Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor

A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Story Collection

Aina the Layman, Ziran the Eccentric Wanderer, Robert E. Hegel

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780295999975
• eBook ISBN:
  9780295999982
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Chinese History
• Index: Literature

Written around 1660, the unique Chinese short story collection Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor (Doupeng xianhua), by the author known only as Aina the Layman, uses the seemingly innocuous setting of neighbors swapping yarns on hot summer days under a shady arbor to create a series of stories that embody deep disillusionment with traditional values. The tales, ostensibly told by different narrators, parody heroic legends and explore issues that contributed to the fall of the Ming dynasty a couple of decades before this collection was written, including self-centeredness and social violence. These stories speak to all troubled times, demanding that readers confront the pretense that may lurk behind moralistic stances. Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor presents all twelve stories in English translation along with notes from the original commentator, as well as a helpful introduction and analysis of individual stories.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Gossip and Exaggeration in Aina’s Short Stories
• Terms of Measurement and Titles
• Chronology of China’s Historical Periods (Dynasties and States)
• Idle Talk Under the Bean Arbor
• Preface Dashed off by Whistling Crane of the Empty Heavens
• Foreword Written by Aina the Layman from Shengshui With Commentary by Ziran the Eccentric Wanderer from Yuanhu
• Session 1 Jie Zhitui Sets Fire to His Jealous Wife
• Session 2 Fan Li Drowns Xishi in West Lake
• Session 3 A Court-Appointed Gentleman Squanders His Wealth but Takes Power
• Session 4 The Commissioner’s Son Wastes His Patrimony to Revive the Family
• Session 5 The Little Beggar Who Was Truly Filial
• Session 6 The Exalted Monks Who Faked Transcendence
• Session 7 On Shouyang Mountain, Shuqi Becomes a Turncoat
• Session 8 With a Transparent Stone, Master Wei Opens Blind Eyes
• Session 9 Liu the Brave Tests a Horse on the Yuyang Road
• Session 10 Freeloader Jia Forms a League on Tiger Hill
• Session 11 In Death, Commander Dang Beheads His Enemy
• Session 12 In Detail, Rector Chen Discourses on the Cosmos
• Afterthoughts on Stories
• Historical and Cultural References
• Notes
• Glossary of Chinese Characters
• Bibliography
• Contributors