Abstract

Salman rushdie calls mythology “the family album or storehouse of a culture's childhood, containing [its] … future, codified as tales that are both poems and oracles” (1999, 83). Myths are, in his words, “the waking dreams our societies permit” that celebrate “the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks” (73). Of course, all societies have such waking dreams, but women as mythic figures loom rather larger in some cultures than in others. Chinese poets, painters, sculptors, librettists, essayists, commentators, philosophers, storytellers, puppeteers, illustrators, and historians made a veritable industry of myths of womanhood—an industry that, I shall argue today, far outstrips any of its counterparts elsewhere in Asia.

The text of this article is only available as a PDF.

List of References

Ayscough, Florence.
1937
.
Chinese Women Yesterday and To-Day
.
Boston
:
Houghton Mifflin Company
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Birrell, Anne.
1993
.
Chinese Mythology: An Introduction.
Baltimore
:
The Johns Hopkins University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Songnian, Bo .
1986
.
Zhongguo nianhua shi
(A history of Chinese New Year paintings).
Shenyang
:
Liaoning meishu chuban she
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Bonnefoy, Yves.
1991
.
Asian Mythologies
. Translated by Honigsblum, Gerald et al, under the direction of Wendy Doniger.
Chicago
:
University of Chicago Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Boon, James A.;
1990
. “Balinese Twins Times Two: Gender, Birth Order, and ‘Househood’ in Indonesia/Indo-Europe.” In
Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia
, edited by Atkinson, Jane Monnig and Errington, Shelly.
Stanford
:
Stanford University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Burton, Margaret E.
1912
.
Notable Women of Modern China
.
New York
:
Fleming H. Revell
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Cai, Junsheng.
1995
. “Myth and Reality: The Projection of Gender Relations in Prehistoric China.” In
The Chalice and the Blade in Chinese Culture: Gender Relations and Social Models
, edited by Jiayin, Min et al
Beijing
:
China Social Sciences Publishing House
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Ruohong, Cai [, ed.
1994
.
Zhongguo gujin tihua shici quanbi
(The complete treasury of poems and lyrics written as colophons on paintings in China from ancient times to the present).
Wuhan
:
Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Zhuozhi, Cai , ed.
1988
.
Zhongguo yibai shinii tu
(Portraits of one hundred notable women of China), illustrated by Lu Yuguang
Guangzhou
:
n.p.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Carutz, Katherine.
1991
. “
The Social Uses of Female Virtue in Late Ming Editions of Lienü Zhuan
”
Late Imperial China
12
(
2
):
117
–48.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Carutz, Katherine.
1997
. “
Shrines, Governing-Class Identity, and the Cult of Widow Fidelity in Mid-Ming Jiangnan
.”
Journal of Asian Studies
56
(
3
):
612
–40.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Mrs.  Chapman, E.F.
1891
.
Sketches of Some Distinguished Indian Women
.
London
:
WH. Allen
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Pingyuan, Chen .
1989
.
Ershishiji Zhongguo xiaoshuo shi, diyijuan (1897–1916 nian)
, 1897–1916 (History of twentieth-century Chinese fiction, vol. 1, 1897–1916).
Beijing
:
Beijing daxue chubanshe
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Chen, Xiaomei.
1995
.
Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao China
.
New York
:
Oxford University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Ching, Julia.
1994
. “
Sung Philosophers on Women
.”
Monumenta Serica
42
:
259
–74.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Clunas, Craig.
1997
.
Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China
.
Princeton
:
Princeton University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Cochran, Sherman.
2000
. “Marketing Medicine and Advertising Dreams in China, 1900–1950.” In
Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond
, edited by Yeh, Wen-hsin.
Berkeley
:
University of California Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Deuchler, Martina. Forthcoming. “Propagating Female Virtues in Chōson Korea.” In
Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea, and Japan
, edited by Ko, Dorothy, Haboush, JaHyun Kim, and Piggott, Joan.
Berkeley
:
University of California Press
.
Google Scholar
Doniger, Wendy.
1998
.
The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth
.
New York
:
Columbia University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Fangqin, Du;
1996
. “Yanjiu zhuti dui funüshi yanjiu de yingxiang—Funüshi chubanwu shinian huigu (1981–1990) — (The influence of research topics on research on women's history: a survey of a decade of publications on the history of women).” In
Faxian funii de lishi—Zhongguo funüshi lunji
(Discovering women's history: Collected essays on the history of Chinese women), edited by Fangqin, Du.
Tianjin
:
Tianjin kexueyuan
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Dudbridge, Glen.
1978
.
The Legend of Miao-shan
.
London
:
Ithaca Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Ebon, Martin.
1975
. “The Red Detachment of Women.” In
Five Chinese Communist Plays
, edited by Ebon, Martin.
New York
:
John Day
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Elvin, Mark.
1984
. “
Female Virtue and the State in China
.”
Past and Present
104
(August):
111
–52.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Faurot, Jeannette.
