The Fox Hu and The Barbarian Hu Unraveling Representations of The Other in Late Tang Tales

Journal of Chinese Religions
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The Fox [hu] and the Barbarian [hu]: Unraveling

Representations of the Other in Late Tang Tales
Xiaofei Kang
To cite this article: Xiaofei Kang (1999) The Fox [hu] and the Barbarian [hu]: Unraveling
Representations of the Other in Late Tang Tales, Journal of Chinese Religions, 27:1, 35-67, DOI:
10.1179/073776999805306777
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The Fox [hu 1J.R] and the Barbarian
[hu tJj]:
Unraveling Representations of the Other
in Late Tang Tales
Xiaofei Kang
Columbia University
Introduction
Fox spirits fascinated the Tang people, much as their better-known offspring did during the
Ming-Qing era. They were widely worshipped in village homes and enjoyed food offerings.!
Interactions between humans and fox spirits were also extensively recorded by Tang literati in
the zhiguai [accounts of anomalies] collections, which have preserved a wealth of fox tales far
surpassing earlier accounts both in number and in content.2 A more careful look at these
zhiguai collections reveals that most extant fox tales were compiled during the eighth and
ninth centuries, a time when the cosmopolitan and wealthy Tang empire experienced dramatic
decline and wrenching changes following the An Lushan ~ffr~LiJ Rebellion (755-763).3 This
paper explores representations of the fox spirit at this historic moment of transition. It
examines the fox's marginal position as it straddled cultural boundaries and analyzes how
An .earlier draft of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian
Studies, Washington, D.C., March 1998. My deepest thanks go to Paul Katz, who provided generous
advice and valuable comments on how to improve the original version of this paper. I am also grateful
to Bob Hymes, Robert C amp any, and an anonymous reviewer for their useful comments. Sarah
Schneewind and Dana Lynch helped me refine the language of the earlier and the final versions of the
paper, respectively.
!TPGJ 447.316 "Hushen" (Chaoye qianzai). As a rule, TPGJ lists its original source at the end of
each account. Since most of the original collections mentioned by the TPGJ were lost after the Song,
and their extant versions were later recollected from TPGJ, in this paper I use TPGJ as my main source.
I give the original source of each cited story in parentheses in the footnote and list the Tang and Song
stories in TPGJ under their original sources in the appendix. (Regarding the citation of juan numbers
and page numbers in Chinese texts, Journal of Chinese Religions follows the practice of using a period
between juan number and page number.-ED.)
2The major source of Tang fox tales is the section on hu [foxes] in TPGJ. It has eighty-three
accounts in all, and seventy of them are dated to the Tang and early Song. In addition to the thirteen pre-
Tang accounts in TPGJ, there is one account of fox spirits in Fengsu tongyi !\ {§ Jm ~ ,one in Soushen
houji 1J t$1& ~c, and five in Soushen ji :tJ t$~c .
3Twitchett, Cambridge History of China, "Introduction." For the dates of compilation of the Tang
collections, see the appendix.
Journal of Chinese Religions 27 (1999) 35

36 Journal of Chinese Religions
zhiguai writings about the foxes of this time embodied the Tang literati's complex feelings
toward foreign elements in Chinese life and mirrored historical changes.
Since ancient times, the Chinese had been well aware that the fox was a marginal animal:
it dwelled in the wild and remained untamable for domestic uses, yet it was not a ferocious
predator and was believed to have quasi-human intelligence.4 When perceived as a shape-
shifting spirit, the fox in Chinese tradition also demonstrated liminal features: it haunted and
bewitched people, causing sickness and death, but it also had celestial connections, provided
divine help to people, and inspired genuine love in some mortals.5 Scholars of Chinese
religion have noticed that many gods had similar features.6 The Wutong spirits, the plague
god Marshal Wen, or the Eighteen Lords in modem day Taiwan were all of demonic origin
and both worshipped and exorcised by their believers.7 Animals with ambivalent qualities like
those of the fox-the coyote in native American society, the cat in the urban life of eighteenth
century France, and the monkey in Japanese culture-have also inspired studies of culture and
history worldwide.8 These studies indicate that representations of such animals enable people
41n early Chinese texts the fox was often depicted as a sly animal. The term huyi jJ1\ ~ [suspicious
as a fox] had been used at least from the Warring States period. Lisao, for example, has a line: "Xin
youyu er huyi xi, yuzishi er buke" JG' 5~ ~ fffi jJ1\ ~ /5 ' BX EJ ~ fffi /f OJ (Quyuan chuci zhu, 56). It is
translated as: "My mind was irresolute and wavering; 1 wanted to go, and yet 1 could not." See Birch,
Anthology of Chinese Literature, 58. A fable features the fox as a clever animal that outwitted the tiger
to be the "king of the hundred animals." A popular idiom, hujia huwei jJ1\ 1~JJEmx: [the fox borrows the
tiger's terror], was derived from this fable and is still in use today; see Zhanguoce xinjiaozhu, 475. The
Chinese also believe that the fox is a spiritual being. The Han lexicographer Xu Shen ~tl['$i (30-124
C.E.) claimed that the fox was a spectral animal, and "ghosts ride on it." During the Six Dynasties and
the Tang, the fox continued to be viewed as able to metamorphose when it reached old age. See Xu,
Shuowen jiezi, 206; TPGJ 447.312, "Shuohu" (Xuanzhongji); and TPGJ 451.339-40, "Seng Yantong"
(Jiyi ji).
5Examples are many. For foxes who haunted and bewitched, see Ying, Fengsu tongyi jiaoshi, 353,
"Deng Boyi"; TPGJ 447.315, "Song Daxian" (Soushen ji, juan 18); TPGJ 447.315, "Zhang sun Wuji"
(Guangyi ji); and TPGJ 453.350, "Pei Shaoyin" (Xuanshizhi). For foxes who provided divine help, see
TPGJ 447.313, "Chen Fei" (Soushen ji, juan 18); TPGJ 449.327, "Wei Mingfu" (Guangyi ji); TPGJ
45.337, "Yuan Jiazuo"; and TPGJ 453.347, "Li Ziliang" (Hedong ji). For romance between humans and
fox women, see TPGJ 451.338, "Li NUn" (Guangyi ji); TPGJ 452.340, "Ren Shi"; and TPGJ 454.353,
"Ji Zhen" (Xuanshi zhi). Liminal status, according to Victor Turner, is a phase of "betwixt and between"
during which the established social structures are reversed and cultural oppositions may be represented
by a single symbol. See Turner, "Betwixt and Between." Turner's notion of liminality is further
elaborated in many of his works; see, among others, The Ritual Process.
6For a general summary of these studies, see Shahar and Weller, "Introduction." For individual
studies, see Harrell, "When a Ghost Becomes a God"; Jordan, Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors; and Wolf,
"Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors," 193-206, 131-182.
7Cedzich, "Cult of the Wu-t'unglWu-hsien"; Katz, Marshal Wen and "Demon or Deities"; Weller,
"Matricidal Magistrate and Gambling Gods;" and Von Glahn, "Enchantment of Wealth."
8Darnton, Cat Massacre, 75-104, especially 89-96; Levi-Strauss, "The Structural Study of Myth,"
194-195; and Ohnuki-Tierney, Monkey as Mirror. Other anthropological studies of the significance of
The Fox and the Barbarian 37
to draw boundaries between symbolic oppositions at multiple levels, be it personal, familial,
social, or cultural. For example, Ohnuki-Tierney observes that the monkey living in relative
proximity to humans serves as a reflexive agent through which Japanese people ritually
cleanse themselves of their negative qualities and guard against the intrusion of outsiders. My
study of fox spirits aims to help bring the discussion of Chinese culture and religion into the
circle of international dialogue.
New research rejects the conventional idea that zhiguai accounts are mere literary
fabrications and illuminates the significance of fox tales in different ways. Robert Campany
argues that zhiguai as a genre ritually defined the self and the other. In early medieval China,
Campany argues, accounts of anomalies were perceived as verifiable historical accounts
addressing taxonomic boundaries, especially the boundaries between animals and humans and
between humans and spirits of all kinds. Through the exploration of these boundaries, the
authors of zhiguai accounts intended to clarify people's perceptions of the world and their
own place in it.9 Glen Dudbridge's case study of the Guangyi ji JJr~ ~c, a major source of
Tang fox tales, emphasizes zhiguai stories from the point of view of modem scholarship as
historical sources. Treating each story as a snapshot of history and probing signs of change at
a particular moment, Dudbridge demonstrates that stories in zhiguai collections offer
invaluable insights into the everyday life of the lay society and provide evidence for feelings
and opinions unavailable in formal historical or philosophical writings. Precisely because of
the informal nature of zhiguai writing, he contends, we can perceive significant changes that
are deeply embedded in long term continuities, based on individual experiences with other
worlds. 10
The fox tales of the eighth and ninth centuries show that the authors of the Tang zhiguai
accounts followed earlier traditions and continued to use this genre to order the world they
lived in. Human contact with fox spirits, when recorded in this genre during this time, reveal
tiny but vital grains of intellectual tendencies. For Tang people the western lands of India and
Central Asia were distant and mysterious provenances of exotic treasures, esoteric
thaumaturgy, and a rapidly popularized Buddhism that promised universal salvation. The
concept of "barbarians," especially "western barbarians," denoted a different source of
material and spiritual power. However, the very presence of the foreign in many aspects of
Chinese life also threatened the cultural pride of the Chinese and sparked a growing hostility
toward all foreigners and foreign influences. This was especially true during the later half of
the eighth and the ninth centuries, when the Tang suffered from significant decline marked by
the An Lushan rebellion; An Lushan himself was a "barbarian" whose troops comprised
animals in constructing identities include Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger; and Edmund Leach,
"Anthropological Aspects of Language."
9Campany, Strange Writing, 1-17,265-271,384-393.
lODudbridge, Religious Experience, 46-85. According to Dudbridge, Dai Fu ~ +, Guangyi ji's
author, was born no later than 738 and died no later than 794. He might have taken his metropolitan
examination in 757. Most of the tales he had collected, therefore, must have been written in the latter
half of the eighth century.
"barbarians." During this time, a Chinese identity characterized by the desire to return to the
Confucian classics and Chinese antiquity gradually took shape in Tang intellectual life and
forecasted the coming of the new Confucian age in the Song.ll By equating foxes with
"barbarians" and other outsiders, the late Tang literati recognized the invigorating powers
brought by the "barbarians" from outside China but also endeavored to subject them to
Chinese supremacy. Connected to the marginal position of the fox were social elements that
were just as alien as the "barbarians" in the essentially patriarchal and male-centered Chinese
society.
In and Out: Foxes and Chinese Society
The fox as a spiritual being was already a familiar topic in various types of writings of
the Han and the Six Dynasties, but it was not until the Tang that the worship of the fox had
become a notable phenomenon, as the Tang scholar Zhang Zhuo 5~ ~ (658-730) observed:
From the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, many of the commoners have
worshipped fox deities [hushen 5)1\ t$]. They offer sacrifices [to them] in their
bedchambers, and the food and drink offered are the same as those [consumed
by] humans. Those who offer sacrifices are not [limited to] one "host" [of the
foxes].12 At the time there was a proverb saying: "Without fox demons [humei
5)1\ ~], no village is complete.,,13
llNational identities as a form of identification have been extensively discussed in the field of
modem history. Nation, as Benedict Anderson defines it, "is an imagined political community," and
nationalism is a uniquely modem phenomenon. Anderson's theory has also been applied to the study of
premodern Chinese history. Although the Chinese had developed the concept of a universal empire
[tianxia *-~] instead of a "state" [guojia [@*], national consciousness is believed to have emerged
since the Qin (221-206 B.e.E.), and the literati class always identified themselves with a grand Chinese
tradition, especially with orthodox Confucianism. The Chinese elite who emigrated to the south during
the Eastern Jin (317-420) period, for example, dedicated themselves to reinventing a Chinese state from
the memory of the Qin and Han traditions. During the Song the literati even abandoned the notion of
universal empire for an ethnocentric notion of Chineseness, which strengthened the link between the
state and the people in the face of the Jin invasion. See Anderson, Imagined Communities; Duara,
"Rescuing History," 2-6; Holcombe, In the Shadow of Han.
12The Chinese original of this sentence is "shizhe fei yizhu" $:tf?F - .±., and it can only be
interpreted speculatively at this point. One possibility is to understand zhu .::t as fox spirits, and translate
the sentence as "more than one particular fox spirit is worshipped." This interpretation is adopted by
Huntington, who translates it as "the worshippers do not worship a single master [there is a different fox
god for each locality]." See Huntington, Foxes, 30. In a sentence with this meaning, however, "suo" pn
would normally precede shizhe. Here I tentatively render zhu as human worshippers, hosts of fox spirits,
based on the information provided by a Ming text, Qixiu leigao -t V~ ~Jif~ . The author, Lang Ying
e~f~ (1487-1566), recorded that humans who maintained a sexual relationship with a fox, in the form
of being regularly possessed by the fox, were called "zhu," hosts of the fox. Lang also reported that the
Despite the large number of Tang fox tales that have come down to us through Taiping
guangji, this passage remains the only evidence of the prevalence of the fox cult among
commoners. Other tales describe activities of fox spirits in the Tang inner court as well as
among elite families, suggesting that worship of the fox might have involved a broad segment
of Tang society.
The popularity of the fox cult, however, had geographical limits. Although modem
zoological research maintains that foxes populate almost every region of the Chinese
mainland,14 medieval Chinese believed that foxes were unique to north China and their
appearance south of the Yangzi River was considered rare.15 Some Tang authors of zhiguai
collections were originally from the south or lived in the south, but almost all of the fox tales
are set in north China, many in the two Tang capitals and others in places ranging from
today's Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan to Hebei and Shandong. Even during the Ming and Qing,
when fox tales boomed again in the literati's informal writings, the fox and fox worship were
still regarded as prevalent phenomena particular to the north.16 Zhang Zhuo himself was a
native of Shenzhou (in today's Hebei) and held government posts in the north, except when he
fox often moved from one household to another and therefore changed its hosts. See Qixiu leigao 48.9b-
lla. If this usage held true in the Tang, then the sentence could mean that one fox was offered sacrifices
by more than one of its hosts. This interpretation accords well with the expression of jangzhong m r:p
[bedchambers] in the preceding sentence, which alludes to the fox's connotations of fertility and
sexuality. This interpretation, however, still needs to be corroborated by consulting earlier texts.
13TPGJ 447.316, "Hushen" (Chaoye qianzai). I am indebted to Robert Campany for his revisions
of my translation.
14Gao,et. aI., Zhongguo dongwu zhi, 8:52-64.
15TaoHongjing lWiII ~L.~ (456-536) observed that foxes only lived in north China and Sichuan but
not in the Jiangdong area (south of the Yangzi River). During Tang and Song times a proverb stated:
"There are no wild foxes south of the [Yangzi] River and no partridges north of the [Yangzi] River." Su
Song ~0J[ (1020-1101) noticed that occasionally one would see a fox in the south but it was in the
Kaifeng and Luoyang areas that foxes were most abundant. See TSJC 520:51b; and TPGJ 455.362,
"Cangzhu min" (Beimeng suoyan). Hong Mai ?~~ (1123-1202) also pointed out that worship of the
Wutong spirits in the south and fox spirits in the north reflected distinct differences between north and
south China in terms of popular beliefs. See Hong, fijian zhi, ding 19.696. For discussions on the
Wutong, see Von Glahn, "The Enchantment of Wealth," 651-714; and Cedzich, "The Cult of the Wu-
t'unglWu-hsien," 137-218. Huntington also notes that fox beliefs were most widespread where actual
foxes were common, and that there were striking similarities between foxes in the north and Wutong in
the south as gods of wealth. See Huntington, Foxes, 65-69,103-110.
16Southemers who visited Beijing during the Ming observed that fox spirits thrived in the Qi 7f1t,
Jin :g, Yan ~, and Zhao m regions (modem Shandong, Shanxi and Hebei), and found that in Beijing
fox demons [huguai] dwelled in six or seven out of every ten households. See Xie Zhaozhe (1567-
1624), Wu Zazu 9.13b-14a, 15.29a. Xie especially noticed that fox spirits in the north were comparable
to ghosts and demons in the south. Shen Defu's (1578-1642) Wangli yehuo bian (28.31a) confirms the
prevalence of fox spirits in the capital and in the Qi, Zhao, and Song * regions (modem Shandong,
Hebei and Henan). See also Huntington, Foxes, 65-69.
was briefly exiled to Lingnan during the Kaiyuan reign (713-741).17 Thus, Zhang Zhuo's
comments on fox worship might actually have been based on popular practices in north
China.
Other Tang and Song sources reveal that fox worship was performed not only at
individual homes but also in local communities. Kanai Noriyuki argues that because foxes
often took up residence in the ruins of ancient she shrines, they were sometimes consecrated
as a tutelary deity of village communities [sheshen tft$] in medieval China.18 The Tang poet
Yuan Zhen :lC f~ (779-831) once wrote about foxes that burrowed homes in an old tree
standing on the ruins of an ancient she shrine. He added that "The local god [shegong tf i}]
will live for a thousand years, and he will protect the villagers forever." In 1088 a huge locust
tree died in a village of Handan district (in today's Hebei). The spirit of an owl or a fox was
believed to dwell in the trunk of the tree and was heard crying loudly every night. The village
people erected a she shrine and offered sacrifices to the deity every spring and autumn.19
The fox shrines discussed by Kanai seem to have been erected rather sporadically and
spontaneously, and his interpretations are speculative. But other sources suggest that
sometimes foxes were indeed worshipped at more established local shrines. According to a
Tang Daoist text, fox spirits once occupied a local temple dedicated to the Bright God of
White Horse [baima mingshen B I3A t$] and received offerings on behalf of the god during
Emperor Xizong's m * I~
reign (874-888).2°Another Daoist text records that in the early Song

