Strange Tales from Liaozhai Studio’s “The Fox’s Daughter Wedding” recounts the journey of Yin, an impoverished scholar from Licheng, Shandong, famed for his audacity.
The pursuit of Daoist cultivation is a recurring theme in classical Chinese literature. For instance, Journey to the West’s Sun Wukong voyages to the Spirit Terrace, Square-Inch Mountain seeking immortality from Patriarch Subodhi (Subhuti).
Strange Tales from Liaozhai Studio: Planting Pears is a concise yet profound fable. Through its fantastical plot–“selling pears,” “begging for a pear,” and “magically growing a pear-tree”–it delivers biting satire on human greed, stinginess, and karmic retribution.
Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio: Wang Liulang (Wang, the Sixth) centers on the trans-life friendship between the fisherman Xu and the water ghost Wang Liulang.
Sun Taibai once relayed a story about his great-grandfather, who had studied at Liugou Temple in the southern mountains.
After reading Strange Tales from Liaozhai Studio: The Painted Wall (The Mural), many may wonder: did the temple mural physically change? Zhu Juren (Zhu Xiaolian) insists the celestial maiden’s hairstyle transformed–from a maiden’s coiffure to a matron’s bun–after his journey into the painting.