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• 1 2023-07-27T17:37:21+00:00 The Western Wing
  西厢记 (1958) 75 plain 2025-07-08T16:06:22+00:00

  Lianhuanhua (Narrative Comics)

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  LINKS TO THE LIANHUANHUA

  • The 1957 16-panel color version by Wang Shuhui can be found on the website Chinese Calligraphy & Painting Net.
  • A “storytelling performance” of the 1958 Western Wing lianhuanhua, is available at the following links. All three videos were posted by the user My Little Person Books 我的小人书 (the term "little person book“ is an alternative name for lianhuanhua).
    • With a male narrator.
    • With a female narrator. 
    • With a female narrator, but with the panels framed as if they are playing on television, with no captions, only audio narration.

  INFORMATION

  • Title: The Western Wing 西厢记
  • Year: 1958 [Reissued 1980]
  • Art: Wang Shuhui 王叔晖
  • Textual adaptation: Hong Cengling 洪曾玲
  • Publisher: People’s Fine Arts Publishing House 人民美术出版社

  INTRODUCTION

  The most classic lianhuanhua 连环画 comic adaptation of The Western Wing appeared in 1958. It was illustrated by famed female illustrator Wang Shuhui 王叔晖 (1912-1985) with accompanying narrative adapted from “Wang Shifu’s Yuan dynasty zaju play” written by Hong Cengling 洪曾玲 (dates unknown). Wang Shuhui’s iconic illustrations of The Western Wing appeared first in a color 16-panel commissioned in 1953 in response to the new marriage law promulgated in the same year (Chinese Calligraphy & Painting Net); the 128-panel version of the black and white lianhuanhua that we examine here was published several years later in 1958.
  
  In its modern form, lianhuanhua comics emerged from the media mix of Republican Shanghai (1912-1949); they are also known as “little person books” (xiaoren shu 小人书), denoting their status as children’s literature. In this vibrant Republican print and visual culture, serial illustration styles and dramatic performance encountered new print and cinematic technologies to give birth to a new mass medium, the lianhuanhua. This comic format is repeatedly discussed in Chinese sources in relation to cinema (e.g., “films packed into pockets” 装在口袋里的电影). Despite its minute size, then, lianhuanhua is a medium of remarkable range and plasticity, negotiating between various media formats and image scales.
   
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Subtitles	CTC Translation
  花影鋪地月光明，	Shadows of flowers cover the ground and the moon shines brightly,
  香案擺在小園中，	A table with incense is arranged in the small garden.
  鶯鶯燒上三炷香，	Yingying lights three sticks of incense,
  重重心事說不清。	And she can’t clearly express the heavy thoughts weighing on her mind.
  牆外誰吟詠月詩，	Someone beyond the wall intones a poem about the moon,
  鶯鶯依韻相昌和，	Yingying follows his rhyme and sings a poem in reply,
  一字一声訴衷情。	Each word and each sound expressing her emotions.

  
  In the high socialist period (1949-1978), lianhuanhua served not only as entertaining (and propagandistic) reading material, but also as a tool in various educational campaigns. Its language and mode of narration was relatively simpler than even that of “popular revolutionary novels” (geming tongsu xiaoshuo 革命通俗小说), for example, and thus provided more widespread access to reading at a moment in which the socialist state worked to reform script, promulgate the vernacular standard, and improve levels of literacy among the masses. With lianhuanhua, audiences could become readers, experiencing drama or cinema through a cheap, portable format, able to “stage” and “screen” audiovisual performance on paper through an intermedial reading act. 
  
