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I love Mulan with all my heart so I want you all to be aware that it's a vast corpus of stories written over the course of several hundred years.
There is an earliest source. It's a pretty great ballad and has good claim to be the original. She's also not Han in it.
(Thread)
There is an earliest source. It's a pretty great ballad and has good claim to be the original. She's also not Han in it.
(Thread)
So whilst it is true that there are versions where Mulan becomes a general, there are also plays where she marries her neighbour's son who has just returned from his exams top of the list.
It's the narrative's consolation prize, she can't be an official so she gets to marry one.
It's the narrative's consolation prize, she can't be an official so she gets to marry one.
And I understand, I have versions of stories that I hold to be The Original, elements of them that I hold to be sacred, but the corpus due to having been written by lots of people over hundreds of years is really rather varied and has buckets and buckets of baggage.
There's a Ming dynasty play that with a foot-stripping sequence where she unbinds her feet before going to war, changing her gait to that of a Great Warrior, all the while reassuring the audience that she has a secret family recipe that will restore her feet small after the war.
There's Qing dynasty novel and plays where she fights not a war but bandits named THE LEOPARD. There are versions where she teams up with other famed heroines. These all are more in the archive-diving end of the corpus, not exactly super famous, but they do exist.
But back to Ballad of Mulan. The "emperor" in it is a khagan. She suits up to War by buying a horse, a saddle, a bridle, a whip. She's written as non-Han Chinese.
Here's a thread about it: https://twitter.com/kate_lingley/status/1057021538359173120?s=21
Here's a thread about it: https://twitter.com/kate_lingley/status/1057021538359173120?s=21
This isn't to say she is not a figure of Chinese folklore or that she shouldn't be portrayed as Chinese now, but when we make claims about the Original Version as an Authority, I do feel we should be careful which version we are referring to.
By the same token I would be hesitant to talk about the Original Version of 孙悟空 (aka Monkey), since yes there's that very important novel, but there is an oral tradition before that as well as a source in Hanumān.
And survival rates of texts are often not great. There's a lot of guesswork and glimpsing of alternate versions. I will never stop being excited about the alternate interpretation of Thor as a god of healing (he smashes the invisible giants that cause headaches).
It's humbling to realise that the versions you prefer are often just that, versions.
Their truth and authority comes from their power to move you, that have they have spoken to you as stories. Often because they were your first version, but not always.
Their truth and authority comes from their power to move you, that have they have spoken to you as stories. Often because they were your first version, but not always.
I say all this because I have been having these feelings recently about Mulan, but also Legend of the White Snake. To know she spent a very long time being a Sinful Mother Prologue to be rescued by her Heroic Son is angry-making. All that I hate has centuries of precedent.
And the same goes for Mulan, who has become the Ur-female warrior. Temples dedicated to female warriors are termed Mulan temples even if they're not dedicated to her specifically. She's the touchstone. The <descriptor> Mulan is a title given to many real people.
Example of other "Mulan"s from that thread I wrote a little while ago dipping into my biographical dictionary: https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1117790038035771392?s=21
If you're looking for all these versions of Mulan, this is a good compendium of them all on kindle. It contains five versions (including the ballad) in full and lots more summaries of novels & plays https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mulan-Versions-Classic-Chinese-Related-ebook/dp/B00OZ4NIZG/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=mulan+five+versions&qid=1559037992&s=gateway&sr=8-1
I remember chinese critiques of the Disney film making Mulan all about the self & gender instead of filial piety & sacrifice, which I'm ambivalent about, and I say this not as a defence of the problematic Disney version, but Qiu Jin a century ago already made it all about gender.
The question isn't abt whether or not any given version is authentic to the Real True Historical Original so much as true to the version in your heart, also: who is it written for & who it written by.
This is all more fluid than cut&dry "in the original she is a weaver".
This is all more fluid than cut&dry "in the original she is a weaver".
The hard part for me is that whilst there might not be a Real True Version, that doesn't mean all versions are equal. Doesn't mean that they are all of equal worth, both culturally and to individuals.
And that very much matters.
And that very much matters.
A roundabout way for me to say I don't accept Mulan marrying her neighbour's scholar son as her consolation prize ending as canon, even if it was written by someone several hundred years ago and it was a super popular play.
Oh and here's me comparing some modern film and tv versions of Mulan if you want to read that for some reason: https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/844208386988277762?s=21
Here's the footbinding bit from the opera, for those who might be intrigued: https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1133313333178916864?s=21
PS: I also think there's a lot of room for nonHan Mulan to make a comeback in this era of rising Han supremacy. Someone should write this.
