A Chinese Ghost Story

[Randy W]

Can a ghost fall in love? For China’s greatest spinners of scary tales, they might have been the only ones who truly could.

Chinese ghosts exist in a state analogous to that of the vampire in Western literature. The allure of both is otherworldly, a fact they use to prey on the morally weak and vulnerable. But the two are not exactly alike. The most significant difference is that Chinese ghosts, unlike vampires, are almost always female. And their love, if they are capable of it, is invariably given to a living man, rather than a fellow supernatural being.

The scholar Patrick Hannan once described the “Chinese gothic” story as composed of four parts: the meeting, the lovemaking, the intimation of danger, and the intervention of an exorcist. Ghost stories were cautionary tales, and female ghosts practiced a sort of sexual vampirism, robbing men of their precious yang essence through the act of sex. Like courtesans, ghosts could use their sex appeal to attract men — and titillate readers — but they could not truly love.

t wasn’t until the late Ming (1368-1644) and early Qing dynasties that female ghosts shed their malignant reputation and became not just subjects of love and affection, but their ultimate embodiment.

The “cult of love,” or qingjiao, that emerged in literature from this period was a continuation of the philosophical “school of the heart,” which arose in reaction against the excessive rationalism of neo-Confucianism. The literary cult of love celebrated individual freedom and the power of spontaneous subjectivity. The Ming dynasty dramatist Tang Xianzu, a contemporary of William Shakespeare, summed up the movement’s ideals in the authorial preface to his most celebrated play, “The Peony Pavilion.” “It is not known whence love originates, yet once it begins, it goes deep,” he wrote. “The living can die for it and the dead can be revived for it. If the living cannot die or the dead cannot be revived (for love), then it is not supreme love.”

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Love, Death, and Ghosts in the Chinese Underworld
Can a ghost fall in love? For China’s greatest spinners of scary tales, they might have been the only ones who truly could.

A still from the 1987 film “A Chinese Ghost Story.” From @GunGun on Douban

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In a dilapidated temple deep in the woods, a solitary male figure — a scholar, by the looks of him — reads by candlelight. Suddenly, the temple’s window is thrown open by an eerie gust of wind, and a beautiful woman in floating white robes appears in the room.

With all the wisdom and self-restraint commonly attributed to lonely bookworms, the man promptly yields to the mysterious woman’s advances, and they have passionate sex right there in the temple. Ecstasy soon turns to horror, and the man’s orgasmic gasps become his death throes.

The famous opening scene of the 1987 Hong Kong film “A Chinese Ghost Story” is perhaps the perfect encapsulation of the Chinese supernatural. The film, adapted from the classic short story “Nie Xiaoqian” in Qing dynasty (1644-1912) writer Pu Songling’s “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio,” checks all the boxes: a great beauty appears, instantly satisfies the sexual needs of a hapless young man, and then murders him right at the climax of their encounter. 

 

 

[Randy W]

A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) Original Trailer [FHD]