©Copyright 2012 Hsiao-wen Cheng Traveling Stories and Untold Desires: Female Sexuality in Song China, 10th-13th Centuries Hsiao-wen Cheng A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2012 Reading Committee: Patricia B. Ebrey, Chair R. Kent Guy Tani E. Barlow Program Authorized to Offer Degree: History University of Washington Abstract Traveling Stories and Untold Desires: Female Sexuality in Song China, 10th-13th Centuries Hsiao-wen Cheng Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Patricia B. Ebrey History This dissertation examines the historicity of female sexuality during the Song dynasty (960-1279), a time period when print technology, popular culture, and commercial activities had begun to boom yet prior to the emergence of a market for women’s writings. It is both an intellectual history—to trace the changing and conflicting conceptualizations of female sexuality in both elite and popular discourses, and a social history—to look for the possible space and resources for women to negotiate autonomy over their sexual bodies and explore their desires. This dissertation proposes an approach—both academically and politically useful—to study the history of women, gender, and sexuality in premodern China in search of women’s agency and possibilities of transgression using only extant sources written by elite men. That is, I treat my sources as multivocal and inspirational in order to emphasize the contradictory nature of intellectual discourses and social norms on the one hand, and popular appropriations of “traveling stories” and “circulating knowledge” on the other. I seek to examine the historical process of the formation of norms concerning female sexuality during this critical period in Chinese history, the nuances of “queerness” and transgressivenss in my source materials, and the ways that Song Dynasty culture and women’s behaviors and practices related to their sexual bodies mutually defined each other. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………iii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………iv Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..…......…1 Chapter I: Traveling Stories: Multivocality and Vitality of Song Anecdotes……………...…....18 1. A new methodology: Faithful recording 2. An old tradition: Yijian zhi and ealier zhiguai works 3. Itinerary: Informants, transmitters, listeners 4. Fragments and inconsistencies 5. Contradictory and ambiguous moral codes 6. Implications and applications Chapter II: Circulating Knowledge: The Use and Limit of Medicine………..……….….….....51 1. The framework 2. Who’s knowledge? 3. Women in medical practice 4. The limit of medicine Chapter III: Medicine, Exorcism, and Beyond: Contending Treatments of Sexual Desire and the Female Body….………………………………………….……...............82 1. Pathologizing the “single yin” 1.1 Female sexuality in pre-Song medicine and the Bedchamber tradition 1.2 Song development 2. Desire, intercourse, pregnancy: Unstable categories 3. The enchanted and possessed: Divergence from the medical models 3.1 Active respondents: Cases from the Six Dynasties 3.2 The dynamics in sexual possession and exorcism: Cases from Yijian zhi 4. Desiring women in the Song Chapter IV: Deviant Viewers and Gendered Looks: Erotic Responses to Images and Song Visual Culture……………………………………………………….………….124 1. Masterpieces vs. magic paintings: Living images in art criticism 2. Deities step in: Miraculous icons in the Song 3. Gendered looks: Two stories from the late Tang 4. Deviant viewers in Yijian zhi 5. Beyond masculine looks Chapter V: Untold Desires: Religious Women and a Potential Queer Space……...…………157 1. In search of a women’s queer history of premodern China i 2. Stories before the Song 2.1 Sixth-century Buddhist record: Lives of the Nuns 2.2 Daoist attitudes toward marriage and sex 2.3 Daoist women before the Song 3. The curious case of Pei Xuanjing 4. Canonical hagiographies and popular anecdotes: Textual interaction and popular intervention 5. New strategies, new details: New “queer space” for women in the Song 6. Two fake female immortals Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….