There are few greater curios in classic Chinese literature than Shen Fu’s Six Records of a Floating Life (《浮生六记》), a remarkable book that gently refuses to inhabit any particular genre, instead veering from memoir to gardening manual, to eulogy, to travelogue, through to Qing dynasty (1616 – 1911) social document, but it is perhaps best thought of as a moving, even mystical, love story.
Cryptic from the outset, the text poses questions before it even begins. The titular six records in question, which serve as an autobiography of Shen Fu (沈复), an unsuccessful private secretary working in a yamen (the office of a public official), are in fact merely four records—parts five and six having never been discovered. Add to this that although Shen wrote the book sometime around 1808 and 1811, it was not published until 1887, after the manuscript was discovered in a second-hand Suzhou bookshop, and we are left with a very enigmatic work indeed. It is unclear if Shen thought the manuscript would be published, or if he even finished it, but there is little doubt, as a would-be scholar himself, that he would have been pleased with the reams of scholarly musings it has since produced, which is just as well, as almost nothing is known about his life beyond the book.
Six Records stands as an episodic and thematic, though non-chronological, account of Shen’s life, each of the records approaching his life from a differing angle and varying time. The Penguin Classic version, published in 1983, translated by Leonard Pratt and Chiang Su-Hui, lists the records as: “The Joys of the Wedding Chamber,” “The Pleasure of Leisure,” “The Sorrows of Misfortune,” “The Delights of Roaming Afar,” “History of Life at Chungshan,” and “The Way of Living”—the final two parts missing, as previously mentioned. The book’s unusual structure is such that the records overlap, and key events are later retold from a changed standing point. This layering effect adds intrigue; major plot points are suddenly parachuted in from nowhere, with seemingly innocent events given an almost sinister gloss many pages later. Thus, the reader never quite knows where they are with Shen.
A further puzzle is just how reliable a narrator Shen is; as with any autobiographical work, issues with ego, memory, and motivation all come into play. Shen certainly doesn’t try to paint himself as particularly successful or a good family man (quite the opposite), nor does he seem to be asking for our sympathy. However, major events in Shen’s life are often foreshadowed by the appearance of classical Chinese works of literature echoed later in the book. Shen’s use of such a literary technique makes it clear that not everything can be taken at face value. On the book’s first page, Shen writes, “Unfortunately, I never completed my studies, so my writing is not very skilful…Criticism of my writing will be like the shining of a bright light into a dirty mirror.” But Shen is surely being modest; the fact that the book still endures amongst both scholars and wider readers, some 200 years after it was written, attests to the fact that it is the work itself that is the bright light—it stands as one of the most original and outré pieces of writing in Chinese history.
Often cited as one of the most revealing documents to outline private life in the Qing dynasty, even here the book poses a challenge as Shen Fu and his wife (and cousin) Chen Yun are both deeply idiosyncratic, wildly unrepresentative of the times, and would have been looked upon almost as outcasts by many; on more than one occasion, they were more-or-less disowned by their family. Additionally, Shen wrote in a deeply confessional style that is almost unseen in classical Chinese literature. There is almost nowhere Shen won’t go, as he offers forthright insight: the courting of his wife, pawning clothes to fund drinking binges, breaking the hearts of prostitutes, his blase attitude to employment, right down to the details of his very particular and preferred methods of flower arranging. Shen even gives the relatively racy details of consummating his marriage:
“I playfully felt her breast and asked her if her heart was beating as fast as mine. I pulled her to me and whispered in her ear, ‘Why is your heart beating so fast?’ She answered with a bewitching smile that made me feel a love so endless it shook my soul. I held her close as I parted the curtains and led her into bed.”
For a Chinese autobiography some two centuries old, it is shockingly risqué, yet Shen thinks little of it. And it is no surprise; in today’s language, Shen would probably be called bohemian, perhaps even a libertine; by Confucian standards, his was an open life, living hand to mouth, doing pretty much as he pleased without overthinking the consequences. This meant that while for periods of his life he had money—which he was very generous with, usually spending it on boozing with friends—at other times he was near-destitute and frequently had to borrow from acquaintances to survive.