a group of foxes was appointed to be the earth gods of Binzhou J}~jH (in Shaanxi) by the
Lord on High.21 Several Song scholars testified that around the same time the Binzhou people,
in cases of flood, drought, disease or plague, appealed to some fox spirits who had burrowed
dens under a local temple. 22
Evidence also shows that fox cults were rampant in north China by at least the Five
Dynasties. A temple dedicated to one or more fox kings [huwang miao 1J.1\3:.Jtij] was said to
have been erected in Kaifeng under the auspices of Emperor Shizu E t.§. (937-942) of the
Later Jin (936-946). It survived many years into the Northern Song. When Zhang Shangying
~~rm~ (1043 -1121) served as the Grand Councilor from 1110 to 1111,he issued an order to
tear down over a thousand temples of "fox king(s)" in the Kaifeng area.23 His efforts were of
little avail, however, and in 1125 an edict was issued to destroy fox temples and shrines in the
same area.24
17ITS 149.4023; andXTS 161.4979-4981. See also Li Jianguo, Tang Wudai, 127-131.
18Kanai, "Shashin to Dokyo," 2:180.
19Kanai, "Shashin to Dokyo," 2: 180.
20Du Guangting, Daojiao lingyanji 10.6b-7a.
21Wang Qinruo, Yisheng baode zhenjun zhuan 2.6a.
22The temple was finally demolished when Wang Sizong .3:.~n]
district magistrate in 1011. See Lti Xizhe g~fff
* (944-1021) assumed the office of
(1039-1116), Chuanjiang zaji 1t~m§c, in TSIC
520.55a; and Wang Pizhi (fl. 1082), Mianshui yantan lu 9.2b. It is also recorded in SS 287.9650-9651.
23Zhao Daoyi, Lishi zhenxian tidao tongjian 53.17b-18a.
24S866.1452.
Although written records on fox worship are scant, we have good reason to suspect that
certain ritual forms were adhered to from medieval times to the present day. 25 Zhang ~huo's
description of Tang domestic worship resonates with many ethnographic reports of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries written by western missionaries and Japanese
sinologists who came to study Chinese popular beliefs.26 While it might be risky to assume
that the fox cult meant the same thing to the Tang people as it did to worshippers in the early
twentieth century, the similarities in its ritual forms and practices certainly suggest a strong
continuity of fox worship spanning hundreds of years of Chinese history.27
The domestic worship of the fox described by Zhang Zhuo informs us that the fox spirit
occupied an ambivalent position in family lives. That foxes were enshrined in private quarters
and offered food consumed by humans suggests that they participated in the family as
insiders. However, their supernatural power and animal nature inspired both reverence and
fear, and preserved their identities as outsiders. As the proverb cited by Zhang Zhuo shows,
the Tang people tended to identify fox deities [hushen] they worshipped with fox demons
[humei], indicating their ambivalent attitude toward fox cults in their own homes: they
respected and detested these cults at the same time.
25Dudbridge has shown that religious practices such as spirit possession, haunting, healing, or
exorcising, were as familiar to Tang literati as they have been to researchers in late imperial and modem
China. See Dudbridge, Religious Experience, 67-68, 84, 116, 134-135,165-166, 173.
26Thesereports tell us that "the fox deities have enjoyed such a popularity that they are worshipped
by almost every household in north China and Manchuria," and that images of fox deities "hang in
thousands of homes and are daily honored with incense, offerings and prostration." See Nagao, Shina
minzoku shi 2:10; and Owen, "Animal Worship," 249. Japanese sinologists also reported that people
wrote the names of several fox deities, often addressed as a fox family, on a wooden tablet they placed
in the fox shrines. See Takizawa, Manshii no gaison shink6, 221-225. Henri Dore observed that foxes
were worshipped in a triad of female deities in northern Jiangsu and Anhui. See Dore, Researches,
the fox and three other animals in two forms: jiaxian *

