Shen Fu- A Floating Life

From 'Shen Fu - Six Records of a Floating Life'

Background

Shen Fu was born in Suzhou in the latter part of the 18th century, at the height of the Qing dynasty. He was a government clerk, a painter, occasional trader, and a tragic lover, and in his mid-forties he set out his life in six moving 'records' that have delighted the Chinese ever since they came to light in the 19th century.

Embarrassing Episode

In Shen Fu's own words...

That night after [my cousin's] wedding, I escorted my relatives out
of the city, and it was midnight by the time I returned.  I was
terribly hungry and asked for something to eat.  A servant brought me
some dried plums, but they were too sweet for me.  So Yun (Shen Fun's
betrothed) secretly took me to her room, where she had hidden some
warm rice porridge and some small dishes of food.  I delightedly picked
up my chopsticks, but suddenly heard Yun's cousin Yu-heng call, 
"Yun, come quickly!"

Yun hurriedly shut the door and called back, "I'm very tired.  I was
just going to sleep."  But Yu-heng pushed open the door and came in 
anyway.

He saw me just about to begin eating the rice porridge, and chuckled,
looking out of the corner of his eye at Yun.  "When I asked you for some
rice porridge just now, you said there wasn't any more!  But I see you
were just hiding it in here and saving it for your 'husband'!"

Yun was terrible embarrassed, and ran out.  The whole household broke
into laughter.  I was also embarrassed and angry, roused my servant,
and left early.

Every time I returned after that, Yun would hide.  I knew she was afraid
that everyone would laugh at her.

Newly Married Life

We were so happy that our first month together passed in the twinkling
of an eye.  At that time my father, the Honourable Chia-fu, was working
as a private secretary in the prefectural government office at Kuichi
(modern Shaoxing County near Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province).  He sent
for me, having enrolled me as a student of Mr Chao Sheng-chai at Wulin.
Mr Chao taught me patiently and well; the fact that I can write at all
today is due to his efforts.

I had, however, originally planned to continue my studies with my father
after my marriage, so I was disappointed when I received his letter.
I heared Yun would weep when she heard of it, but she showed no emotion,
encouraged me to go, and heled me pack my bag.  The night before I left
she was slightly subdued, but that was all.  When it was time for me to
go, though, she whispered to me, 'There will be no one there to look 
after you.  Please take good care of yourself.'

My boat cast off just as the peach and the plum flowers were in magnificent
bloom.  I felt like a bird that had lost its flock.  My world was shaken...

Our separation of three months seemed as if it were ten years long...
Every time the wind would rustle the bamboo trees in the yard, or the 
moon would shine through the leaves of the banana tree outside my window,
I would look out and miss her so terribly that dreams of her took 
possession of my soul.

My teacher understood how I felt, and wrote to tell my father about it. 
He then assigned me ten compositions and sent me home for a while to write
them.  I felt like a prisoner who has been pardoned.

Once I was on the boat each quarter of an hour seemed to pass as slowly
as a year.  After I got home and paid my respects to my mother, I went
into our room and Yun rose to greet me.  She held my hands without saying
a word.  Our souls became smoke and mist.  I thought I heard something,
but it was as if my body had ceased to exist.

Suzhou Custom

It is a Suzhou custom that on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival
women, regardless of whether they come from a well-off family or not,
all come out in groups to stroll.  This is called the 'moonlight walk'.

(Actually, this custom is not so unique to Suzhou.. and not so ancient..)

Suzhou Foods

Everyday Yun would mix her rice with tea.  She liked to eat a spicy, 
salty kind of beancurd that Suzhou people call 'stinking beancurd'. 
She also liked pickled cucumber.

Married Life

Yun's habits and tastes were the same as mine.  She understood what my
eyes said, and the language of my brows.  She did everything according
to my expression, and everything she did was as I wished it.

Once I said to her, 'It's a pity that you are a woman and have to remain
hidden away at home.  If only you could become a man we could visit
famous mountains and search out magnificent ruins.  We could travel the
whole world togehter.  Wouldn't that be wonderful?'

'What is so difficult about that?' Yun replied.  'After my heair begins
to turn white, although we could not go so far as to visit the Five Sacred
Mountains, we could still visit places nearer by.  We could probably go
together to hufu and Lingyen, and south to the West Lake and north to
Ping Mountain.'

