Handan Chun
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Handan Chun (),
courtesy name A courtesy name ( zh, s=字, p=zì, l=character), also known as a style name, is an additional name bestowed upon individuals at adulthood, complementing their given name. This tradition is prevalent in the East Asian cultural sphere, particula ...
Zishu () or Zili (), also known as Handan Zhu (), was a writer,
calligrapher Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an exp ...
, and official from
Yingchuan Commandery Yingchuan Commandery ( zh, 潁川郡) was a Chinese commandery from the Warring States period to Tang dynasty, located in modern central Henan province. The name referred to the Ying River, which flowed through its territory. The commandery was ...
(modern day
Yuzhou, Henan Yuzhou ( zh, s=禹州, w=Yü-chou, p=Yǔzhōu) is a county-level city in the central part of Henan, People's Republic of China. Yuzhou City, referred to as "Jun", was called Yangzhai, Junzhou and Yingchuan in ancient times, and also called Xiadu, ...
) who served the state of
Cao Wei Wei () was one of the major Dynasties in Chinese history, dynastic states in China during the Three Kingdoms period. The state was established in 220 by Cao Pi based upon the foundations laid by his father Cao Cao during the end of the Han dy ...
during the early 3rd century. As a calligrapher, he was an expert in many types of scripts and was one of the first scholars to study the ''
Shuowen Jiezi The ''Shuowen Jiezi'' is a Chinese dictionary compiled by Xu Shen , during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE). While prefigured by earlier reference works for Chinese characters like the ''Erya'' (), the ''Shuowen Jiezi'' contains the ...
''. He is credited with restoring the archaic tadpole script tradition. His most famous work is the ''Xiaolin'' (), a collection of humorous anecdotes.