  Though Wang Shuhui’s version of The Western Wing is not identifiably based on any cinematic adaptation of this work, it is related to filmgoing in socialist China when we consider how it was reproduced in the urban environment. In an interview, Wang Shuhui’s nephew, illustrator Wang Weideng 王维澄 (1929- ), notes that the panel in which Yingying reads Student Zhang’s poetic missive in her bedchamber was reproduced in the much larger scale of a wall poster or mural in 1950s Beijing (the exact format is unclear). The image was bigger, he says, than the wall of his present-day living room (fig. 2). “Propaganda pictures” (xuanchuanhua 宣传画) of all types (posters, murals), were common, colorful sights in the socialist Chinese city (these days, such posters share urban wall space with large electronic screens that likewise show propaganda). In the 1950s case, the image was presumably “subtitled” with exhortations about proper socialist notions of marriage, encouraging young Chinese people to marry for love instead of accepting arranged matches that had been the norm in the pre-revolutionary period. This large-scale (undoubtedly color) reproduction of the panel, Wang Weideng recalls, adorned a wall in Goldfish Alley (Jinyu hutong 金鱼胡同) next to a movie theater. Since reading lianhuanhua comics, often rented from street peddlers while waiting to watch a film near a movie theater, was a well-known socialist Chinese pastime, one can easily imagine an urban scene unfolding in this alley as audiences/spectators/readers simultaneously engaged in multiple modes of reading, looking, and listening. 
  
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Subtitles	CTC Translation
  一会，鶯鶯起身，紅娘催她梳洗，鶯鶯打开梳妆盒，发現了詩笺，一看，原来是張生写给她的。	A little bit later, Yingying got up and Hongniang urged her to attend to her daily toilet. When Yingying opened the case with her comb and makeup, she discovered a slip of paper with a poem. She took a look; turns out it was written for her by Student Zhang.
  【话框】相思恨轉添，	[Speech bubble] With the agony of [my] love longing twisting and turning and piling on,
  漫把瑤琴弄；	I indulged in plucking the jasper zither[’s strings].
  乐事又逢春，	As the happy event [of my playing] met up with spring [thoughts]
  芳心尔亦动，	Your fragrant heart [must likewise have been] touched/moved.
  此情不可違，	These [deep] feelings cannot be disavowed.
  虛譽何須奉；	What is the point of chasing after honor and fame?
  莫負月华明，	Do not forsake the moon’s bright [flower-like] corona,
  且憐花影重。	But covet and cherish the [earthly] flowers’ deep shadow.

  THEME: How to Make the Poetic Voice Audible in a Silent Medium

  For our purposes, the 1950s lianhuanhua presents an interesting question about how remediation, most basically, adaptation of material from one medium to another, functions. The story of The Western Wing has a long history of being transposed across genres and across media. Interestingly, the play itself revolves around negotiating and overcoming spatial boundaries and the prohibitions of propriety that separate the two lovers. The poetic voice is crucial in conquering both; but how to express that voice in a silent medium? Or, in other words, how to cross a medial boundary? As we shall see below, the lianhuanhua choses different solutions during the narrative. 

  Direct Speech in Captions/Lattice Window as Conduit

  First, Student Zhang and Yingying’s initial exchange of poetry is mediated through direct speech, that is, quoted lines, in the accompanying caption narrative (panels 20-25).  
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  張生已在日里搬到西廂住下，	Student Zhang had already moved into the western wing.
  早从小和尚那里探听得鶯鶯每夜要到花園燒香。	He’d earlier scouted out from a monk that Yingying went to the garden every night to light incense.
  恰巧花園就在隔牆，	It just so happened to be right next door.
  他就在牆角等著	And so, he waited at the wall.
  这时聽見角門“呀”的一声，	At this moment, he heard the screech of the corner door.
  他連忙踮着腳尖兒張望。	He immediately went up on tip toes and peered over.

  
  In the panels above, Student Zhang is initially alerted to Yingying and Hongniang's presence when he hears the screech of an opening corner door; this prompts him to go up on tip toes and look through the lattice window to the other side of the wall (panel 20). 
  
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  只見紅娘点了三炷香，一炷一炷的遞給鶯鶯。	He caught sight of Hongniang lighting three sticks of incense and passing them one by one to Yingying.
  鶯鶯輕声禱告着，	Yingying prayed in a whisper;
  一炷香願亡父早升天堂，	with the first stick, she wished that her deceased father quickly ascend to heaven;
  二炷香願老母身体安康。	With the second one, she wished that her mother be in good health.

  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  到第三炷香，鶯鶯卻不做声了。	Having gotten to the third incense stick, Yingying fell silent.
  紅娘就俏皮地替她說了出心願：	Hongniang thus cheekily gave voice to Yingying’s heart’s desire:
  “願小姐早寻一个如意郎君。”	“I wish that young mistress soon finds the husband of her dreams.”
  鶯鶯拜了兩拜，长叹一声，透露了心中说不尽的幽怨。	Yingying took two bows and let out a deep sigh, exposing an anguish in her heart that she could not fully express in words.

