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Abstract
This article discusses narrative and linguistic features of a storyteller’s script in the Yangzhou tradition of Western Han, Xi Han 西漢, dated to the late Qing, ca. 1880–1912 and belonging to the family of Dai Buzhang 戴步章 (1925–2003). What kind of language style does this text reflect? How does the written text correspond to and differ from an extant oral performance of an episode from the repertoire?
Acknowledgements
This article was first prepared as a powerpoint presentation for the symposium honoring Liangyan Ge, University of Notre Dame, September 7, 2019. During the process of rewriting for publication the author has received much help and good advice from Margaret Wan.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on Contributor
Vibeke Børdahl, Ph.D., Dr.Phil., is Associated Senior Researcher at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen University, Denmark. Her research focuses on Chinese oral and performed literature in contemporary and historical perspective. Her recent publications include the monograph Wu Song Fights the Tiger: The Interaction of Oral and Written Traditions in the Chinese Novel, Drama and Storytelling (2013) and the edited and translated volume (with Liangyan Ge and Wang Yalong), Western Han —A Yangzhou Storyteller’s Script (2017).
Notes
1 For early accounts of Yangzhou storytelling, see Lucie Borotova, “Storytelling in Yangzhou in the Eighteenth Century: Yangzhou huafang lu,” in The Eternal Storyteller, ed. Vibeke Børdahl (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1999), pp. 197–209; and Li Dou 李斗, Yangzhou huafang lu 揚州畫舫錄 (Record of the painted boats of Yangzhou [1793]; Yangzhou: Jiangsu Guangling guji keyin she, 1984).
2 The archives of the Research Database on Chinese Storytelling, situated on the website www.shuoshu.org, contain altogether two audio-recordings of Dai Buzhang performing from Western Han. The earlier was recorded in May 2000, forty minutes. The later was performed in October 2003, eleven minutes. This is the performance that is studied in the present article. The performance from 2000 is still awaiting further study.
3 For more about the script and a full facsimile reproduction, transcription, and translation, see Vibeke Børdahl and Liangyan Ge, Western Han: A Yangzhou Storyteller’s Script (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2017). For a discussion of the function of scripts in Yangzhou storytelling, see Vibeke Børdahl, “Storyteller’s Scripts in the Yangzhou pinghua Tradition,” Acta Orientalia 66 (2005): 227–96.
4 Børdahl and Ge, Western Han, pp. 4, 26.
5 The performance took place in a private setting in the home of Dai Buzhang in the Jiaochang area of central Yangzhou. The author had at the time started to study some pages of the manuscript, which had in May 2000 been photographed by Jette Ross (1936–2001). I asked Dai Buzhang if he could still perform this repertoire, and on the spur of the moment he did perform orally a passage that corresponded to the photo of the manuscript that I had shown him.
6 For more detailed analysis of the styles of performance in Yangzhou storytelling, see Vibeke Børdahl, The Oral Tradition of Yangzhou Storytelling (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996).
7 For formative discussions of the “storyteller’s manner” in Chinese vernacular fiction, see Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Short Story. Studies in Dating, Authorship, and Composition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973); and Wilt L. Idema, Chinese Vernacular Fiction: The Formative Period (Leiden: Brill, 1974). For a discussion of the “storyteller’s manner” and its tenuous relationship to storytelling, see Vibeke Børdahl, “The Storyteller’s Manner in Chinese Storytelling,” Asian Folklore Studies 62.1 (2003): 65–112.
8 The couplet points to two models of inspiration for the King of Han, Liu Bang, at the time when he appointed Han Xin his commander-in-chief. The first example is about the mythical Yellow Emperor, Huang Di, who after his defeat at Zhuolu, with the help of his general Feng Hou became victorious. The second example refers to King Wen of the Zhou dynasty, who was inspired by the dream of a flying tiger 飛熊 to find the talented general Jiang Ziya 姜子牙, and thus was able to establish the Western Zhou (1066–771 B.C.E.).
9 See Børdahl, Oral Tradition, pp. 184, 460.
10 The tradition of providing a couple of moral examples at the beginning of a tale has deep roots in China’s vernacular literature and is almost obligatory in certain genres. Such prologues might develop into quite lengthy tales, called ruhua 入話, and whether long or short the prologues generally provide anticipatory comment on the main story, which is also the function in the present case. See Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 20. In Yangzhou pinghua as a living oral tradition, however, prologue poems or stories are rare. See Børdahl, “Storyteller’s Manner,” p. 80.
11 See Børdahl, Oral Tradition; and Børdahl, Fei Li, and Huang Ying, Four Masters; see also my other studies of Yangzhou storytelling, all based on audio- and video-recorded performances.
