The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China

by Lu Xun

  ZHUANGZI: Calm down, don’t panic. Now, where were we… When were you alive?

  MAN: [surprised] What?… What do you mean, when was I alive? Where are my clothes?

  ZHUANGZI: Tsk, tsk, how terribly narrow-minded – an obsession with personal appearance. A classic case of overweening ego. Why are you worrying about clothes? You don’t even know how to live. First things first: when were you alive? Oh dear, I see I am not making myself understood…[Gives the matter fresh thought.] Let me put it this way – what kind of things were going on when you were alive? In your village?

  MAN: All sorts of things. Yesterday, for example, one of my sisters-in-law quarrelled with one of my grandmothers.

  ZHUANGZI: I was thinking – bigger than that.

  MAN: Bigger than that?… Well… Yang Xiaosan won a posthumous commendation for being a filial son.

  ZHUANGZI: Yes, yes, I see the importance – but hard to date, that kind of thing… [thinks again] Can’t you think of something even bigger – a rebellion, for example?

  MAN: A rebellion?… [thinks] I remember! Three or four months ago, they wanted to bury children’s souls under the Stag Tower. That got everyone going – making charms for all the children…

  ZHUANGZI:

  [startled] The Stag Tower? Which Stag Tower?

  MAN: The Stag Tower they started building three or four months ago.

  ZHUANGZI: So you died when the last king of the Shang was on the throne?2 Amazing! You’ve been dead five hundred years.

  MAN: [getting angry] I find your jokes in rather poor taste, sir – given that we have only just made each other’s acquaintance. All I’ve had is a little nap, and here you are, talking about me having been dead for five hundred years! Now, I have business to be getting on with, and relatives to visit. Return my clothes, my bundle and umbrella forthwith – I don’t have time for your little jokes.

  ZHUANGZI: Hold on, hold on – I still have some questions. How did you fall asleep?

  MAN: How did I fall asleep? [thinks] Well, I got here in the morning, something went bang on my head and everything went black. Then I fell asleep.

  ZHUANGZI: Did it hurt?

  MAN: I don’t think so.

  ZHUANGZI: Oh… [thinks briefly] I see. So, during the reign of the last king of the Shang, you were passing through when you were set upon by some highway robbers who coshed you on the head, beat you to death, then stole everything. We’re now in the Zhou dynasty, you see; have been for the last five centuries. Your clothes are lost for ever. See?

  MAN: [staring at Zhuangzi] No, I don’t. I’ve had enough of this, sir – return my clothes, bundle and umbrella. I have relatives to visit. I don’t have time for your little jokes.

  ZHUANGZI: Who is this idiot?

  MAN: What d’you mean, idiot? Everything I own has disappeared and you’re the only person I find on the scene of the crime. Who else is there to ask? [Stands up]

  ZHUANGZI: [starting to get agitated] Listen to me: you were just a skull until I took pity on you and asked the God of Fate to bring you back to life. Think about it: you’ve been dead for ages, how could your clothes have survived? Now, I don’t need your thanks, I just want to hear some more about what life was like under the Shang –

  MAN: Rubbish! You wouldn’t fool a three-year-old child with this humbug. And I was thirty-two last birthday! [pulls away] You –

  ZHUANGZI: But I can bring the dead back to life. You must have heard of me – Zhuangzi of Qiyuan?

  MAN: Never heard of you in my life. Anyway, what good is it resurrecting a man if you’ve stripped him stark naked first? How can I visit my relatives in this state? And where’s my bundle? [Now on the verge of tears, he grabs Zhuangzi by the sleeve.] I don’t believe a thing you’ve told me. I’m taking you off to see the village headman!

  ZHUANGZI: Easy, easy there. Don’t pull so hard – my robe’s not in the first flush, you’ll tear it. Take my advice: don’t get too hung up on clothes. Sometimes it’s good to have them; sometimes not. Birds have feathers and animals have fur; but do cucumbers or aubergines? In other words: if one thing’s right, it doesn’t mean its obverse is wrong. If you can’t say that not wearing clothes is right, it doesn’t necessarily follow that wearing clothes is.