'By the time your hair begins to turn white, I'm afraid you will find it
hard to walk,' I told her.

'Then if we can't do it in this life, I hope we will do it in the next.'

'In our next life I hope you will be born a man,' I said.  'I will be a 
woman, and we can be together again.'

'that would be lovely,' said Yun, 'especially if we could stil remember
this life.'

I laughed.  'We still haven't finished talking about that business with
the rice porridge when we were young.  If in the next life we can still
remember this one, we will have so much to talk about on our wedding
night that we will never get to sleep!'

'People say that marriages are arranged by the "Old Man of the Moon",'
said Yun.  'He has already pulled us together in this life, and in the
next we will have to depend on him too.  Why don't we have a picture
of hm painted so we can worship him?'

Lake Tai 1

When Chien Shih-chu of Wuchiang County fell ill and died, my father wrote
and ordered me to represent him at the funeral.  hearing this, Yun took 
me aside.  'If you are going to Wuchiang, you have to cross Lake Tai.  I 
would love to go with you and see something more of the world.'

'I had just been thinking how lonely it would be going by myself,' I said,
'and that if you could come with me it would be lovely.  But there is no
excuse for you to go.'

'I could say I wanted to go home for a visit.  You could go to the boat
first, and I would meet you there.'

'Then on the way back we could stop the boat under Ten Thousand Years 
Bridge,' I said.  'We could relax in the moonlight, the way we used to
at the Pavilion of the Waves.'

It was then the 18th day of the 6th month.  In the cool of the morning
I took a servant and went ahead to the Hsu River Dock, where we boarded
a boat and waited.  Yun arrived in a sedan chair shortly afterwards.
the boat cast off and left the Tiger's Roar Bridge, and after a while
we began to see other sails in the wind, and hirds on the sandy shore.
The sky and the water became the same colour.

'Is this the Lake Tai that everyone speaks of?' asked Yun.  'Now that
I see how grand the world is, I have not lived in vain!  There are women
who have lived their entire lives without seeing a vista like this.'

Lake Tai Express

Once, just as night was coming on, I suddenly decided to return home.  
I took one of the small fast boats used for official business - they fly
across Lake Tai with two oars at the side and two sculls at the back,
and in Suzhou are commonly called 'water-horses' - and arrived at Wumen
Bridge in the twinkling of an eye.  Riding a crane through the air would
not be as exciting as this.  I arrived home before dinner was ready.

Anhui, Huizhou County

When my age was 25, I received an invitation to work for County Magistrate
Ko at JiXi in Huizhou County...

The town of Jixi was situated amid ten thousand mountains, a small place
full of simple people.  Near the town was a mountain called Stone Mirror
Mountain.  To see the 'mirror', you followed a winding path through the
mountains for about a li and then came to a cliff with water rushing down
its face, and with moist greenery that itself seemed about to begin dripping
over the ground.  Gradually climbing higher to the middle of the mountain,
you arrived at a square stone pavilion with four high walls.  The left and
right sides of the pavilion were as flat as screens, and the light reflected
from their lustrous green surfaces so that you could see yourself in them.
It was said that once, if a man looked into them, they would reflect what
he had been in a former life.  But when Huang Tsao (a leader of the Yellow
Turban rebels at the end of the Han Dynasty) came there, he is supposed
to have looked into the walls and seen the image of an ape, and then he
set fire to the pavilion and burned the walls so that they lost their 
powers.

Guangdong, Guangzhou, Shamian

After quitting his county magistrate clerk post, he turned to trading physical goods... At the age of 30, Shen Fu ventured on a business trip to Guangzhou..

Even on New Year's Eve the noise of the mosquitoes was like thunder.
When people were going out to congradulate one another on New Year's 
morning, some wore cotton gowns with only think silk robes over them.
Not only was the weather here different, but the local people, while
their physical features were the same as ours, were different in manner.

On the 16th of the first month, three local officials who were friends 
from my home county took us with them to the river to see the sing-song
girls.  This was called 'making the rounds on the water', and the girls
were called 'laochu'.

We went out together from Chinghai Gate, took a small boat that looked
like half an egg shell with a tent over it, and went first to Shamien.
The girls' boats are called 'flower boats'; they were all arranged in
two ranks facing one another with a water lane left between them so that
small boats could get through...

