The Girl with No Face

by M. H. Boroson

  The story is told through Li-lin’s point of view, so the words she hears are represented as she would think of them but translated into English, and when a term would lose too much of its meaning in translation (linguists refer to this as “semantic invariance”), she uses a Romanized form of Mandarin. Exceptions are when a term is most well-known in another form; she calls tofu “tofu” and not “doufu” because readers probably already know the word tofu, she refers to scary forms of magic as Gong Tau, which is Cantonese, because that Cantonese term is accepted even among Mandarin speakers.

  Most of these words are transliterated in the modern mode called Pinyin, but Pinyin contains diacritical marks—imagine accents, umlauts, and other markings—to indicate the tone of a vowel sound. For people who are not trained in Pinyin, the marks are misleading, so the diacriticals have been stripped off. If you wish to learn more about the terms, please visit thegirlwithghosteyes.blogspot.com, where I’ll present both the Pinyin and the Chinese characters, as well as the pronunciations.

  Other terms have entered the English language to such a degree that I chose to use the familiar-to-readers spellings rather than a Pinyin transliteration. These terms include tong, Buddhism, mah jongg, and kung fu, among others.

  Glossary and terms:

  There is no glossary because an accurate glossary would be thirty times as long as the book. Each definition would need to explain methodologies, enumerate sources, and include the multiple meanings of a term among different time periods, regions, religions, sects, and ethnic backgrounds, or else it would misrepresent the cultures. In most cases, one can learn more from the context than one could learn from a definition, and I spent a long time developing a method to stream information via “world-building” to allow readers to derive information from context.

  Yet there are areas where a paradigm shift is needed before anything can be truly understood; context alone will not be enough, because underlying assumptions are different. In this book I chose to tackle an area which has been widely misunderstood outside of Asia: face (mianzi or lian) and social interconnectedness (guanxi). Readers unfamiliar with face tend to construe it as a particularly rigid and culturally backwards form of honor, when in fact it’s meaningful, complex, and an ongoing part of many modern Asian cultures in the world today. Almost every day, headlines in Hong Kong and China declare some politican’s loss (or gain) of face, and phrases containing the term almost always occupy some of the top spaces of Chinese social media aggregators. It’s been widely studied in Chinese-language sociological journals. A good deal of my own understanding derives from three books by Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong, whose quotes appear at the openings of both The Girl with Ghost Eyesand The Girl with No Face.

  Measurements:

  Chinese Americans of the time would probably have measured in Chinese increments, like qi, bu, and li, but the Qing Dynasty fell a hundred years ago, and these increments were redefined several times in the turbulent century that followed. In order for these details to make sense to readers, characters in The Daoshi Chronicles measure space in inches, feet, and miles; they measure weight in ounces, pounds, and tons.

  Religion:

  The Daoshi Chronicles focus primarily on Daoism and popular religion. In the immigrant community, there were also Christians, Buddhists, and Confucians, as well as people who came from ethnic minorities, bringing their own forms of reverence.

  The Maoshan traditions of Daoism were real. Eight thousand monasteries once dotted the area around Mt. Mao, and the systems of belief that spread in this area are famous for their focus on exorcism, mediumship, and occultist practices.

  Li-lin and her father perform Daoist spells and make use of talismans, incantations, deity practices, magical hand gestures, ritual dances, peachwood, burnt paper offerings, and astrological almanacs. Without exception, every single detail of their ritual magic is closely based on reality, but these details were drawn from a variety of sects, schools, and lineages within the Maoshan Daoist traditions. I described them as accurately as possible, but by drawing from more than one tradition, I represented a tradition that has never existed.

  The Linghuan lineage is not real. I took the term from a Taiwanese name for a cinematic genre wherein Daoist priests (and plucky children) combat hopping corpses. It’s sometimes translated as “fantasy,” sometimes as “spirit magic” or “spiritual magic” or—as one professor insisted—“numinous efficacy.”

  Etiquette:

  In this place and time, a number of conventions would have guided the conversations of Chinese and Chinese American people. I decided to write the dialogue without following most of these conventions, because rules of etiquette seem natural and nearly invisible to people who are fluent with them, yet seem formal and artificial to people observing from the outside. Everyone participates within and is part of a culture; it’s just that our own cultures are often invisible to us.

  Folklore:

  Within the folk tales of any single nation, there are regional traditions which should be considered distinct. The tales of ethnic and cultural minorities may intersect with the mainstream, but they also deserve to be understood as their own traditions, and preserved as such. Some tales were popular during a certain era but not before or after. In The Daoshi Chronicles, I aim to represent these cultural specificities with depth and insight, but there are still some areas where, for the sake of telling a story with contemporary resonance, elements of traditions have been folded together.

