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53-579: Hua Mulan ( Chinese : 花木蘭 ) is a legendary Chinese folk heroine from the Northern and Southern dynasties era (4th to 6th century CE ) of Chinese history. Scholars generally consider Mulan to be a fictional character. Hua Mulan is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu ( 無雙譜 , Table of Peerless Heroes ) by Jin Guliang . According to legend, Mulan took her aged father's place in the conscription for

106-462: A ballad , the lines do not necessarily have equal numbers of syllables. The poem consists of 31 couplets and is mostly composed of five-character phrases, with a few extending to seven or nine. An adaptation by playwright Xu Wei (d. 1593) dramatized the tale as "The Female Mulan" or, more fully, "The Heroine Mulan Goes to War in Her Father's Place", in two acts. Later, the character of Mulan

159-714: A 17th-century edition of his collected works known as the Xu Wenchang sanji was reproduced in Taiwan in 1968. In 1990 a book length study of Xu Wei concludes that Xu Wei can be seen as a “scholar in cotton clothes” or buyi wenren (布衣文人), a scholar who failed the civil service examination, yet became active in the realm of literature. Many such individuals appeared in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and attached themselves to officials or became independent in late Ming China. Xu Wei used "splattered ink [that] utilises considerable quantities of ink that are practically poured onto

212-509: A certain extent in South Korea , remain virtually identical to traditional characters, with variations between the two forms largely stylistic. There has historically been a debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters . Because the simplifications are fairly systematic, it is possible to convert computer-encoded characters between the two sets, with the main issue being ambiguities in simplified representations resulting from

265-525: A fine horse from the eastern market, saddle and stirrup from the western market, bridle and reins from the southern market and a long whip from the northern market. She bids farewell to her parents in the morning and leaves for the Black Mountain, encamping by the Yellow River in the evening, where she cannot hear the calls of her parents due to the rushing waters; only the sounds of

318-536: A half-Chinese woman would prefer death by her own hand to serving a foreign ruler". In the novel, Mulan's mother was from the Central Plain of China, but her father was from Hebei during the Northern Wei dynasty and presumably of Turkic (Xianbei) origin, which would make her only half-Chinese. The story of Hua Mulan has inspired a number of screen and stage adaptations. The Hua Mulan crater on Venus

371-643: A man and enlists in her father's stead. She is intercepted by the forces of the Xia king Dou Jiande and is brought under questioning by the king's warrior daughter Xianniang (Chinese: 線娘 ), who tries to recruit Mulan as a man. Discovering Mulan to be a fellow female warrior, she is so delighted that they become sworn sisters . In the Sui Tang Romance , Mulan comes to a tragic end, a "detail that cannot be found in any previous legends or stories associated Hua Mulan", and believed to have been interpolated by

424-570: A number of women from Chinese folklore. It is still unclear whether Mulan was a historical person or just a legend, as her name does not appear in Exemplary Women , a collection of biographies of women who lived during Northern Wei dynasty . Although The Ballad of Mulan itself does not expressly indicate the historical setting , the story is commonly attributed to the Northern Wei dynasty due to geographic and cultural references in

477-418: A similar fate for himself. Xu became mentally distraught at this juncture, attempting to commit suicide nine times, such as by axing himself in the skull and drilling both of his ears. His mental imbalance led to his killing of his second wife Zhang (張氏) after becoming paranoid that she was having an affair. As a punishment for this murder, he was jailed for seven years until his friend Zhang Yuanbian (張元忭) from

530-540: Is Zhu ( 朱 ), while the Romance of Sui and Tang says it is Wei ( 魏 ). The family name Hua ( 花 ; Huā ; 'flower'), which was introduced by Xu Wei , has become the most popular in recent years, in part because of its more poetic meaning and association with the given name "Mulan" ( 木蘭 ), which literally means " magnolia ". Mulan's name is included in Yan Xiyuan 's One Hundred Beauties , which describes

583-869: Is 産 (also the accepted form in Japan and Korea), while in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan the accepted form is 產 (also the accepted form in Vietnamese chữ Nôm ). The PRC tends to print material intended for people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, versions of the People's Daily are printed in traditional characters, and both People's Daily and Xinhua have traditional character versions of their website available, using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional characters in order to communicate with consumers;

