Faculty Publication: Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures Shiamin Kwa
Zen Master Yu Has a Cuixiang Dream
Author: Shiamin Kwa
Source: A Topsy-Turvy World: Short Plays and Farces from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Columbia University Press
Publication Type: Chapter in a book
Description: A Topsy-Turvy World presents English translations of shorter sixteenth-to-eighteenth-century plays, spotlighting a lesser-known side of Chinese drama. Satirical and often earthy, these mostly one-act plays depict deceit, dissembling, reversed gender roles, and sudden upending of fortunes. With zest and humor, they portray henpecked husbands, supercilious and lustful monks, all-too-human sage kings, disgruntled officials, and overreaching young scholars. These plays provide a glimpse of Chinese daily life and mores even as they question or subvert the boundaries of social, moral, and political order.