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Strange Tales from Make－Do Studio |
| CCTV.COM 2002-11-29 15:11:28 |
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 Strange Tales from Make－do Studio is a collection of peculiar short stories. It tops the artistic achievement of short stories created in classical Chinese language.
Its author is Pu Songling of the Qing Dynasty.
Pu Songling began writing his Strange Tales from Make－do Studio at his twenties. Until his advanced age he still laboured over them. He spent nearly all his life on this collection.
 Strange Tales from Make－Do Studio has nearly 500 tales. Except for a few tales about the real life, most tales in the collection are about spirits and elves. This fantastic world, however, is full of the worldly flavour and humanity. The problems raised by the author in the stories touch on important social contradictions and display different aspects of life.
"Cricket" tells how a family is brought to the brink of destruction in their efforts to find a fighting cricket to satisfy the emperor's fancy.
 "Scholar Ye" relates a gifted student's death in indignation. The student has failed repeatedly in imperial civil examinations due to the inability of the chief examiners to discern talent. It denounces the corruptive practice in the examination system.
An important theme of Strange Tales from Make－Do Studio is praise of genuine love and denouncement of feudal moral code.
The hero of "Lian Cheng", Scholar Qiao cuts down a piece of meat from his breast to cure his beloved, saying, "A gentleman dies for who understands him". In the love stories not the beauty but mutual understanding is stressed. This is where these tales surpass other love stories of gifted scholars and beautiful ladies.
 Pu Songling modelled a number of crazy lovers, such as Sun Zichu and A Bao in "A Bao", Scholar Huang and Xiang Yu in "Xiang Yu", Liu Zigu and A Xiu in "A Xiu", Geng Qubing and Qing Feng in "Qing Feng", and others.
Strange Tales from Make－Do Studio represents many women who are entirely different from the traditional women in their personality and thinking.
 Ying Ning has been a lovely unrestrained girl who loves laughing. But when she comes from the mountains full of flowers to the foul human society, she stops laughing. The innocent girl Ying Ning is destroyed by the cruel reality.
Fantastic beauty is the earmark of Strange Tales from Make－Do Studio.
In "Taoist of Laoshan Mountains" the Taoist sticks a circular piece of paper on the wall and the paper becomes a moon and then the Moon Goddess Chang E flies out to sing and dance.
 "Town of Rakshasa on the Sea" represents a country of Rakshasa where the beauty and the ugly are confused and the right and wrong undistinguished. The beautiful persons are regarded monsters but the ugliest are taken as the most beautiful and put into positions as high as prime minister.
To achieve the greatest freedom in art, Pu Songling creates a brilliant wonder world with bold imagination. Extolling the true, the good and the beautiful and lashing at the false, the bad and the ugly is the ideological and artistic aim of Strange Tales from Make－Do Studio.
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Editor: Inner Wu CCTV.com
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