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636-463: Is devastated to discover her father has long died and her mother has remarried. According to the novel, Mulan's mother was surnamed Yuan (袁) and remarried a man named Wei (魏). Even worse, the Khan has summoned her to the palace to become his concubine. Rather than to suffer this fate, she dies by suicide. But before she dies, she entrusts an errand to her younger sister, Youlan (Chinese: 又蘭 ), which

689-517: Is named for her. Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages . In Taiwan , the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters . These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of

742-489: Is now known as the Khangai Mountains of central Mongolia . The Northern Wei sought to protect the frontier by establishing a string of frontier garrison commands across what is today Inner Mongolia. Mulan sighs at her loom. The Khagan is mobilizing the military, and her father is named in each of the conscription notices from the emperor . As the eldest child, she decides to take her father's place. She buys

795-672: Is the Ballad of Mulan , a folk song believed to have been composed during the Northern Wei dynasty (386–535 CE) and included in an anthology of books and songs during the Southern Chen dynasty (557–589 CE). While this anthology is itself lost, significant excerpts, including the Ballad of Mulan, survive in the Song dynasty anthology Yuefu Shiji    [ zh ; ko ; ja ] ( Chinese : 乐府诗集 ). The historical setting of

848-493: The Chinese Commercial News , World News , and United Daily News all use traditional characters, as do some Hong Kong–based magazines such as Yazhou Zhoukan . The Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified characters. DVDs are usually subtitled using traditional characters, influenced by media from Taiwan as well as by the two countries sharing the same DVD region , 3. With most having immigrated to

901-520: The Ballad of Mulan is set in the Northern Wei dynasty when northern China was ruled by ethnic Xianbei , a proto-Mongolic people, there is some evidence that Mulan was not ethnic Han Chinese but Xianbei, who had exclusively compound surnames . Mulan may have been the sinified version of the Xianbei word "umran" which means prosperous. According to later books such as Female Mulan , her family name

954-483: The Ballad of Mulan is usually the Northern Wei's military campaigns against the nomadic Rouran . A later adaptation has Mulan active around the founding of the Tang dynasty ( c.  620 CE ). The story of Mulan was taken up in a number of later works, including the 17th-century work of historical fiction Romance of Sui and Tang  [ zh ] , and many screen and stage adaptations. The Ballad of Mulan

1007-606: The Hanlin Academy managed to free him at age of 53. It is possible Xu Wei suffered from bipolar disorder , a condition actually recognized in China at this time. Xu spent the rest of his life painting, but with little financial success. Xu was a playwright as well. He produced the works Singing in Place of Screaming ( simplified Chinese : 歌代啸 ; traditional Chinese : 歌代嘯 ; pinyin : gē dài xiào ), as well as

1060-716: The Kensiu language . Xu Wei Xu's courtesy names were Wenqing (文清) and then later Wenchang (文長). His pseudonyms were "The Mountain-man of the Heavenly Pond" (天池山人 Tiānchí Shānrén), "Daoist of the Green Vine House" (青藤道士 Qīngténg Dàoshì) and "The Water and Moon of the Bureau's Farm" (署田水月 Shǔtián Shuǐ Yuè). Born in Shanyin (modern Shaoxing , Zhejiang ), Xu was raised by a single mother who died when he

1113-640: The Shanghainese -language character U+20C8E 𠲎 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-20C8E —a composition of 伐 with the ⼝   'MOUTH' radical—used instead of the Standard Chinese 嗎 ; 吗 . Typefaces often use the initialism TC to signify the use of traditional Chinese characters, as well as SC for simplified Chinese characters . In addition, the Noto, Italy family of typefaces, for example, also provides separate fonts for

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1166-645: The 1942 translation of Jin Ping Mei argued that Xu Wei was the author but later scholars have not been convinced. Xu Wei was also a poet in shi style. Xu's collected works in 30 chapters exists with a commentary by the late Ming writer Yuan Hongdao . Xu cared most about calligraphy and then poetry. A modern typeset edition of Xu Wei's collected works, Xu Wei ji , was published by the Zhonghua Publishing House in Beijing in 1983. Previously

