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| Courtesy of the Author |
Bio:
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Alice Poon steeped herself in Chinese poetry and history, Jin Yong’s martial arts novels and English Literature in her school days. This early immersion has inspired her creative writing.
Always fascinated with iconic but unsung women in Chinese history and legends, she cherishes a dream of bringing them to the page.
She is the author of The Green Phoenix and the bestselling and award-winning non-fiction title Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong. She now lives in Vancouver, Canada and devotes her time to writing historical Chinese fiction.
Synopsis:
From the author of The Green Phoenix comes a riveting tale of female friendship, honor, and sacrifice for love, set in 17th Century China and featuring the intertwined stories of three of the era’s most renowned courtesans – Liu Rushi, Chen Yuanyuan and Li Xiangjun. Inspired by literary works and folklore, Tales of Ming Courtesans traces the destinies of the three girls from the seamy world of human trafficking and slavery to the cultured scene of the famously decadent pleasure district of the city of Nanjing, evoking episodes in Memoirs of a Geisha.
In 1664, Jingjing is reading her mother Rushi's memoir. A wretched adolescence barely behind her, Rushi buys her way out of bondage but, being a courtesan, loses her true love to the tyranny of conventions. Social scorn never leaves her alone. The memoir inspires Jingjing to uncover the fates of Rushi's two sworn sisters, also courtesans. Yuanyuan is first trapped in brutal slavery and then forced to let go of her lover and enter an unhappy union with a brutish general. Xiangjun incurs corrupt courtiers' wrath when she warns her lover of their trap laid for him. Thrown into each other’s company, the three women forge a strong bond that becomes their lifeline. When the outbreak of war plunges them into deeper woes, they mull over a daring idea. In piecing the three sisters' stories together, Jingjing slowly unravels the secret of who she really is.
Betrayal, tenacity and hope all come together in a novel that brings to life an important era in China’s history, and particularly highlights the challenges faced by independent-minded women.
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| Courtesy of the Author |
EC: Welcome to Asian Books Blog, Alice. Congratulations on your book which just came out this month, Tales of Ming Courtesans. Orientate us, if you will, as to the period and the context within Chinese history, and how to interpret the role of courtesans in Ming society.
AP: Hi Elaine, thank you so much for having me! Tales of Ming Courtesans is set in the tumultuous period straddling the Han-ruled Ming dynasty and the Manchu-ruled Qing dynasty in Chinese history. It marked the violent demise of an ailing Han regime and its conquest by an alien nomadic one from Manchuria, which brought massive loss of lives and huge sufferings to the Han population through bloody cultural clashes and brutal subjugation by the conqueror.
Courtesans have a long history in China, dating as far back as the Spring and Autumn Period (771 – 476 BC). In the Ming dynasty, while courtesans were still collectively classified as a lowly caste called “jianmin” (meaning worthless people who ranked below commoners), they generally played a more sophisticated and nuanced social role than that attributed to prostitutes. In general, many Ming courtesans were entertainers/escorts skilled in music, singing, dancing, painting and calligraphy, whose key job was to perform their arts either in public tea houses and flower boats, or at official venues or private households.
EC: What led you to the idea for this book, and how long did it take to write?
AP: The inspiration was sparked by a cursory reading of the biography of courtesan-poet Liu Rushi written by eminent historian Chen Yinke (1890 – 1969), which I stumbled upon while doing research in 2014 on Chen Yuanyuan who plays a minor role in my earlier historical novel The Green Phoenix (2017). An idea for a story of sisterhood with both women as leading characters immediately sprang up. In 2016 I chanced to read the famous historical drama The Peach Blossom Fan which features another late-Ming courtesan named Li Xiangjun, and the thought of including her as a protagonist leaped to mind. Thus, a story outline for Tales began to take concrete shape. Between 2015 and 2018, on and off I plowed through the 800,000-word biography of Liu Rushi, and I also researched on cultural details and other background information relating to the period. The first draft, which was started in mid-2018, took a year to finish, and re-writing and editing took another three months. The manuscript was submitted in late 2019.
EC: The novel tells a beautiful if sad tale. Inescapable though is the fact that courtesan tales are testament to the large scale victimisation of women at the hands of sex-trade procurers, preying usually on girls from poverty-stricken families. This reality was true through the centuries, and still true even in our century. Another sad truth is that women with relatively more power often assist in the perpetuation of the victimisation of these women in order to survive. What are your hopes or intentions in recuperating historical tales of what you had so aptly called ‘unsung women’?
AP: The official history of China has always been about men and written by men. Notable Chinese women who had an impact on cultural history despite being victimized by classism and sexism have rarely been given voice. I think such women desperately need to have their stories of struggle heard. It is also my hope that through glorifying the power and grace of female friendship and solidarity in fiction, a message of empowerment can be sent out there to oppressed groups, especially women who fall prey to physical, sexual and/or mental abuse, such as those in cases highlighted in the #MeToo movement.
