-listening from behind the curtain- aka honey are you HEARING this?
me: do you think empress dowager lü zhi utilized girl power?
me 2.0: hell yeah!
me: do you think empress dowager lü zhi effectively utilized girl power by killing political rivals on her husband's behalf, brutally mutilating her husband's consort in a jealous rage, poisoning said consort's son, and usurping her own children/grandchildren's throne to rule as the first (defacto) female empress in chinese history, an act which eventually snowballed into the lü clan uprising and almost destroyed the fledgling empire she helped her husband build?
me 2.0: god forbid women do anything U_U
the more that i think about it, the more im convinced it will be more impactful if we never see lü zhi's face at all. it pulls double-duty in representing the societal attitudes towards warring states women, where they are both hidden treasures to be jealously guarded by men, and also forced into the obliterating void of obscurity by those same men who smother their talents and ignore their achievements. well-behaved women rarely make history, and sister, lü zhi is about to have her name engraved in stone...
right: Lacquerware screen of Prince of Nanyue (reconstruction), China, Han dynasty left: Mawangdui lacquer screen, China, Han dynasty. han dynasty screens were made of wood not silk, so im evoking artistic license:
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| Artistic Liscence |
| Name: its-not-a-pen |
| Valid until: 4/28 |
| the holder is entitled to [3] |
| anachronisms per year |
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close ups and wips (the thing liu bang is holding in his hands are carved walnut shells, basically ye olde fidget toys)
We open in the busy interior of a wine shop. Outside, snow is drifting gently down from an indigo sky. Inside, the atmosphere is hot, raucous, and chaotic. One might imagine this is what the vegetables in a stir-fry feel inside their wok. All those reds, greens and yellows being jostled about, coating each other with steam and grease. Where the various echelons of society mingle but do not quite coalesce. A place where the star anise rubs shoulders with the common onion and blue-collared scholars get sauced one table away from road-menders with salt still drying under their armpits. Everyone enters through the courtyard but once inside, they are quickly sorted and ranked. The distinguished are escorted to tables further inside. The rabble are left to find seats near the drafty windows and doors. There is a brief moment of integration, and then separation.
Located near the kitchen entrance is a very large table-–to be precise; it is actually two regular-sized tables that had been pushed together by an innovative waiter–-and seated around it are a crowd of cheerful layabouts, bachelors, and ne'er’ do wells. They were not seated further outside because they spent money like it grew on trees. They were not seated further inside because they lacked breeding. The establishment had compromised by putting them somewhere prestigious enough to soothe their egos, but well out of ear-shot of anyone of status.
Social species instinctively gather around a charismatic individual. A troupe of macaques have a head monkey.The circus has a ringleader. The chieftain of this party is thirty-year-old Liu Bang, a minor patrol officer serving the county magistrate. He is wearing his elder brother’s second-best coat, he had rolled out of bed that morning without combing his hair, he has the air of a king. Liu Bang and his lackeys are drinking and gambling uproariously, the game is similar to pai gow which is played with dominos and dice. One might assume that given their high spirits, they must have been celebrating some momentous occasion, but that would be incorrect. This was a perfectly ordinary day, descended from a long line of unremarkable months, each identical to the one preceding it and indistinguishable to the one following it. But what did it matter? When Liu Bang sits at your table, every day feels like a festival.
At intervals the noise dies down–-usually when a plate of food arrives--and a faint tinkling of music can be heard. It comes from a musician sitting unobtrusively in a corner, plucking a zheng. She is singing Scholar in Blue .
ZHENG PLAYER
Blue-collared lad, my heart yearns for you.
Although I cannot go to you, couldn’t you write to me?
Musicians such as her are commonly known as “brothel girls,” they’re hired as general entertainers and although they’re not always sex workers, their proximity to ignominy still stains them. When the men speak to her at all, it is to leer and make crude remarks. The girl is only fifteen but she is used to life on the streets and their remarks roll off her like water off a duck’s back. As the fingers can grow calloused from constant playing, so too can the soul from receiving abuse. She might have even answered coquettishly in order to earn more tips, but tonight she has eyes for no-one except for Liu Bang. She keeps smiling bashfully while trying to catch his eye. How long had she been waiting there? How often had she returned to haunt this spot, hoping to meet Liu Bang? Was she just after a bit of extra coin, or did she have something more ambitious in mind--a chance to secure a future for herself? The truth is far worse, the poor girl had been stricken with a terrible contagion; she was in love. Had she entered with a clear mind, she might have profited from the opportunity. In coming here with her heart in her hands, she was only setting herself up for exploitation and disappointment. A thief who steals a purse does not care about how prettily it is embroidered, he is only after the money inside. The musician must know that to a man like Liu Bang, she could never be anything more than a concubine. She would have been overjoyed to have that much.
