Mirror Flora – A Must-Read Series on Chinese Traditional Culture for Students

Author: Shi Yanbo
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-08-01
Features: A Journey to the West is a relatively outstanding novel that emerged in the mid-Qing Dynasty. The author, Li Ruzhen, was from Daxing, Zhili (now Beijing). He was intelligent and studious from a young age, knowledgeable in both the past and the present, and had profound expertise in phonology. Unfortunately, he achieved little official success in his lifetime, serving only as a minor county magistrate in Henan for a few years. A Journey to the West consists of 100 chapters, set during the reign of Empress Wu Zetian. The central theme of the work is to praise women and oppose the prevailing male-dominated, female-subordinate social of the time. The essence of the novel lies in its first half, where Tang Ao and Lin Zhiyang travel through dozens of fantastical countries, satirizing the dark realities of the era and expressing the author's social ideals, particularly the advocacy for improving women's status. In A Journey to the West, women are no longer the protagonists of love stories but active participants in social life, a groundbreaking approach in classical fiction. The second half depicts a series of feasts where a hundred talented women play the lute, compose poetry, discuss philosophy, and enjoy themselves before parting. In reality, the author uses the women's voices to showcase his own erudition. This book selects some classic chapters from A Journey to the West and introduces them to young readers in the form of stories. Additionally, each story is accompanied by a knowledge window to broaden and deepen reading comprehension. It is hoped that this approach will help young readers better understand classical masterpieces.