Yuan Mei (; 1716–1797) was a Chinese poet of the Qing dynasty. He was often mentioned with Ji Yun as the "Nan Yuan Bei Ji" ().
Biography
Early life
Yuan Mei was born in Qiantang (錢塘, in modern
Hangzhou),
Zhejiang province, to a cultured family who had never before attained high office. He achieved the degree of
jinshi in 1739 at the young age of 23 and was immediately appointed to the
Hanlin Academy (翰林院). Then, from 1742 to 1748, Yuan Mei served as a magistrate in four different locations in
Jiangsu. However, in 1748, shortly after being assigned to administer part of
Nanjing, he resigned his post and returned to his hometown to pursue his literary interest.
Literary career
In the decades before his death, Yuan Mei produced a large body of poetry, essays and paintings. His works reflected his interest in
Chan Buddhism and the supernatural, at the expense of
Daoism and institutional
Buddhism - both of which he rejected. Yuan is most famous for his poetry, which has been described as possessing "unusually clear and elegant language". His views on poetry as expressed in the Suíyuán Shīhuà (隨園詩話) stressed the importance of personal feeling and technical perfection. In his later years, Yuan Mei came to be called "Mister Suiyuan" (p=suíyuán xiānsheng). Among his other collected works are treatises on passing the imperial examinations and on food.
Throughout his lifetime, Yuan Mei travelled extensively throughout southern China, visiting Huangshan, Guilin, Tiantai, Wuyi Mountains and other famous mountains. On some of those visits, Yuan kept journal entries, representative of which is the You Guilin zhu shan ji ("Record of tours of the mountains of Guilin"). He also accepted students. Since he admired women's poetry, he also took several female students and helped them publish their work under their own names.
Beliefs and women's literacy
Yuan was opposed to the strict moral and aesthetic norms of his day and valued creativity and self-expression. He advocated for women's literacy. Yuan was both famed and criticized for his Sui Garden where women would gather to compose and recite poetry. Two of Yuan's sisters enjoyed praise for their literary talent.
Wonder tales
His anthology of supernatural tales, the
Zibuyu (labels=no lit. "What the Master does not Speak of", i.e., "Censored by Confucius") was first published 1788, and later retitled
Xin Qi xie (labels=no; "New wonder tales from Qi").
[ and note 1] It contained some 747 tales, followed by a sequel anthology.
[ 1996, "Introduction", and notes 1–13]
The work is classified under the biji fiction genre), but they are anecdotes collected over many years, purporting to be actual events recorded by the author.
Gastronomic work
The food writer
Fuchsia Dunlop has described Yuan as "China’s
Brillat-Savarin,"
and Endymion Wilkinson called him one of the four classical
.
[Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A Manual (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, Rev. and enl., 2000): 634. The other three are Su Shi (1037-1101), Ni Zan (1301-74), and Xu Wei (1521-93).] In a time when the taste among his contemporaries was for opulence and exotic display, Yuan stood for the "orthodox" style. "Nowadays," he wrote, "at the start of the feast the menu is about a hundred feet long". This is "mere display, not gastronomy". After one such dinner Yuan returned home and cooked
congee to appease his hunger. He instructed cooks "do not fuss with the natural state of the food just to show that you are a clever cook. Bird's nest is beautiful -- why shape it into balls?" Yuan criticized his contemporary
Li Liweng's magnolia pudding as "created by artifice". Yuan also resented what he regarded as the corruption of Chinese food by Manchu cooks. The appeal of Manchu cooking was in their stews and roasts, while Chinese cooked broths and soups, but when Manchus serve Chinese dinners and Chinese serve Manchu food, "we lose our originality" and we "toady to each other".
[Hsiang-Ju Lin and Tsuifeng Lin. Chinese Gastronomy. New York: Hastings House, 1969), 44-45, 47.]
Yuan published his recipes and thoughts on cooking in his 1792 gastronomic manual and cookbook The Way of Eating.[Portions translated in Arthur Waley, Yuan Mei, Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956):196 ff and Lin, Chinese Gastronomy, 45-48.][ Translating the Suiyuan Shidan] A complete and annotated translation was published in 2019.
Editions and translations
-
Yuan Mei, Yingzhong Wang and Yingzhi Wang, eds. 随园食单 (Sui Yuan Shi Dan). Nanjing: Feng huang chubanshe, 2006. .
- translations
Further reading
-
Arthur Waley. Yuan Mei, Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet. London: Allen & Unwin, 1956
- Citations
- Bibliography
External links