5:695. A Chinese ethnologist found that in the 1940s rural inhabitants in the Beijing area worshipped
fw [family deities] and tanxian Jlfw [temple
deities]. The jiaxian were ordinarily worshipped at home and the tanxian exercised power through
spirit-mediums and were visited by people only in times of need. See Li Wei-tsu, "Cult of the Four
Sacred Animals," 2.
27Even though direct information on fox worship is scarce, fox spirits never cease to appear in
written literature from the Han Dynasty to the present day. Despite the southern origins of both its
author and most of his informants, Yijian zhi presents thirteen stories about human experiences with fox
spirits during the Southern Song. The Jin scholar Yuan Haowen (1190-1257) also recorded that in 1191
a local official in the Jimou district of Shandong launched a campaign against fox demons who
"wantonly bewitched men and women, and sometimes drove them to death." See Yuan, Xu Yijianzhi
2.312. According to Tan Qian (1594-1657), a "Teaching of the Black Fox" [xuanhujiao ~1J1\~] swept
several prefectures west of modem day Xi'an. See Tan, Beiyou lu, 42a. A fox was said to be responsible
for initiating Wang Sen's "Teaching of Burning Incense" [Fenxiang jiao ~W~, also called Wenxiang
jiao ~ W ~] in the early seventeenth century, which allegedly led to the Xu Hongru ~ ~ m~ Rebellion
in Shandong in 1622. See ter Haar, White Lotus Teachings, 227-232. On fox spirits during the Ming and
Qing, see Huntington, Foxes.
The same ambivalence characterizes foxes in Tang tales. Tales about "fox men" and "fox
women," although different, both display the liminal status of the fox in family life.28 The
general structure of tales about fox men was as follows: A fox man, who in most cases was
revealed in the end to be a celestial fox, approached a well-to-do family for their unmarried
daughter's hand in marriage by first proposing to the parents in a polite manner. Only when
the marriage proposal was rejected did the fox man resort to supernatural power and force a
sexual relationship onto the daughter. The parents, even though impressed by the fox man's
handsome appearance and extraordinary talents, would not consent to the marriage because
the fox did not request the marriage through a proper matchmaker, and his family origins
remained unknown. In one story, the fox man became infuriated after a prefecture governor
turned down his marriage proposal, and he rushed into the inner chamber by force. A while
later, the fox man and the girl came out together, and the girl announced that she was now
married. Failing to drive the fox man out, the governor asked for leave from his office and
moved the whole family out of the capital. There he finally met a Daoist exorcist, who
punished the fox and ordered him to leave. Subsequently the daughter woke up and appeared
to have no knowledge of what had happened.29
Sometimes the fox sexually possessed a woman first and tried to win the favor of family
members afterward. For instance, the fifteen-year-old granddaughter of Li Yuangong *:lC~,
the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, was enchanted by a fox who introduced
himself as Mr. Hu. Li hired several exorcists, but none of them were able to expel the fox.
Li's son, however, took delight in discussing scholarly questions with him and often consulted
him on difficult issues. The granddaughter also benefited from Mr. Hu; for a period of over
four years he introduced three great masters to teach her classics, history, calligraphy, and
music. Finally one day Vice Minister Li said to Mr. Hu: "Why don't you take the girl to be
your wife and bring her to your home?" Thrilled by the good news, the fox confessed: "I have
been hoping for this for a long time. Since I am a man of humble origin, I didn't dare to
propose." But the fox's happiness did not last long. He was soon killed by Li, whose real
intention had been to locate and destroy the fox's home, an underground cave in Li's bamboo
garden.3o The junior members of the Li family had taken advantage of the fox's intrusion to
exploit Mr. Hu's intellectual resources. But in the eyes of the family head, such benefits could
not compensate for the loss caused by the family's association with an inferior species. Both
cases illustrate that no matter how many worthy qualities these fox men might have
possessed, they were still considered dangerous outsiders who had to be destroyed.
The same tragic stories apply to fox women, although these tales portray them more
sympathetically. Miss Ren, the female beauty portrayed by the famous Tang scholar Shen Jiji
~1c~5£i~ (740-805), was ashamed of her fox origin and tried hard to attract her human partner,
Zheng, with her intelligence and virtues. When a wealthy aristocratic man was overwhelmed
28Hereafter I will refer to foxes who assume male forms as "fox men," and to foxes who assume
female forms as "fox women."
29TPGJ 448.320, "Yang Bocheng" (Guangyiji); and TPGJ 449.325, "Qianyang ling" (Guangyiji).
30TPGJ 447.326, "Li Yuangong" (Guangyiji).
by her beauty and sexually assaulted her, Miss Ren defended her chastity and remained
faithful to Zheng. She further used her ability to predict the future to help Zheng make money
in business and greatly improve his impoverished situation.31 In a similar story, Miss Li, a fox
woman who married Ji Zhen ~t~, a scholar from Luoyang, also displayed physical beauty
and a gentle nature. For twenty years she unfailingly fulfilled her family duties and gave birth
to seven sons and two daughters. Before she died of natural causes, she disclosed her fox
identity to her husband. Heartbroken over their eternal separation, the husband and wife
remained "speechless and cried together for a long time." The husband then held a funeral for
her as if she were a human being.32
However, foxes such as Miss Ren and Miss Li were still seen as outsiders who had to be
unmasked and destroyed. Miss Ren, despite all of her efforts, was chased and killed by a dog,
her fox identity involuntarily exposed. Miss Li herself seemed to belong to a human family
before her death, but all seven of her children died soon after her funeral, leaving Ji no heir to
carry on the family line. The story implies that her impure blood was the cause of the end of
Ji's line, because a special effort was made to check the corpses of all seven youngsters. When
people found that their bodies did not change into foxes as their mother's had, they were
finally convinced that the female fox had indeed married the mortal man with no evil intent
[zhongwu exin *~~~JL\].
The different treatments fox men and fox women receive in these stories, all of which
were composed by male literati, call for our attention. As men, foxes often appeared as young
scholars who displayed elegant deportment, extraordinary talent, and impressive scholarship.
This image in fact mirrored the most desired prototype of the Tang literati who were
responsible for collecting, recording, and reading these tales. Excellence in learning had
always been considered one of the essential qualities for refined scholars in traditional China.
During the seventh and eighth centuries literary talents seemed to have particular importance.
They were highly valued for the fIrst time as an exclusive means to gain office and status
during Empress Wu and Xuanzong's y:. *reigns (684-756). Even when this official literary
ethic was questioned in the late eighth century, mastery of traditional learning and codes of
behavior remained a primary way for members of the new literati class, largely lacking
aristocratic backgrounds, to achieve success through the examination system.33 While the
examination system indeed stimulated the upward mobility of Tang society, however, scholars
of Tang history have also found that the examination system alone had very little impact on
the actual composition of the political elite. For many literati men without aristocratic
backgrounds, the pursuit of learning had to be combined with the pursuit of marriage with
powerful families. A degree granted a man the right to be considered for office and might
even result in a low post, but only marital networks and strong political recommendations
31ShenJiji wrote the "Story of Miss Ren" based on the personal experience of his friend Wei Gan,
one of the male protagonists in the story. The story was collected in TPGJ 452.340-345. There is an
English translation in Ma and Lau, Traditional Chinese Stories, 339-345.
32TPGJ 454.353-354, "Ji Zhen" (Xuanshi zhi).
33Hartman,Han Yii, 121-122.

