The following episode is from Chapter 102 of The Story of the Stone: The Dreamer Wakes 萬境歸空, translated by John Minford, Penguin Books, 1986.
Charms and Holy Water are Used to
Exorcize Prospect Garden
大觀園符水驅妖孽
Skybright’s cousin, Wu Gui, lived, it will be remembered, opposite the rear gate-house of the Garden.… Read
Essays
Weird Accounts 志怪
During the Six Dynasties [六朝, 220-589 CE] a new prose genre, the zhiguai 志怪 tale [or ‘tales of the strange and supernatural’], emerged clearly from the mass of occasional writings of China’s literati.… Read
Burn the Books, Bury the Scholars!
Over the past four days, Cambridge University Press (CUP), a venerable academic publishing house that operates under the aegis of the even more venerable Cambridge University, has been the focus of international news reports.… Read
Remembering Igor — our secret history
This essay was written shortly after the death of Igor de Rackewiltz on 30 July 2016. It was initially circulated among friends and former colleagues. This is a revised version of that memoir and it should be read in tandem with Of Tartar Princesses, Poetry and Mongol Khans, also published by China Heritage.… Read
Of Tartar Princesses, Poetry and Mongol Khans
Igor de Rachewiltz — scholar, colleague, friend — passed away on this day one year ago. We are privileged to be able to publish the edited transcript of an interview that Igor gave to the editors of the journal Chinoiresie shortly before his death.… Read
The Great Wall: a wonder and a curse!
I have always felt hemmed in on all sides by the Great Wall; that wall of ancient bricks which is constantly being reinforced. The old and the new conspire to confine us all.… Read