After 10 years, the post-80s writer Zhang Yun "caught" 1,080 kinds of monsters from the vast sea of classics and published "Chinese Monster Stories (Complete Collection)". Contrary to the impression that "yokai always do evil," he found that "almost 90% of Chinese yokai are good to people."
Since then, Zhang Yun has successively published two novels, "Monster Qitan" and "Being a Demon", and launched the "Monster Investigation Bureau" for the popularization of youkai culture. "Chinese monster culture has a long history and unique characteristics, and is a wonderful flower of China's excellent traditional culture." Zhang Yun tried to re-salvage the Chinese yokai culture that had been forgotten for nearly a hundred years, "the yokai is not a simple feudal superstition, but a reflection of the social state, human psychology, and civilization derivation."
On January 16, Zhang Yun was interviewed by a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily. He talked about his childhood memories under the locust tree in northern Anhui, explaining why in addition to mythology, there are also monster stories in the folk. It also mentions the subtle influence of yokai on ancient history, "no matter how radical or interrupted culture and politics are, yokai culture has not disappeared so far, Chinese yokai are rooted in the real life of ordinary people, and its vitality lies in this."
"Hukou" for 1080 types of yokai
When he finished typing the last word of "Chinese Monster Stories (Complete Collection)", Zhang Yun seemed to hear the cheers of all the monsters behind him. "For youkai, the name is very important, and if a yokai's name is forgotten, it is completely forgotten."
Bonding with youkai and helping them settle down seems like a kind of summoning in the dark. Growing up in the countryside of northern Anhui, Zhang Yun loved to gather with the villagers under the big locust tree at the mouth of the village to listen to the old man tell strange stories. After going to school and reading, Zhang Yun was quite interested in history, and he found that the zhengshi classics were "not enough to enjoy" and "wrote about the affairs of the emperors and generals, and I wanted to know how the common people at that time lived", so he especially liked to read zhiwei notes and barnyard official history, "It was an interesting world, and from time to time there were monsters that I liked."
At an animation exhibition in 2007, Zhang Yun found that many children dressed up as yokai, such as birds, tengu, gluttony, etc., "almost all of them are yokai created by our ancestors and written in classics." And in their eyes, it's all Japanese." Zhang Yun's heart was stung, yokai science is a prominent science in Japan, but in fact, 70% of the Japanese yokai prototypes are from China, "but Chinese don't know how many kinds of yokai we have, and the work related to yokai science is still blank in China." Since then, Zhang Yun has begun the process of "catching demons" and justifying the name of Chinese monsters.
To sort out Chinese yokai, we first need to solve two problems: the definition of yokai and the classification of yokai. "Japan's definition of yokai has not been satisfactory to China, and China has not always had an accurate definition of yokai." To this end, Zhang Yun spent nearly two years to understand the evolution of China's thousands of years of historical monster evolution. Finally, referring to the Eastern Jin Dynasty scholar Gan Bao's "Search for God", he defines monsters as strange and grotesque things rooted in real life that are beyond people's normal cognition. Therefore, "the Bull Demon King and the White Bone Spirit in Journey to the West are not monsters, and the monsters must come from real life."
On the issue of classification, in the past, Chinese called many yokai, and did not deliberately classify them, such as demons, monsters, spirits, charms, etc., with different connotations. On the basis of clarifying the understanding of the ancient Chinese people for youkai, Zhang Yun re-summarized from the perspective of yokai and divided Chinese yokai into four categories: Bai Ze and Fang Xiangshi, and "demons, spirits, ghosts, and monsters".
Solving the problem of definition and classification, Zhang Yun spent another 7 or 8 years salvaging the monster from the vast sea of Chinese classics, finding its origin, recording the story of the monster, and translating the text into the vernacular. "The history of Chinese monsters has not been interrupted, scattered in various texts, especially in zhiwei works. In those years, I went to libraries everywhere, and many times, I couldn't find one for a week or two. In the end, Zhang Yun listed 262 references represented by "Bai Zetu" and "Kizuka Trivia", "In fact, the reference materials read are far more than these."
