Spirit and Self in Medieval China: The Shih-shuo hsin-yu and Its Legacy

10. New and Old: The Last Wave of Shih-shuo Imitations

∫ Chapter 10 New and Old: The Last Wave of Shih-shuo Imitations The last wave of Shih-shuo imitations, Hsü K’o’s Ch’ing-pai lei-ch’ao (Classified records from unofficial Ch’ing historical writings) andYi Tsungk ’uei’s Hsin Shih-shuo (New Shih-shuo), emerged soon after the 1911 Republican Revolution. The two works were finished only two years apart, in 1916 and 1918 respectively, but the two authors’ motivation and purpose of compilation differed greatly. Although claimed as a Shih-shuo imitation, Hsü K’o’s Ch’ing-pai leich ’ao looks more like an encyclopedic work. With 13,500 Ch’ing historical anecdotes classified into ninety-two categories, it covers almost every aspect of Ch’ing China: its geographical features, social, political, and economic systems, art, religion, and culture, as well as about fifty Shih-shuostyle human character types. The inclusion of some new categories, such as wai-chiao (diplomacy), chung-tsu (races), tsung-chiao (religions), huitang (societies and parties), mi-hsin (superstition), tung-wu (animals), chihwu (plants), k’uang-wu (minerals)—as well as various groups of lower-class people, such as yen-ssu (eunuchs), yu-ling (actors), ch’ang-chi (prostitutes), hsü-i (clerics), nu-pi (servants and slaves), tao-tsei (robbers and thieves), kun-p’ien (swindlers), and ch’i-kai (beggars)1—indicates the author’s desire to take into account the various political, social, and cultural changes of his time. Overall, Hsü K’o’s purpose was to write a conventional historiographical account of the Ch’ing. Both Hsü and his proponent, Chu Tsungy üan, stated in their prefaces that they were simply recording the rise and fall of the previous dynasty while the memory was still fresh but all the taboos were gone.2 Chu summarized the Ch’ing achievements in the following way: “Because [the Ch’ing rulership] could see what the Ming had neglected, it intentionally avoided the Ming flaws in its ritual and political systems, promoted scholarship, and respectfully placed worthy Confucians [in proper offices]. . . . Consequently, the Confucian gentle manner became the national vogue, and each generation was thronged with scholar-officials who admired the [Confucian] moral teachings and righteousness.”3 Hsü K’o likewise celebrated the Ch’ing in his preface and “compilation notes.” For example, he recorded the last Empress Dowager Lung-yü’s “virtue of yielding from modesty” (jang-te) as she agreed to the abdication of the child emperor Hsüan-t’ung (r. 1909– 1911).4 Clearly, Hsü K’o and Chu Tsung-yüan intended to establish a fair record of the Ch’ing dynasty in Chinese history—yet for whose reference? In the past, the purpose of compiling such an account was to provide information to the new ruler. We can recall how Liang Wei-shu and his three preface authors, Wu Wei-yeh, Ch’ien Ch’ien-i, and Ch’ien Fen, promoted Liang’s Accounts of the Jade Sword as a guidebook for the succeeding regime. Hsü K’o and Chu Tsung-yüan, however, seemed to lack such ambition , despite the ambitious range and size of the Ch’ing-pai lei-ch’ao. Hsü K’o claimed to be offering his book solely for the reference of scholars, so that they would not have to rely upon foreign sources in composing histories of the Ch’ing.5 Hsü’s modesty came from his sense that an entirely new era had dawned, and he could not determine how to connect the old and the new—and therefore what to offer the new. Compared with Hsü and Chu’s perplexity, Yi Tsung-k’uei appeared much more assertive about his purpose in compiling a Shih-shuo imitation . His New Shih-shuo strictly adhered to the original Shih-shuo categorization scheme, yet the word “new,” or hsin, separated it from any of its predecessors. It marked Yi’s participation in the collective “historical consciousness ” of a revolutionary period, when Chinese intellectuals appealed to the word hsin as a challenge to the past and a guide to the future.6 As Yi explains in his “Li-yen” (Compilation notes): 3 4 0 Pa r t 3 This book is basically a work of hsiao-shuo, an aid to conversation. But teachers of ethics may use the chapters of “Te Conduct,” “The Square and the Proper,” “Cultivated Tolerance,” “Warnings and Admonitions,” etc., for their...