said T'ang Ao. “Maybe when they see us, they think, ‘Look at them, isn't it a shame that they dress like women?’”

“You're right. ‘Whatever one is accustomed to always seems natural,’ as the ancients say.”⁴⁵

The idea of relativity itself is a much more revolutionary outlook than Li's descriptions of a few remnants of sexual inequality. Assumptions such as the propriety of feminine modesty and arranged marriages were very probably too thoroughly ingrained in Li's mind to bear questioning. Thus, although in the Country of Black‐Toothed People, the most liberated realm vis‐a‐vis equality of the sexes, men and women could walk together in the street, they were supposed to keep to separate sides of the pavement, and walk with their heads lowered, without letting their eyes meet.⁴⁶

Li Ju‐chen could well have felt that some of his proposals were simply too unorthodox to escape censure. Thus, although the “talented women” pass the examinations and appear to be able to compete favorably with men on an intellectual level, Li Ju‐chen does not have the empress choose any female officials from their ranks to be empowered to act on an equal footing with male scholar‐officials. The appointments were limited to positions of “ministering inside the palace.” The only women who do receive responsible political positions are the heir to the throne of the Country of Women and the girls who go with her to that country to be her ministers. Although the reader can be fairly certain that they will fill their posts admirably, the fact that their political power would be wielded outside of China would lessen the Chinese sense of outrage.

The rulers of Li Ju‐chen's Utopia, the Country of Gentlemen, are men. The female rulers who are described—the ruler of the Country of Women and the “female Emperor” Wu—fall far short of the virtuous, benevolent Confucian type who remains the ideal. All this serves to substantiate the fact that Ching‐hua yuan does not present a completely revolutionary vision. Yet despite certain shortcomings Li's criticisms of the existing social system are substantial. In the context of his times, he was a flaming radical. While there did not yet exist any comprehensive alternative system to challenge the traditional world‐view, Li Ju‐chen attacked the social and political world in which he lived in two very fundamental ways: by showing that actual practice did not in any way meet the Confucian standards which were acknowledged as the only orthodox and acceptable norms; and by suggesting very untraditional alternatives for long inured customs such as the maintenance of an order in which women were oppressed as inferior beings. In the latter instance he was careful in every case to make clear the injustice and illogic of the existing practice. Even his typically Confucian criticisms are clearly symptomatic of discontent with the traditional order as it functioned in actuality.

As one modern writer argues, the traditional inferiority of women

was merely one manifestation of the hierarchic nature of a society of status. It exemplified an entire social code and cosmology. Philosophically, ancient China had seen the world as the product of two interacting complementary elements, yin and yang. Yin was the attribute of all things female, dark, weak, passive … Building on such ideological foundations, an endless succession of Chinese male moralists worked out the behaviour pattern of obedience and passivity which was to be expected of women.⁴⁷

By attacking sexual inequality, Li Ju‐chen was indirectly attacking the “entire social code and cosmology”—the implications of his thought only began to become apparent when some of his attitudes about women were held and implemented independently a century later.

Notes

1. These details are from Lu Hsün, Lu Hsün san‐shih‐nien chi (Thirty years' collection of Lu Hsün), vol. 9: Chung‐kuo hsiao shuo shih lüeh (History of Chinese fiction; 1923), p. 263; and from Tu Lien‐che's biography of Li Ju‐chen in Arthur W. Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (Washington, 1943), p. 472, 473.

2. Hu Shih, in his preface to Ching‐hua yuan (The flowers in the mirror; Shanghai, 1923), pp. 8‐14.

3. Lu Hsün, p. 263.

4. Hummel, p. 473.

5. Li Kuo, Ching‐hua yuan chien‐lun (Discussion of The flowers in the mirror; Singapore), p. 31; Chung‐kuo hsiao‐shuo shih‐kao (Draft history of Chinese fiction) Peking Chinese literature study 1955 (Peking, 1960) p. 409, 410; Hsü Shih‐nien, “Lüen t'an ‘Ching‐hua yuan’” (Talking about The flowers in the mirror), Chung‐kuo ku‐tien hsiao‐shuo p'ing‐lun chi (Collection of criticisms on old‐style Chinese fiction; Peking, 1957), p. 156, 157.