1219-495: The 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of the predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China , Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is a retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in

1272-555: The People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese characters are standardised according to the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters . Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. There are differences between the accepted traditional forms in mainland China and elsewhere, for example the accepted traditional form of 产 in mainland China

1325-592: The Sui and Tang  [ zh ] (c. 1675) provides additional backdrops and plot-twists. Here, Mulan lives under the rule of Heshana Khan of the Western Turkic Khaganate . When the Khan agrees to wage war in alliance with the emergent Tang dynasty, which was poised to conquer all of China, Mulan's father Hua Hu (Chinese: 花弧 ) fears he will be conscripted into military service since he only has two daughters and an infant son. Mulan crossdresses as

1378-587: The United States during the second half of the 19th century, Chinese Americans have long used traditional characters. When not providing both, US public notices and signs in Chinese are generally written in traditional characters, more often than in simplified characters. In the past, traditional Chinese was most often encoded on computers using the Big5 standard, which favored traditional characters. However,

1431-410: The army by disguising herself as a man. In the story, after prolonged and distinguished military service against nomadic hordes beyond the northern frontier, Mulan is honored by the emperor but declines a position of high office. She retires to her hometown, where she is reunited with her family and, much to the astonishment of her comrades, reveals herself as a woman. The first written record of Mulan

1484-552: The author Chu Renho. Xianniang's father is vanquished after siding with the enemy of the Tang dynasty, and the two sworn sisters, with knives in their mouths, surrender themselves to be executed in the place of the condemned man. This act of filial piety wins a reprieve from Emperor Taizong of Tang , and the imperial consort, who was birth-mother to the Emperor, bestows money to Mulan to provide for her parents, as well as wedding funds for

1537-472: The ballad. The Northern Wei dynasty was founded by the Tuoba clan of ethnic Xianbei who united northern China in the 4th century CE ( Conquest dynasty ). The Tuoba Xianbei rulers were themselves nomads from the northern steppes and became sinified as they ruled and settled in northern China. The Tuoba Xianbei took on the Chinese dynasty name "Wei", changed their own surname from "Tuoba" to "Yuan" , and moved

1590-646: The barbarians' cavalry in the Yan Mountains. She advances ten thousand li to battle as if flying past the mountains. The sound of the sentry gong cuts through the cold night air, and the moonlight reflects off her metal armor. A hundred battles take place, and generals die. After the ten-year campaign, the veterans return to meet the Son of Heaven ( Mandate of Heaven ), enthroned in the splendid palace, who confers promotions in rank and prizes of hundreds of thousands. He asks Mulan what she would like. Mulan turns down

1643-458: The capital from Pingcheng, modern-day Datong , Shanxi in the northern periphery of Imperial China , to Luoyang , south of the Yellow River , in the Central Plain , the traditional heartland of China. The emperors of the Northern Wei were known both by the sacred Chinese title, " Son of Heaven ", and by " Khagan ", the title of the leader of nomadic kingdoms. The Ballad of Mulan refers to the sovereign by both titles. The Northern Wei also adopted

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1696-669: The dynasty's official history , Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei launched a military expedition in 429 against the Rouran by advancing on the Black Mountain and then extending northward to the Yanran Mountain. Both locations are cited in The Ballad . The Black Mountain corresponds to Shahu Mountain ( 殺虎山 ), located southeast of modern-day Hohhot in Inner Mongolia. Yan Mountain, the shorthand for Yanran Mountain ( 燕然山 ),

1749-452: The gender roles and status of women in nomadic societies. The Northern Wei was engaged in protracted military conflict with the nomadic Rouran , who frequently raided the northern Chinese frontier to loot and pillage. Northern Wei emperors considered the Rouran to be uncivilized " barbarians " and called them Ruanruan ( Chinese : 蠕蠕 ) or "wriggling worms". According to the Book of Wei ,