Life

The '' Shui Jing Zhu'' records that Handan Chun was a nephew of , and accompanied him when he became
county magistrate The county magistrate or local magistrate, known by several Chinese names, was the official in charge of the '' xian'' ("county"), the lowest level of central government in Imperial and early Republican China. The magistrate was the official ...
in
Kuaiji Shaoxing is a prefecture-level city on the southern shore of Hangzhou Bay in northeastern Zhejiang province, China. Located on the south bank of the Qiantang River estuary, it borders Ningbo to the east, Taizhou to the southeast, Jinhua to ...
. In 151 Du Shang wanted to set up a
stele A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...
commemorating
Cao E Cao E () (130–143) was a young girl from Shangyu District, Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province in China. She was the daughter of the shaman Cao Xu. The girl died in the year 143 while trying to save her father from drowning. In the year 151 ...
, a girl who died trying to save her father from drowning eight years before. The , quoted in the ''
Book of Later Han The ''Book of the Later Han'', also known as the ''History of the Later Han'' and by its Chinese name ''Hou Hanshu'' (), is one of the Twenty-Four Histories and covers the history of the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 CE, a period known as the Late ...
''s commentary, records the following story: Du Shang first commissioned to write the inscription. When Du Shang asked if Wei Lang had completed the inscription at a drinking banquet, Wei Lang responded negatively and apologized for his lack of skill. Du Shang then promptly asked Handan, who was also at the banquet, to write the inscription. Handan quickly composed it without revising. The result was so good that Wei Lang destroyed his own draft. Handan, in this account, is described as being "just twenty years old, but has extraordinary talent." According to this record, Handan was probably born sometime around 130. In early 190, Handan had a position in the court in
Chang'an Chang'an (; zh, t=長安, s=长安, p=Cháng'ān, first=t) is the traditional name of the city now named Xi'an and was the capital of several Chinese dynasties, ranging from 202 BCE to 907 CE. The site has been inhabited since Neolithic time ...
, but due to the turmoil in North China, he fled to
Jing province Jingzhou or Jing Province was one of the Nine Provinces of ancient China referenced in early Chinese texts such as the ''Yu Gong, Tribute of Yu'', ''Erya'', and ''Rites of Zhou''. Jingzhou became an administrative division during the reign of E ...
the next year, serving in the staff of
Liu Biao Liu Biao () () ( 151 – September 208), courtesy name Jingsheng, was a Chinese military general, politician, and warlord who lived in the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. He is best known for serving as the governor of Jing Province (coveri ...
, which became an important literary salon. In 199, he wrote the funerary stele for the official Chen Ji, who died the same year. At the time, Chen Ji was an important figure, so the choice to make Handan his funerary inscription's composer could imply that he had already established himself as a famous scholar. In 208, Handan accepted an invitation to join the court of
Cao Cao Cao Cao (; ; ; 15 March 220), courtesy name Mengde, was a Chinese statesman, warlord, and poet who rose to power during the end of the Han dynasty (), ultimately taking effective control of the Han central government. He laid the foundation f ...
in Ye (modern-day Linzhang County, Hebei). In 211, he became a literary scholar in the court of
Cao Pi Cao Pi () (late 187 – 29 June 226), courtesy name Zihuan, was the first emperor of the state of Cao Wei in the Three Kingdoms period of China. He was the second son of Cao Cao, a warlord who lived in the late Eastern Han dynasty, but the ...
. When
Cao Zhi Cao Zhi (; ; 192 – 27 December 232), courtesy name Zijian (), posthumously known as Prince Si of Chen (陈思王), was a prince of the state of Cao Wei in the Three Kingdoms period of China, and an accomplished poet in his time. His style o ...
requested for Handan to come to his court, Cao Cao obliged, and in 216 Handan arrived in Cao Zhi's court in Linzi. The '' Weilüe'', quoted in Pei Songzhi's commentary on the ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'', records the following story: When Handan Chun first arrived, Cao Zhi did not talk to him. The day was very hot, so Cao Zhi ordered his attendants to bring water for bathing. After bathing, they put powder on their faces, and sat bare-headed and bare-chested, watching various performances, including the "Dance of the Five Hammers", juggling of balls, the performance of swords, and performances of jesters. Only after the performances did Cao Zhi address Handan, saying "Scholar Handan, how are you?" Cao Zhi then changed clothes and started conversing with Handan Chun on topics such as the beginning of the universe and the "evaluation of men since the time of
Fuxi Fuxi or Fu Hsi ( zh, c=伏羲) is a culture hero in Chinese mythology, credited along with his sister and wife Nüwa with creating humanity and the invention of music, hunting, fishing, domestication, and cooking, as well as the Cangjie syste ...
". They also recited ancient and modern texts and discussed military strategies. After their conversations, Cao Zhi prepared a feast, after which Handan Chun returned home praising Cao Zhi, calling him a "heavenly man". In 217, Handan was appointed literary scholar in Cao Zhi's court. When Cao Cao was considering which of his sons would be named heir, Handan Chun recommended Cao Zhi, which Cao Pi resented.
Rafe de Crespigny Richard Rafe Champion de Crespigny (born 1936), also known by his Chinese name Zhang Leifu (), is an Australian sinologist and historian. He is an adjunct professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. ...
holds the opinion that this is the reason why Cao Pi did not rank Handan Chun as one of the Seven Masters of Jian'an. Cao Pi later gave Handan Chun the position of erudite supervising secretary () in the Cao Wei court. When Handan wrote the ''Touhu fu'' (), a '' fu'' on the traditional East Asian game of touhu, or pitch-pot, Cao Pi was so impressed that he gave him a thousand bolts of silk. The compiler of the '' Weilüe'', Yu Huan, named Handan as one of the seven Confucian Exemplars ().