could pave his way to a high office.34 A man who had reached the position of the Grand
Councilor in the seventh century still expressed regret about not being able to marry into an
aristocratic family.35In general, the aristocratic families insisted on marrying their own kind
in order to maintain their family status and high offices. Thus, it was common practice during
the Tang for young scholars to claim fake family origins Uunwang W ~] in order to marry
into aristocratic status and facilitate their success in office-holding.36
The handsome, erudite men proposing to mortal women without matchmaking, when
symbolized by the fox, could be interpreted as the "transcendent self' of Tang literati. As
Ohnuki-Tierney defines it, the "transcendent self' constitutes the semiotic other for human
agents. It is "the self that is perceived at a higher level of abstraction than when one sees a
reflective self," and has both positive and negative qualities that human agents see in
themselves.37 When the fox men sought to marry mortal women, their supernatural powers
endowed them with the best qualities of the literati men; thus they appeared to be better
scholars than the Tang scholars themselves. Yet the inferior strain of foxes as an alien species
could be taken as a "projection" of these scholars' humble family origins as well.38 In
featuring the prestigious household heads' rejecting the marriage of their daughters to the fox
men and exorcising the foxes from the human world, Tang literati perhaps projected their own
feelings of inferiority onto the foxes and thus discharged anxieties over their social status in
real life. With the failure of the transcendent self, the real self was redeemed.
In tales of fox-women, even though females such as Miss Ren and Miss Li dominate the
story lines they are still appreciated through male eyes. Like male foxes, female foxes in the
tales were endowed with the ravishing physical charm and admirable human virtues that Tang
literati would expect from an ideal woman. But unlike male foxes, the unfortunate animal
origins of fox women-when seen from a male perspective-were depicted with sympathy
and compassion rather than antipathy. For the Tang literati class, fox women seemed to
represent a familiar category: courtesans who lived outside of their formal family circle but
provided them sensual and emotional pleasures. One fox tale relates that a prostitute turned
into a fox after she had spent several nights with mortal men in a brothel in Luoyang.39Miss
34See Cheng and Dong, Tang diguo, 359-364; and Johnson, Chinese Oligarchy, 9-11, 38,136-137.
Johnson discusses the limited opportunities the examination system provided to Tang scholars. Cheng
and Dong show how marriages with prestigious families changed the fate of the young scholars.
35Cheng and Dong, Tang diguo, 359; and Ebrey, "Shifts in Marriage Finance," 101.
36Cheng and Dong, Tang diguo, 359-364; and Ebrey, "Shifts in Marriage Finance," 100-102.
37Ohnuki- Tierney, Monkey as Mirror, 133-134.
38Turner discusses Freud's idea of "projection" in religious practices. It means "the unconscious
attribution to other people of thoughts, feelings, and acts of our own which would otherwise be felt as
unpleasurable-perhaps feelings of guilt or inferiority .... We can see them thereafter as hostility directed
from outside against ourselves, and thus can justify or legitimate ourselves in our own eyes. The
tensions in reality, through projection, are ritually mitigated." See Turner, "Encounter with Freud," 25-
28. For Freud's idea of "projection," see Freud, Interpretation of Dreams.
39TPGJ 450.333-334, "Xue Jiong" (Guangyi ji).
Ren admitted that she was from a family of entertainers and had had intimate relationships
with many men in Chang'an before she became Zheng's mistress. Many of her relatives were
also courtesans and concubines. Despite her beauty and loyalty, she remained a secret mistress
of Zheng until her death.
Courtesans were an important part of Tang literati life.4o In Chang'an the famous Beili
~t m (Northern Quarters) housed girls skilled in music, dancing, and literary composition,
and attracted scholars, officials, and artists as well as wealthy merchants. Separated from
normal family circles, these women saw their own residences as families led by "adopted
mothers." Throughout the Tang countless poems were devoted to these enchanting courtesans,
who inspired passions and literary imaginations among literati men. Tang scholars and
officials hired professional entertainers at their homes and on trips for companionship. In the
company of courtesans, the literati men enjoyed unrestrained relationships with women free
from serious commitment and family obligations.41 However, Tang sources are also full of
reports on how these men were troubled by relationships with courtesans from time to time.
Tang courtesans, except a few who maintained high social fame until their death, rarely found
happiness for themselves in their careers. They longed to marry one of their favorite
customers so that they could leave their unfortunate profession. The author of Beli zhi
~tm~ [Records of the Northern Quarters], Sun Qi f,*~ (ninth century), was thus
approached by a woman with whom he soon fell in love. The famous Tang chuanqi, the
"Story of Huo Xiaoyu," also featured a loyal and beautiful courtesan (much like Miss Ren)
who sought to marry a talented literati man. But at a time when proper marriages meant career
success and social prestige for young scholars, courtesans' simple wishes were rarely granted.
Sun Qi answered "no" to his lover figuratively: "The lotus seed in mud is indeed pure, but it
has no place in my family garden.,,42Huo Xiaoyu's lover promised her marriage, but soon
betrayed her to send betrothal gifts to a girl of Lu, one of the most wanted "five surnames" in
the Tang. Huo committed suicide in despair.43 Even when some of these courtesans were
lucky enough to be brought into literati families, they would have to be content to live as
concubines and suffer maltreatment from men's wives.44 Van Gulik points out that the role of
Tang courtesans in literati life was essentially a social one, and they were considered
indispensable only outside the house and on social occasions.45 Female foxes, when
40Courtesans and singing girls had been part of elite life since ancient times in China, but only in
the Tang did they become available to a much wider public and gain considerable social significance in
literati life. See Wagner, The Lotus Boat, 81-82.
41Van Gulik, Sexual Life, 171-178.
42Cheng and Dong, Tang diguo, 338-339.
43TPGJ 487.550-555, "Huo Xiaoyu Zhuan" 1i/J\=E.1$.
44Van Gulik, Sexual Life, 172-175. Yu Xuanji f~r~1JL (844-871), for example, was a famous
courtesan-poet with natural talent for song and dance. A young scholar took her home as a concubine
but his wife maltreated her. In the end he left her, and she renewed her courtesan life in a Daoist
monastery. She was later accused of a murder and executed.
45Van Gulik, Sexual Life, 179-181.
impersonating courtesans who lived on the margins of literati families, satisfied literati men's
curiosity for the exotic and passion for the erotic while still allowing them to keep the
enchanting entities at a distance. As female elements, they complemented-instead of
challenging or undermining-the dominant self-image of the Tang literati, as long as they
remained transitory in the literati's lives. But they would finally be rejected if they tried to
enter into men's normal family circles.
The general antipathy toward male foxes and relative sympathy for female foxes
represent different degrees to which the Tang literati defined themselves in dialectical and
dialogical relations with the "other." These sentiments did not question the marginal position
of foxes as a whole, and thus did not change the ultimate fate of the foxes. In depicting foxes
as an alien force strolling in and out of human families and pursuing legitimate marriages with
mortals, Tang readers and writers of fox stories sought to reassure their own place in the
familial and social structure. This was because family ethics such as filial piety, brotherly
love, and a woman's loyalty to her husband were also considered political virtues essential to
the stability of society and political rule under heaven.46Historians of China have pointed out
that in constructing the world order, Han Chinese frequently used kinship terms to describe
their relations with neighboring peoples. In order to maintain peace on their borders they often
established marital relationships with so-called "barbarian" powers. In a way similar to that in
which they differentiated insiders and outsiders in the family, the Chinese categorized China
as internal and the "barbarian" as external.47As we shall see below, the in-between nature of
the fox also helped Tang literati to conceptualize interracial and international relationships
when they dealt with a special group of people-the "barbarians" who lived among the
Chinese.
Bn and Bna: the Barbarian and the Chinese
The Chinese often described peoples living outside the bounds of the Chinese cultural
domain as "barbarians" [hu ttl, a derogatory term for foreigners] hovering on the edge of
bestiality. Animal radicals were attached to the names of some "barbarian" groups, and animal
features were linked to their physical attributes and cultural customs.48 For example, the Di
m
1'x, a northern tribe, was associated with the dog. The Man and Min ~ referred to people
from the south and shared radicals with the reptiles. The name of the Qiang Jt, a nomadic
tribe in the northwest, was written with a sheep radical. The Rong 3X, tribal peoples from the
west in general, were described as "birds and beasts.,,49Explaining the relationship between
civilized Chinese and barbarians in terms of the yin/yang polarity, the Chinese also believed
46Ebrey,"Women,"203-204.
47yang,"HistoricalNotes,"20-21.
48Pora detaileddiscussionon Chineseviewsof barbarians,seeDikotter,Discourse of Race, 1-20.
49Dikotter,Discourse of Race, 4; andYang,"HistoricalNotes,"24.
that the nature of the barbarians was caused by local "earth vapors" [diqi !lli~].50 They
associated the yin nature of women with non-Han Chinese and depicted both categories as
animals.51 Du You tift (735-812), the Tang scholar who compiled Tongdian Jm~, the fust
political encyclopedia in Chinese history, concluded that the barbarians "lacked the spiritual
guidance of the sages whom China's environment had produced, nurtured by the pure ethers
of Heaven and Earth. ,,52 In other words, the barbarians, to make the transformation from
bestiality to humanity, had to expose themselves to the Chinese ways of the sages, namely, the
pure and positive yang.
The High Tang of the seventh- and the first half of the eighth century witnessed the zenith
of interracial mingling and multicultural exchanges in Chinese history. Foreigners came to
China for political interests, religious beliefs, or commercial profit, and they took up
residence in many Chinese cities.53 Tang China also became a second home for Buddhism,
which enjoyed lavish imperial patronage as well as immense popularity among both the elite
and commoners. Buddhists of every sort, as well as Nestorians of Syrian origin, Manichaeans
of the Uighur nationality, and Mazdaists from Iran were all free to build temples in Chinese
cities under the protection of the Tang government. 54 The influx of foreigners also made a
deep impact on Chinese material culture. According to Edward Schafer, "the Chinese taste for
the exotic permeated every social class and every part of daily life: Iranian, Indian, and
Turkish figures and decorations appeared on every kind of household object. The vogue for
foreign clothes, foreign food, and foreign music was especially prevalent in the eighth
century. ,,55
But the eighth century also nurtured the seeds of cultural arrogance and xenophobia.
Schafer notes that even when foreign exotics were in vogue, foreigners still had to adopt
Chinese ways of life in order to make themselves more acceptable. He provides many
examples indicating that both government policies and popular attitudes toward foreigners
became more ambivalent after the middle half of the eighth century. Foreign trade was still
encouraged, and foreign exotics were appreciated, but foreigners themselves were distrusted
and even persecuted. In 760, local rebels massacred thousands of Arab and Persian merchants
in Yangzhou. An edict was issued in 779, ordering about a thousand Uighurs living in the
Tang capital to wear their native costume and forbidding them to "lure" Chinese women into
marrying them or "to pass themselves off as Chinese in any way at a11.,,56Hostilities toward
foreigners escalated in the ninth century. In 836 the Tang government promulgated a decree
forbidding Chinese to have any relations with "people of color," including Iranians, Sogdians,
50Ziircher, Buddhist Conquest of China, 265.

51See Hammond, "Demonization of the Other."
52Dikotter, Discourse of Race, 8.
53Schafer, Golden Peaches of Samarkand, 10-11, 14-22.
54Schafer, Golden Peaches of Samarkand, 9.
56Schafer, Golden Peaches of Sam ark and, 22-25.
Arabs, Indians, Malays, and Sumatrans.57 Anti-foreign sentiment reached its climax from 843
to 845 when Emperor Wuzong 1lt
58
*
(841-46) launched attacks on Buddhism, which aimed at
a total eradication of that religion. Along with the persecution of Buddhism, the Tang
government tended to "remove from the sight of the average Chinese not only the foreign
religions and the foreign priests and worshippers, but also foreign books and the images of
foreign gods.,,59 Popular resentment toward foreigners led to another massacre of foreign
merchants in Guangzhou by the rebellious troops of Huang Chao in 879.60
The waning of the golden age of the Tang invoked nostalgic feelings among Tang literati
in the late eighth and ninth centuries, when the Tang gradually lost its economic and political
predominance and wars and chaos closed the roads linking China to Central Asia. Foreign
rarities that were once real in the everyday life of the High Tang now became embalmed only
in literature and dreams. Resentment against foreign merchants went hand in hand with the
dissemination of tales about benevolent millionaires from the Far West. Through
romanticizing foreigners and foreign exotics, as Schafer discusses in great detail, late Tang
literati longed for the good old days when foreigners universally recognized the superiority of
Chinese culture and vied to pay tribute to the grand Tang.61
Associated with such nostalgic literature was the rise of the scholars who promoted the
"old style" [guwen ~)(] movement. They made distinctions between Hua ~ (Chinese) and
Hu (barbarian) as essentials for the establishment of political unity and cultural orthodoxy.
Chang' an after the An Lushan Rebellion became a center of Hua culture, represented by the
imperial house, the old aristocracy, and the literati officials. Outside Chang' an, especially in
the northeast, power fell into the hands of the provincial military commanders who were
predominantly Hus. The activists of the "old style" movement identified themselves with the
central government and called for the court to subject local military strongholds of the Hu to
the civil authority, the Hua.62 These same scholars also blamed "barbarians," especially
"barbarian" religions, for sullying Chinese purity and corrupting ancient Chinese moral
standards.63 The leader of the movement, Han Yu ~t~
(768-824), argued that "to behave like
a Hua is to be a Hua; to behave like a barbarian is to be a barbarian," thus emphasizing that
the distinction between Hua and Hu was fundamentally cultural. 64 Elevating Hua virtues and