1802-798: The governing institutions of Imperial China, and the office of shangshulang ( 尚書郎 ) the Khagan offered Mulan is a ministerial position within the shangshusheng ( 尚書省 ), the highest organ of executive power under the emperor. This offering indicates Mulan was trained in the martial arts and literary arts as she was capable of serving as a civilian official charged with issuing and interpreting written government orders. The Xianbei in China also retained certain nomadic traditions, and Xianbei women were typically skilled horseback riders. Another popular Northern Wei folk poem called "Li Bo's Younger Sister" praises Yong Rong, Li Bo's younger sister, for her riding and archery skills. The Ballad of Mulan may have reflected

1855-399: The high-ranking position of shangshulang in the central government, and asks only for a speedy steed to take her home. Her parents, upon hearing her return, welcome her outside their hometown. Her elder sister puts on her fine dress. Her younger brother sharpens the knife for the swine and sheep. Mulan returns to her room, changes from her tabard into her old clothes. She combs her hair by

1908-493: The inverse is equally true as well. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters. In Hong Kong and Macau , traditional characters were retained during the colonial period, while the mainland adopted simplified characters. Simplified characters are contemporaneously used to accommodate immigrants and tourists, often from

1961-725: The mainland. The increasing use of simplified characters has led to concern among residents regarding protecting what they see as their local heritage. Taiwan has never adopted simplified characters. The use of simplified characters in government documents and educational settings is discouraged by the government of Taiwan. Nevertheless, with sufficient context simplified characters are likely to be successfully read by those used to traditional characters, especially given some previous exposure. Many simplified characters were previously variants that had long been in some use, with systematic stroke simplifications used in folk handwriting since antiquity. Traditional characters were recognized as

2014-682: The majority of Chinese text in mainland China are simplified characters , there is no legislation prohibiting the use of traditional Chinese characters, and often traditional Chinese characters remain in use for stylistic and commercial purposes, such as in shopfront displays and advertising. Traditional Chinese characters remain ubiquitous on buildings that predate the promulgation of the current simplification scheme, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese characters continue to be used for ceremonial, cultural, scholarly/academic research, and artistic/decorative purposes. In

2067-983: The merging of previously distinct character forms. Many Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between these character sets. Traditional characters are known by different names throughout the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially refers to traditional Chinese characters as 正體字 ; 正体字 ; zhèngtǐzì ; 'orthodox characters'. This term is also used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard characters, including both simplified, and traditional, from other variants and idiomatic characters . Users of traditional characters elsewhere, as well as those using simplified characters, call traditional characters 繁體字 ; 繁体字 ; fántǐzì ; 'complex characters', 老字 ; lǎozì ; 'old characters', or 全體字 ; 全体字 ; quántǐzì ; 'full characters' to distinguish them from simplified characters. Some argue that since traditional characters are often

2120-677: The official script in Singapore until 1969, when the government officially adopted Simplified characters. Traditional characters still are widely used in contexts such as in baby and corporation names, advertisements, decorations, official documents and in newspapers. The Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative in Southeast Asia regarding simplification. Although major public universities teach in simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications such as

2173-700: The original standard forms, they should not be called 'complex'. Conversely, there is a common objection to the description of traditional characters as 'standard', due to them not being used by a large population of Chinese speakers. Additionally, as the process of Chinese character creation often made many characters more elaborate over time, there is sometimes a hesitation to characterize them as 'traditional'. Some people refer to traditional characters as 'proper characters' ( 正字 ; zhèngzì or 正寫 ; zhèngxiě ) and to simplified characters as 簡筆字 ; 简笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'simplified-stroke characters' or 減筆字 ; 减笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'reduced-stroke characters', as

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2226-462: The princess, who had confessed to having promised herself to general Luó Chéng  [ zh ] (Chinese: 羅成 ). In reality, Dou Jiande was executed, but in the novel he lives on as a monk. Mulan is given leave to journey back to her homeland, and once arrangements were made for Mulan's parents to relocate, it is expected that they will all be living in the princess's old capital of Leshou (Chinese: 樂壽 , modern Xian County , Hebei). Mulan