1972
. “Four Cries of a Gibbon: A Tsa-chii Cycle by the Ming Dramatist Hsu Wei (1521–1593).” Ph.D. diss.,
University of California
,
Berkeley
.
Google Scholar
Frankel, Hans H.
1976
.
The Flowering Plum and the Palace Lady: Interpretations of Chinese Poetry
.
New Haven
:
Yale University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Gilmartin, Christina Keixey.
1995
.
Engendering the Chinese Revolution: Radical Women, Communist Politics, and Mass Movements in the 1920s
.
Berkeley
:
University of California Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Graham, Masako Nakagawa.
1998
.
The Yang Kuei-fei Legend in Japanese Literature
.
Lewiston, N.Y.
:
Edwin Mellen Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Grant, Beata.
1989
. “The Spiritual Saga of Woman Huang: From Pollution to Purification.” In
Ritual Opera, Operatic Ritual: “Mu-lien Rescues His Mother” in Chinese Popular Culture
, edited by Johnson, David.
Berkeley
:
Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Xifeng, Han , ed.
1993
.
Zhonghua mengxuejicheng
(Compendium of classical instruction in Chinese culture).
Liaoning
:
Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Hatley, Barbara.
1990
. “Theatrical Imagery and Gender Ideology in Java.” In
Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia
, edited by Atkinson, Jane Monnig and Errington, Shelly.
Stanford
:
Stanford University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Hegel, Robert E.
1998
.
Reading Illustrated Fiction in Late Imperial China
.
Stanford
:
Stanford University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Guangzhou, Hu ed.
1990
.
Zhongguo lidai mingshi fenlai dadian
(Classified dictionary of famous Chinese poems through the ages).
Guangxi
:
Guangxi renmin chubanshe
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Huang, Martin W.
1995
.
Literati and Self-Re/Presentation: Autobiographical Sensibility in the Eighteenth-Century Chinese Novel
.
Stanford
:
Stanford University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Huyler, Stephen P.
1994
.
Painted Prayers: Women's Art in Village India
.
New York
:
Rizzoli
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Johnson, David.
1989
. “Actions Speak Louder Than Words: The Cultural Significance of Chinese Ritual Opera.” In
Ritual Opera, Operatic Ritual: “Mu-lien Rescues His Mother” in Chinese Popular Culture
, edited by Johnson, David.
Berkeley
:
Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Kangxi yuding lidai dihua shi
(The Kangxi imperially authorized edition of brocade poems through the ages).
1976
.
Hong Kong
:
Shenzhou tushu gongsi
.
Google Scholar
Keightley, David N.
1999
. “
At the Beginning: The Status of Women in Neolithic and Shang China
.”
Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China
1
(
1
):
1
–
63
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Kingston, Maxine Hong.
1975
, 1976.
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
.
New York
:
Vintage
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Youning, Li; .
1981
. “Zhongguo xinnii jie zazhi de chuangkan ji neihan (The inaugural issues of the new women's journals in China and their contents).” In
Zhongguo funushi lunwen ji
(Collected essays on Chinese women's history), edited by Yufa, Zhang; and Youning, Li .
Taipei
:
Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Youning, Li; and Yufa, Zhang , eds.
1975
.
Jindai Zhongguo niiquan yundong shiliao
(Historical materials on the modern Chinese women's movement). 2 vols.
Taipei, Taiwan
:
Zhuanji wenxue she
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Xinnai, Lin
1993
.
Zhongguo lidai mingyuan
(Chinese beauties through the ages).
Shanghai
:
Shanghai wenyi chubanshe
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
“Lizhou guike” [pseud.].
1940
. “
Ban Zhao pingzhuan (A critical biography of Ban Zhao)
.”
Funü zazhi
,
1
(
1
):
94
–
101
.
Google Scholar
Majumdar, R.C.;
1953
. “Preface.” In
Great Women of India
, edited by Madhavananda, Swami and Majumdar, Ramesh Chandra.
Mayavati, Almora, Himalayas
:
Advaita Ashrama
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Manderson, Lenore, and Jolly, Margaret, eds.
1997
.
Sites of Desire, Economies of Pleasure: Sexualities in Asia and the Pacific
.
Chicago
:
University of Chicago Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Mann, Susan, trans.
1999
. “Zhang Xuecheng (1738–1801), Fu xue.” In
Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism
, edited by Chang, Kang-i Sun and Saussy, Haun.
Stanford
:
Stanford University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
May, Gita.
1970
.
Madame Roland and the Age of Revolution
.
New York
:
Columbia University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Mcelderry, Andrea.
1986
. “
Woman Revolutionary: Xiang Jingyu
.”
China Quarterly
105
(March):
95
–
122
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Fanke, Meng ] ed.
1990
.
Zhongguo funü zhi zui
(China's greatest women).
Beijing
:
Zhongguo liiyou chubanshe
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Min, Jiayin, ed.
1995
.
The Chalice and the Blade in Chinese Culture: Gender Relations and Social Models
.
Beijing
:
China Social Sciences Publishing House
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
O'Hara, Albert Richard.
1945
.
The Position of Woman in Early China According to the Lieh nü chuan, “The Biographies of Eminent Chinese Women”
.
Washington, D.C.
:
Catholic University of America Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Ostrowski, Brian E., and Zottoli, Brian A., trans, (with an introduction and pedagogical notes by Keith Weller Taylor).
