Review

Reviewed Work(s): Heroines of Jiangyong: Chinese Narrative Ballads in Women's Script

by Wilt L. Idema
Review by: Elena Suet-Ying Chiu
Source: Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) , December 2012, Vol. 34
(December 2012), pp. 159-162
Published by: Chinese Literature: essays, articles, reviews (CLEAR)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43490148

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 Book Reviews

Heroines of Jiangyong: Chinese Narrative Ballads in Women's Script , translated by Wilt L.

Idema. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2009. Pp. viii + 18
Notes on texts plus Bibliography. $25.00 (paperback).

Heroines of Jiangyong: Chinese Narrative Ballads in Women's Script is the first English
translation of a set of Chinese narrative ballads in women's script (niishu
circulating exclusively among women in a rural community of Jiangyong County i
Hunan Province. Not known to the outside world until the 1980s, women's script w
a regional, gender-specific writing system designed for the local dialect and used b
peasant women for centuries, most of whom were illiterate with regard to the Chin
script. As a syllabic script, women's script has to be performed by singing or chanti
Although scholarly attention in recent years has increasingly focused on elite wom
writers in the lower Yangzi region, much remains to be explored in the study of t
culture of Chinese peasant women. English publications on women's script ar
limited, including William W. Chiang's book entitled We Two Know the Script: We H
Become Good Friends as well as articles by Cathy Silber, Liu Fei-wen, Anne McLaren
and Zhao Liming, among others. Despite the fact that they have substantiall
contributed to our understanding of the socio-cultural context of women's script a
the literature written in it, Idema's Heroines of Jiangyong "focuses on a segment o
writings in women's script that so far has been largely neglected in the Englis
language secondary scholarship, namely, the versified moral tracts and narrat
ballads" (p. 7). Appealing to both general readers and specialists, Heroines of Jiangyon
displays the richness of the niishu ballads while providing the western reader with
window through which to access Chinese women's material and internal worlds
rural communities.

Although approximately five hundred texts in women's script have bee

preserved, most of which have been published with a transliteration in Chines
characters, Idema makes a careful selection of twelve niishu texts available in Englis
translation for the first time. Consisting primarily of an introduction to women's
script and the translations of the ballads based on "published transcriptions i
Chinese characters" (p. 7), Heroines of Jiangyong demystifies Jiangyong women
discourse in women's script and makes their voices heard by the English-speaki
world.

© Chinese Literature : Essays , Articles , Reviews 34 (2012)

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160 Chinese Literature : Essays , Articles , Reviews 34 (2012)

The translated texts have been divided into two parts: "Moral Tracts" and
"Narrative Ballads." In Part I of the book, the four moral tracts are relatively short.
The texts "Admonitions for My Daughter" and "The Lazy Wife" highlight the
importance of diligence and womanly work at home, such as spinning and weaving.
The former is about a young daughter who enjoys playful experiences at home
invoking her mother's admonitions whereas the latter is a story of a lazy wife who is
portrayed as a target for ridicule at a women's social gathering. In "Admonitions for
My Daughter," the mother states clearly,

"When reading books, the issue is to grasp the meaning;

There is no need to write poems and compose essays.
You have to apply yourself to twisting and spinning,
Only so your boxes will be filled with cloth and linens." (p. 26)

While devotion to womanly work is portrayed as a norm and the core of female
education in the rural area, the reader would not miss the Confucian value of filial
piety promoted in other texts in Part I- namely, "The Ten Months of Pregnancy" and
"The Family Heirloom." Both texts share similar opening lines:

"Please allow me to tell you a few simple lines:

As human beings we must repay our parents' favors.
If you do not repay the favors done by your parents,
You will live your life here on earth all in vain!" (p. 27)