  MAN: [getting angrier] Shut up! Just – shut up! Give me my things back or I’ll kill you! [He raises one clenched fist, while grabbing hold of Zhuangzi with the other.]

  ZHUANGZI: [struggling to mount some kind of self-defence] Violence is never an answer! Let me go! Or I’ll get the God of Fate to strike you dead again!

  MAN: [retreating a couple of steps, smirking] Fine: strike me dead. But if you can’t, I want my clothes, umbrella and bundle back off you – including the fifty-two coins, pound and a half of white sugar and two pounds of dates inside.

  ZHUANGZI: [gravely] Are you sure?

  MAN: Never been surer of anything in my life!

  ZHUANGZI: [resolutely] If you insist. It’s your own funeral. Literally. [He turns eastward once more, raises both hands up to heaven and shouts]

  Great God of Fate! Heartfelt salutation! All hail!

  The earth is yellow, the sky black, the universe beyond the pale.

  Sun and moon ply within their space,

  While the heavenly bodies take their place.

  Zhaoqiansunlizhouwuzhengwangfengqinzhuweijiangshenhantum.

  This Daoist Master begs you show your face!

  Come! Come! Come! Come! Come! Come! Come!

  [They wait a good long time; nothing happens.]

  The earth is yellow, the sky black.

  This Daoist Master! Come! Come! Come!… Come!

  [They wait another good long time; nothing happens. Looking all around him, Zhuangzi slowly lowers his hands.]

  MAN: Well – do I look dead?

  ZHUANGZI: [dejectedly] I really can’t understand it – it worked perfectly well last time –

  MAN: [aggressively] No more funny business from you – I demand compensation!

  ZHUANGZI: [retreating] Don’t touch me! You barbarian! You know nothing of philosophy!

  MAN: [grabbing hold of him] Scoundrel! Robber! Bandit! Give me back my things or I’ll have your gown and your horse!

  [While struggling to fend him off, Zhuangzi pulls out of the sleeve of his gown a whistle, which he blows hard three times. Alarmed, the man pulls back. Soon after, a patrolman approaches at a run.]

  PATROLMAN: [shouting] Stop him! Don’t let him go! [He is, we see as he approaches, a tall, well-built man from north China, clean-shaven, dressed in police uniform including a cap, and holding a truncheon.] Stop thief!

  MAN: [Reasserting his grip over Zhuangzi] Stop thief!

  [The patrolman grabs hold of Zhuangzi’s collar and lifts his truncheon. Letting go of the philosopher, the man stoops slightly to cover his groin with his hands.]

  ZHUANGZI: [trying to fend off the truncheon, twisting his head to one side] What d’you think you’re doing?

  PATROLMAN: Ha! Playing the innocent, I see!

  ZHUANGZI: [angrily] It was me who called you – what are you doing arresting me?

  PATROLMAN: What?

  ZHUANGZI: It was me who blew the whistle.

  PATROLMAN: You steal another man’s clothes then call for the law – have you no conscience?

  ZHUANGZI: Look, I was just passing by, I saw him lying dead here, and I brought him back to life. Then he goes and starts accusing me of having stolen his things. Do I look like a thief?

  PATROLMAN: [lowering the truncheon] I don’t know – appearances can be deceptive, I always say. I’m taking you down to the station.

  ZHUANGZI: Not a chance. I’ve got to be on my way, I’m off to see the King of Chu.

  PATROLMAN: [gives a start, lets go and takes a careful look at Zhuangzi] Are you by any chance Zhuang –

  ZHUANGZI: [bucking up] Yes! I’m Zhuangzi, of Qiyuan. How did you know?

  PATROLMAN: Our superintendent’s been talking a lot about you these last few days – he said you
were off to Chu to make your fortune, and that you might pass by this way. He’s a bit of a philosopher recluse himself, but he still takes on odd jobs for local government – courier work mainly. He loves your essays – especially ‘On the Equality of Things’: ‘Where there’s life, there’s death; where there’s death, there’s life. Where there is possibility, there is impossibility; where there is impossibility, there is possibility.’ First-rate stuff; a real tour de force! Could I persuade you to rest a while at our humble station?

