The Boatmen of Laolong
Dreamed before 1679 by Viceroy Zhu, as reported by Pu Songling
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When His Excellency Zhu became Viceroy of Guangdong, there were constant complaints from the traders about mysterious disappearances; sometimes as many as three or four of them vanishing at once and never being seen or heard of again. At length the number of such cases, filed of course against some person or persons unknown, multiplied to such an extent that they were simply put on record, and but little notice was further taken of them by the local officials. Thus, when His Excellency entered upon his duties, he found more than a hundred plaints of the kind, besides innumerable cases in which the missing man's relatives lived at a distance and had not instituted proceedings.
The mystery so preyed upon the new Viceroy's mind that he lost all appetite for food; and when, finally, all the inquiries he had set on foot resulted in no clue to an elucidation of these strange disappearances, then His Excellency proceeded to wash and purify himself, and, having notified the Municipal God, he took to fasting and sleeping in his study alone. While he was in ecstasy, lo! an official entered, holding a tablet in his hand, and said that he had come from the Municipal temple with the following instructions to the Viceroy: Snow on the whiskers descendingThe official then retired, and the Viceroy woke up; but it was only after a night of tossing and turning that he hit upon what seemed to him the solution of the enigma. |
"The first line," argued he, "must signify old [lao in Chinese];Now, to the east of the province, not far from the pass by which traders from the north connect their line of trade with the southern seas, there was actually a ferry known as the Old Dragon (Laolong); and thither the Viceroy immediately despatched a force to arrest those employed in carrying people backwards and forwards. More than fifty men were caught, and they all confessed at once without the application of torture. In fact, they were bandits under the guise of boatmen; after beguiling passengers on board, they would either drug them or burn stupefying incense until they were senseless, finally cutting them open and putting a large stone inside to make the body sink. Such was the horrible story, the discovery of which brought throngs to the Viceroy's door to serenade him in terms of gratitude and praise. [The author here supplies a list of the persons who signed a congratulatory petition to the Viceroy on the arrest and punishment of the criminals.] |
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EDITOR'S COMMENT
History or fiction? I don't know. Pu's sources included history, newspapers, friends and local legends; he made little distinction (though the congratulatory list suggests history). In any case, his focus is to show an example of wise dream-interpretation. Note that Viceroy Zhu's dreamwork starts well before interpretation. He removed all distractions for a day or two, focused entirely on the problem, then incubated (induced) a dream. Such incubation and focus actually simplifies interpretation; you know what waking input the dream's responding to--you only have to understand the response. And Zhu does, with a sensitivity for wordplay worthy of Ann Faraday, the Western explorer of dream-puns centuries later. |
QUIBBLE: Giles the translator's explanation of the fourth line, "door [here taken in its secondary sense--man]" seems strained to me. "An opening effected" could refer instead to the criminals' brutal M.O., slicing open bodies to weigh them with stones. The opening in the wall could also be pointing out the Laolong ferry was a chokepoint or gate that travelers had to pass--or fail to.
Either alternative reading adds useful data, while "man" is really unnecessary. After all, when you suspect industrial-scale wickedness... --Chris Wayan SOURCE: Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio, by Pu Songling (c.1679); Herbert Giles translation (1908; Tuttle reprint 2010). Tale 161. pp. 408-9. |
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