Identity

Little information on Handan Chun is found in the historical records, and sometimes they appear contradictory. Different courtesy names are recorded for Handan. The '' Weilüe'', quoted in Pei Songzhi's commentary on ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'', states that Handan Chun's courtesy name was Zishu (), but the ''Kuaiji dianlu'' and the ''Shui Jing Zhu'' state that his courtesy name was Zili (). Because of this, scholars such as Gu Huaisan have speculated that there could have been two people named Handan Chun. Shen Yucheng and Shi Xuancong argue that the Handan Chun who wrote the Cao E stele was different from the one who wrote the ''Xiaolin''. They argue that if the anecdote recorded in the ''Kuaiji dianlu'' is true, and that the same person went on to write the ''Xiaolin'', then Handan Chun would have been in his nineties when he would be writing it. There is also a discrepancy in the records on Handan Chun's
ancestral home An ancestral home is the place of origin of one's extended family, particularly the home owned and preserved by the same family for several generations. The term can refer to an individual house or estate, or to a broader geographic area such as a ...
. It is generally accepted that Handan Chun came from
Yingchuan Commandery Yingchuan Commandery ( zh, 潁川郡) was a Chinese commandery from the Warring States period to Tang dynasty, located in modern central Henan province. The name referred to the Ying River, which flowed through its territory. The commandery was ...
, but the ''
Book of Wei The ''Book of Wei'', also known by its Chinese name as the ''Wei Shu'', is a classic Chinese historical text compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and is an important text describing the history of the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 to 5 ...
'' and the ''
History of the Northern Dynasties The ''History of the Northern Dynasties'' () is one of the official Chinese historical works in the '' Twenty-Four Histories'' canon. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618 CE: the histories of Northern Wei, Wester ...
'' state that he came from Chenliu Commandery.


Calligraphy

According to the ''Weilüe'', Handan Chun was an expert in many types of scripts, including
bird-worm seal script The bird-worm seal script () is a type of ancient seal script originating in China. Names The Chinese character (''niǎo'') means "bird" and the character (') means "insect", but can also mean any creature that looks like a "worm", including ...
, and in the ''
Shuowen Jiezi The ''Shuowen Jiezi'' is a Chinese dictionary compiled by Xu Shen , during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE). While prefigured by earlier reference works for Chinese characters like the ''Erya'' (), the ''Shuowen Jiezi'' contains the ...
''. The '' Siti shushi'' (), quoted in Pei Songzhi's commentary on ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'', records that Handan taught the
classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...
in the tadpole script. It then states that his style of calligraphy was imitated by so well that he could not distinguish his own copy of the ''
Book of Documents The ''Book of Documents'' ( zh, p=Shūjīng, c=書經, w=Shu King) or the ''Classic of History'', is one of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature. It is a collection of rhetorical prose attributed to figures of ancient China, a ...
'' from Wei Ji's. Then, it states that during the reign of
Cao Fang Cao Fang () (232–274), courtesy name Lanqing, was the third emperor of the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period. He was an adopted son of Cao Rui, the second ruler of Wei. Cao Fang ruled from January 239 to October 254 as a no ...
, scholars attempted to recreate Handan Chun's tadpole script to make a stone stele inscribed with the classics in three different scripts. However, Handan's calligraphy was lost by that time, so the scholars created a new tadpole script, which was made to resemble tadpoles to match the script name. According to Hu Zhao's biography in ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'', Handan Chun's calligraphy was widely emulated by others, alongside those of Hu,
Zhong Yao Zhong Yao (鍾繇, 151 – April or May 230), also referred to as Zhong You, courtesy name Yuanchang (元常), was a Chinese calligrapher and politician who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty and Three Kingdoms period of China. He serv ...
, Wei Ji (卫觊), and Wei Dan (韦诞). (昭善史书,与锺繇、邯郸淳、卫觊、韦诞并有名,尺牍之迹,动见模楷焉。) Sanguozhi, vol.11


Works

Handan Chun's works include ''Xiaolin'' (), a collection of jokes and folk humor; "Zeng Wu Chuxuan shi" (), also called "Dazengshi" (), a farewell poem about him leaving Linzi to go to Luoyang; "Shang shouming shubiao" (), which announces his other composition, "Shouming shu" (), a poem praising the new Cao Wei dynasty, and "Touhu fu" (), a '' fu'' on the traditional East Asian game of touhu.


