Six Records of a Floating Life, late 18th Century autobiographical sketches of the life of Shen Fu, a government clerk, literati painter, and tragic lover at the height of the Ching Dynasty, are both a literary achievement and a magnetic social document, fascinating to both scholars and casual readers.
Unfortunately, extant copies are incomplete; the last two of the Six Records were lost long ago. During the 1930s, indeed, several efforts were made to forge these lost sections; all the results have since been repudiated.
Lin Yutang first translated the Records into English in 1935. This newer version by Penguin Books, as translated by Leonard Pratt and Chiang Su-hui, was published in 1983. With no strict chronological order, it is presented in layers, in appropriate simulation of its title.
Shen Fu, born in Soochow in 1763, is remarkable if only for his extraordinary depictions of his era. The Records are peopled by characters from all walks of life: literati, merchants, villagers, corrupt officials, helpful boatmen, courtesans, and monks. And though the volume depicts an overall social harmony, the author himself struggles with poverty and family conflict.
Shen Fu was legal secretary to various magistrates, a vital if monotonously administrative position in the yamen (a government office). Although his family is depicted as apparently well off, he periodically resorts to selling paintings and borrowing to supplement his meager income.
Among the Chinese, the Six Records is popularly known, above all else, as an eternal love story. Shen Fu, engaged to his cousin, Yun, at age thirteen and married four years later, writes passionately now of his wife's beauty, goodness, and intelligence.
And surely, she must have been extraordinary—a woman who could write poetry, restore old paintings, and even think to place "a few tea leaves in a gauze bag and put it inside a lotus flower before it closed in the evening." The following morning she would take out the tea and boil it with natural spring water, achieving a "wonderful and unique fragrance. "
Shen Fu saw their souls combining as smoke and mist. He commissioned two matching seals engraved after the manner of the yin and yang with the inscription, "May we remain husband and wife in all our lives to come": on his, the characters are raised; on hers, incised. Both the enjoyments and the difficulties of his wife's life are presented. She suffers physical illness, and from poverty and family conflicts.
Perhaps most interesting in the late 1980s is Yun's attitude toward sexuality, at sharp variance with the modern Western outlook: She herself is bent on securing a fine concubine for her husband. And after his wife's death, Shen Fu goes on, naturally, to give us glimpses into the demimonde of Chinese courtesans—visits to the "flower boats" on the Yangtze River in Kwangtung Province.
Despite their struggles, Shen Fu and Yun enjoyed life—enchanted summers by the Pavilion of the Waves in Soochow, like true Chinese literati, savoring crab specialities in the garden while appreciating the glories of the chrysanthemums. The smallest elements were savored:
During the summer, whenever I heard the sound of mosquitoes swarming, I would pretend they were a flock of cranes dancing across the open sky, and in my imagination they actually would become hundreds of cranes. I would look at them so long my neck became stiff. At night I would let mosquitoes inside my mosquito netting, blow smoke at them, and imagine that what I saw were white cranes soaring through blue clouds. It really did look like cranes flying among the clouds, and it was a sight that delighted me.
We sense that the intense reality of such refined sensibilities was—surely—in conflict with the drudgery, pressures, and worldly ambitions of official life. Three of the four things "forbidden" at his friend's home (the Villa of Serenity) had to do with such duty: talking about official promotions, official business, or the eight-legged official examinations ... or gambling. Four contrasting things were encouraged: "generosity, romantic refinement, an unrestrained atmosphere, and peace and quiet."
His dislike of routine officialdom is explicit. An upright man, he resigns from one post in disgust upon discovering colleagues' corruption. But he also fancifully compares the scents of ginger and cassia, which both turn more pungent with age, to "loyal ministers who are made of strong stuff."
On a high mountain peak, Shen Fu comes across a tablet which reads, "Retire from the heights before the rushing torrent." Like so many Chinese scholars coping with traditional official life, he thinks then and constantly of "leaving the world of the red dust" for a secluded life in nature.
Fortunately for the reader, Shen Fu's official duties took him on to many interesting places and, at times, the Six Records read like a travel guide to Ching Dynasty China. His descriptions of beautiful scenic sites with equally beautiful names vie with each other to tantalize the reader's imagination.
With Shen Fu, you climb Tiger Hill in Soochow, or debate the merits of the Cottage of Tranquility over the Jade Spring or Dragon's Well at Hangchow's West Lake. And then, cool off at Purple Cloud Cave or enjoy a visit to Sunrise Terrace. Hearing the bells of Lotus Seed Temple (a white Tibetan pagoda), gaze with him in memory as "The golden fringes of its roof rose to the clouds... its halls shaded by pine and cypress. " There is lunch at the Temple of the Arriving Cranes—on dried venison, water chestnut, and lotus root—and boating on the Canal Where Perfumes Are Gathered, in Soochow. (For readers following Shen Fu's tours, the maps at the back of the Penguin edition prove most useful.)
One practical friend advises Shen Fu, "When all is said and done, you can't for long eat the dew and plough with your brush." Another christens Shen Fu's home "the Unmoored Boat," a symbol for the itinerant life of the Chinese literati.
Fortunately for posterity, Shen Fu, a relative failure in his day, continued afloat, providing us with a touching record of his times, continuous insights into his society, and a brief for the sensibilities of the floating world.