  [Utterly bewildered, the man edges back and squats down in a clump of grass.]

  ZHUANGZI: It’s late, I really must be getting on. But I’ll be sure to call on your superintendent on my way back.

  [Zhuangzi is already remounting his horse. As he raises his whip to set off, the man suddenly leaps out of the undergrowth and runs over to tug on his horse’s bridle. The patrolman also runs up, and tries to pull the man back.]

  ZHUANGZI: Now what?

  MAN: What am I supposed to do now? Are you just going, like that? [He looks at the patrolman.] Look, constable…

  PATROLMAN: [scratching his ear] Tricky… Hmmm… Now, as I see it, sir, [he looks at Zhuangzi] you’re doing rather better than him on the clothing front – so why don’t you give him something, for decency’s sake.

  ZHUANGZI: Of course, in ordinary circumstances, I’d be delighted to – clothes are just an external, I understand that. But today it just so happens I’m off to see the King of Chu – I have to wear a gown. And I can’t very well take off my undershirt and wear only the gown… You see my difficulty.

  PATROLMAN: Perfectly. You can’t spare either. [To the man] Let him go!

  MAN: But I have to visit my relatives.

  PATROLMAN: Any more of your nonsense, and I’ll be taking you down to the station! [Raises his truncheon threateningly.] Get lost!

  [As the man retreats, the patrolman chases him into the undergrowth.]

  ZHUANGZI: Goodbye then – goodbye.

  PATROLMAN: Goodbye, goodbye. Mind how you go!

  [With a crack of his whip, Zhuangzi sets off. Hands behind his back, the patrolman watches him slowly recede into a cloud of dust, then turns and heads back in the direction he originally came from. Suddenly jumping out of the undergrowth, the man tugs on the patrolman’s clothes.]

  PATROLMAN: Now what?

  MAN: What should I do?

  PATROLMAN: How should I know?

  MAN: I have to visit my relatives.

  PATROLMAN: Go and visit them, then.

  MAN: I haven’t got any clothes.

  PATROLMAN: Would they mind?

  MAN: You let him go, and now you’re about to slip off, too. Who else can I ask? What am I going to do? How can I live like this?

  PATROLMAN: Suicide is the coward’s way out.

  MAN: Well, tell me what I should do, then.

  PATROLMAN: [detaching his sleeve] How should I know?

  MAN: [grabbing back hold of the patrolman’s sleeve] Take me into the station!

  PATROLMAN: [pulling away again] I can’t do that. You’re stark naked, you can’t go into town. Let go!

  MAN: Lend me a pair of trousers, then!

  PATROLMAN: These are the only trousers I’ve got. If I lend them to you, I’ll be an affront to public decency myself. [Extricates himself with some force.] That’s enough! Let me go!

  MAN: [now seizing him by the neck] You have to take me with you!

  PATROLMAN: [desperate] No!

  MAN: Then I won’t let you go!

  PATROLMAN: What d’you want me to do?

  MAN: Take me to the station!

  PATROLMAN: Look… what good would that do either of us? I’ve had enough of this. Let me go! Or I’ll… [He struggles as hard as he can.]

  MAN: [tightening his grip] If you don’t help me, I can’t visit my relatives. I can’t live. Two pounds of dates and a pound and a half of white sugar… You let him go, you settle his debts.

  PATROLMAN: [struggling] Stop that! Let me go! Or I’ll… I’ll… [He gropes for his whistle and begins frantically blowing on it.]

  December 1935

  Notes

  NOSTALGIA

  1 Taipings: The most serious of the revolts that rocked nineteenth-century China, the Taiping Rebellion left tens of millions of Chinese dead between 1850 and 1864. For further details, see Introduction.

  2 The Simplified Outline and Mirror of History: A 1711 abridgement and extension of two classic survey histories of the early second millennium AD, this work offered a chronological account of China’s history as far as the end of the Ming dynasty.