  
  In the next panels (21, 22), Yingying and Hongniang stand next to an incense burner, presumably visible to Student Zhang who is just beyond the wall at the lattice on the far left of the two panels. In direct speech in the caption, Hongniang expresses Yingying’s desire for romantic love (which the maiden is reluctant to say out loud). Yingying does, however, express “the sound of a deep sigh” (changtan yisheng 长叹一声), that “exposes a bitterness in her heart that she could not fully express” 透露了心中说不尽的幽怨. 
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  張生隔牆听了这声长叹，猜知鶯鶯有无限心事。	Student Zhang heard this deep sigh from next door; he deduced Yingying had endless worries.
  他随口吟了一道詩，想打动鶯鶯。	He impulsively incanted a poem, wanting to move Yingying.
  詩是：月色溶溶夜，	The poem was: A night suffused in moonlight,
  花阴寂寂春，	A lonely spring amidst the flowers’ thicket.
  如何临皓魄，	Why, when I approach the icy moon,
  不見月中人。	Can I not see the Lady in the Moon?

  
  This affective transmission is received by the eavesdropping Student Zhang, who hears the sigh from across the wall (panel 23). Rendered as speech offset by a colon within the caption, a poem is intoned by Zhang to catch Yingying’s attention. Though the narrative information in the panel describes a sequence of events (hearing, thinking, then speaking), the illustration shows an act of speaking. Student Zhang’s mouth is open, turned to the lattice, mid speech. While his eyes look to the side, his mouth is precisely at the level of the lattice that connects to the adjoining garden (and Yingying). He speaks directly through the wall and this window function like a speech bubble, transmitting his poetic voice.
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  紅娘見鶯鶯側耳細听，告訴她这声音就是白天那个傻相公。	Hongniang saw Yingying tilting her head and listening carefully. She told her this sound was that foolish young gentleman from earlier in the day.
  鶯鶯点头称讚好詩，隨口輕声和道：	Yingying nodded her head in praise of the poem and spontaneously quietly responded in verse:
  兰閨深寂寞，	Secluded like an orchid, my chamber is desolate.
  无計度芳春，	I am helpless to enjoy the fragrant spring!
  料得高吟者，	I reckon that he who loudly chants
  应憐长叹人。	Will likely cherish the one who heaves a long sigh

  
  On the other side (panel 24), Yingying can be seen listening, her hand raised just so as if to catch sound waves emanating from the lattice on the left side of the panel (an “ear line” to where Student Zhang is speaking from). 
   
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  張生听了大喜，不自觉的撩起衣裙，	Upon hearing this, Student Zhang was elated and got his robes in a twist without realizing it.
  想跳过牆去和鶯鶯相見，	He wanted to jump over the wall and see Oriole.
  却忽听角門上拴的声音，	But he suddenly heard the sound of the door being fastened.
  那边两个人都进去了。	The two of them had both gone in.
  
  In the next panel (25), the narration informs readers that Student Zhang is elated to hear her poetic response, but the illustration captures a new sound. His head (and ear) points away from the lattice as he hears a door latch open behind him and realizes it’s time to leave. The transmission is over.
  
  In this sequence of panels, then, the latticed window (an architectural element) takes on the role of a medium, a physical interface between the two lovers that allows for both vision and sound to transcend spatial barriers and to manifest visibly in the lianhuanhua. Though not a speech bubble, like that more recognizable stylistic device, the lattice works to amplify voice. It not only transmits voices within the diegesis, but also adds visible, graphic solidity to this sound for readers. Even though we cannot physically hear Student Zhang and Yingying’s voices, the lattice produces a visualized sense of “hearing” written poetry that a blank wall would not.