58Weinstein, Buddhism, 114-136.
59Schafer, Golden Peaches of Sam ark and, 35.
61Schafer, Golden Peaches of Samarkand, 22-23, 32-39.
62Hartman, Han Yii, 119-129. For instance, Li Ao *ft (774-836) even compared a government
army's defeat of rebellious military troops at Bianzhou it)H in 796 to persuading the "barbarians" to
"bind up their hair and adopt Chinese writing and customs." See Hartman, Han Yii, 123-125.
63Hartman, Han Yii, 158; and Weinstein, Buddhism, 103-105.
64Han Yu, "Yuandao" [Essentials of the Moral Way], cited in Hartman, Han Yii, 158.
eliminating Hu practices would not only support political unity under the leadership of the
Tang monarch, but would also help people conform to the Way of the Sages.65
The concept of "barbarian" therefore had manifold meanings for the Tang literati of the
eighth and ninth centuries. It represented a liminal entity that linked a set of cultural
dichotomies: Chinese and non-Chinese, the inside and the outside worlds, the glorious past
and the corrupt present, and the Confucian and the non-Confucian. Against this background,
fox spirits in the zhiguai collections can be more clearly understood.
Hu and Hu: the Fox and the Barbarian
In medieval times hu 111\[the fox] and hu t)j [the barbarian] were homophones that shared
the same rhyme, the same tone, and the same combination of syllabic transcriptions rJanqie
IX 1;7]].66During the Tang, the term hu [barbarian] always referred to the Western, Indo-
European-speaking peoples of Central Asia, especially the Sogdians, who were the most
prominent among them. It was also loosely used to label all the non-Chinese people from the
north and west.67The phonetic connection made the fox a convenient tool for Tang people to
understand and express their feelings toward the foreign elements in their lives. For example,
historian Chen Yinque ~*

foxes were notorious for the obnoxious odor they emitted. According to the late Tang
Ji[ t~, the medieval Chinese term for armpit odor, "fox stench"
[huchou 111\~], might have been derived from "barbarian odor" [huchou t)j ~], because this
type of body odor was considered uniquely foreign and brought into China only by people of
"western barbarian" [xihu [ffi t)j] origins.68 Tang descriptions of sinicized "barbarians" also
accord with many features of the fox in the tales described above. For instance, a female
acrobatic dancer of the Entertainment Department of the Tang court Uiaofang ~5?:±jj], whose
profession suggests her Central Asian origin, was characterized by her mei tg§ [allure], a
variant of mei ~ [demon or demonic] that was often used to described female beauties who
were foxes, and her slight yundi tffii fB:, a written alternative for the colloquial term of huchou,
the "fox stench.,,69The Li brothers, men of Persian descent who settled in Sichuan and were
teased by their literati friends about their "barbarian odor," were known for their literary
talent, elegant deportment, and art of nurturing life and cultivating alchemical elixirs-the
same qualities we have seen many times in the male foxes who requested marriages with
mortal women. Moreover, like the Persians and other Central Asian merchants during the
65Hartman, Han Yu, 158-159.

66Ding, Gujin ziyin duizhao shouce, 74.
67Pulleyblank,An Lu-shan, 10-11. See also Hartman, Han Yu, 317 n. 11.
68Chen, "Huchou yu huchou," 140-142.
69Cui Lingqin, "Jiaofangji," cited in Chen, "Huchou yu huchou," 141.
Tang, the Lis' profession was trading spices, perfumes and drugs, things that were used by
male foxes in the tales to cover up their pungent smells.7o
An anecdote from the Jiu Tangshu shows that hu [fox] was a derogatory term used to
describe hu [barbarian], people of Central Asian origins, during the Tang. The protagonists are
An Lushan (?-757) and Geshu Han ~~~ (?-757), political rivals who were both non-
Chinese:
He [An Lushan] suddenly said to Han, "my father was a [Western] barbarian
[hu], my mother was a Turk [Tujue ~~ ]; your father was a Turk, your
mother was a [Western] barbarian. I am the same race as you. Why can't we be
friends?" Han replied, "The ancients used to say, 'It is a bad omen if a wild fox
[hu] barks at his lair, for he has forgotten his origins.' Must I not make every
effort to do so [i.e. to be friends with you]?" Lushan thought [Han] was
disparaging his hu [origin]. He became very angry and cursed Han saying,
"Does a Turk dare to act thus?" Han wished to reply but Gao Lishi gave him a
look and stopped him.71
The "Story of Miss Ren" also provides many hints that link Miss Ren' s fox origin with
"barbarian" traits. Miss Ren came from a family of performers, and her family members still
served in the Entertainment Department of the Tang court, where the profession of performer
was hereditarily held by western "barbarian" families.72Her home was next to a "barbarian"
pancake seller, who knew Ren was a fox from the beginning. As for Ren herself, she knew
nothing about needlework, an indispensable skill for Chinese women, but was talented in
doing business and making profits, a well-known feature of the "barbarian" merchants in
Tang China. In another story, the connection between the fox and the "barbarian" is made
more explicit. Li NUn, on his way to his government post, was struck by the beauty of a
"barbarian" pancake seller's wife and purchased this "barbarian woman" [hufu tJj ~ffl ] from
the seller. The woman captivated Li's heart with her charm (again, the term mei was used to
describe her female charm), and she sang enchantingly. But like Miss Ren, she was hopeless
at needlework. When she died her fox identity was exposed. Li was often teased by his next
wife as the "husband of the wild fox.,,73
Adopting Chinese names marked an important step in the process of sinicization for non-
Chinese and in foxes' attempts to become human. This policy was adopted by Emperor
70Chen, "Huchou yu huchou," 142. For examples showing the similar qualities between the Li
brothers and the fox men, see TPGJ 448.320, "Yang Bocheng" (Guangyi ji); TPGJ 449.326, "Li
Yuangong" (Guangyi ji). TPGJ also includes a story from the Six Dynasties, which suggests that the
. connection between foxes and "barbarians" might be traced to earlier times. In the story of "Hu Daoqia"
(TPGJ 477.315 [Yiyuan]), a man surnamed Hu specialized in music and medicines. He "had body odor
and always carried precious perfume to safeguard himself [in order to cover the smell]."
71See JTS 104.3213, cited in Pulleyblank, An Lu-shan, 11. I have altered the romanization.
72Schafer, Golden Peaches of Samarkand, 50-57.
73TPGJ 450.338-339, "Li NUn" (Guangyiji).
Xiaowendi ~)( $ (471-499), who aimed to systematically convert his own nomadic
Xianbei people into sedentary Chinese. The Tang court often granted the imperial family
name to foreign generals who either rendered outstanding service on the frontier or came to
pledge allegiance to the Tang.74 The cosmopolitan Tang witnessed thousands of "barbarians"
from the east and west gathering in the Tang empire, and the western "barbarian" populations
such as the Turks, Uighurs, Tocharians, and Sogdians were especially conspicuous in north
China. They settled in China by taking Chinese names and marrying Chinese.75
In fox tales, when the foxes metamorphosed into men, they were often named Hu, a
Chinese surname sharing the same pronunciation as the barbarian hu.76 When they did take
other surnames, they also left "barbarian" traces. A fox who avenged the death of his partner
by tricking a Buddhist monk and a devotee family into breaking their vegetarian vows
declared: "Even though we are foxes, I am already a thousand years old. Foxes one thousand
years old are surnamed Zhao and Zhang [xing Zhao xing Zhang ftl~ftl~~]; foxes five
hundred years old are surnamed Bai and Kang [xing Bai xing Kang ftl B ftlJ5l].,,77 The self-
identification of the fox with these Chinese family names is significant. Foreigners in China
since the Later Han had adopted Chinese names mainly in two ways: either they took the most
typical Chinese names, such as Zhang, Wang, Li or Zhao, or they named themselves after
their native countries.78 Kang was a Chinese name commonly used by foreigners during the
Six Dynasties and the Tang because of the constant influx of monks, merchants, and official
envoys from Samarkand, the Central Asian kingdom that was called Kangju J5l J@ in
Chinese.79 So was Bai, a Chinese name adopted by the royal family of the Kucha J$.]/[
kingdom and especially carried by the people from the Qiuci SiE region when they visited
the Chinese empire.8o The thousand-year-old foxes gained purely Chinese names, whereas
names for the five hundred-year-olds were still tinged with barbarian origins. The degree of
cultivation of the fox toward humanity and immortality seems to correspond to the degree to
which the "barbarians" were transformed into Chinese.
The upsurge of Buddhism in the Tang also contributed to the links between foxes and
"barbarians." Tantric Buddhism might have played a role in introducing many unfavorable
qualities of the fox into the Chinese tradition. This form of Buddhism, in which magic,
divination, and medicine played principal roles, gained considerable popularity in the Tang
74SU, Liang Han qi Wudai ruju Zhong guo zhi fanren shizu yanjiu, 2.
75According to Xiang Da, after the conquest of the Turks in 631, about 10, 000 families came into
Tang China and settled in Chang' an. See Xiang, "Tangdai Chang'an yu Xiyu wenming." Also in
Schafer, Golden Peaches of Sam ark and, 284 n. 15I.
76Examples include TPGJ 447.315, "Hu Daoqia" (Yiyuan); TPGJ 449.326, "Li Yuangong"
(Guangyi ji); TPGJ 449.326-327, "Jiao Lianshi" (Guangyi ji); TPGJ 450.333, "Yangshi nti" (Guangyi
ji); TPGJ 453.348-350, "Li Lingxu" (Tengting yizhi lu).
77TPGJ 450.330-331, "Tang canjun" (Guangyiji).
78Su, Liang Han qi Wudai ruju Zhongguo zhi fanren shizu yanjiu, 2-3.
79Xiang, "Tangdai Chang'an yu Xiyu wenming," 13-15.
80peng and Xiang, "Guanyu Qiuci Baixing zhi taolun," 1223-1237.
capitals and the surrounding areas during the eighth century.81 The term "fox demon" [humei],
while rarely used in the Buddhist scriptures of all the other schools collected in the Taish6
shinshii daiz6ky6 edition of the canon, appeared frequently in Tantric texts that had been
translated into Chinese by Indian monks since the Tang. In these Tantric texts, the fox demon
was accused, together with mountain spirits, ghosts, and demons, of being a major cause of
disease. Scriptures gave detailed instructions on how to drive away fox demons and cure the
sick.82 Moreover, in a list of deities in Tantric Buddhism, the fox demon was identified with
Diikinf, a carnivorous yaksa W J/... that was subdued and adopted into Buddhism by
Mahiivairocana Buddha, whose name was translated into Chinese as "the Great Sun
Buddha.,,83 Although Chinese sources contain little information on this Tantric identification
of the fox during and after the Tang, portraits of the Diikinf ten ~ IS"JTI 7( as a goddess riding
on a white fox appeared widely in Japan since the fifteenth century and, according to Japanese
sources, were imported from China during the twelfth century. 84
The frequent appearance of fox demons and their identification with the Diikinf in Tantric
texts strengthened the link between foxes and "barbarians," especially "barbarian" religions.
Compared to other Buddhist schools that thrived in the Tang, Tantric Buddhism bore a more
striking "barbarian" mark because of its closer connection with foreign monks. The Chan,
Tiantai, Huayan and Pure Land sects of this time were branded as Chinese sects of
Buddhism.85 Tantric Buddhism, however, was only fully developed in the seventh century in
India and did not become well known to the Chinese until Emperor Xuanzong's reign (712-
756).86 The Chinese relied solely on Indian and Central Asian masters to gain knowledge
about this sect. Xuanzong granted extreme prestige to three foreign Tantric masters,
Subhakarasimha, Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra, who dedicated their lives to translating
voluminous Sanskrit texts into Chinese, demonstrating great powers, performing Tantric rites,
and presiding over mass Tantric ordinations. Xuanzong also encouraged frequent court
competitions between Indian Tantric masters and Chinese Daoist thaumaturges in order to test
their magical spells and esoteric skills.87 The confrontation between the two religions often
81Chou, "Tantrism in China," 245; and Weinstein, Buddhism, 54-57.

