Of opium pellets and smoke-filled alleys: an episodic novel of the
Chinese demimonde, first published in 1894. Literary scholar David
Der-wei Wang offers in a foreword that this is the "greatest late
Qing courtesan novel," highly specific praise indeed. Han blends
psychological realism and stylized convention in writing of
courtesans, bearing such names as Twin Pearl and Gold Phoenix, who
have made their way from unpromising places in the countryside to
establish themselves in China's first modern, westernized city;
some of their customers, law-abiding citizens and family men such
as Lotuson Wang and Bamboo Hu, actually think that the girls love
them, but the girls themselves know that their work is part of an
elaborate charade. In the way of a period opera, the action moves
slowly; as one chapter header has it, "a new girl is given strict
instructions at her toilet, and old debts are lightly dismissed by
a hanger-on." Though Chang (Written on Water, 2005, etc.) thought
well enough of Bangqing's novel to undertake a translation first
from Wu into Mandarin Chinese and then into English, the book was
never popular in China; even Chang allows that "there is no
sensuous quality" in the book, unlikely to fulfill any would-be
reader's prurient expectations. It does not help that the English
translation, revised by Hung, has a certain tin-ear, unidiomatic
quality: "Instead of a party, just treat me to your buns. That's
easy for you and won't cost you anything, right?"; "You know, I had
just fallen asleep when you made all that racket and got yourself
cursed at"; and "The two of them drank sparingly as they poured out
their feelings to each other, and dinner was over only when they
had fully enjoyed themselves." Unlikely to appeal to the average
reader. (Kirkus Reviews)
Desire, virtue, courtesans (also known as sing-song girls), and
the denizens of Shanghai's pleasure quarters are just some of the
elements that constitute Han Bangqing's extraordinary novel of late
imperial China. Han's richly textured, panoramic view of
late-nineteenth-century Shanghai follows a range of characters from
beautiful sing-song girls to lower-class prostitutes and from men
in positions of social authority to criminals and ambitious young
men recently arrived from the country. Considered one of the
greatest works of Chinese fiction, "The Sing-song Girls of
Shanghai" is now available for the first time in English.
Neither sentimental nor sensationalistic in its portrayal of
courtesans and their male patrons, Han's work inquires into the
moral and psychological consequences of desire. Han, himself a
frequent habitu? of Shanghai brothels, reveals a world populated by
lonely souls who seek consolation amid the pleasures and decadence
of Shanghai's demimonde. He describes the romantic games played by
sing-song girls to lure men, as well as the tragic consequences
faced by those who unexpectedly fall in love with their customers.
Han also tells the stories of male patrons who find themselves
emotionally trapped between desire and their sense of
propriety.
First published in 1892, and made into a film by Hou Hsiao-hsien
in 1998, "The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai" is recognized as a
pioneering work of Chinese fiction in its use of psychological
realism and its infusion of modernist sensibilities into the
traditional genre of courtesan fiction. The novel's stature has
grown with the recent discovery of Eileen Chang's previously
unknown translation, which was unearthed among her papers at the
University of Southern California. Chang, who lived in Shanghai
until 1956 when she moved to California and began to write in
English, is one of the most acclaimed Chinese writers of the
twentieth century.
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