  Speech Bubble as Poetic Ventriloquism

  Second, speech bubbles, familiar from Western comics, are relatively rare in lianhuanhua. Rather than being used for dialogue, they sometimes “voice” text characters read as we see in two poetic exchanges later in this lianhuanhua. In a significant poetic exchange, Student Zhang, desperate to gain Yingying’s favor, heeds Hongniang’s advice to play the zither for her mistress (panels 69-77). This time, the latticed window and a speech bubble serve to transmit a poetic voice. Specifically, the lyrics convey what the poet Sima Xiangru’s 司马相如 (179-118 BCE) sang in the famous zither serenade that reputedly seduced his desired Zhuo Wenjun 卓文君. 
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  鶯鶯見紅娘去了，走近墙下窗边去听。	Yingying saw that Hongniang had left and approached the wall below the window to listen.
  張生听窗外有人，知道是鶯鶯，	Student Zhang heard there was someone at the window; he knew it was Yingying.
  就哀哀切切地彈出了当年司马相如打动卓文君的“鳳求凰”曲子，一面吟哦着歌词。	He thus plaintively strummed the tune of “Phoenix Seeks his Mate” with which Sima Xianrgu had so moved Zhuo Wenjun that same year while singing the song’s lyrics.

   
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese [Speech Bubble]*	CTC Translation
  【话框】有美人兮，見之不忘。	[Speech bubble] Oh, there is a beauty—I saw her and cannot forget her.
  一日不見兮，思之如狂。	Oh, I have not seen her for a day and I am crazed with longing.
  鳳飛翩翩兮，四海求凰	The male phoenix soars ever higher, oh, to search for the female phoenix within the four seas.
  无奈佳人兮，不在东墙。	Alas, my darling, oh, is not at the eastern wall.
  張弦代語兮，欲断衷肠。	I strum the strings in place of words, oh, I want to dispel my melancholia.
  何时見許兮，慰我徬徨？	When will I be allowed to see her, oh? When will I no longer be pacing back and forth?
  願言配德兮，携手相将，	How I wish that my talent is paired with her virtue, oh, and we lead each other hand-in-hand.
  不得于飛兮，使我淪亡！	If we cannot fly together, it will be the end of me!

  *Both the text and the style of the characters are copied here directly from an early version of the lianhuanhua (changes from the drama text and their slightly changed translations are highlighted).

  In panel 74 (fig. 10), Yingying stands next to the wall, intently listening to Student Zhang’s song. Her face is turned away from him, while her ear is positioned just next to a latticed window located slightly above. The speech bubble appears directly below the window, giving voice to Zhang’s plaint through Sima Xiangru’s song.
  
  Both the text and the style of the characters are copied here directly from an early version of the lianhuanhua (changes from the drama text highlighted). Notice the mixture of simplified and traditional characters. The transition from traditional to simplified script was not yet complete in the 1950s, and it is common to see a mix of both in texts printed in this period.  There are also some inconsistencies between this printed rendition and the lyrics as they appear printed elsewhere, further underscoring the “messiness” of print culture, even in the modern period.
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  鶯鶯正伤心，忽然听見張生在窗內把琴一推，抱怨起她來了。	Just as Yingying’s heart was breaking, she suddenly heard Student Zhang push away the zither inside the window and begin reproaching her.
  他说：“夫人忘恩還罢了，只是小姐，你却不該負我啊！“	He said, “The Madam’s ungratefulness is nothing, but young mistress, you should not turn your back on me!”

  
  In the next panel, Yingying is overcome with emotion upon hearing the poem and begins to cry. In panel 76 (fig. 6), however, she tunes in again, when she suddenly hears Student Zhang push away his zither and complain: “The Madam’s ungratefulness is nothing, but young mistress, you should not turn your back on me!” (direct speech in the image caption). In response, in panel 77 (fig. 7), Yingying becomes frustrated that she cannot cross the wall and explain her feelings. Before she can do anything about it, however, Hongniang, sent by her mother, collects her to go do needlework.
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  鶯鶯見張生錯怪自己，只恨隔着一堵墙，几晃窗櫺，不能过去向他說明自己的心意。	As Yingying listened to Student Zhang wrongfully blame her, she could not but resent the wall and the sparsely lit window lattice separating them, unable as she was to go over and explain her heart to him.
  这时，老夫人又叫紅娘來請鶯鶯回房去做針綫。	Just then, the old madam again had Hongniang come and invite Yingying back inside to do needlework.