…196 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………..217 ii LIST OF FITURES Figure Number Page 1. Dunhuang, Cave 254……………………………………………………………………....203 2. Dunhuang, Cave 254 (Detail)……………………………………………………………...203 3. Dunhuang, Cave 248………………………………………………………………………204 4. Dunhuang, Cave 288………………………………………………………………………205 5. Dunhuang, Cave 428………………………………………………………………………206 6. Dunhuang, Cave 290………………………………………………………………………207 7a. Celestial King of the East, Dunhuang Cave 100…………………………………………..208 7b. Celestial King of the North, Dunhuang Cave 100………………………………………...208 7c. Celestial King of the South, Dunhuang Cave 100………………………………………...209 7d. Celestial King of the West, Dunhuang Cave 100………………………………………....209 8. Hariti niche, Beimen Cave 122…………………………………………………………....210 8a. Hariti niche, Beimen Cave 122 (Detail)…………………………………………………...210 9. Hariti Niche, Shimenshan Niche no.9……………………………………………………..211 9a. Hariti Niche, Shimenshan Niche no.9 (Detail)…………………………………………….211 10. Beast-Feeding Mother, Dazu………………………………………………………………212 11. The Skeleton Puppet Master (Kulou huanxi tu 骷髏幻戲圖)…………………………….213 12. The Peddler and Playing Children (Shidan yingxi tu 市擔嬰戲圖)……………………...214 13. Zhao Zhifeng and His Disciples, Dazu……………………………………………………215 14. Master Fu, Dazu…………………………………………………………………………...216 14a. Master Fu, Dazu………………………………………………………………………….216 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I take the process of writing this acknowledgement a reminder of how privileged I have been along the journey, which began with my mother’s open-mindedness and full support of me choosing a “non-profitable” major when entering college. As an honor student in college, she once had the dream of pursuing a graduate degree abroad, but the circumstances had not allowed her to do so. If I have ever become more hard-working (against my lazy tendency), it is because I came to realize how many resources have been drawn to support me. And if I receive any reward, it is largely because of my privileged position and those who guide and assist me, and I shall remember my responsibility of assisting others and promoting rights and equality. My deepest gratitude goes to Professor Patricia Ebrey, whom I always feel so fortunate to study with. She has turned me into a real historian and has been the source of so much of my knowledge and inspiration. I am grateful to Professor Kent Guy, Tani Barlow, Susan Shih-shan Huang, Madeleine Yue Dong, and Kyoko Tokuno at UW. They are not simply my intellectual mentors but also my role models. Professor Guy has shown me how fascinating the way Chinese history can be presented especially in lecture class. Professor Barlow has led me to the realm of queer and sexuality studies and challenged me with questions that I had never thought of. Susan has always been so supportive and caring about me in numerous ways ever since I entered the program; she has imparted to me strong interest in the history of images. I have received immense help and support from Professor Dong especially during the last two years; I saw a whole new “China” in her modern Chinese history class. Professor Tokuno has comforted me with the words of wisdom when I felt the most depressed. It is simply impossible here for me to recount all the wonderful things I have received from my professors. Special thanks go to my iv reading committee: Patricia Ebrey, Kent Guy, and Tani Barlow for their meticulous reading of the entire manuscript and insightful comments. For their feedback on drafts of this and related work, I am also grateful to Professor Michael Szonyi, Eugenia Lean, Rania Huntington, Robert Hymes, Antonia Chao, Angelina Chin, Yujen Liu, Howard Chiang, Jen-Hao Walter Hsu, Robban Toleno, and Jason Chan. Portions of the research and writing for this dissertation were funded by the Hsiao Fellowship in the UW China Studies Program, UW History Departmental Fellowships, Aldon Duane Bell Award for Women’s History, UW Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship, China Time Cultural Foundation Young Scholar Award, Hsing Tien Kong Culture and Education Development Foundation Scholarship, and Academia Sinica’s Fellowship for Doctoral Candidate. I particularly would like to thank Professor Jender Lee for her kind sponsorship during the most productive year (2011-2012) of my writing in the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica. Many friends and classmates have provided intellectual and emotional support over the years: Sumei Yi, Jeong Won Hyun, Erin Brightwell, Cheng-shi Shiu, Chong Eun Ahn, Juned Shaikh, Li Yang, Gladys Ge Jian, Yu Huang, Hsun-hui Tseng, Jason Chan, Chad Garcia, Xi Chen, Xiaolin Duan, Tzu-yu Lin, Wenjuan Zhao, Chilan Ta, Michelle Kleisath, Yu-hsuan Su, Pei-ching Liu, Shuxuan Zhou, Leonar Yiong, and Paulina Yang. My life in Seattle has been vibrant because of them. I would also like to extend my thanks to those pleasant and critical minds at Academia Sinica: Yujen Liu, Chih-hua Chiang, Howard Chiang, Jen-Hao Walter Hsu, Wayne Soon, Joe Lawson, Harry Wu, Tomoya Yamaguchi, Robban Toleno, and Angelina Chin. I owe special gratitude to Professor Chang-pwu Hsia and Hsiyuan Chen, who had taught me how to do research and encouraged me to study abroad in the first place; my parents, for their v unconditional love; and Angelina, for her company and support during the final stage of my writing, as well as introducing me to the practice of meditation and the wisdom