Once upon a time a pretty and in tel li gent young woman named Zhu Yingtai lived in a wealthy fam ily. With each passing day, her de sire to go to school intensified. How ever, in her day schools were open only to male stu dents. Parents would not al low their daugh ters to min gle with the oppo site sex un der any circumstances. Like the daugh ters of other fam ilies of means, Zhu Yingtai could only re ceive homeschooling. “It is not only the knowl edge found in the books that in ter ests me,” Read the rest of this entry »

A long time ago, cricket fight ing caught on in the im pe rial court, with the em peror lead ing the fad. A lo cal magis trate in Huayin, who wanted to win the favor of the mon arch, tried in ev ery way to get him the best fight ing crick ets. He had a strat egy for doing so: He man aged to get a cricket that was very good at fight ing. He then made his sub or dinates go to the heads of each vil lage and force them to send in a constant sup ply of fight ing crickets. He would send to the im pe rial court the crick ets that could beat the one he was keeping. Read the rest of this entry »

Tang Seng (The Monk of Tang dy nasty) and his three dis ciples were on their way to the Bud -dhist holy land in the West to seek the true Bud dhist scrip tures. They had just said good bye to a hot sum mer and were about to en joy a cool fall when suddenly they felt wave after wave of hot air blow -ing in their faces as they ap proached a vil lage. When asked about the strange heat wave, a vil lager told them that the hot air came from what they called the Moun tain of Flames, to their west. It cov -ered an area of 800 square miles. Read the rest of this entry »

In Mid west ern China there is a beau ti ful moun tain named Hua. On top of it there is a tem ple dedi cated to the God dess San Shengmu. Peo ple wor ship this God dess be cause they be lieve that she is al ways ready to help them. When this story took place, she was busy help ing the peo ple of the re -gion fight ing a strange ep idemic with the magic power of her baoliandeng (Magic Lo tus Lan tern). Even though the disease was un der control, she did not stop work ing because she wanted to make sure that the ep i demic would not re cur. For this rea son, she had to be away from her tem ple’s al tar from time to time. Read the rest of this entry »

A scholar named Liu Yi was on his way to take a na tional im pe rial ex am i na tion. If he passed it, he would be able to get a job as a high-rank ing of fi cial, which many of the in tel lec tu als of the day as -pired to be. Read the rest of this entry »