When encountering inconsistencies in the monster stories recorded in different classics, Zhang Yun will do a lot of proofreading work according to the commonalities of the classics, and make trade-offs and classifications. "1080 kinds of monsters, in fact, the number will be more, such as tanuki demons, dozens of stories are more than a few, every dynasty has it." I wrote the 'Tanuki Demon' and the related stories were all summarized in it. For some nameless and nameless monsters because they "don't know what their so-called weirdness is", Zhang Yun can only regretfully give up, "On the whole, he still chooses the monsters with exact names, so that the identity is more clear."
After several efforts, 1,080 kinds of monsters were successfully placed on the "hukou". Zhang Yun said: "I was very scared at the time, because I was worried that some of the monsters were still 'black households'. But basically most of the yokai are in it. I hope this will lay a foundation for the future study of yokai in China. ”
"Unless provoked, ninety percent of the yokai will not take the initiative to hurt people"
Contrary to the impression that "yokai always do evil", after giving the 1080 yokai a "hukou", Zhang Yun found that "almost 90% of Chinese yokai are good to people, and unless they are provoked, they will not take the initiative to hurt people."
This is very different from the Japanese yokai, in Zhang Yun's feelings, many japanese yokai are cold and resentful, such as Yukio Mishima's "The Tale of the God of Fu", which tells the story of a bunch of old artifacts that were swept out of the house, and after being transformed into a spirit, they looked for revenge for humans. In contrast, Zhang Yun's favorite youkai named "Lantern Boy" recorded in the Ming Dynasty's "Ear New Volume Seven" is a family's worn-out broom into a boy carrying a lantern to take the old man home. "Many of China's monster stories are full of warmth, and youkai often stand outside the crowd and want to have a relationship with people. This reflects the values of Chinese, not aggression, but the value of harmony, kindness to others, and the desire to communicate. ”
"The character of the monster is the character of a person, and it is also the character of an era." The monster stories of different eras reflect the fireworks, social conditions and human psychology of different eras.
Zhang Yun introduced that the pre-Qin period of the monster is full of majestic romantic atmosphere, magnificent; the Wei and Jin dynasties pay attention to the wind and bone, the monster also dares to love and dare to hate, "female monsters and boys in love, it is very direct, like you want you to go with me"; the Tang Dynasty's cultural diversity and tolerance, monsters also have a variety of forms, there are many stories about love, there are a large number of fox essences, flower essences; and in the Song Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, implicit in line with the social values of the time, monsters have also become subtle.
Zhang Yun also found that Zhiwei novels are often intertwined with historical records, and monster narratives will not only affect people's daily lives, but also subtly affect the development of history.
"Flower Moon Essence" is recorded in the Tang Dynasty "Ballad of Ganze". After Wu Zetian seized power, he hesitated to choose his nephew Wu Sansi or his son as heir. Wu Sansijia Yige Ji is named Su'e and dances beautifully. Once Wu Sansi invited Di Renjie to a banquet and wanted to invite Su'e to come out to perform, but unexpectedly, Su'e hid in the house and cried, saying that she was the essence of the flower moon, and the Emperor of Heaven sent her to shake Wu Sansi's heart and want to revitalize the Li family. Di Renjie was a righteous man, and she did not dare to see him. Say it and disappear. The next day, Wu Sansi secretly explained the matter to Wu Zetian, and Wu Zetian sighed: "It seems that Li Tang dangxing, this is the arrangement of heaven", and finally gave way to his son and returned the government to Li Tang. "This story reflects the thinking of the common people at that time, who still miss the Tang Dynasty emotionally," Zhang Yun said.
Chinese talk about gods, why create monsters?
Over the years, Zhang Yun has been working hard for the establishment and promotion of Chinese yokai. In the process of promoting Chinese yokai, Zhang Yun encountered many questions, one of which was that Chinese talk about gods, why should he create yokai? What's the point of us talking about monsters now?
