The Strange Tales of Aladdin Dogballs

Celebrating New Sinology

狗蛋誌異

The culture of Qi-Lu 齊魯, modern-day Shandong province, brackets the Chinese tradition. At one end there are thinkers like Confucius, Zhuangzi and Mencius, while at the other is Pu Songling (蒲松齡, 1640-1715).

Pu’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio 聊齋誌異, is an unruly collection hundreds of stories and anecdotes on a bewildering variety of ‘strange’ themes. First printed in 1766, long after Pu’s death, Strange Tales would, as the translator John Minford points out, soon be considered the pinnacle of fiction in the classical Chinese language, just as The Story of the Stone (aka, Dream of the Red Chamber) came to be considered the pinnacle of fiction in the vernacular.

The Strange Tales of Aladdin Dogballs 阿拉丁狗蛋, produced by a theatrical troupe in rural Rizhao county, Shandong province, offer a twist on late-traditional themes. The stream of mock heroic short vertical videos populated by cosplaying larrikins draws on Chinese history and myth, martial arts fiction and its various screen adaptations, as well as on Japanese anime series like Naruto and One Piece. There are also frequent references to Kung Fu Hustle, a contemporary movie classic directed by Stephen Chow 周星馳.

Dogballs’ tales recall the bizarre world of Pu Songling, albeit with more artifice and less art. They also bring to mind the non-utilitarian sculptures of the peasant Da Vinci’s displayed at Shanghai Rockbund in 2010.

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In this chapter of Celebrating New Sinology, Aladdin Dogballs provides a necessary counterbalance to the all-too-often tendentious discussions of contemporary China. Their humour comes from The Other China. See also:

The Zhang Family of Huayin; and,
Tired of Winning Yet, China? — The Band Slap Has Some News for You

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狗蛋 gǒu dàn, literally ‘dog balls’ has a range of meanings in colloquial Chinese. Used as a childhood name for children in the countryside, it has also come to mean ‘outlandish’ or ‘resilient’. It is often a term of mildly derisive affection, somewhat akin to ‘ya old bastard’, ‘you bugger’, or ‘you cunt’ in Australian English. 狗蛋 gǒu dàn also sounds like 狗膽 gǒu dǎn, as in 狗膽包天, ‘brazen’ or ‘outrageous’.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
18 August 2025

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Aladdin Dogballs links:

Facebook Q&A
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AladdinGoudan
TikTok: tiktok.com/@aladdingoudan_official
Facebook: facebook.com/AladdinGoudanOfficial
Instagram: instagram.com/aladdingoudan

The Strange Tales of Pu Songling:

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Six Cents

啊，六毛，你比五毛多一毛

Aladdin Dogballs 阿拉丁狗蛋 is a theatre troupe based in the countryside of Rizhao 日照, a coastal county in southeast Shandong province. Led by ‘Yuhuatian of the Western Depot’ 西廠雨化田, a formally trained theatre director, the group has been producing short videos since 2018. Having gained a considerable following on Douyin and BiliBili, Aladdin Dogballs launched a YouTube channel in September 2024.

The world of Aladdin Dogballs is one in which local theatre, historical fiction and Japanese anime meld, creating in the process a constant stream of faux dramatic and comical nonsense. Their efforts bring to mind both Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio and Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark.

The Master of the Depot started out making spoofs of films like Venom, cartoon series and Japanese anime. As the group evolved, and their techniques — especially their costume designs and special effects — improved, they launched the ‘Western Depot Series’ 西廠系列. The ongoing clash between the Western and Eastern Depots played on popular ideas related to the secretive eunuch-run agencies used by Ming-dynasty emperors to enforce their rule. The Western and Eastern Depots were originally headquartered in Beijing and were part of a system known by the shorthand 三廠一衛, ‘Three Depots One Guard’. That is the Eastern Depot, the Western Depot and the Inner Branch Depot, plus The Imperial Brocade Guard. These agencies existed in various forms during various periods of the Ming.

In this Chinese Aladdin’s world, the Master of the Depot 廠公, Yuhuatian, is proficient at martial arts and in various episodes of the ongoing comic drama he unfailingly disposes of the ‘Three Dolts of the Eastern Depot’ 東廠三傻, bloated and corrupt eunuchs, with ease. His victories are celebrated by Flower Girl 撒花女, a companion who scatters petals from a spittoon in slow motion at the end of each video clip as music from Kung Fu Hustle plays in the background.

The main-character energy of Yuhuatian is reflected in his dead-fish eyes and languid style which is at times reminiscent of Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. Wrapped in a floral coverlet knotted at his neck and with a mock-Ming-era official cap made with flip-flops on his head, the Master goes into battle with a long wooden sword-like prop. His droll utterances are often absurdist and he rarely fails to observe of his encounters that they are ‘all rather amusing’ 有點意思. His opposite number, Master of the Eastern Depot, is quick to dismiss his antics as 花裡胡哨, ‘flummery’.

— Geremie R. Barmé, based on 拖鞋帽、死魚眼、撒花女這個西廠搞笑人設的短視頻團隊越來越火了

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