6. Chung‐kuo hsiao‐shuo shih‐kao, p. 409.

7. Lu Hsün, p. 265.

8. Li Ju‐chen, Ching‐hua yuan (The flowers in the mirror; Shanghai, 1923), Chapt. 12, p. 1.

9. Lin Yutang, “Feminist Thought in Ancient China,” T'ien Hsia Monthly, 1.2:147.

10. Hu Shih, “A Chinese Declaration of the Rights of Women,” Chinese Social and Political Science Review, vol. 8, pt. ii (1924), p. 104.

11. Li Ju‐chen, Flowers in the Mirror, tr. Lin Tai‐yi, (London, 1965), p. 107.

12. Ibid., pp. 110, 111.

13. Quoted by Lin Yutang, p. 149.

14. Wu Shuang‐i, Ming Ch'ing hsiao‐shuo chiang‐hua (Discussion of Ming and Ch'ing fiction; Hong Kong, 1957), p. 90.

15. Li Kuo, p. 15.

16. Lin Yutang, p. 150.

17. Hu Shih, “A Chinese Declaration of the Rights of Women,” p. 108.

18. Hsü Shih‐nien, p. 163.

19. Li Kuo, p. 17.

20. Ch'eng Tung‐yüan, History of the Life of the Chinese Woman, chapt. 10 (Shanghai, 1928) p. 365, in Chow Tse‐tsung, The May Fourth Movement (Cambridge, Mass., 1960) p. 257.

21. Chow Tse‐tsung, p. 257.

22. Hu Shih, “A Chinese Declaration of the Rights of Women,” p. 109.

23. Li Kuo, p. 12.

24. Ibid., p. 19.

25. Li Ju‐chen, Flowers in the Mirror, p. 84.

26. Hu Shih, “Ching‐hua yuan te yin‐lun” (Preface to The flowers in the mirror) in Hu Shih wen‐ts'un erh chi (Second collection of Hu Shih's works) vol. 4 (Shanghai, 1927) p. 166.

27. Li Ju‐chen, Ching‐hua yuan, chap. 12, pp. 1, 2.

28. This idea of polarity is taken from an article by Benjamin I. Schwartz, “Some Polarities in Confucian Thought,” in Arthur F. Wright, ed., Confucianism and Chinese Civilization (New York, 1964) pp. 1‐15; also discussed by Benjamin I. Schwartz in his foreword to Liang Ch'i‐ch'ao, Intellectual Trends in the Ch'ing Period, tr. Immanuel C. Y. Hsü (Cambridge, Mass., 1959).

29. Discussed by Wu Shuang‐i in Ming Ch'ing hsiao‐shuo chiang‐hua, p. 88.

30. Li Ju‐chen, Ching‐hua yuan, chapt. 12, pp. 2, 10‐12.

31. Ibid., chapt. 12, p. 8.

32. H. C. Chang, Allegory and Courtesy in Spenser: A Chinese View (Edinburgh, 1955), p. 16.

33. Chung‐kuo hsiao‐shuo shih‐kao, p. 407.

34. Li Ju‐chen, Flowers in the Mirror, p. 58, 59.

35. Chung‐kuo hsiao‐shuo shih‐kao, p. 407.

36. Hu Shih, “A Chinese Declaration of the Rights of Women,” p. 107.

37. Lu Hsün, p. 265.

38. The Analects of Confucius, tr. Arthur Waley, (London, 1938) pp. 216, 217.

39. Li Ju‐chen, Flowers in the Mirror, p. 134; Lin Yutang, p. 149.

40. Li Ju‐chen, Flowers in the Mirror, p. 260.

41. Hu Shih, “Ching‐hua yuan te yin‐lun,” p. 157‐158.

42. Li Ju‐chen, Flowers in the Mirror, pp. 26‐31.

43. Ibid., p. 202.

44. Ibid., p. 24.

45. Ibid., p. 107.

46. Chung‐kuo hsiao‐shuo shih‐kao, p. 406.

47. John K. Fairbank, The United States and China (New York, 1963), p. 31.