On one of his numerous travels with friends, Shen says, “I became less inhibited, singing crazily from the back of a buffalo or dancing drunkenly on the beach. I did whatever my heart desired, and this was the most relaxed and happiest trip of my life.” Shen certainly knew how to enjoy himself. It is perhaps because of this attitude, what Thoreau called “sucking the marrow out of life”, that one of Shen’s chief proselytizers is the great Chinese writer and lover of the idle life, Lin Yutang (林语堂). It comes as no surprise that Lin was the first person to take on the task of translating Six Records into English, the favourite of all his translations. Lin himself wrote a 300-page book devoted to earthly pleasures, and it seems that he saw Shen as something of a kindred spirit. Yet it was not just Shen that Lin admired, but his wife Yun too, describing her as “one of the loveliest women in Chinese literature.” Though ostensibly Six Records as a memoir should center on Shen, the most richly drawn and ambiguous character is arguably Yun.
In ancient China, a woman’s domain was largely the home, and she was expected to unquestioningly submit to her husband and fulfil her filial duties. Simply put: Yun was not that kind of chick. And Shen, a feminist of sorts, is accordingly very proud. Describing the couple, Lin says, “I seem to see the essence of a Chinese way of life as really lived by two persons who happened to be husband and wife.” This hint that they are somehow separate entities is an interesting one, and while the couple’s devotion to each other is absolute, playing a large part in the book’s enduring popularity, they are both independent and free-spirited. Early in the first record, Yun desires to visit a certain temple but is not able to as she is a woman. Shen’s solution, a bold one, is that Yun simply dresses as a man and goes anyway. Yun takes great delight in this, enjoying practising her “manly gait” and wearing men’s clothes. This subtle nod to Yun’s androgyny is the first of several. Talking of their love for each other, Yun wishes that she could be reincarnated as a man and Shen as a woman, so they can remarry in the next life. In the third record, Shen claims “Yun came into this world as a woman, but she had the feeling and abilities of a man,” though it is probable he is just praising her ability at drinking games (a constant feature of the book), her outgoing attitude, and their, at times, almost brotherly relationship, as opposed to hinting that she is transgender.
Another issue that has readers’ knickers in a twist (and by extension Yun’s) is the issue of Yun’s sexuality. Some scholars claim that Yun attempts to engineer a polyamorous relationship between Shen, herself, and her husband’s potential future concubine, quite an exotic arrangement for the Qing dynasty, though not unheard of. The question is first raised when Yun sets out to find her beloved husband a concubine, with an almost missionary zeal. On setting eyes on a suitable girl, she, Han-yuan, takes her on a day trip up a mountain, holding hands. So far, so sisterly. On returning, she tells her husband she has met somebody “charming and beautiful” and will set up an arrangement to make him happy. Shen responds, “How could poor people such as ourselves dare think of such a thing? And we are so happily married, why should we look for someone else?” Yun replies, “But I love her too.” If that isn’t enough to get the “Yun loves women camp” hot-under-the-collar, Shen then asks Yun if she is trying to create a situation akin to the famous play Pitying the Fragrant Companion, to which she says yes. Sure enough, it’s a 17th-century play about a woman who falls in love with another woman and obtains her as a concubine for her husband, so they can be together. Regardless of all this, readers should be wary of jumping to overly Sapphic conclusions.
Shen may have been projecting his own male fantasies, engaging in flirtatious teasing with his wife, or perhaps Yun had her own motivations for taking a degree of control over her husband’s sexual life—before meeting Han-yuan, Shen had been on a four month “business” trip, chiefly spent whoring on the brothel boats of Guangdong (yes, brothel boats)—nevertheless, whatever conclusions are drawn, the episode can be seen as just another part of the puzzle that Shen lays out in Six Records.
Despite the book’s multi-faceted dazzle, Shen is often seen as something of a loser: he failed the imperial civil service examinations, had little success as a clerk, was unemployed for large periods, and often fell out with family, but all this is if viewed through a rather conventional and boorish lens. Shen lived a full and joyous if somewhat esoteric life, traveled around most of China, found love of the very deepest kind, appreciated booze and beauty to the umpteenth degree, and in Six Records of a Floating Life left behind something unlikely to ever be forgotten. Some people might even call that success.
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