1999
. “
Departed Spirits of the Viet Realm
.”
Ithaca
:
Cornell University Southeast Asia Program
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Raphals, Lisa.
1998
.
Sharing the Light: Representations of Women and Virtue in Early China
.
Albany
:
State University of New York Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Reid, Anthony.
1988
.
Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680: Vol. 1, The Lands below the Winds
.
New Haven
:
Yale University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Rushdie, Salman.
1999
.
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
.
New York
:
Henry Holt
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Safford, A.C.
1899
.
Typical Women of China: Translated from a popular native work on the virtues, words, deportment, and employment of the women of China
. 2nd ed.
Shanghai
:
Kelly and Walsh
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Sangren, P. Steven.
1993
. “Gods and Familial Relations: No-cha, Miao-shan, and Mu-lien.” Unpubl. paper.
Google Scholar
Sangren, P. Steven.
1997
. “Myth, Gender, and Subjectivity.”
Hsin Chu Bank Endowed Lecture Series on Thought and Culture
.
Hsin-chu, Taiwan
:
Program for Research of Intellectual-Cultural History, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Tsing Hua University
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Schafer, Edward H.
1980
.
The Divine Woman: Dragon Ladies and Rain Maidens in T'ang Literature
.
San Francisco
:
North Point Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Sen, Sukumar.
1953
. “Great Hindu Women in East India.” In
Great Women of India
, edited by Madhavananda, Swami and Majumdar, Ramesh Chandra.
Mayavati, Almora, Himalayas
:
Advaita Ashrama
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Snow, Helen Foster.
1967
.
Women in Modern China
.
Paris
:
Mouton
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Taylor, Keith Weller.
1983
.
The Birth of Vietnam
.
Berkeley
:
University of California Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Vinograd, Richard.
1992
.
Boundaries of the Self: Chinese Portraits, 1600–1900
.
New York
:
Cambridge University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Wang, Zheng.
1999
.
Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories
.
Berkeley
:
University of California Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Widmer, Ellen.
1992
. “
Xiaoqing's Literary Legacy and the Place of the Woman Writer in Late Imperial China
.”
Late Imperial China
13
(
1
):
111
–55.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Wimsatt, Genevieve B.
1928
.
The Bright Concubine and Lesser Luminaries; Tales of Fair and Famous Ladies of China
.
Boston
:
J.W. Luce
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Wimsatt, Genevieve B., trans, (with Geoffrey Chen).
1934
.
The Lady of the Long Wall: A ku shih, or Drum Song of China
.
New York
:
Columbia University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Witke, Roxane.
1970
. “Transformation of Attitudes towards Women during the May Fourth Era of Modern China.” Ph.D. diss.,
University of California
at
Berkeley
.
Google Scholar
Wolf, Margery.
1972
.
Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan
.
Stanford
:
Stanford University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Women of China, ed.
1983
.
Women in Chinese Folklore
.
Beijing
:
China Publications Centre (Guoji shudian)
.
Google Scholar
Women of China, ed.
1984
.
Departed But Not Forgotten
.
Beijing
:
China International Book Grading Corporation (Guoji shudian)
.
Google Scholar
Wu, Hung.
1995
.
Monumentality in Early Chinese Art
.
Stanford
:
Stanford University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Wu, Hung.
1996
.
The Double Screen: Medium and Representation in Chinese Painting
.
Chicago
:
University of Chicago Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Wu, Hung;
1997
. “Beyond Stereotypes: The Twelve Beauties in Qing Court Art and the Dream of the Red Chamber.” In
Writing Women in Late Imperial China
, edited by Widmer, Ellen and Chang, Kang-i Sun.
Stanford
:
Stanford University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Xiaohong, Xia
1995
.
Wanqing wenren funii guan
(Conceptions of women among late Qing literati).
Beijing
:
Zuojia chubanshe
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Xiaohong, Xia.
2000
. “
Gudian xinyi: Wan Qing ren dui jingdian de jieshuo—yi Ban Zhao yu Nüjie wei zhong xin
” (New meanings in ancient texts: Late Qing interpretations of the classics—a case study of Ban Zhao and her Instructions for Women).
Zhongguo xueshu
1
(
2
):
82
–
104.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
“Xiyuan waishi”, [pseud.].
1908
. Xiuxiang gujin xiannii zhuan (Lavishly illustrated biographies of resourceful women, past and present). Privately printed.
Google Scholar
Xiyuan, Yan , comp.
1998
.
Baimei xin yongtu zhuan
(Life stories of one hundred beauties, newly embellished with poems and pictures). First preface (by Yuan Mei ) dated 1790. Reprinted
Beijing
:
Zhongguo shudian
, 1908; facsimile edition, Beijing: Quanguo xinhua shudian.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Yang, Lien-Sheng.
1960
–61. “
Female Rulers in Imperial China
.”
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
23
:
47
–
61
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Yu, Anthony C.
1997
.
Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber
.
Princeton
:
Princeton University Press
.
Google Scholar
 
Google Scholar
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2000
2000
Issue Section:
Articles