INTRODUCTION TO

CHINESE
LITERATURE
 Interesting Facts about China
◦ China has the world’s largest population. As at 2016, the country has a population of
more than 1 billion people. 
◦ Chinese is the most popular language worldwide. This is largely attributed to the
number of Chinese native speakers due to the large population.
◦ China has the largest army.
◦ China is home to all pandas. China is popular as the country of pandas. If you see a
panda in any other country, just know that they got it on loan from China. When a
panda is born in another country FedEx (an American multinational courier service)
airlifts the cub to China for proper care and acclimatization. 
◦ New Year Fiesta is the biggest holiday in China.
◦ China has a two-child policy per couple. Until 2015, the policy required each couple to
have only one child but later increased the number to two. This has caused a great
imbalance in the ratio of men to women in the country. There are over 32 million men
outnumbering women which makes men lack women to marry.
 Interesting Facts about China
◦ Chinese are geniuses in a number of fields. Chinese are medical, mathematical and architectural
geniuses. They discovered the process of blood circulation in the human body. Chinese mathematicians
came up with concepts such as decimals, binary system, geometry, trigonometry and algebra. These
mathematical concepts are still taught to date. In architecture, The Chinese built the world’s biggest
man-made structure (Great Wall of China). Today, China builds the most sophisticated skyscrapers.
◦ In 2009, Facebook, Twitter, Google and the New York Times were banned from China. In the search
for equivalents, Chinese came up with almost similar apps. Renren is an equivalent of Facebook,
Weibo is an equivalent of Twitter, and WeChat is an equivalent of WhatsApp while QQ offers email
services.
◦ Ketchup originated in China. We all love some ketchup with our food. It was initially prepared as a
fish sauce known as Keitsap. Today, we all seem to enjoy this Chinese invention.
◦ China rehabilitates internet addicts. Internet addiction is common in China. They have even
constructed pathways for smartphone users! The country has opened treatment camps for internet
addicts in an effort to solve this problem.
Chinese Literature
◦ Chinese literature is among the most imaginative and interesting in the world.
The precision of the language results in perfectly realized images whether in
poetry or prose and, as with all great literature, the themes are timeless. The
Chinese valued literature highly and even had a god of literature named
Wen Chang, also known as Wendi, Wen Ti.
◦ Wen Chang kept track of all the writers in China and what they produced to
reward to punish them according to how well or poorly they had used their
talents. This god was thought to have once been a man named Zhang Ya, a
brilliant writer who drowned himself after a disappointment and was deified.
He presided not only over written works and writers but over
Chinese script itself.
◦ Ancient Chinese script evolved from the practice of divination during the Shang
Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE). The pictographs made on oracle bones by diviners
became the script known as Jiaguwen (c. 1600-1000 BCE) which developed into
Dazhuan (c. 1000-700 BCE), Xiaozhuan (700 BCE - present), and Lishu (the so-
called "Clerky Script", c. 500 BCE). From these also developed Kaishu, Xingshu,
and Caoshu, cursive scripts which writers later used in prose, poetry, and other
kinds of artistic works.
◦ Exactly when writing was first used in China is not known since most writing
would have been done on perishable materials like wood, bamboo, or silk. The
bureaucracy of China came to rely on written records but eventually writing was
used for self-expression to create some of the greatest literature in the world.
Paper was invented in c. 105 BCE during the Han Dynasty(202 BCE-220 CE), and
the process of woodblock printing developed during the Tang Dynasty (618-907
CE), and by that time China had already developed an impressive body of literary
works.
Early Stories
◦ The earliest written works in China are ghost stories and myths.
◦ Early Han literature is "rich in references to spirits, portents, myths,
the strange and powerful, the death-defying and the dazzling ".
◦ The Chinese were especially concerned with ghosts because the
appearance of someone who had died meant that the living had
somehow failed them, usually by improper honor in burial, and the
dead would haunt the living until the wrong was righted. If the dead
could not find their family, they would find anyone nearby.
◦ One famous story is about five brothers who are visited by the
ghost of a little girl. They cannot get rid of the ghost until they
finally seal her in a hollow log, cap both ends, and throw it into the
river. The ghost thank them for giving her a proper burial and
sails away.
◦ In another story, the ghost of a mother whose grave was defiled
returns to tell her son and ask him to avenge her dishonor. The son
does not question the vision for a moment and reports the event to
the authorities, who apprehend the criminals and execute them.
◦ Ghost stories served to emphasize important cultural values such
as the proper treatment of the dead and honoring one's fellow
citizens.
Woodblock Printing and Books
◦ The Chinese produced poetry, literature, drama, histories, personal essays, and every
other kind of writing imaginable all of which was done by hand and then copied.
◦ The creation of woodblock printing, which became widespread during the Tang
Dynasty under the second emperor Taizong (r. 626-649 CE), made books more
available to people.
◦ Before the invention of woodblock printing, any text had to be copied by hand; this
process took a long time, and the copies were very expensive.
◦ Woodblock printing was a kind of printing press whereby a text could be copied
quickly and easily by carving the characters in relief on wooden blocks which were
then inked and pressed to paper.
Literary Works
◦ Chinese literary works are too numerous to list here, spanning some 2,000
years, but among the most influential are those of the Tang Dynasty. The
greatest poet of the Tang Dynasty is Li Po (also known as Li Bai, l. 701-
762 CE) whose work was so popular in his time that it was considered one
of the Three Wonders of the World (along with Pei Min's ability with a
sword and Zhang Xu's beautiful calligraphy). Thanks to the woodblock
printing process, his work was widely distributed throughout China and
over 1,000 of his poems have survived to the present day.
◦ His close friend, Du Fu (also known as Tu Fu, l. 712-770 CE)
was equally popular, and the two are regarded as the most
important poets of the Tang Dynasty followed by Bai Juyi (also
known as Bo Juyi, l. 772-846 CE). Bai Juyi's poem "Song of
Everlasting Sorrow", is a romanticized version of the tragic
love affair of emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756 CE) and Lady
Yang. It became so popular that it entered the public school
curriculum and students had to memorize in part or in full to
pass exams. This poem is still required reading in Chinese
schools in the present day.
◦ Older works of philosophers such as Confucius, Mo Ti, Mencius, Lao-Tzu
, Teng Shih, and others from the Hundred Schools of Thought were also
widely available from the Tang Dynasty onward. The most important of
these philosophical writings, as far as Chinese culture are concerned, are
the texts known as The Five Classics and The Four Books (The I-Ching,
The Classics of Poetry, The Classics of Rites, The Classics of History, The
Spring and Autumn Annals, The Analects of Confucius, The Works of
Mencius, The Doctrine of the Mean, and The Great Book of Learning).
Although these works are not 'literature' in an artistic sense, they were
central to Chinese education and remain just as important in China today
as they were in the past.
Assignment:
◦ Read the story, “A Little Incident” by Lu Hsun.