  Speech Bubble as Poetic Voicing

  Third, in the manuscript copy of the lianhuanhua (fig. 2), the contents of the note that the heroine Yingying is reading are not visible. In the final print version (fig. 3, panel 84), however, Student Zhang’s poetic entreaty asking to meet with his love interest appears in a speech bubble next to Yingying’s head. The main narration, in turn, is printed in a caption below the panel, as is standard in lianhuanhua. Despite a bubble tail that points to Yingying, the narration does not indicate that she audibly intones the poem. Yet, the written poem, delivered earlier on a slip of paper by Yingying’s maid, Hongniang, is “exteriorized” onto the page of the comic. Knowing the precise contents of this letter is not per se consequential to the reader in terms of narrative. At this point, we know from the narration that accompanies previous panels that Student Zhang is continually making efforts to both communicate his love through poetry and song and to arrange an in person rendez-vous with Yingying. In any case, a “close up” of the letter with the poem inscribed upon it would have sufficed to convey the poem to readers. The poem might also have been reproduced in the caption below the image, as for example, in panel 23, when Student Zhang and Yingying exchange their initial poetic dialogue. Why then, the “silent” speech bubble? 
  
  For one, the text rendered in this bubble is extracted from the text of the play, unlike the narration which is “adapted” from the original but translated into more contemporary and accessible language. Audiences watching a staged version of The Western Wing would hear Student Zhang read this poem, while those reading the play would see it printed in the libretto (and perhaps also referenced visually as a slip of paper in an accompanying illustration). The lianhuanhua, by contrast, is relatively circumscribed in its ability to depict either vocal performance or poetic language. The insistence here on visualizing the written poem as speech while Yingying reads compensates for both the medium’s silence and its linguistic difference from the play. In this moment, the lianhuanhua momentarily overlaps with the play: not only is this the same language as the Yuan zaju, the written word is likewise rendered “audible.”  

  CONCLUSION

  The speech bubble thus sits at a complex confluence of cultural practices: with the attributive tail, it is a speech bubble as found in Western-style comics; however, rather than being assigned to everyday speech, it features poetry in a fashion reminiscent of the inscription of extradiegetic poetry in Chinese paintings and in woodblock illustrations of the Western Wing. At the same time, in both instances above, the speech bubble functions as a form of intersubjective communication. In the first case, Student Zhang borrows the voice of famed lover Sima Xiangru to cast himself in the role of talented, but unrecognized poet, who will be vindicated eventually and amply deserve a woman’s love; in the second case, Zhang’s own poetry is now foregrounded in an analogous speech bubble frame, anticipating that he too is worthy of Yingying’s love on account of his literary talent. Finally, in enunciating the poem herself and for herself (rather than be read by Student Zhang for the illiterate Hongniang as in the play), Yingying is straddling the boundaries between propriety and expressivity: just as Hongniang spoke on her behalf of feelings in the first set of panels, here now Student Zhang is speaking on her behalf through his poetry. In this manner, the speech bubble also alludes to the theatrical practice of joint singing (he 合), where protagonists repeat lines or sing lines together when they share a feeling. 
   

  WORKS CONSULTED: CLICK TO EXPAND/COLLAPSE

  Bilibili Manhua 哔哩哔哩漫画. "Lianhuanhua Xixiangji zuozhe hanjian digao baoguang! Gongbi shinü tu tai meile!" 连环画《西厢记》作者罕见底稿曝光! 工笔仕女图太美了 (Rarely seen author's manuscript drafts of The Western Wing lianhuanhua exposed! Gongbi-style images of court ladies just too beautiful!). Posted May 3, 2021. Bilibili 哔哩哔哩. Accessed September 18, 2023.

  "Wang Shuhui lianhuanhua Xixiangji, gongbi renwu dianfeng zhi zuo" 王叔晖连环画《西厢记》，工笔人物颠峰之作" ("Wang Shuhui's lianhuanhua Western Wing, gongbi-style characters are a pinnacle work.) Zhongguo zihua wang 中国字画网 (Chinese Calligraphy & Painting Net). Accessed September 18, 2023.

  AUTHOR

  Julia Keblinska