Everyone loves a good ghost story, and one of the most popular ghost stories in the Chinese literary canon is that of Li Huiniang, a cruelly executed concubine who fights for justice from beyond the grave.
At the Appendix, Maggie Greene tells the tale’s history in reverse, from a hugely popular 1981 movie version all the way back to the first formally published version, which appeared during the Ming dynasty:
Li Huiniang had faced the ire of cultural radicals since 1963, even inspiring a ban on portraying ghosts in theater—the harbinger of the PRC’s swiftly increasing radicalization of culture and politics.
What harm could there be in telling the tale of a ghost, or of an upright official?
