This essay was written to accompany an installation at the Drill Hall Gallery of The Australian National University in March 2003, coinciding with the Qingming Festival of that year. It is reprinted here, on 5 September 2017 — the Fifteenth Day of the Seventh Month of the 2017 Year of the Rooster — coinciding with Ghost Festival, another occasion on which objects for the afterlife go up in smoke.… Read

Sixty Common Ghostly Words and Expressions 扮鬼臉、魔鬼 、冒失鬼、搗蛋鬼、搗鬼、膽小鬼、短命鬼、替死鬼、牛鬼蛇神、厲鬼、各懷鬼胎、搞鬼、孤魂野鬼、鬼、鬼把戲、鬼魅、鬼門關、鬼迷心竅、鬼斧神工、鬼胎、鬼頭鬼腦、鬼臉、鬼靈精、鬼鬼祟祟、鬼哭狼嚎、鬼哭神號、鬼話、鬼話連篇、鬼畫符、鬼火、鬼魂、鬼混、鬼計多端、鬼見愁、鬼主意、鬼使神差、鬼子、鬼才、鬼祟、活見鬼、攪鬼、酒鬼、見鬼、泣鬼神、吸血鬼、小鬼、心懷鬼胎、裝神弄鬼、神不知鬼不覺、神差鬼使、神出鬼沒、水鬼、人不知，鬼不覺、人小鬼大、死鬼、餓鬼、疑神疑鬼、妖魔鬼怪、有錢能使鬼推磨、東洋鬼子。 *** Ghosts in What Classic? In What Classic? 何典, a novel discussed at length by Christopher Rea in An Age of Irreverence, numerous ghosts/ gui are named.… Read

The following interview, conducted by Sang Ye 桑曄, first appeared in China Candid: the people on the People’s Republic, edited by Geremie R. Barmé with Miriam Lang, University of California Press, 2004.… Read

The long, ornate, rhapsodic fu 賦, in so far as it had an ancestor, derived from the shaman-chants of the South. Its lexical richness, euphuism and hyperbole suited an expansive, adventurous age in which Chinese armies penetrated deep into Central Asia and Chinese merchandise regularly found its way into European markets, but were deeply disturbing to right-minded Confucians, and therefore, ultimately, to the writers themselves; so that, amidst all the self-confident exuberance, a note of guilt and unease kept stealing in.… Read

From the ‘Nine Songs’ in The Songs of the South 楚辭九歌國殤, translated by David Hawkes, who says this ‘is surely one of the most beautiful laments for fallen soldiers in any language.’… Read