I’ll be working on this next [it’s due in 5 days] [someone has a hold on it] [if you’re reading this I’m so sorry for hogging]

I’m too tired to make notes now so I’ll make it tomorrow. The North vs South thing is a special interest of mine [my family roots are from the South, if not necessarily from the ancient Chu state]

Good morning!

The South were otherized lol ~shamans and spirits~

And yes, specifically Southeast Asian Chinese communities still have relics of old religion. Look up tangkee [spirit medium].

Fascinating that Hawkes claims its very likely that Chu was actually an offshoot from Northern culture — meaning, historically, they’d send someone to the borders [in this case the South] to take care of things, over time they became individual fiefdoms.

And while the North slowly lost the old religion, the South retained remnants of it. Leading to vastly different cultures, centuries after they separated.

Confucian apologists X’D (many of the Book of Songs were orally passed down, that’s why they’re anonymous)

Oh wow is this the history of the words pian and juan? [now used as “chapter” and “volume”]

I love how this translator is going into the nitty gritty of how the assumed compiler of Qu Yuan’s Chu ci isn’t actually this guy, it should be another guy before him, and the reasons why he thinks so

TIL that Tianwen (CWN’s whip from 2H*A) came from Chu ci

LOL WTF is it his surname comes from Chu ci too

These are the poem categories specifically attributed to Qu Yuan by Sima Qian, the rest are by his followers or others in his Chu ci style

CHU SHAMANISM this gon be good

There’s a category in there called zhao hun (soul summoning) and I got Excited lol

Some bg on what is “shamanism” in the Chinese context (wu)

Later their role grew less as it was taken over by “learned” people and they became relegated to superstitions

Tianwen got mpreg??????

we stan

Emperors in the novels I read are all like this and apparently this is just how they ARE

Shit its Confucius’s fault again LMAO

So Qu Yuan wasn’t the first or the most popular figure associated with Dragonboat Festival. He got propped up as a figure for nationalism jgfhhhhj

can you believe I’m reading a book about poetry and we haven’t actually got to the poetry? hashtag hard hitting analysis

**Confucius’s followers fault

We were talking about “meiren” in EAD, here I have a confirmation it used to be gender-neutral

Li sao is truly beautiful and fantastical in a way that I haven’t seen in other poems (not that I’m v well read in Chinese poetry lol)

Just very pretty

me: so Qu Yuan’s character is looking to date goddesses, and their Fair One’s women were jealous of their beauty... this... sounds... homoerotic?

/gugels

From: Celluloid Comrades: Representations of Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas
by Song Hwee Lim

[this is how I keep finding new books to read, btw.]

And I would not have come to entertain this possibility had I not learnt that homosexuality (as a practice) was common in ancient dynasties from Hinsch’s work.

THE MALE OFFICIAL AS A KIND OF... PARALLEL WITH THE KING’S CONCUBINE. this is a thought I will ruminate on. good governance means listening to your concubine-substitute??

everything comes back to Changgu sorry I have a one-track mind

OMG a scholar Sun Cizhou in 1944 suggested Qu Yuan might have been gay for his king but he got shot down BC THEY RAISED QU YUAN AS A SYMBOL OF PATRIOTISM FOR THE CN-JP WAR IM—

anyway you heard it here. At least one native scholar suggested that rice dumpling guy mighta been gay

The above is from The Fragile Scholar: Power and Masculinity in Chinese Culture by Geng Song.

Even Shanghai Star, a newspaper, mentioned Qu Yuan on its article on homosexuality in ancient times
https://web.archive.org/web/20031119114502/http://www.china.org.cn/english/2002/Oct/44940.htm

There are so many footnotes just for Li sao that I’m. Yeah. I’ll not try to read poems’ meanings for myself when I clearly lack all the knowledge of historical allusions and references. We need academics.

It’s so interesting that ancient Chinese religion was Shamanism. I mean that’s kinda metal.

If you’re interested in a vastly different picture of what the mainstream imagination of what being “ancient Chinese” entails, I really recommend this book. It has lots of annotations and explanations for all the different elements in the poems as well.

flourish the drumsticks

Gosh the poetry in Chu ci is really, really lovely. There’s no restraint. It’s exuberant and wild.

The thumb-ring in the third picture. The rings were made of jade and were given to women as love pledges.

Well, as we know the area where Wu Xi (from 7ye) is from is referred to as Manjing, which is the ancient place of Chu... :D

I’ve dropped this far
[Qu Yuan and King Huai of Chu fanfic]

um????? There’s bili2 fanvids????? I may never recover from this

https://m.bilibili.com/video/av12465045.html

I’m sorry lol this history thread ended up as historical RPF thread, we will go back as scheduled in a little while. But c’mon, having rice dumpling guy I grew up with possibly canonically gay????? I’m shooketh.

http://jiuyuange.lofter.com/post/2797ab_9719990

uh

Oh wow. I think He Bo is a similar river god as Habaek in Korea? The one who got sacrificed brides to.

Mfw 翻云覆雨’s etymology suddenly pops up

https://twitter.com/anonflail/status/1254687771584638976

Hymn to the Fallen and Honouring the Dead

Hawkes is so hilarious when he attacks the anthology compilers’ logic

I was wrong. The bamboo wasn’t carved!! It was written in lacquer ink! LOL. (It was the tortoise shells that were carved on.) https://twitter.com/anonflail/status/1258400874755317760

Tianwen is basically a bunch of questions. Muddled up in no order bc the bamboo strips’ binding leather broke.

Buju (divination) in full. Written by someone sympathetic to Qu Yuan.

Hawkes mentions that Jiubian (Nine Changes) attributed to Song Yu, is probably the first time that natural objects are given a fully developed pathos, which was to be the theme of so much Chinese poetry through the ages

I’ve copied here verses 1 and 2 of Jiubian. They’re lovely!

Jiubian is in the same theme of... longing for the lord as Lisao and I’m just. Ooooooh. Longing for your lord.

Me: it’s just a job bro.

The poet: I LONG for my lord.

oh tis lovely

Omg omg omg omg we’re finally here at SOUL SUMMONING!!!!!!!!!!! SOUL!!!! SUMMONING!!!!

My audio rn lol

SOUL SUMMONING is not from any daoist or buddhist traditions. It’s Chinese folk religion. :’DDDD the oldest religion.

When we say “folk” we think “traditional”, perhaps “rural”. But this was the main religion in the Shang dynasty. The shamans were given high places in court.