  OUTCRY

  PREFACE

  1 the Meiji Restoration: The restoration in 1868 of the Japanese imperial power that marked the start of the country’s rapid industrialization and modernization.

  2 Russo-Japanese War: 1904–05.

  3 Jin Xinyi: Another name for Qian Xuantong (1887–1939), one of the editors of New Youth; see note 3 below and Introduction for further details.

  4 New Youth: The flagship journal of the iconoclastic New Culture Movement and later of the May Fourth enlightenment. See Introduction for further details.

  DIARY OF A MADMAN

  1 Book of… Herbs… Li Shizhen… human flesh is perfectly edible: Our narrator is garbling the title of a famous herbal compendium by the Ming pharmacologist Li Shizhen (1518–93). The book contains no such observation about the eating of human flesh – a delusion of the madman.

  2 ‘exchange sons to eat’… ‘his flesh… flayed into a rug’: These are both historical allusions drawn from a chronicle of the Warring States period (c. 481–221 BC).

  3 Xu Xilin… didn’t they eat his heart and liver?: Xu Xilin was a revolutionary executed for assassinating the governor of Anhui (a province of south-east China) in 1907; after killing him, the governor’s bodyguards tore out his heart and liver and ate them.

  HAIR

  1 October Tenth… Revolution Day: The anniversary of the 1911 Revolution.

  2 Zou Rong… The Revolutionary Army?: Zou Rong (1885– 1905) wrote a rabidly anti-Manchu nationalistic tract, The Revolutionary Army (1903).

  3 Artzybashev… Sheviriof: A reference to Mikhail Artzybashev’s (1878–1927) novel Sheviriof, available in English translation in Tales of the Revolution, trans. Percy Pinkerton (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1917).

  A PASSING STORM

  1 The Romance of the Three Kingdoms… five Tiger Generals of Shu: Set in the Three Kingdoms period (220–65), The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the great popular novels of pre-modern China, completed in the fourteenth century. The ‘five Tiger Generals of Shu’ are famous military figures who feature in the novel.

  2 Remember the Taiping Rebellion! If you kept your hair… the head stayed on: Lu Xun is letting his character rather garble the question of hair politics during the Taiping Rebellion. As described in ‘Hair’, the Qing dynasty forced all Chinese men – on pain of death – to dress their hair in the Manchu style, pulling it back into a single braid and shaving the forehead. The Taiping Rebels of the mid nineteenth century, by contrast, let their hair grow free. It is not entirely clear whether Mr Zhao is attributing his comment to the Qing authorities or to the Taiping Rebels; or whether ‘keeping your hair’ means pulling it into a queue or letting it hang freely

  3 Zhang Xun… Zhang Fei’s own descendant: For details about Zhang Xun (1854–1923), see the introductory note to the story. Zhang Fei was another of the heroes of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

  THE REAL STORY OF AH-Q

  1 Chen Duxiu… New Youth: For information on Chen Duxiu (1880–1942) and New Youth, see Introduction.

  2 which leaves me no choice but to transcribe… to Q: Ah-Q: At the time of the story’s writing, a national phonetic transliteration system was yet to be adopted.

  3 Hundred Surnames: A rhyming school primer of Chinese surnames and the places from which they were thought to have originated.

  4 Mr Hu Shi: (1891–1962). One of the most famous re
forming intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement. See Introduction for further references.

  5 abolished the civil service examinations: As the story begins in the years immediately preceding the 1911 Revolution, Ah-Q is doubtless referring to rumours circulating about the actual abolition of the old-style civil service examinations in 1905.

  6 Shang… Zhou… Qin… Later Han: These are all dynasties that ruled China between the second millennium BC and AD 220.

  7 On the fourth stroke of… Emperor Xuantong’s reign: Midnight on 4 November 1911; the day on which Shaoxing – Lu Xun’s home town, and the loose model for the ‘town’ in this story – was ‘liberated’ by revolutionary forces.

  DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL1

  1 Dragon Boat Festival: Falling on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month; traditionally one of the days on which debts were settled.