These folk narratives are expressions of the fundamental beliefs and values in Chinese culture, and are memories used to reconstruct identities in a new age. They represent different regional customs from different social and cultural groups still practiced today. Through extensive notes and references, this book also makes available the contextual information about the tellers, recorders, and poets -- with the poems presented in both Chinese and English. Any reader will find that this book is not only valuable and resourceful for research and teaching, but also intriguing to ponder upon why we continue to tell various tales every day and why we hold on to our traditions resulting from multicultural integration.
About the author...
Juwen Zhang is professor of Chinese Studies in Willamette University, Oregon, with his Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. As a professor, he has been awarded for his excellent teaching and research in his university, and has taught previously in Dartmouth, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford colleges. As a folklorist, he is EpidFellow of the American Folklore Society and President of Western States Folklore Society, and has nearly two hundred publications on such topics as, rites of passage, diasporic identity, Chinese/Asian American folklore, and folk and fairy tales. His recent articles include: "Folkloric Identity Is the Thing" (Archer Taylor Lecture, Western Folklore, 2020), "Rediscovering the Brothers Grimm of China: Lin Lan" (Journal of American Folklore, 2020), "The Concept of Ethnic Genre as a Paradigm Shift" (Western Folklore, 2020), "Fairy Tales in China: An Ongoing Evolution" (In The Fairy Tale World, 2019), "Motif as Symbol in Context" (In Contexts of Folklore, 2019), and "Folklore in China: Past, Present, and Challenges" (HUMANITIES 2018). His translations into Chinese include, Man and His Symbols by Carl G. Jung (人类及其象征, 1988), Les Rites de Passage by Arnold van Gennep (过渡礼仪, 2010), and Chisingu: A girl's initiation ceremony among the Bemba of Zambia by Audrey I. Richards (祈颂姑：赞比亚本巴女孩的一次成人仪式, 2017). His English translations include, A Translation of the Ancient Chinese The Book of Burial (Zang Shu) by Guo Pu (276-324) (2004), and The Records of Mongolian Folklore by Xiao Daheng (1532-1612) and Two Rhapsodies on the Xun-Flute from Tang China (618-907): Two Primary Sources of Chinese and Mongolian Folklore and Music (2017). He has also translated and edited dozens of articles and books in both Chinese and English on folkloristic studies. His forthcoming books include: The Dragon Daughter and Other Lin Lan Fairy Tales (Princeton University Press, 2022), The Magic Love: Fairy Tales from Twenty-First Century China (Peter Lang, 2022), and Oral Tradition in Contemporary China: Healing a Nation (Lexington Books, 2022).