ZHENG PLAYER (CONT’D)
Blue-belted lad, you’re in my loving thoughts
Although I cannot go to you, couldn’t you visit me?
After what seems like an age, Liu Bang finally notices and gives her a polite, bland smile. Galvanized, the musician starts fluttering her eyelashes with enough strength to start a breeze–she is clearly not very artful or experienced. Liu Bang finds her clumsiness amusing, and his smile becomes warmer. He has a soft spot for gutsy people who bite off more than they can chew.
Fan Kuai, who is sitting to Liu Bang’s right and getting a front-row view to this one-sided attempt at courtship, rolls his eyes.
FAN KUAI
Quit leading her on, Sanlang. You don’t know what stupid ideas these brothel girls get.
LIU BANG
I’m just being polite, you grouch. Go on, lighten up. The girls will like you just as much if you smile once in a while.
FAN KUAI
Whatever.
Fan Kuai feels strangely disgruntled that this hussie could be bold enough to commandeer Liu Bang’s attention, as if she could possibly be worthy of it. He is confused by the churlishness of his own feelings. If pressed, he might have grumbled something about it being a gentleman’s night, and how stupid little girls should stay out of their business. It had been nearly a fortnight since he had last seen Liu Bang, who had been sent to deliver a wagon full of presents to the new governor– a Qin lackey sent from Xianyang– and once Liu Bang returned, Fan Kuai had barely had a shichen alone with him. In fact, he was slightly annoyed about Liu Bang attending all of these crowded, noisy dinners. Fan Kuai barely knew a quarter of these yahoos, and he’d bet his last coin that even Liu Bang could scarcely name half, although you wouldn’t know it to look at him, laughing and shouting at the top of his lungs, grabbing shoulders and thumping backs heartily. Liu Bang never seemed to run out of energy, his strength grew in proportion to the people surrounding him. Fan Kuai could not boast of the same skill. He felt exhausted just looking at him. Why couldn’t the two of them just eat at his house? The Fan’s raised the best pork in the district, there could not be two opinions about it. And their wine wasn’t half bad either! Wouldn’t it be nicer to spend a quiet evening all by themselves? When night fell they could huddle together on the cosy, heated kang, laughing and drinking deep into the night, just like old times.
This wasn’t the only thing bothering Fan Kuai. Liu Bang had turned down another marriage proposal yesterday. He’d been doing it more and more often of late. He was in his prime and extremely eligible. Money was the only thing he lacked, he had every other quality in spades; looks, charisma, a willingness to fight for the things he wanted. Although not strictly scrupulous, he had an undeniable strength about him. Dinner invitations flew at him like arrows. The patriarchs of Pei County were not content to let such a fine young stag roam free for long. Liu Bang would have a wife, it was not a matter of if but when . He’d have some naggy shrew foisted onto him soon enough, someone who would force him to come home early and keep him under lock and key. She’d weasel into his heart, chase his friends out of his house, and use up all of his hard-earned cash. When that happened, they really wouldn’t be able to be together like old times.
ZHENG PLAYER (CONT’D)
I keep pacing and climbing the lookout tower,
one day without seeing you feels like three autumns.
The musician plays a particularly clever rift, her fingers fly across the strings and the notes rush out, bubbling and dancing like water from a fresh spring. Liu Bang doesn’t look up–-he has already forgotten about her–-but he bobs his head appreciatively, his fingers tapping along on the greasy surface of the table. The sight makes Fan Kuai ball his hand into an angry fist. He glares daggers at the hapless girl and tosses back his wine so roughly the clay rim of the bowl rasps against his teeth. Whore, he thinks snidely. She’s not even pretty.
i cant get over empress lu zhi, first empress of the han dynasty. she was a status boost for her husband instead of the other way around. she stabbed a man to death with bamboo spears. she got her son back on the succession line by striking fear into the heart of her husband. she did years of psychological warfare with her son over murdering all his half brothers. she conspired with her daughter-in-law who was also her niece to puppet her grandchildren as emperors and killed them when they opposed her. she put all her relatives in power and pissed off every other official so much that her entire family got massacred after she died. she even cut off a concubine’s limbs and nose and kept her alive in a latrine. truly one of the most women of all time
Lu Zhi, Zhuangzi Dreaming of a Butterfly (leaf 1)
Ming dynasty, mid-16th century
* * *
“Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, a veritable butterfly, enjoying itself to the full of its bent, and not knowing it was Chuang Chou. Suddenly I awoke, and came to myself, the veritable Chuang Chou. Now I do not know whether it was then I dreamt I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between me and the butterfly there must be a difference. This is an instance of transformation.“
