FROM STRANGE TALES TO CLUBHOUSE

Late 17th century, China: Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio

Now is just the right season of the year: the days are getting longer and warmer, luckily not yet too hot. This is when you see that old man, Pu Songling, a local schoolteacher, spreading a blanket under the tall locust tree on the side of the road. He takes a good spot; it is right next to the intersection where the roads leading to Town Square, the street fair, and, of course, the empty wheat fields after harvest meet. Scholars and villagers come and gather to enjoy the tea and snacks Mr. Pu provides. In turn, they offer stories. Pu doesn’t usually tell stories; he collects them and writes at night back in his studio. Those are unusual stories and supernatural folktales, focusing on everyday life of commoners through stories involving ghosts, foxes, immortals, and demons. If storytelling in Pu’s studio are performances, Pu can be seen as a producer, writer and editor.

The book Pu compiled out of almost five hundred marvelous tales, was finally published in the mid 18th century. 聊斋志异（liáo zhāi zhì yì , later known in English as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio), holds an important place in traditional Chinese literature, especially in the style of zhì guài (tales of the strange). Liáo zhāi, literally translated as “the studio for conversations”, is a stage for storytelling.

Present Day: Clubhouse

Today, we spread a blanket in cyberspace and invite you to Clubhouse to watch the stories that we have freshly curated. A clubhouse, unlike a studio, is a communal place, albeit for members only; in its modern iteration, is the namesake of the social media app that gained stardom during the pandemic.  Our Clubhouse is first and foremost a virtual studio where our writers create; at the same time, it is also a place for people to gather virtually as storytellers, performers, spectators and participants. After all, what is theater but storytelling and togetherness?

And these stories are:

  • Strange Tale: 祝翁 (zhù wēng)/ Mr. Chu, the Considerate Husband

    • Synopsis: An old man who has been dead for a couple of days comes back to life and takes his wife with him because he doesn’t want to leave her alone.

  • In Clubhouse: my dead husband bought a gun and came for me today by Stefani Kuo

  • Strange Tale: 四大千 ( sì dà qiān)/ The Forty Strings of Cash

    • Synopsis: A new-born child is collecting money that his father owed him in their previous lives. The child dies as soon as the debt is clear.

  • In Clubhouse: Do You Still H8 Me by Yilong Liu

  • Strange Tale : 风仙 (fèng xiān)/The Magic Mirror

    • Synopsis: A fox-fairy turns into a beautiful girl and marries a poor young scholar, who eventually passes the imperial-level exams with her assistance.

  • In Clubhouse: Stacy in the States by Livian Yeh

  • Strange Tale: 画皮 (huà pí)/ The Painted Skin

    • Synopsis: A scholar is infatuated with a beautiful young maiden, only to discover, upon seeing her painting make-ups on a mask made of human skin, that she is a disguised ghost.

  • In Clubhouse: Day 364. The Scale Boy by Minghao Tu

  • In Clubhouse: Ghost Story by Han Tang

    • Was inspired by the hundreds of stories in Strange Tales featuring ghosts and fox-fairies, often female, bright and beautiful, or at least those who tell these stories made them bright and beautiful.

Like stories in Pu’s collection, our five episodes share similar motifs on love and death, sexuality, fertility and illness. In this pandemic – a dark tunnel with possible light at the end – there seems to be no other theme that is more fitting, more reflective of we have been through. 

In Strange Stories, the land of the dead is the only place the strange and exotic beings belong. No matter what kind of uncanny horror our protagonist encounters, the stories usually end with reconciliation of the two worlds: sometimes the evil demon gets exorcised, while other times the fairy adopts human behaviors and social norms and lives with her lover happily ever after in the land of the living. Unlike tales in Strange Stories, in Clubhouse, there is no longer a clear delineation between an underworld that is deemed “other”, and a human world that always feels safe. Instead, strange things are happening right in front of our eyes, blurring past and present, mixing the living and the dead. We do not yet have a path to understand or reconcile. Sharing these stories in 2021 is a constant reflection and exploration of strangeness in our everyday life.

- Bindi Kang, Dramaturg