Articles Available Online

Source Material   Her story is widely known At first she stayed in heaven, then she followed a man down below, and that was her descent to earth As the illustration shows, later on she returned once more to the heavens To be precise, she flew to the moon Chang’e Escapes to the Moon As you will realise at once, this is Chang’e She has many names: Chang’e, Heng’e, Changxi, Shangyi, Changyi, the Jade Rabbit, the Spirit of the Moon beyond these, there are the unpleasant ones, such as the Toad, the Cleft-lip Rabbit, etc[1] Now she has descended to the world again   Many have written poems about her in each and every dynasty Li Shangyin[2] wrote the finest:   A mica screen, deep shadows cast by the candles, the long river[3] slowly falls, the dawn stars sink Chang’e regrets stealing the marvellous potion[4]— jade-green waters, blue-black sky — at night in her heart   Statistical data indicates that the men who have written poems to her are too numerous to count Yet none describes her appearance; not because she is embarassingly ugly, but because she is too lovely From ancient times to the present day, among all lovely women, she is the only one to enjoy this honour: everyone knows she is very beautiful, without the poets needing to waste words or ink Incidentally, while no one wrote down the details of her beauty before, to do so today would be impossible The present is an ugly age, when the task of the poet is to write about ugliness As to what comes after — oh, don’t bring that up People everywhere know that the next age will be called the post-ugly era       Essay on an Assigned Topic   I am writing this essay on a topic assigned by Hou Houyi [5] Hou Houyi is an important historian, as well as my academic advisor He instructed me to make a record of the descent of Chang’e to the world He also