Tales from the Mirror of the Heart

Title: Tales from the Mirror of the Heart - A Collection
Author: Freakjoy
Fandom: Original
Translated by: Mimi

Since I have talked so often about the recently explosion of Boy's Love genre in China, I thought that I might as well suit action to words, and present the readers with some translations. This may well be the first Chinese BL story to be translated into English, though hopefully not the last.

First, a bit of background. Unlike in Taiwan and Hongkong, where the readers have easy access to translated Japanese manga only a few month behind the Japanese schedule, in the Mainland the readers usually only have access to unreliable pirated versions with substandard translations and printing. Partially as a result of this, the BL genre in China developed along completely different lines from Taiwan, Japan, or the West, and the majority of the output is text based and original.

In stylistic and thematic terms, the stories produced in the Mainland are also distinct from the current crop of yaoi manga and text in Taiwan and Japan. While retaining the basic seme/uke formula, the Chinese BL stories are more closely aligned in spirit with the shounen-ai genre of the 70's. In particularly I wish to point out a uniquely Chinese genre of stories written using a semi-classical style, and made possible only in China by the rather old-fashioned education system, where high school students routinely memorize large tracts of classical writings, and where any 10 years old can recite you a dozen Tang poems without so much blinking an eye.

The story I have chosen to introduce here is one such. It is part of a collection of on-going short stories by Freakjoy, historical in setting, classical in style, often but not necessarily containing a supernatural element. Each story, like the Mirror of Truth in the title, reveals in its own oblique fashion the traps and hidden corners of our own hearts. Freakjoy, whose command of the traditional forms is excellent, has seamlessly woven the poetic and literary references into the story. Even the name Tsu-ch'i is effortless evocative of the bygone days of silent and brooding swordsmen and beautiful dancers.

Those with some interest in Chinese literature would wish to know that the author is also working within a classical traditional of literary ghost stories, the most notable example of which may be Liao Zhai Zhi Yi. For a Japanese mangaka working in a similar style, I would recommend our readers to the works of Akiko Hatsu, whose illustration can be seen above, and also in our gallery section.

People frequently say that classical Chinese is almost impossible to translate, and I have found it true of this story as well. I have tried to retain as much as possible the flavors of the original, and any inaccuracy is entirely of mine. A thousand thanks goes to Jeanne, without whose patience and invaluable input this translation would never have been possible.