The Uses of Oral Performing Literature in the Jin Ping Mei cihua

CHINOPERLPAPERSNo.17 The Uses of Oral Performing Literature in the lin Ping Mei cihua The lin Ping Mei cihua describes a world in which the inclusion of descriptions of oral performing literature is quite natural. Oral performing literature was conceived primarily as a form of entertainment47 and many of its varieties got their start or maintained a permanent home in the pleasure quarters. The main character of the novel, Ximen Qing, is described upon his first appearance as a denizen of the pleasure quarters and well acquainted with the "minor arts" of that world.48 His best "friend," Ying Bojue, makes his living as a sort of travel guide to the pleasure quarters and is on good terms with many of its inhabitants. With Ximen Qing's rise in financial and political status, his household progressively resembles the pleasure quarters. His second wife, Li Jiao'r, is a former prostitute49 ; one of the main attractions for him of his fourth wife, Meng Yulou, is the fact that she can play the pipa; his fifth wife, Pan Jinlian, was trained as a performer of popular songs; his first and sixth wives, Wu Yueniang and Li Ping'r, each become courtesy mothers to singing girls, Li Guijie and Wu Yin'r, respectively; his personal body servant, Shutong, can sing and act in the Southern manner; Miao Qing sends him a pair of singing boys; and his maids take lessons in popular songs and music from Li Guijie's brother, Li Ming. He has the financial resources to hire entertainers to perform everything from skits ~ofullblown plays in his household and does so not only to celebrate birthdays and holidays, but even for quite ordinary occasions.50 The women of his household are also permitted to enjoy performances of oral performing literature, whether from behind bamboo curtains or in their own quarters. 51 47 Even though some varieties, such as baojuan and daoqing, are highly didactic. 48 This is not to deny that he is also pictured in the novel as a boor with no taste at all. 49 Another shortlived wife, Zhuo Diu'r, was also a prostitute. 50 In the course of the description of the calendar year 1117, which takes up the bulk of chapters 39-78, there are performances of oral performing literature on eleven ordinary days. 51 The prevalence of oral performing literature in the Ximen Qing household 14 Rolston lin Ping Mei cihua Throughout the present century the mining of the lin Ping Mei cihua for information on the history of oral performing literature, particularly drama and song, has been one of the continuing focuses of interest in studies of the nove1.52 It is certainly a safer topic than trying to deal with the descriptions of sexual activity in the novel. Studies of this kind are slightly complicated by the fact that, by strict definition, the majority of the uses of oral performing literature in the novel are nonrealistic. I refer here to the fact that the novel is set in the last years of the Northem Song, but the specific examples of oral performing literature described or alluded to are more typical of the late 16th century than the 12th. The fact that itself has both its realistic and nonrealistic aspects. Writing somewhat later,. Gu Yanwu ,I{~~ (1613-1682), in his Rizhi lu ·B~~, complained that officials of his day were bewitched by drama, turning all their energies toward it instead of their responsibilities to the people, and that this was a threat to the state itself. See Hu Shiying, Huaben xiaoshuo gailun, p. 479. 52 Major studies of this type include Feng Yuanjun ~?5G~, II lin Ping Mei cihua zhong de wenxue ziliao ~1ff[m~ijj~ep f¥J)(~~B," in her Guju shuohui 1:i jtJ~~ (Beijing: Zuojia, 1956); Sawada Mizuho 7¥83Jiffi~, "Kimpaibai shiwa no hokan ni tsuite ~1aim~~O)_~(~? L\ "L,'. Chugoku bungakuho tp~:>c¥ ~ 5 (1956): 86-89; Dai Bufan ~~ JL, "lin Ping Mei zhong de xiqu yu fangzhi shiliao ~mt~epEfJ~EtBW#j~~;e)fSl-, in Hu Wenbin mXw and Zhang Qingshan ~Jl~, eds., Lun lin Ping Mei MH~~m (Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 1984), pp. 351-58; Cai...