As Idema noted in the "Introduction," in both texts, "the description of parents' pains
and worries, especially those of the mother, are intended to engender feelings of filial
piety on the part of the children" (p. 9). Here filial piety is inextricably intertwined
with heavenly retribution, which may serve as an endorsement of filial norms. The
point that only those who are filial will have filial sons is reiterated in "The Ten
Months of Pregnancy" and "The Family Heirloom." Advocating Confucian moral
values, the texts in Part I effectively capture the concerns and sensibilities of peasant
women as well as their cultural heritage.
Part II of the book contains eight narrative ballads centering on strong female
characters; their stories were popular in Jiangyong, in which they are portrayed as the
heroines of the local peasant women. "The Daughter of the Xiao Family," "Lady Luo,"
and "The Maiden Meng Jiang" feature virtuous wives who remain faithful during
their husbands' long absences. As Idema remarks, "No virtue is stressed more
strongly than chaste loyalty to one's husband, especially an absent husband" (p. 8).
"The Tale of Third Sister" depicts a strong-willed and diligent lady who remains
faithful to her husband and filial to her mother despite the fact that her mother urges
her to remarry in order to escape the poverty of her husband. "The Flower Seller" is
about the wife Lady Zhang, who supports the family when her husband is inept at
coping with destitution. When her beauty is coveted by the emperor's father-in-law,

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 Book Reviews 161

she refuses him: "If a woman

After she is tortured to death
story ends with her resurrectio
"The Demonic Carp" - anothe
hearted- describes a demonic c
at night, which results in the w
"Fifth Daughter Wang" is also
her family. Because Lady Wan
with rebirth as a man who b
Thematically different from th
Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingta
highlighting the woman Zhu Y
predestined love between Lian
this text, concluding that "cha
hope for traversing between a
light on peasant women's day-t
a didactic approach to teaching
a therapeutic function to offer
role models, especially when the
The ballads written in wom
distinctiveness. As Idema sta
transcribed into women's scrip
by women for women, and
specificallyfemale and rural au
7). Unlike other songbooks pro
the needs and tastes of the mal
either focus on women's shared
As Idema pointed out, "What w
of border warfare and of am
formed a popular theme in d
Jiangyong in the south seemed
and her specific readers/audien
emotionally attach to. For ex
Maiden Meng Jiang," which i
Meng Jiang is likened to Zhao
the elite plays the Lute (Pipa
respectively (pp. 91-92). They r
times when their husbands are
among the Jiangyong women w

1 Fei-wen Liu, "Narrative, Genre,

in Rural South China," Asian Ethno

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162 Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles , Reviews 34 (2012)

The female virtues shared by Meng Jiang, Zhao Wuniang, and Li Sanniang, such as
fidelity, make them heroines of Jiangyong.
Each of the ballads in Heroines of Jiangyong contains detailed notes, and all the
translations flow naturally. For the reader who is interested in studying women's
script further, Idema provides a bibliography to consult. More recently, Idema has
been making key works of popular literature available in English translations,
including Meng Jiangnü Brings Down the Great Wall: Ten Versions of a Chinese Legend in
2008, Personal Salvation and Filial Piety : Two Precious Scroll Narratives ofGuanyin and Her
Acolytes in 2008, Filial Piety and Its Divine Rewards : The Legend of Dong Yong and
Weaving Maiden , with Related Texts in 2009, The White Snake and Her Son : A Translation
of The Precious Scroll of Thunder Peak , with Related Texts in 2009, The Butterfly Lovers: The
Legend of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai: Four Versions , with Related Texts in 2010, and
Judge Bao and the Rule of Law: Eight Ballad-Stories from the Period 1250-1450 published
in 2010. As part of his series of translation projects, Heroines of Jiangyong significantly
contributes to our understanding of Chinese women's oral and performing literature
in rural areas- a subject deserving more scholarly attention. The book is highly
recommended for anyone interested in popular Chinese culture, gender studies, and
Chinese narrative in translation.

Elena Suet-Ying Chiù

University of Massachusetts Amherst

The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature. Edited by Kang-i Sun Chang and Stephe
Owen. Cambridge, Eng. and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 2 vol
pp. xxxii + 711; xxi + 793. HC: USD $335 the set.

Responding to the same general need as The Columbia History of Chinese

Literature (2001), this Cambridge History seeks to serve as a reference work for the no
specialist, the neophyte, and the specialist scholar.1 In many ways it succeeds where
the Columbia History failed to satisfy; in a few regards even this magnificen
accomplishment may not meet all expectations. In contrast to the numerous
unrelated and somewhat overlapping essays in the Columbia volume, The Cambridge
History is the work of very few hands, nearly all senior scholars recognized

1 For a review of the Columbia History, see Martin Kern and Robert E. Hegel, "A History of
Chinese Literature?" CLEAR 26 (2004), 159-79.

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