2279-583: The traditional character set used in Taiwan ( TC ) and the set used in Hong Kong ( HK ). Most Chinese-language webpages now use Unicode for their text. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hant to specify webpage content written with traditional characters. In the Japanese writing system , kyujitai are traditional forms, which were simplified to create shinjitai for standardized Japanese use following World War II. Kyūjitai are mostly congruent with

2332-985: The traditional characters in Chinese, save for minor stylistic variation. Characters that are not included in the jōyō kanji list are generally recommended to be printed in their traditional forms, with a few exceptions. Additionally, there are kokuji , which are kanji wholly created in Japan, rather than originally being borrowed from China. In the Korean writing system , hanja —replaced almost entirely by hangul in South Korea and totally replaced in North Korea —are mostly identical with their traditional counterparts, save minor stylistic variations. As with Japanese, there are autochthonous hanja, known as gukja . Traditional Chinese characters are also used by non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Maniq people living in Thailand and Malaysia use Chinese characters to write

2385-489: The treatise on southern drama Nanci Xulu ( simplified Chinese : 南词叙录 ; traditional Chinese : 南詞敘錄 ; pinyin : Náncí Xùlù ). He wrote the four play cycle known as Four Cries of a Gibbon ( simplified Chinese : 四声猿 ; traditional Chinese : 四聲猿 ; pinyin : Sì Shēng Yuán ). This cycle consists of the following four plays: Xu's dramatic efforts often deal with women's themes. The British orientalist Arthur Waley , in his introduction to

2438-518: The ubiquitous Unicode standard gives equal weight to simplified and traditional Chinese characters, and has become by far the most popular encoding for Chinese-language text. There are various input method editors (IMEs) available for the input of Chinese characters . Many characters, often dialectical variants, are encoded in Unicode but cannot be inputted using certain IMEs, with one example being

2491-531: The wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , and Macau , as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages written using Chinese characters, Japanese kanji include many simplified characters known as shinjitai standardized after World War II, sometimes distinct from their simplified Chinese counterparts . Korean hanja , still used to

2544-422: The window and, before the mirror, fastens golden yellow flowers. Her comrades are shocked to see her. For twelve years of their enlistment together, they hadn't realized that she was a woman. In response, Mulan explains. "The male hare has heavy front paws. The female hare tends to squint. But when they are running side-by-side close to the ground, who can tell me which is male or female?" Chu Renhuo's Romance of

2597-587: The words for simplified and reduced are homophonous in Standard Chinese , both pronounced as jiǎn . The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han dynasty c.  200 BCE , with the sets of forms and norms more or less stable since the Southern and Northern dynasties period c.  the 5th century . Although

2650-512: Was 14. At 21, he married a woman who died five years later. Though he passed the county civil examination at age 20, Xu was never able to pass the provincial civil service examinations , even after attempting it eight times. Nevertheless, Xu was employed by Hu Zongxian , Supreme Commander of the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Fujian coastal defense against the wokou pirates. After General Hu was arrested and lost his job, Xu Wei feared

2703-547: Was first transcribed in the Musical Records of Old and New , a compilation of books and songs by the monk Zhijiang in the Southern Chen dynasty in the 6th century. The earliest extant text of the poem comes from an 11th- or 12th-century anthology known as the Music Bureau Collection , whose author, Guo Maoqian , explicitly mentions the Musical Records of Old and New as his source for the poem. As

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2756-401: Was incorporated into the Romance of Sui and Tang , a novel written by Chu Renhuo ( 褚人獲 ). Over time, the story of Mulan rose in popularity as a folk tale among the Chinese people. The heroine of the poem is given different family names in different versions of her story. The Musical Records of Old and New states Mulan's given name is not known and therefore implies Mulan is her surname. As

2809-430: Was to deliver Xianniang's letter to her fiancé, Luó Chéng. This younger sister dresses as a man to make her delivery, but her disguise is discovered, and it arouses her recipient's amorous attention. The Mulan character's suicide has been described as "baffling", since she is not in love or engaged to anyone. Some commentators have explained this as an anti- Qing message: the author supposedly wanted to suggest that "even

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