The Lo-cha Country and the Sea-Market
- Region
- China
- Record
- Pu Songling
This episode is recorded and waiting for its premiere.
A merchant's son of rare beauty is blown by a typhoon to a land where beauty terrifies and ugliness wins high office. To make a career at court, he must blacken his face with charcoal.
Ma Chun would rather sing and play with actors, but his father sends him into trade. A typhoon throws his ship onto the shore of a country where people run screaming at the sight of him. Here, what counts as beauty in China is hideous, and the uglier you are, the higher your rank.
The story comes from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling, written around 1700. It is a satire on courts and careers, and also a fairy tale about the Sea-Market, where men trade with creatures from the deep, and about the palace of the Dragon King.
Read the original
This story is built on records that are now in the public domain. You can read them for free in digital archives.
What the source says
- Pu Songling, Liaozhai zhiyi (Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio), late 17th / early 18th century.Wikisource ↗Public domain
- Herbert A. Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, London 1880: "The Lo-ch'a Country and the Sea-Market". Public domain.Internet Archive ↗Public domain
What we added
- The first half follows Giles's translation almost word for word. The second half keeps his plot, but much of the dialogue is ours: the fisherman's warning about the Sea-Market, the prince's words at the market, and the scene where the princess visits her daughter ("my little pearl").