''Xiaolin''

Handan Chun's most famous work is the ''Xiaolin'' (), a collection of humorous anecdotes. It is considered by scholars to be the first collection of jokes in Chinese literature, and the earliest ''zhiren xiaoshuo'' (, "records of personalities"). It was recorded for the first time in the ''
Book of Sui The ''Book of Sui'' () is the official history of the Sui dynasty, which ruled China in the years AD 581–618. It ranks among the official Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written by Yan Shigu, Kong Yingda, and Zhangsun Wuji, ...
'', where it is attributed to Handan and records it as consisting of three ''juan'' (scrolls). The ''
Old History of the Five Dynasties The ''Old History of the Five Dynasties'' ( zh, t=舊五代史, pinyin=, p=Jiù Wǔdài Shǐ) was an official history mainly focusing on Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Five Dynasties era (907–960), which controlled much of northern C ...
'' and ''
New History of the Five Dynasties The ''Historical Records of the Five Dynasties'' (''Wudai Shiji'') is a Chinese history book on the Five Dynasties period (907–960), written by the Song dynasty official Ouyang Xiu in private. It was drafted during Ouyang's exile from 1036 t ...
'' also record it as three ''juan''. It is not mentioned in any other official dynastic history after this point. During the
Southern Song The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending ...
, recorded in the '' Nenggaizhai manlu'' () that the imperial palace had a ten-''juan'' copy of the ''Old Xiaolin'' (). Wang Liqi states that this text was probably an expanded edition of ''Xiaolin''. The book was lost after the Song dynasty, with the individual stories scattered in various collections. The first person to collect the various surviving stories of the ''Xiaolin'' was
Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...
scholar , who collected 10 surviving fragments in his '' Guanghuaji'' ().
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
scholar collected 26 fragments in the '' Yuhan shanfang jiyi shu'' ().
Lu Xun Lu Xun ( zh, c=魯迅, p=Lǔ Xùn, ; 25 September 188119 October 1936), pen name of Zhou Shuren, born Zhou Zhangshou, was a Chinese writer. A leading figure of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in both vernacular and literary Chinese as a no ...
then edited the most complete collection of stories in the ''Xiaolin'' so far in his , basing it on Ma Guohan's collection as well as adding three stories he found himself for a total of 29 stories.


"Zeng Wu Chuxuan shi"

The "Zeng Wu Chuxuan shi" () was a farewell poem that Handan wrote upon leaving Linzi for the Cao Wei court in Luoyang, where he took on the position of erudite supervising secretary () in 220. It was written in return to a poem written by Wu Chuxuan (), who was probably also an attendant in Cao Zhi's court, but there are no mentions of him otherwise. The poem is also a source of historical information, confirming the accuracy of the ''Weilüe'''s records on Handan Chun's life.


"Touhu fu"

The "Touhu fu" () was a '' fu'' written by Handan Chun in 220. It describes in detail the game of touhu, which was becoming popular at the time with the educated elite. The ''Weilüe'' records that Handan wrote the poem, which consisted of over a thousand characters, in 220 and presented it to Cao Pi, who liked it and rewarded him with a thousands bolts of silk. The poem is preserved in the '' Yiwen leiju'', with only 389 characters remaining.


References


Bibliography

* * * {{Cite thesis , last=Baccini , first=Giulia , title=The Forest of Laughs (Xiaolin): Mapping the offspring of self-aware literature in ancient China , degree=PhD , url=http://dspace.unive.it/bitstream/handle/10579/1064/Giulia_Baccini_955493.pdf , date=3 March 2011 , publisher=Ca' Foscari University of Venice Cao Wei writers Cao Wei poets Cao Wei calligraphers People from Xuchang