82See, for example, T 1248, Beifang pishamen tianwang suijun hufa zhenyan, 225-227.
83T 945: 133-135.
84See Smyers, The Fox and the Jewel, 119, 144-145,160-166, 185-206,271-279. She presents no
new evidence but provides a good summary of the available sources on the subject and acknowledges
Chinese influences in both folklore and Tantric Buddhism on Japanese Inari worship. Some Japanese
texts record that the belief in !nari was brought to Japan from China during the N orthem Wei. The Inari
shrine was first established in 711 and its association with the fox took place around the twelfth century.
See Nannichi, Inari 0 Tatzunete, 146; and Yoshino Hiroko, Kitsune, 99.
85Weinstein, "Imperial Patronage," 271-279.
86Chou, "Tantrism in China," 245; and Weinstein, Buddhism, 54-57.
87Subhakarasimha translated twenty-one Tantric texts by his death in 735. Vajrabodhi translated
twenty-five in total before his death in 741. Amoghavajra, in addition to translating a wealth of texts,
was a great proselytizer who performed the first mass Tantric ordination in China. He also performed a
highlighted the native roots of Daoism and the foreign origin of Tantrism and therefore
reinforced the "barbarian" features of this Buddhist school.
Foreign monks who mastered esoteric skills through their knowledge of Sanskrit texts
found parallels in Tang fox tales. Many tales report that foxes were masters of a secret
learning recorded in mysterious, foreign books. A certain Zhang Jianqi 5~ 'FJl~, who ran into
a fox reading books in a graveyard, stole one out of curiosity only to discover that the papers,
inks, and the style of the fox's book were all the same as in regular books, but the fox script
was impossible to understand.88 In another instance, hunter Lin saw an old man in a grave
holding a scroll in his hands. After he killed the man, who was in fact a fox, Lin found that
the scroll was a book, dozens of feet long, made of white silk. "It had very strange strokes and
looked like Indian script rJanshu~:I=], but was not written in Indian characters fjanzi
~+].,,89 The same impression about fox books was also given in the story of Wang Sheng,
who found a book lost by two faxes. It was written in Indian-like script [lei fanshu ~Ji~ :1=],
and Wang was not able to read it.9o
The correspondence between faxes and "barbarian" religions also explains why in many
tales foxes appear as Buddhas, bodhisattvas, or foreign Buddhist monks, even though they
were condemned as fake by both Daoists and Chinese Buddhists. Daoists ever since the Six
Dynasties believed that in contrast to the "correct" and pure yang Dao that was good for
China, Buddhism as a whole was a "barbarian" teaching generated by the impure yin force.91
Certain Tang tales with Daoist overtones stated explicitly that foreign monks and faxes were
interchangeable identities. In one story, we are told that during Xuanzong's Kaiyuan reign
(714-741) an aristocrat found that a Brahman monk was leading all the female members of his
family into an ecstatic state. They piously followed this "barbarian monk" [huseng tJ3 {~] in
Daoist master Ye Fashan ~ ~*~

reciting the Buddha's name and performing Buddhist rituals. The man resorted to the famous
(636-720) for help.92 Ye was able to determine that the
Brahman monk was actually a celestial fox, and said that "because it has the power to
penetrate heaven, we can expel it but we should not kill it." Ye wrote a charm for the man,
who used it to awaken the women from ecstasy and delivered the monk to Master Yeo Due to
Ye's superior power, the monk dropped his robe to the floor and turned into a fox. After
high level Tantric consecration for Xuanzong. All three of them were known as thaumaturges. See
Weinstein, Buddhism, 54-57.
88TPGJ 454.352, "Zhang Jianqi."
89TPGJ 449.328, "Lin Jingxuan" (Xuanshi zhi).
90TPGJ 453.346-347, "Wang Sheng" (Linguai lu).
91 Santian neijie jing, section 1, 32a-5 (HY 1196). For a translation of the Santian neijie jing and a
brief discussion of its criticism of Buddhism, see Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures, 194-209,
especially 194-198 and 204-209. For Daoist criticism of Buddhism see ZUrcher, Buddhist Conquest of
China, 305-307.
92The dates ofYe Fashan vary according to source. Here I follow Kirkland's conclusion and set his
dates from 636 to 720. See Kirkland, "Tales of Thaumaturgy," 50-51.

punishing him with a hundred blows, Master Ye returned his robe, watched him change from
a fox back into a Brahman monk, and exiled him a thousand miles away.93
A native of southern Jiangsu whose family had been practicing arcane arts for four
generations, Ye was renowned during the Tang for his spiritual powers. Official histories
735.94 He was summoned to the court by Emperor Gaozong ~ *

recorded a long lifespan ranging from 614 to 720, and in some anecdotal stories he lived until
(650-683) and continued to
serve until Xuanzong's reign as the Chief Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial [honglusi
qing ~~~ijJ!~g~p]. Despite his unusually long service in the court, it was only toward the end of
his life, during the first seven years (713-720) of Xuanzong's reign, that his powers as a
Daoist master came to be recorded in Daoist hagiographic texts and literati anecdotal
collections.95 Xuanzong's profound interests in Daoist magical arts and general antipathy to
Buddhist doctrines in the early years of his reign may have helped elevate Ye's status.
However, we cannot ignore the fact that Ye's service for Xuanzong coincided with the arrival
of the first great Tantric masters in Chang'an, Subhakarasimha in 716 and Vajrabodhi in 719.
What attracted Xuanzong to Tantric Buddhism appears to have been practices he found
similar to Daoist arts, such as astrology, incantations and spells, mystical trances and magical
formulas. Ye, therefore, served Xuanzong together with the foreign monks for a short period
in real life and for a much longer time in Daoist hagiographies. He appeared in several Tang
and Song Daoist texts as a major figure who demonstrated magical skills in competition with
a foreign Buddhist master in Xuanzong's court and defeated an Indian monk with his power
of commanding talismans.96 Such a historical background provides a unique perspective for
reading Daoist sentiments in the above fox tale: Tang Daoists and pro- Daoists perhaps wished
that as Ye Fashan had exiled the fox of celestial origin, so they too could assume superiority
over the "barbarian" monks and banish them to their homelands. This intention was
reinforced by many other tales involving confrontations between Daoist masters and celestial
foxes, who, because of their capability to reach heaven, could not be killed but were often
93TPGJ 448.321, "Ye Fashan" (Jiwen).

94JTS 191.5107-5108; and XTS 204.5805. In Guangde shenyi lu, an anecdotal collection in TPGJ,
he was said to have lived from 616-735, and therefore lived 170 years. This information is self-
contradictory because there were only 119 years between 616 and 735. See also Kirkland, "Tales of
Thaumaturgy," 50-51.
95Kirkland shows that there is in fact very little evidence that Ye was an ordained Daoist
committed to any Daoist thought or doctrines. But both official historians and later Daoist hagiographers
commemorated him as a great Daoist master for political purposes. See Kirkland, "Tales of
Thaumaturgy," 85-86.
96TPGJ 26.139-142, "Ye Fashan." TPGJ specifies that the story was from Jiyi ji and Xianzhuan
shiyi lU1f~t13j!. It is translated in Kirkland, "Tales of Thaumaturgy," 76. See also TPGJ 22.119-123,
"Luo Gongyuan." According to TPGJ, the story was recorded in Shenxian ganyuzhuan t$lU1~~f~,
Xianzhuan shiyi and fishi ~.9::.
flogged and exiled.97 In one story we are told that the offending fox was sent away forever to a
desert [changliu shaqi * mE ~j) 1il ], imagery typical of Central Asia.98
There are also interesting parallels between the fox tales and Chinese Buddhist texts in
which the fox assumed the role of a foreign mon1e The challenge of Chinese Buddhist master
Da' an to a holy bodhisattva at the court of Empress Wu (627?-705), which appears in a fox
tale recorded in the Guangyi ji, is worth discussing in detail here:
When the Empress Zetian of the Tang was seated on the throne, there was a
woman who called herself a holy bodhisattva. Everything which people fixed
their thoughts upon, she knew. The Empress summoned her to court, where all
she said proved to be so reliable that she was surrounded with devotion for
some months, and praised as a genuine bodhisattva. Then the monk Da' an
entered the Palace, and was asked by the Empress whether he had seen the
female bodhisattva. Da'an replied: "Where is the bodhisattva? I long to see
her." The Empress gave orders to let them have an interview. The thoughts of
the monk soared away for a while, and then he asked, "You can read minds,
why don't you try to read mine?" She answered immediately: "Between the
bells at the canopy on top of the pagoda." He repeated his question, and the
answer was: "In the palace of Maitreya in the Tusita heaven, listening to the
preaching of the Law." And then he questioned her a third time, and she said
his thoughts were in the highest heaven where even no unconsciousness exists.
These three answers were all correct. The Empress was delighted. But Da' an
then fixed his thoughts upon the fourth fruit of sanctity, namely Arhatship, and
this time the female bodhisattva could not find out. Now Da'an exclaimed:
"You cannot discover them when I fix my thoughts upon Arhatship, how then
can you do so when I fix them upon the (still higher) state of the bodhisattvas
and the Buddhas?" The woman confessed herself beaten. She changed into a
vixen, ran down the steps and hurried off; nobody knew where she ran.99
It is certainly an interesting coincidence that a similar story appears in Lidai fabaoji