Shen Fu's Father

My father, the Honourable Chia-fu, liked to adopt sons, so I had 26 
brothers with surnames different from mine...

(This is not the adoption in the modern sense of the word. This is the practice of godfathering a child of another family.)

My father, the Honourable Chia-fu, was also a most generous gentleman, 
anxious to help those in trouble, to assist anyone in need, to marry off
other people's daughters and to bring up their sons.  There are countless
examples.  He spent money like dirt, most of it for other people.

Grief

...'These are the reasons why I have come down with dizziness and 
palpitations of the heart.  The disease has already entered my vitals,
and there is nothing a doctor can do about it.  Please do not spend 
money on something that cannot help...

Later she sobbed and spoke again.  'Even someone who lives a hundred
years must still die one day.  I am only sorry at having to leave you
so suddenly and for so long, halfway through our journey.  I will not
be able to serve you all your life, or to see Feng-sen's (son) wedding
with my own eyes.'  When she finished, she wept great tears.

I forced myself to be strong and comforted her saying, 'You have been 
ill for eight years, and it has seemed critical many times.  why do you
suddenly say such heartbreaking things now?'

'I have been dreaming every night that my parents have sent a boat to
fetch me,' said Yun.  'When I shut my eyes it feels as if I'm floating,
as if I were walking in the mist.  Is my spirit leaving me, while only
my body remains?'..

Yun only sobbed again and said, 'If I thought I had the slightest thread 
of life left in me I would never dare alarm you by talking to you like
this.  But the road to the next world is near, and if I do not speak to
you now there will never be a day when I can.'

...'Your parents' springs and autumns are many, and when I die you should
return to them quickly.  If you cannot take my bones home, it does not
matter if you leave my coffin her for a while until you can come for it.
I also want you to find someone who is attractive and capable, to serve
our parents and bring up my children.  If you will do this for me, I can
die in peace.'

When she had said this a great sad moan forced itself from her, as if 
she was in an agony of heartbreak.

'If you part from me half way I would never want to take another wife,'
I said.  'You know the saying, "One who has seen the ocean cannot desire
a stream, and compared with Wu Mountain there are no clouds anywhere"'.
(from Tang poet Yuan Chen, 779-831)

Yun then took my hand and it seemed there was something else she wanted
to say, but she could only brokenly repeat the two words 'next life'.
Suddenly she fell silent and began to pant, her eyes staring into the
distance.  I called her name a thousand times, but she could not speak.
Two streams of agonized tears flowed from her eyes in torrents, until 
finally her panting grew shallow and her tears dried up.  Her spirit
vanished in the mist and she began her long journey.  This was on the
30th day of the 3rd month in the 7th year of th reign of the Emperor
Chia ching (1803).  When it happened ther was a solitary lamp burning
in the room.  I looked up but saw nothing, there was nothing for my two
hands to hold, and my heart felt as if it would shatter.  How can there
be anything greater than my everlasting grief?

My friend Hu Ken-tang loaned me ten golds, and by selling every single
thing remaining in the house I put together enough money to give my 
beloved a proper burial.

Alas!  Yun came to this world a woman, but she had the feelings and 
abilities of a man.  After she entered the gate of my home in marriage,
I had to rush about daily to earn our clothing and food, there was 
never enough, but she never once complained.  When I was living at home,
all we had for entertainment was talk about literature.  What a pity
that she shoudl have died in poverty and after long illness.  And whose
fault was it that she did>?  It was my fault, what else can I say?

Su XiaoXiao

While I was at West Lake, the local people pointed out to me Su Xiao's
grave beside the Hsiling Bridge.  At that time it was covered with only
half a mound of yellow earth, but in the 45th year of the Emperor Qianlong,
his majesty was inspecting the South and asked about it.  By the time
the great ceremonies were held for his next trip south in the spring of
1784, a stone monument had been put up at her grave, octagonal in shape
and with a tombstone mounted on it with the large inscription, 'The
Grave of Su XiaoXiao of Chientang'.  since then poets remembering her
have hardly had to wander around searching for her grave.

I cannot help but think of the countless chaste and virtuous women who
since ancient days have been buried wihtout being remembered, and of
the many who have been remembered for only a short time; yet while this
XiaoXiao was nothing but a sing-song girl, everyone since the Southern
Chi Dynasty has known of her.  Is this becasue her spirit is supposed to
make the lakes and mountains more beautiful?