The story Peach Blossom Spring, which is also the title of my novel, is the only story that is attributed to a particular person: the poet Tao Qian (375-427 CE). As with many of Meilin’s tales, it may seem like there is a single clear message to take away, but on reading again, other meanings emerge. Is it about greed and selfishness? Is it about trickery? Is it about respecting the stranger who asks for alms? Is it about being susceptible to fraudulence? Like a prism refracting light, it changes as I consider it from different angles. For example, the story of the Magic Pear Tree. The insights they offer have changed over time as I have grown. I heard them once and my sticky memory kept them. For several, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know them. In the novel, I mostly chose Chinese folktales that feel like old friends. Meilin’s tales offer wisdom and perspective, but they are also meant to make Renshu smile and maybe even laugh. In the years to come, Meilin and Renshu will return again and again to the scroll for comfort, inspiration and more stories. Instead, she offers this truth to Renshu in the form of a story he can hold. It’s a big idea to hand a small child – that the world is full of ambiguity. It keeps them looking for the blessing when times are difficult and cautions them from sliding into complacency in times of ease. This first tale sets the tone for their experiences to come. The story is about how within every misfortune there is a blessing and within every blessing, the seeds of misfortune. So, she takes out her only remaining treasure, an antique hand scroll, opens it to an illustration of a man and horse, and tells Renshu a folktale. Though surrounded by bleakness, despair is the last thing Meilin wants to offer her child. Most everything they have held dear appears to be lost.
During the attack, they become separated from the rest of their family and don’t know when and if they’ll meet again. Early in the story, my main character, Meilin, and her young son, Renshu, survive a terrifying aerial bombing from Japanese planes. Folktales have been polished smooth by so many tongues, over so many years, that hearing them is like holding a comforting, rounded river stone.įolktales play an important role in my debut novel, Peach Blossom Spring, which follows three generations of a Chinese family looking for a place to call home throughout the chaos and aftermath of the Sino-Japanese and Chinese Civil wars. Maybe it’s due to their being peopled with deep archetypes and passed down via oral tradition. Though I am an avid reader, my memory is only ‘sticky’ like this for folktales. To me, one of the most wonderful and mysterious things about folktales is how after just one encounter, they usually stay with me.
I have always had a soft spot for folktales. National Emerging Writer Programme Overview.
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