IN {-t it W ~c , a Buddhist text contemporary with the Guangyi ji. This time Da' an's position
was taken by the famous Chinese Chan master Zhishen ~~Jt (609-702), the founder of the
Jingzhong ~,~ school in Sichuan, and the loser turned out to be an Indian monk. The text
relates that Empress Wu once invited several Chinese Chan masters and one Brahman monk
named Tripitaka, whom the Empress respected the most, to her court.
97Such cases in TPGJ are "Zhangsun wuji" (447.315 [Guangyi ji]), "Yang Bocheng" (448.320
[Guangyi ji]); and "Qianyang ling" (449.325 [Guangyi ji]). In the last story the fox was banished to
Silla, where the locals founded a cult to him. This story may provide some clue to the dissemination of
fox worship to Korea, but no solid conclusion can be drawn at this point.
98TPGJ 449.327-328, "Wei mingfu" (Guangyiji).
99TPGJ 447.317, "Da'an heshang" (Guangyi ji). I have modified the English translation of this
paragraph from de Groot, Religious System 5:591-592.

Master Zhishen from Jiannan (Sichuan) was sick and thought of returning to his
hometown. Since gorges and mountains barricaded the way, the master worried
about [his returning trip]. The Brahman Tripitaka, who possessed unorthodox
powers [xietong ~~ 3m], said to him: "What is the difference between here and
there? Why does the master miss home?" Zhishen replied: "How does Tripitaka
know it?" [Tripitaka] answered: "Please fix your thoughts upon something, and
there is nothing I will not know and see." Shen said: "My mind is gone now."
He fixed his thoughts upon dressing as a layman and looking about in the Cao
gate of the western market. Tripitaka said: "Why does the master of great virtue
look about in the market in lay clothes?" Shen then noted: "Have a good look!
My mind is gone." He fixed his thoughts upon going to Chanding Temple and
standing on the canopy of the pagoda. Tripitaka commented: "Why does the
master stand in such a high place?" Shen said: "This time look carefully. My
mind is gone." Then he immersed his mind in dharma so that his mind did not
give rise to any thought. Tripitaka looked for [his mind] in all three realms and
could not find it. He therefore revered [the master]. He prostrated himself
before Shen, pressed his head against Shen's feet, and told Shen: "I was
ignorant in [not knowing that] the Tang empire has great Buddhadharma. Now
I repent of my fault wholeheartedly."lOo
It was a recurrent theme in early Chan literature that Chinese Chan monks were tested by
Indian or Central Asian monks endowed with the power to read minds. The stories always
began with the initial success of the latter in locating the minds of the former, and ended with
the final triumph of the Chinese Chan masters when they immersed themselves in
nonthinking.lOl A comparison between the fox tale in Guangyi ji and the Chan account in
Lidai fabaoji reveals that the foxes could symbolize "barbarian" monks when they confronted
Chinese Chan Buddhists.
The parallel between foxes and "barbarian" monks and their admitted submission to the
superiority of Chinese Buddhist monks must be understood in light of the development of
Chinese Buddhism during the Tang. The eighth century was an especially significant period
for the Chan school. Formally established by the sixth patriarch Huineng ~ '§g (d. 713)
around 700, Chan gained immense popularity among the Tang literati from the eighth century
onwards. It was considered a movement in which "the Chinese mind completely asserted
itself, in a sense, in opposition to the Indian mind.,,102 The development of Chan has been
proven to be inseparable from elements of Daoism and popular religions native to China and
Japan.103 Popular beliefs in fox spirits during and after the Tang were even integrated into
discussions of "the wild fox [Yehu JT~J.[] koan," one of the most famous koans in Chan
lOOT 2075.184 a-b.

lOlFaure,Rhetoric of Immediacy, 109.
102Gregory,Tsung-mi, 4-5; and Suzuki, "Zen: A Reply to Hu Shih," 12.
103Faurehas shown how Chan orthodoxy grew out of the marginal practices of thaumaturges,
healers, tricksters, and beliefs in ghosts, ancestors and spirits. See Faure, Rhetoric of Immediacy.
history.104 Other prominent Buddhist schools that were either established or resuscitated
during the seventh and the eighth centuries, such as Tiantai, Huayan and Pure Land, also
demonstrated distinctive Chinese characteristics. They adopted Chinese names, interpreted
Sanskrit siitras in Chinese contexts, and derived their authority solely from the writings of
Chinese patriarchs.105 Buddhist beliefs that had been imported into China in earlier periods
became more fully incorporated into the everyday life of ordinary Chinese during the Tang.
The traditional Chinese practices of ancestral worship, agricultural calendars and Daoist
festivals were by now nicely woven into Buddhist monastic rituals, and original Indian
elements in these rituals were significantly abated.106 The appropriation of the fox bodhisattva
in the Guangyi ji tale, therefore, offers a glimpse of the changes affecting Chinese Buddhists
at that time.
There is another layer of significance in this particular fox tale. While the account in
Lidai fabaoji, as well as the general history of Buddhism, featured male "barbarian monks,"
the Guangyi ji tale specified a female bodhisattva in Empress Wu's court-an image the
Empress vigorously promoted for herself in order to justify her usurpation of the throne.
Patriarchal and patrilineal principles were part of the foundation of Chinese political ideology,
and female interference in state politics had always been considered dangerous and
threatening.107 Empress Wu, on seizing the throne, encountered Confucian ideology and the
classical tradition as obstacles to legitimizing her rule. She could not rely on Daoist churches
for support because the Tang founding rulers themselves had made special associations with
Laozi.108 It seemed natural for the Empress to resort to Buddhism, a foreign and yet powerful
religion, to advocate a type of unorthodox rule. In the name of Buddhism the Empress
introduced the idea of an omnipotent female ruler endorsed by the Buddha to China, and drew
apparent parallels between this ruler and herself. She later declared that she was the
bodhisattva Maitreya, who, according to a new interpretation under her reign, was a female
divinity in the Buddhist pantheon. 109
104Heineshows that the ambiguities of the concept of "wild fox" were used on diverse levels to
reflect "the dialectical tensions between the interlocking rhetorical perspectives of the
mythological/supernatural and the philosophical/anti-supernatural." See Heine, "Wild Fox Koan."
105Weinstein,"Imperial Patronage," 270-273, and Buddhism, 73-74; and Gregory, Tsung-mi, 4-5.
106See,for example, Teiser, The Ghost Festival.
l07Guisso, Wu Tse-T'ien, 4-5.
108Becausethe surname of the Tang ruling house was Li, the Tang emperors claimed that they were
descendents of the ancient sage Laozi, largely as a political effort to enhance the family's prestige.
During the Tang and especially during Gaozong's reign (650-683), several female deities, such as the
Queen Mother of the West, the Jade Woman, and the Mother of Laozi, were given prominent positions
in the Daoist pantheon and enjoyed imperial patronage. Empress Wu therefore found that whatever
efforts she made to associate herself with a Daoist power, she would become more closely linked to the
Li family. See Barrett, Taoism under the Tang, 19-20,41-42.
109Weinstein,Buddhism, 40; see also Guisso, Wu Tse-T'ien, 35-45.
For the scholar-official class, Empress Wu's rise to power and her later ascension to the
throne seriously challenged traditional ideas of patriarchal authority. Although she appears to
have been an exceptionally gifted and successful politician on all accounts, and her political
merits won solid support when rebellions in favor of the Li family broke out, her womanhood
still prevented her from being fully accepted throughout her reign.110 Entering the Tang court
as a low-class concubine, she was pictured as an enticing woman who paved her way to
power with sex and schemes-an accusation people of the Tang also made against fox
spirits. 111 The crimes alleged against her by her political opponents, who were either
descendents of prestigious families or members of the Tang imperial house, all included the
theme of sexual seduction. A manifesto made against Empress Wu by the famous poet Luo
Binwang j~tlJt.:E (640-?) on behalf of her opponents in 684 became a well-known piece in
the Tang and after.112 The manifesto compares her to a series of imperial femmes fatales in
history and reprimands her as "a fox demon specializing in bewitching the emperor." Such
charges, as Guisso points out, were a "reaction of the Confucian mind against a woman who
had not only betrayed such cardinal virtues as humanity and wifely submission, but in so
doing had challenged an ancient tradition which guaranteed worldly harmony and gave both
livelihood and self-respect to the Confucian scholar-officials.,,113
The Guangyi ji story was written sometime in the latter half of the eighth century, when
the Empress had been dead for years, and the Li family had long restored their dynasty.
Historical records show that ministers who served under the Empress held respect for her
even when they "disapproved in principle of her unorthodox occupancy of a position reserved
for a member of the male sex.,,114 Both Zhongzong and Xuanzong, the two succeeding
emperors, accepted her as the de facto emperor. It was not until 780, around the time Guangyi
ji was compiled, that the legitimacy of the Empress's reign was first openly questioned by
Tang scholar-officials of the History Office based on the principle of the rectification of
110Guisso,"Reign of the Empress Wu," 294-297, 303-304. The Empress was challenged at least
twice by rebellions in favor of the restoration of the Tang imperial house. The first one broke out in 684
and the second one in 690. Both gained very limited public support and were quickly put down.
lllThe bewitching features of beauties who were foxes were mentioned in texts dating as early as
Soushen ji 18.222-223; also in TPGf 447.313, "Chen Xian." Some Tang tales also depict enchanting
a
female foxes. The Tang poet Bai Juyi @ ~ (772-846) wrote a poem to warn of the deluding nature of
foxes and the danger of beautiful women. See Bai fuyi ji 4.87-88, "Guzhong hu." For an English
translation see de Groot, Religious System 5:589. On Bai Juyi, see Waley, Po Chit-i. For English
translations of Bai's poems, see Levey, Collected Works, vols. 1 and 2; and Levey and Wells, Collected
Works, vols. 3 and 4. Bai's poem under discussion, however, is not translated in any of these four
volumes.
l12"Manifesto of the Expedition against Wu Zhao," in Youyang zazu "@f ~~ ~ ~J3., qianji, 1.9b.
Also in Guisso, "Reign of the Empress Wu," 295-296.
113Guisso,Wu Tse-T'ien, 5.
l14Pulleyblank,"Preface," in Guisso, Wu Tse-T'ien, ii.
names.115 The above story seems to echo the voices of these scholar-officials at the court.
With the gender twist of the bodhisattva, it reflects the Empress's passion for Buddhism and
ridicules her illegitimate power. We can perhaps assume that to the Tang literati who read this
tale, women such as Empress Wu could be identified as a type of fox woman who
overpowered men through sexual enchantment and as an outsider who challenged the
Confucian ideal of male authority. She belonged to a cultural category as dangerous and alien
as the "barbarians."
Conclusion
In discussing the multivocality of the monkey in the Japanese deliberation of the self and
other, Ohnuki-Tierney demonstrates that the monkey serves as a mediator between humans
and deities. The symbolic use of the monkey appropriates the positive and rejuvenating
powers of the "stranger-deities" who come from outside a community, but also harnesses this
power to prevent destruction of community life. The monkey also serves as a scapegoat,
shouldering the negative side of the dominant Japanese and representing a "betwixt and
between" category. Chinese and Westerners, like the "stranger-deities," are identified as
outsiders in different periods of Japanese history, while migrant peoples such as Japanese
Americans, itinerant priests, and entertainers are considered marginal. They are welcomed
only if they remain foreign and marginal, as passers-by who bring in positive forces from
outside, and they will suffer from prejudice and exclusion if they seek to settle permanently. 116
Ohnuki-Tierney's analysis can illuminate foxes and fox spirits in Chinese culture as well,
but in the Chinese case the roles of the mediating animal and supernatural power are jointly
assumed by foxes and fox spirits without clear divisions between their biological and spiritual
dimensions. Fox spirits were simultaneously worshipped as deities [hushen] and exorcised as
demons [humei] in popular practices since at least the early Tang. Symbolizing the
transcendent self of the literati men, their beloved courtesans, and most of all, the
"barbarians" that lived among the Chinese, foxes signified marginal outsiders in various
aspects of Tang literati life. Tang literati were frequently fascinated by the marginal and the
foreign, but they also perceived these forces as threats to their social prestige and cultural
superiority. They appreciated the various entities symbolized by the fox as exotic and
transitory, but despised and exorcised them when they attempted to cross the threshold of
acceptability. Foxes described in zhiguai collections can be taken as expressions of changing
aspects of the late Tang. By collecting and reading fox tales, Tang literati were able to
represent aspects of their ways of life and to come to grips with their changing environment.
The correlation between the fox and the "barbarian" in Tang fox tales did not derive
merely from linguistic coincidence. During an age of change when old and new ideas clashed
115Guisso, Wu Tse-T'ien, 2. Shen Jiji, who served at the History Office, was the first one to contend
that the Empress was a usurper and her reign illegitimate. See also Twitchett, Official History, 142-143.
1160hnuki-Tiemey, Monkey as Mirror, 144-149.
and people's worlds needed to be reorganized, the fox became an important symbol because it
embodied conflicts people felt in their lives. By appropriating fox spirits, Tang literati were
able to rebuild their identities and make transitions from the old to the new. The zhiguai
genre, traditionally defined as "petty talk" about the world of spirits and anomalies, in fact
reveals weighty matters in the social and cultural life of the late Tang literati. Religious
practices, family concerns and social experience mutually authenticated each other,
consistently reinforcing the marginal position of the fox and reconstructing the social
categories it symbolized.
Appendix
This appendix provides information on the original Tang sources of the fox tales cited in
TPGJ; it is arranged chronologically by the dates of compilation of the original Tang sources.
The format is as follows:
Original Tang sources cited in TPGJ, the name of the compiler. Date of
compilation. Total number of accounts. Locations and titles of the accounts that
each original Tang source contributes to the "fox" section of TPGJ.
In cases when the exact date of compilation is irretrievable I use the dates of the author's birth
and/or death.
1. Chaoye qianzai ~mT~~, Zhang Zhuo