12 For grammatical markers and pronouns, such as zhi 之, yi 矣, bi 畢, wei 未, he 何, wu 無, nai 奈; a tag word for “he said” (yue 曰), and pronouns of address between the king and his generals (qing 卿, bixia 陛下, jun 君, chen 臣), see Børdahl, “Storyteller’s Scripts,” p. 249.
13 E.g., zhunbei 準備, duiwu 隊伍; ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 See Børdahl, Oral Tradition, pp. 26–30.
16 See the Preface to Western Han episode told by Dai Buzhang, in Yangzhou pinghua xuan, vol. 2 (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe 1982), p. 236.
17 On the elasticity of oral performance in many genres of Chinese performance culture, see Iguchi Junko 丼口淳子, Zhongguo beifang nongcun de kouchuan wenhua 中國北方農村的口傳文化 (Orally transmitted culture of northern Chinese villages; Sanming: Xiamen daxue chubanshe, 2003), and Junko Iguchi, “The Function of Written Text in Oral Narrative: The Process of Composition in Laoting dagu,” CHINOPERL Papers 27 (2007): 43–59; see also Da Lin, “Heluo dagu chuantong dashu xuan (Selected Traditional Grand Stories from Heluo Drumsinging): An Attempt to Negotiate between the Fixed and Plastic Aspects of Chinese Traditional Narrative Oral Literature,” CHINOPERL 35.2 (December 2016): 134–42.
18 Y.D. “go home” (jiaqu 家去) (1) (MSC: huijia 回家); Y.D. “look at” (yi wang 一望) (5) (MSC: yi kan 一看); Y.D. “cannot” (bu de 不得) (high frequency) (MSC: bu neng 不能). For Y.D. pronunciation see Børdahl, Oral Tradition, pp. 113–19, and Børdahl, “Storyteller’s Scripts,” p. 254.
19 For example, in present-day Y.D. “today” is jinri 今日, jin’er 今兒, or jinge 今個 (MSC: jintian 今天). In wenyan, however, jinri 今日 is highly frequent. Therefore, this expression is not a valid indication of dialect in a text written in wenyan style; see Børdahl, Oral Tradition, 107–8. See also Yangzhou fangyan cidian 揚州方言詞典 (Dictionary of Yangzhou dialect; Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), p. 301.
20 Pre-verse markers found in plain tales, the novel, and the Western Han script include: “indeed” (zheng shi 正是) (107); “there is a poem as proof” (you shi wei zheng 有詩為証) (57); “behold” (dan jian 但見, dan zhi jian 但只見, dan jiande 但見得) (11); “the poem says” (shi yue 詩曰) (1); “how did it look?” (zen jiande 怎見得, zen jian 怎見) (36); “ … . a stanza as follows” (… . yishou . … 一首) (4). See Vibeke Børdahl, Wu Song Fights the Tiger. The Interaction of Oral and Written Traditions in the Chinese Novel, Drama and Storytelling (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2013), pp. 42–43, 222.
21 Transitional meta-narrative formulas found in plain tales, the novel, and the Western Han script include “just look” (zhi jian 只見) (45) and “no more of this” (bu ti 不提/題) (7). In the novel we find the formulas “let us just tell” (zhi shuo 只說) and “no more of this” (bu shuo 不說), but these forms are not found in the Western Han script. Here we find, however, the very similar formulas: “let’s now tell about” (zhi yan 只言) (19) and “no more of this” (bu yan 不言) (14). This wording seems to convey the literary style (wenyan 文言) that flavours the script throughout. The high-frequent formula of the novel, “the story goes” (hua shuo 話說), is found only once in the script. See Vibeke Børdahl, “Storytelling, Stock Phrases, and Genre Conventions – The Case of ‘Wu Song Fights the Tiger,’” in: The Interplay of the Oral and the Written in Chinese Popular Literature, ed. Vibeke Børdahl and Margaret B. Wan (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2010), pp. 120–21.
22 Narrator’s conversation with the audience: “how did it look?”/“what a sight!” (zen jiande 怎見得). This formula traditionally has two functions, both as a signal of verse and as a storyteller’s simulated question to his audience. In the Western Han script, only the first function is obvious, while the second seems obsolete.
23 Zhen Wei 甄偉: Xihan tongsu yanyi 西漢通俗演義 (Romance of the Western Han [1612]) has chapters, chapter titles, and a number of the traditional stock phrases, such as “Wei zhi ruhe, qie kan xiahui fenjie” 未知如何且看下回分解.