Late Imperial China

"Clerics are the hungry ghosts of the realm of lust; in the guise of nuns, they're no less the worse . . . "²

Pai'an jingqi [Slapping the table in amazement], Story 6, Ling Mengchu, 1628.

Depraved monks and sex-starved nuns are no strangers to Chinese vernacular literature of the late imperial era. Suspect by virtue of the extremity of their vows of abstinence and their rejection of family, such characters often are depicted as social pariahs—individuals living on the margins of society and thereby a potential threat to a social community structured by Confucian family values. In Ling Mengchu's (1580-1644) short story "Scholar Wenren," a feminine-looking, wandering monk disguises himself as a nun and takes up residence at the Gongde or Good Works Nunnery.³ Not only does the monk dress like a woman, but he also has the physical ability to withdraw his sexual organ inside of himself, thereby nearly replicating in physiology his adopted [End Page 71] gender. The monk uses his transgressive gender and sexuality to prey upon unsuspecting women who come to make offerings at the temple.⁴ In another short story attributed to the late Ming writer Langxian, two young nuns and their even younger acolytes seduce the wanton dandy He Daqing, who pays a visit to their Feikong or "Un-void" Nunnery. When He Daqing tires of his orgies with the nuns and expresses a desire to return home, the nuns get him drunk and then shave his head and dress him like a nun. Embarrassed to return home until his hair grows back, He Daqing is trapped within the nunnery. He is cajoled into having sex on a daily basis and eventually dies from overexertion.⁵

Despite the comic, and even prurient, tone in such tales, these and other stories featuring transgressive clerics tap into a strain of moral didacticism that was central to vernacular literature of the late Ming.⁶ They fit the mold of cautionary tales: tales that purport to teach proper social behavior by way of negative example, with the salacious details of the plot safely (or cleverly) embedded within an exhortatory narrative frame. That Buddhist monks and nuns become the subject of such vicious parody in this fiction has as much to do with the late Ming literati preoccupation with unveiling duplicity—in showing these characters to be other than what they seem to be (therein lies half the crime)—than it does with an outright attack on Buddhism. But while the critique of hypocrisy in Ming and Qing literature is not reserved for Buddhism and religion alone, religious figures become an easy target for such vitriol, perhaps because religious vows of self-abnegation were so absolute—at once, a regimen easily identifiable and regarded as difficult to maintain.

In contrast with the depictions of wayward clerics in vernacular fiction, the portrayal of the nun Zhao Sekong in opera and storytelling versions of "Si fan," or "Longing for the Secular Life," is quite sympathetic. She is cast in the role of protagonist in this story line and in its companion piece, "Seng ni hui" (The Rendezvous between the Monk and the Nun). "Longing for the Secular [End Page 72] Life" recounts the tale of Sekong—a young woman coerced into training as a Buddhist nun by her devoutly religious parents. The plot consists of an exposition of the nun's emotions, her resentment at being denied the pleasures of conjugal life, and her decision to run away from the nunnery. In the sequel to this saga, "Seng ni hui," once Sekong has abandoned the nunnery, or rather "descended the mountain," she encounters Benwu, a young male novice, who likewise has chosen to flee the rigors of religious asceticism.⁷ After several coy exchanges in which the two characters try to hide their immediate attraction for one another, the monk and nun reveal their true motives and desires. The scene ends with Benwu and Sekong eagerly awaiting nightfall, in search of a discrete hide-away in which to consummate their newfound love. The final...