"Zhang Jian";juan 448, "Wang Yifang."
5~_ (658-730). 3. Juan 447, "Hushen,"
2. Wuxing ji Ii 1T~C, Dou Weiwu _*t~. Dou lived early in Xuanzong's reign (712-
755). 1. Juan 448, "Li Xiansheng."
3. Jiwen *e fifJ, Niu Su !:f:.Jffir.Niu was born around 698 and died during Daizong's reign
(763-779). 6. Juan 448, "Shen Dongmei," "Ye Fashan";juan 449, "Zheng Hongzhi";
juan 450, "Tianshi zi";juan 450, "Qin Shouzhen";juan 451, "Yuan Jiazuo."
4. Guangyi ji J1f :W ~c, Dai Fu m $. Dai took the metropolitan degree in 757, was born
after 724 and no later than 738, and died no later than 794.33. Juan 447, "Seng Fuli,"
"Shanguan yi," "Da' an heshang"; juan 448, "Yang Bocheng," "Liu Jia," "Li Canjun";
juan 449, "Qianyang ling," "Li Yuangong," "Jiao Lianshi," "Lishi," "Wei Mingfu," "Xie
hunzhi";juan 450, "Wang Bao," "Tang Canjun," "Yan Jian," "Wei Canjun," "Yang
ShinU," "Xue Jiong," "Xin Tifou," "Daizhou min"; juan 451, "Feng Jie," "Helan
jinming," "Cui Chang," "Zhangsun Jia," "Wang Lao," "Liu Zhong'ai," "Wang An," "Sun
Zengsheng," "Wang Rui," "Li NUn," "Su Bo"; juan 452, "Li Chang"; juan 454, "Xue
Kui."
5. Renshi if: ~ , Shen Jiji i7c~9GiJtf (740-805). 1.
6. Lingguaiji Bt¥m ,Zhang Jian 5~ff (744-804).1. Juan 453, "Wang Sheng."
7. Hedong ji ~-a}"* ~c ,
Xue Yusi m
if!A~,. Xue lived during the Taihe (827-835) and
Kaicheng (836-840) reigns. 1. Juan 453, "Li Ziliang."
8. Youyang zazu "@~~m~il., Duan Chengshi f~PX:i\ (803?-863). 1. Juan 454, "Li
Yuanding."
9. Gansunzi ~Jf~r, Wen Tingyun ~~&!r% (812?-866). 1. Juan 448, "He Rangzhi."
10. Ji Yiji tl~ ~c ,
Lu Xun ~m'JJ(d.834). 3. Juan 450, "Xu An"; juan 451, "Seng Yantong";
juan 454, "Xue Kuei."
11. Huichang jieyilu fr @§ ~~ ~][~. No information on its author. Its title suggests that it was
compiled during the Huichang reign (841-846). 1. Juan 454, "Zhang Liben."
12. Xuanshi zhi '§~iE;, Zhang Du 5~~I (834-886). It was probably compiled during the
Xiantong reign (860-873).8. Juan 449, "Lin Jingxuan";juan 450, "Qixian min"; juan
451, "Li Linfu," "Li Kui"; juan 453, "Pei Shaoyin"; juan 454, "Ji Zhen"; juan 454, "Yin
Yuan," "Wei Shi zi."
13. Chuanqi 1$$f, Pei Xing ~jffll. Pei's activities can be dated to the Xiantong and Qianfu
reigns (860-879). 1. Juan 454, "Yao Kun."
14. Datang qishiji *m$f~~c, Li Yin *~i.Li held an official post dl:lring the Xiantong
period (860-873).2. Juan 455, "Zan Gui," "Hu long."
15. Sanshui xiaodu .=.7J'(/J\Jti, Huangpu Mei ~1fft)z:. Huangpu lived during the Xiantong
(860-873) and Tianyou reigns (904-918). The book was compiled around 910. 1. Juan
455, "Zhang Zhifang."
16. Yutang xianhua .=E~ M BE, Wang Renyu .3:.1= m of the Latter Zhou Dynasty (951-960).
1. Juan 455, "Minfu."
17. Beimeng suoyan ~t~fji §, Sun Guangxian t'*7'G~(960?-968). 1. Juan 455, "Cangzhu
min."
18. Jishen lu f@*$~, Xu Xuan 1~~~ (917-992). Since TPGJwas compiled in 977 and
printed in 981, the book must have been finished before 981. 1. Juan 455, "Zhang Jin."
19. Tengting yizhi lu n~~~iE;~. No information has been found about the author or the
compiling date. The internal date of the story was in Dezong's reign (780-804). 1. Juan
453, "Li Lingxu."
20. Two accounts have no references to original sources. One is entitled "Zhang Li" injuan
450, p.334. The other one is entitled "Zhang Jianqi" injuan 454, p.352. The second
story has an internal date of the Zhenyuan reign (785-804).
Abbreviations
HJAS Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies

HY Daozang zimu yinde ~ ~ r
§ I] [ t~,
Harvard- Yenching Institute
Sinological Index Series, number 25
JTS Jiu Tang Shu If m~
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The Fox Hu and The Barbarian Hu Unraveling Representations of The Other in Late Tang Tales

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The Fox [hu] and the Barbarian [hu]: Unraveling

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Journal of Chinese Religions 27 (1999) 35

In and Out: Foxes and Chinese Society

reign (874-888).2°Another Daoist text records that in the early Song

the fox and three other animals in two forms: jiaxian *

33Hartman,Han Yii, 121-122.

Bn and Bna: the Barbarian and the Chinese

50Ziircher, Buddhist Conquest of China, 265.

57Schafer, Golden Peaches of Samarkand, 20.

Hu and Hu: the Fox and the Barbarian

historian Chen Yinque ~*

65Hartman, Han Yu, 158-159.

81Chou, "Tantrism in China," 245; and Weinstein, Buddhism, 54-57.

Daoist master Ye Fashan ~ ~*~

89TPGJ 449.328, "Lin Jingxuan" (Xuanshi zhi).

90TPGJ 453.346-347, "Wang Sheng" (Linguai lu).

dates from 636 to 720. See Kirkland, "Tales of Thaumaturgy," 50-51.

735.94 He was summoned to the court by Emperor Gaozong ~ *

93TPGJ 448.321, "Ye Fashan" (Jiwen).

It is certainly an interesting coincidence that a similar story appears in Lidai fabaoji

paragraph from de Groot, Religious System 5:591-592.

lOOT 2075.184 a-b.

1. Chaoye qianzai ~mT~~, Zhang Zhuo

HJAS Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies

ANDERSON, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

HAMMOND,Charles. "The Demonization of the Other: Women and Minorities as Weretigers."

Taisho shinshii daizokyo 7\. IE ~JTf[~ 7\. ~ *~.

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