EC: The three protagonists: Rushi, Yuanyuan, Xiangjun were courtesans and yet schooled in the literary arts, painting, music and embroidery, which simultaneously must have made the debasement of their own bodies that much harder to bear while ironically providing vital succour and spiritual solace. Of the three, which character were you drawn to most?
AP: You are absolutely right – with self cultivation comes wisdom and the burden of shame and humiliation, but education in the arts must also be a welcome source of delight for them. Ah, each of the three characters has her own set of admirable personality traits and I do love them all. I was maybe slightly more drawn to the character of Liu Rushi, if only for her selfless generosity towards others.
EC: They also became sworn sisters through the practice of exchanging silk kerchiefs. Can you tell us more about the meaning and history of this practice in Ming Dynasty China?
AP: I learned of this practice from a footnote in Act Five of the iconic historical drama The Peach Blossom Fan written by renowned Qing dramatist Kong Shangren (1648 – 1718). It was a common practice in the Ming dynasty among well-trained courtesans to form sworn sisterhoods through a ritual of oath-taking and exchanging silk kerchiefs as tokens. Groups of “kerchief sisters” would celebrate their respective sisterhood by gathering at the Lantern Festival each year to have dinner together, each member bringing a box of cooked food for sharing. It was this piece of cultural detail that inspired the creation of a sworn sisterhood between Rushi, Yuanyuan and Xiangjun. In real life, Rushi and Yuanyuan were close friends.
EC: Your bio says that you devote your time to writing historical Chinese fiction. Do you write only historical fiction, and what draws you to historical tales?
AP: Yes, my writing interest at present is focused on historical fiction set in dynastic China. As a child I was deeply drawn to Jin Yong’s martial arts novels. The historical backgrounds of those novels piqued my juvenile curiosity, which gave rise to a lifetime passion in Chinese history. As an adult, my reading interest centres round world historical fiction. I’ve always found it fascinating to explore, through reading historical tales, emotions, thoughts, values, beliefs and life choices of those who lived before us. It has helped me better understand our present human condition. Times may change, but the forces that govern humanity don’t, forces like love and hatred, hope and fear, truth and falsehood. There are always important lessons to be learned from our forebears and our collective past.
EC: Your note at the back tells us these tales were based on true accounts. What was the research process like? Was there a segment that you especially enjoyed researching, and conversely, one that you found particularly challenging?
AP: As usual, I enjoyed very much the process of research, because it was also a learning process. In the case of Tales, before I read up Mao Xiang’s memoir Reminiscences of the Plum-Shaded Cloister, I had been at sixes and sevens as to his feelings for Chen Yuanyuan. When I read the long, pining passage devoted to Yuanyuan, which seemed out of place in an eulogistic memoir meant for his deceased concubine Dong Xiaowan, it became clear (at least to me) whom he really loved. This discovery was a pleasant surprise. I admit, though, that reading the epic biography of Liu Rushi was quite a challenge, not least due to the fact that Chen Yinke used classical Chinese language, which slowed down the reading quite a bit.
EC: Men do perambulate through the tales, especially scholars who patronised brothels and entertainment houses, and at the back, you had noted the following: “Through promoting and anthologizing poetry writings by cultivated courtesans, and through romantic involvement with them, these scholars were in fact championing a counterculture, which could be seen as open resistance to the prevalent Neo-Confucianism teachings.” This is intriguing. Can you tell us more?
AP: Many late-Ming patriotic scholars, while disillusioned with the ruling regime that was plagued by corruption, ruler incompetence and factional conflicts, felt stifled by orthodox Neo-Confucianism teachings, which advocated ethics cultivation and prudish conduct and disapproved instinctual expression of love and affections. They felt a desperate need to reform the system of governance and to find outlets for their pent-up emotions. As a result, quasi-political poetry clubs sprang up all over Jiangnan, which was known for its pleasure districts where skilled courtesans thrived. Within these clubs, reformist scholars could freely discuss politics and poetry, and actively promote poetry written by cultured courtesans. Scholars’ romantic liaison and poetic interaction with their cultivated escorts became an escapist norm that defied moralist Neo-Confucianism.
EC: How has the pandemic affected your book promotions, if at all?
AP: Most of my book promotion activities are taking place on various social media platforms and I am presently on a virtual book tour with Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. I was privileged with a Vancouver Sun interview on publication day. The only regret is that we had to cancel a planned book launch party in Hong Kong due to the pandemic.
EC: Thank you so much for joining us, Alice, and good luck with your book!
NB: Tales of Ming Courtesans may be purchase from Earnshaw Books. The book (both paperback and Kindle formats) is also available on Amazon US and Amazon Canada. The release date for Amazon UK & Europe is August 28, 2020.