  For instance, creatures from an ancient book called The Shan Hai Jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas) appear side-by-side with apparitions from 10th-Century Buddhist tapestries at Dunhuang, Daoist demonology grimoires, eighteenth-century ghost story collections, and orally told stories that were imparted to me personally. Someone who wants to make a deep and committed study of the subjects will need to look at each creature as a participant in a specific series of assumptions and views of the world. I intend to present a disaggregated list of the monsters, collected by source and era, at thegirlwithghosteyes.blogspot.com.

  “Have you eaten?”:

  This is the common English translation of a common Chinese expression. Literally translated, the phrase would be something like “Have you eaten rice yet?” The question is often asked casually, but many people interpret it as an endearing, affectionate greeting.

  Xuehu Diyu, the Blood Pond Hell:

  The Blood Pond Hell is a long-standing set of beliefs and rituals in many Chinese Buddhist, Daoist, and popular religions, but the beliefs and practices behind it vary widely. Some sources say it punishes women (and only women) who wash their bloody clothes upstream from the water where holy monks came to drink; other sources describe it as a punishment for people of any gender who commit acts of violence against sex workers and concubines; still other sources describe it as the fate for all females who live long enough to menstruate. The story does not commit to a single interpretation of why people get condemned to the Blood Pond because it would falsely represent that one school of thought as if it were universal.

  The most common Chinese term for the afterlife is Diyu, which literally translates into something along the lines of “Earth-prison.” But the word “Hell”—the English word, written h-e-l-l—started showing up in Chinese-language religious texts and documents a long time ago. Christian missionaries in China preached that non-Christians go to hell when they die, and many Chinese people embraced the English term as a synonym for Diyu. I would not ordinarily use such a specifically Judeo-Christian term as a stand-in for terminology specific to a different culture.

  _Gan Xuhao_:

  The rat goblin is a character who appears in some versions of the story of the exorcistic deity Zhong Kui. He is supposed to have lived in the tomb of Gan Bao, author of a famous anthology of strange tales.

  The Ghost Yamen:

  While I was developing The Girl with No Face, I spent an evening with some American-born Chinese friends who had recently returned from their first tri
p to China. They spoke to me about a feeling of frustrated obligation; they had toured ancient buildings hoping to rediscover a lost, intimate sense of their personal heritage, but the art and architecture did not feel like they had expected it to feel. It was part of the culture of their forebears, but it felt foreign to them, and they found the experience alienating. I created the Ghost Yamen to try to express some of what they shared with me.

  Luosha demonesses:

  My description of the female luosha is based on a stone statue at Fengdu Ghost City, a complex of shrines, statuary, and temples depicting the afterlife, near Mt. Ming, in Chongqing. The statue shows a buxom, semi-nude woman with human faces writhing in her skirt, with tusks protruding from her lower jaw. In emphasizing her voluptuousness and the scantiness of her dress, I was hoping to bring the sculptors’ work to life. I will share photos of the statue on my blog at thegirlwithghosteyes.blogspot.com.

  F.A.Q. and Book Discussion Guide

  Both of these will appear on thegirlwithghosteyes.blogspot.com. I can’t compile an F.A.Q. until I know what questions are frequently asked!

  With The Daoshi Chronicles, I don’t aim to provide any definitive answers about Chinese cultures; I hope to awaken curiosity and share a sense of wonder and fear that I have experienced since I was a child listening to Chinese Americans telling ghost stories. It’s my hope that you take The Girl with Ghost Eyes, The Girl with No Face, and these notes as a starting-point in an exploration of cultures and historical events, not a definitive source of knowledge. I hope you feel inspired to learn a new language, take a class, go on a trip, or read some non-fiction.

  Even better, I hope you’ll politely ask your friends, neighbors, or relatives to tell you stories they heard when they were young—and preserve this lore for future generations.

