China’s Magical Creatures Week 10 Report
- Lauren B
- 0
- on Nov 03, 2022
This week, all of our readings had to do with foxes and their significance in Chinese traditions. Of the two textbook chapters we read, the first one, Fox Spirits, first details how foxes are a very complex creature, being called both mischievous and honorable. They also serve as a spotlight on women in China, since many stories revolve around them. Different foxes represented different things such as prosperity but their meaning changed over time. Fox spirits were associated with women due to their yin energy and they held great power over their male counterparts. The next chapter, Daiji the Fox Spirit, is mostly based in fiction and describes the fall of the Shang dynasty through a fox. Essentially, after King Zhou disrespected Nüwa she sent Daiji down to distract Zhou so he would die quicker. This caused many other people die through Daiji’s new forms of torture. The first pdf we read was about Miss Ren (The Fox Lady) and how Zheng encountered her one day. Eventually he finds out but still wants to see Miss Ren. Later, Zheng’s friend Yin finds Ren and she tells him how Zheng is useless. Yin then falls in love with her. Years later Zheng asks Ren to come with him on a mission so they can spend time together and she agreed. On this mission she disappeared, leaving all her possessions behind, causing Zheng to believe she died. The last thing we read was chapter one of The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China. The first chapter describes the evolution of fox sports as well as their origin in China. Harking back to omens and divination, foxes were used to explain something they didn’t understand. Just like how omens/creatures were used. Honestly, I’ve found foxes’ connection with women really fascinating. For section B essentially fox men want to marry human women and will eventually force a sexual relationship to occur and because of this fox men are never viewed in a positive way, similarly fox women are forever seen as outsiders. Foxes were seen as violent beasts and also were used as a metaphor for other foreign elements/people the Chinese may not understand
Concerning my textbook work, I’ve worked through 6 chapters since last week and that makes my total so far 9. I’ve also made a list of notes to give to other groups. This list includes formatting errors I’ve noticed and what images should be either replaced or gotten rid of entirely. Most of what I’ve been doing is going through and editing the alt text to make it more clear and the captions to ensure that they’re accurate descriptions of the image.
On my to-do list right now I have to send my notes to various groups as well as find out if there is anything for me to do. Aside from regular class work like the reflection and textbook work I don’t have anything to finish.
A question I had is why women’s beauty and sexuality has always been something repressed and feared? China and many other countries have convinced women that anything they do is bad and something that shouldn’t be done when in reality they can use it like a weapon, as the foxes are doing. Men do the same thing, taking charge because of their masculinity so why can’t women use their femininity?