In this regard, Zhang Yun explained that the origin of monsters and gods is the same, "human beings are very small when they first want to conquer and transform nature, and many things cannot be explained, so they create myths, monsters, etc. for sacrifice and witchcraft", monsters and myths and stories are bridges between people and unknown worlds such as nature, and they are entangled with the root system of civilization.
When the degree of human civilization is getting higher and higher, the gods and monsters have diverged, and they have several differences: First, people's attitudes, for the gods, from rulers to academic literati are very revered, the status is very high, and the monsters stand on the opposite side of social value standards, for Confucianism, the monsters are "deviant" existence; the second is that the narrative discourse of the two is different, the myths are mostly the grand themes of Pangu's creation of the world, which are worshipped and sacrificed, while the monsters are "very reckless and subtle". Closer to daily life, it has become a small talk for the people to convey policies, ideas, and satirize reality. At the same time, the yokai and the gods are not completely separated, but also intertwined, "there are some yokai, such as the Wong Tai Sin in the northeast, because they can bring wealth and luck to the common people, and slowly become the gods who are sacrificed."
Zhang Yun mentioned that there is a saying in China called "demons are rejuvenated by people", and the story of demons is a mirror that reflects the hearts, desires and expressions of the people at that time from another side. There are particularly many stories of youkai in China with enlightening significance, which is the embodiment of Confucian values. At present, the study and achievements of Chinese mythology have been widely valued, but the science of monsters has not been established. "We cannot ignore the study of Chinese yokai culture, which, like Chinese mythology, is an important part of folklore."
In the process of promoting Chinese yokai, Zhang Yun also found that the most difficult thing is to change people's concepts, "Everyone thinks that they are feudal superstitions when they hear youkai, but in fact, this is not the case, and they should be viewed dialectically from the perspective of culture, sociology, history, and ethnology." Monster stories have great cultural value, are a cut to understand where Chinese come from and what changes in Chinese society, and a business card to promote the influence of Chinese culture. ”
In August 2021, Zhang Yun successively launched two novels that tell the story of monsters, "Monster Strange Tan" and "Being a Demon". Different from the critical satire of Pu Songling's "Liaozhai Zhiyi", he used the Republic of China and the Tang Dynasty as the background to construct two "paradises" full of warmth, where people and demons coexist in harmony.
The original intention of writing these two novels was that Zhang Yun hoped to make more young people accept Chinese monsters, "'Chinese Monster Stories (Complete Collection)" is the narration of the ancients, and young people may not necessarily accept it. "Monster Strange Tan" and "Being a Demon" use the way of novels to reinterpret the story of monsters according to historical materials, which can make everyone more acceptable and allow more people to experience the wonderful Chinese monsters. ”
Author manga (behind the fang xiang clan, mount is Shirasawa) manga author: Meow 9
Zhang Yun also envisions creating a novel set in a modern era, in which monsters may appear in the subway or over the overpass overlooking the endless stream of people, blending into it but no one cares. Although his current novel background may be different from the present, Zhang Yun believes that emotions are connected, and he hopes to convey the most perfect state of existence in ancient society, "Modern people are too busy and materially rich, but they lack the mental state of adhering to authenticity, as if they are forced to chase something and forget their real needs."
In the future, Zhang Yun will continue to carry out research on Chinese monster culture and launch related works. Zhang Yun pointed out that "my book has been recognized, which proves that everyone has realized the value of Chinese yokai culture", and Chinese yokai science is "now in a state of just germination", and I believe that more people will join the team of studying Chinese yokai and promoting Chinese yokai culture in the future. After all, "Chinese yokai culture has been circulating for nearly 10,000 years and has not disappeared so far, and Chinese yokai are rooted in the real life of ordinary people, and its vitality lies in this," Zhang Yun said.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily intern Li Tong
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Enjie
Editor/Ying Qiao