  RECOMMENDED READING

  DAOISM AND CHINESE RELIGION

  Taoism: An Essential Guide, by Eva Wong

  Daoism: An Overview, by Stephen Bokenkamp

  Daoism in China: An Introduction, by Wang Yi’er

  Religion in China: Ties That Bind, by Adam Yuet Chau

  Daoism Handbook, by Livia Kohn

  The Teachings of Daoist Master Zhuang, by Michael R. Saso

  From Kuan Yin to Chairman Mao: The Essential Guide to Chinese Deities, by Xueting Christine Ni

  CHINESE FOLKLORE

  Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, by Pu Songling, trans. by John Minford or Sidney Sondergard

  Censored by Confucius: Ghost Stories by Yuan Mei, trans. by Kam Louie

  Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan, trans. by Sun Haichen

  A Chinese Bestiary, by Richard Strassberg

  Monkey, by Wu Cheng-en, trans. by Arthur Waley

  CHINESE AMERICAN HISTORY

  The Chinese in America, by Iris Chang

  The Making of Asian America: A History, by Erika Lee

  Chinese Laundries: Tickets to Survival on Gold Mountain, by John Jung

  Sweet and Sour: Life in Chinese Family Restaurants, by John Jung

  San Francisco’s Chinatown, by Judy Yung

  Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in America, by Judy Yung

  Three Chinese Temples in California, by Dr. Chuimei Ho and Dr. Bennet Bronson

  RECOMMENDED MOVIES

  THE LINGHUAN (SPIRIT MAGIC) GENRE:

  Mr. Vampire (Hong Kong, 1985)

  A Chinese Ghost Story (Hong Kong, 1987)

  Mr. Vampire 3 (Hong Kong, 1987)

  Magic Cop (Hong Kong, 1990)

  Ultimate Vampire (Hong Kong, 1991)

  A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation (Hong Kong, 1996) (This movie was one of the inspirations behind Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away.)

  Grandma and her Ghosts (Taiwan, 1998)

  Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (China, 2013)

  Big Fish and Begonia (China, 2016)

  THE TRIADS GENRE:

  Election (Hong Kong, 2005)

  Election 2 (Hong Kong, 2006)

  Monga (Taiwan, 2010)

  O.C.T.B. (Hong Kong, 2018, television series)

  CLASSIC KUNG FU CINEMA:

  The Bride with White Hair (Hong Kong, 1993)

  The Legend of Drunken Master (Hong Kong, 1994)

  Once Upon a Time in China (Hong Kong, 1991)

  Dragon Lord (Hong Kong, 1982)

  Hero (China, 2001)

  Kung Fu Hustle (China, 2004)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  When M.H. Boroson was nine years old, a Chinese American friend invited him to dinner with his family. Over a big, raucous meal, his friend’s uncle told a story about a beautiful fox woman. She had a magic pearl and she stole men’s energy.

  Boroson wanted to learn more about this fox woman, so he went to the school library. They had Greek, Norse, and Arthurian mythology. They had vampires, witches, werewolves, and fairies, but they didn’t have anything like the story his friend’s uncle told—not even an encyclopedia entry.

  This baffled him. A number of his friends were Asian American; why weren’t their families’ stories in the books? He asked his friend’s uncle to tell him more stories. He started asking other kids if he could interview their families. If they said yes, he’d go to their houses, bringing a notebook.

  In college, he studied Mandarin and Religion (with a focus on Chinese Buddhism). Years later, he decided he wanted to return to his study of Chinese ghost lore and write stories full of magic and monsters, using these incredible cultural details as metaphors to dramatize the experiences of immigrants in America. The stories would be told from inside the culture, centered on people whose lives had been treated as marginal—inverting the margins, subverting stereotypes. Chinese American characters portrayed as three-dimensional, diverse human beings—facing challenges, earning a living, supporting families, struggling to hold on to traditional values in a new country. Exciting, action-packed stories that base their fantasy imagery in Chinese folklore, but tackle issues of vital importance in today’s world, like race, class, gender, culture, and power.

  He started taking notes. He bought hand-written Daoist manuscripts. He interviewed over two hundred Chinese and Chinese American people, asking about their family histories, ghost stories, and folk beliefs, as well as asking their suggestions about how he should represent people. He took detailed notes from Chinese stories, like Pu Songling’s Tales from the Liaozhai and ancient texts like the Shan Hai Jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas) and Journey to the West. He watched movies like Mr. Vampire and A Chinese Ghost Story. He took sixty thousand pages of notes.

  As he performed the interviews and the stories began to take shape, he realized these historical conflicts remain relevant to this day. The struggles of immigrants are timeless and universal. Xenophobia still shapes our discourse around “illegals.” The Exclusion Era and the Geary Act echo in the controversy over California’s Prop 187. The Tong Wars provide insight into both small-scale gang violence and large-scale organized crime, which are still part of our society. The events of this time and place have been re-enacted in today’s headlines, again and again. The events of this period provide us with a lens to understand more of our world as it is today.