Hua Mulan

This article is about a legendary Chinese heroine. For the Disney film based on this person, see Mulan. For the protagonist of the Disney film, see Fa Mulan.

Hua Mulan
Oil painting on silk, "Hua Mulan Goes to War"
Traditional Chinese	花木蘭
Simplified Chinese	花木兰
Hanyu Pinyin	Huā Mùlán
Transcriptions Gan - Romanization fa1 muk6 lan4 Hakka - Romanization Fa muk lan Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Huā Mùlán - Wade–Giles Hua1 mu4 lan2 Min - Hokkien POJ Hoe Bo̍k-lân Cantonese (Yue) - Jyutping Faa1 muk6 laan4

Hua Mulan (Chinese: 花木蘭; pinyin: Huā Mùlán; Wade–Giles: Hua1 Mu4-lan2) is a legendary figure from ancient China who was originally described in a Chinese poem known as the Ballad of Mulan (木蘭辭). In the poem, Hua Mulan takes her aged father's place in the army. She fought for 12 years and gained high merit, but she refused any reward and retired to her hometown instead.

The historical setting of Hua Mulan is uncertain. The earliest accounts of the legend state that she lived during the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534).

History

The Ballad of Mulan was first transcribed in the Musical Records of Old and New (古今樂錄) in the 6th century, the century before the founding of the Tang Dynasty. The original work no longer exists, and the original text of this poem comes from another work known as the Music Bureau Collection (樂府詩), an anthology of lyrics, songs, and poems, compiled by Guo Maoqian (郭茂倩) during the 11th or 12th century. The author explicitly mentions the Musical Records of Old and New as his source for the poem. The poem is a ballad, meaning that the lines do not necessarily have equal numbers of syllables. The poem is mostly composed of five-character phrases, with just a few extending to seven or nine.

The story was expanded into a novel during the late Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Over time, the story of Hua Mulan rose in popularity as a folk tale among the Chinese people on the same level as the Butterfly Lovers. It is one of the first poems in Chinese history to support the notion of gender equality.

Name

In Chinese, the compound word mulan (木蘭) refers to the "Magnolia liliiflora" (mù by itself means "wood" and lán means "orchid"). The heroine of the poem is given different family names in different versions of her story. According to History of the Ming, her family name is Zhu, while the History of the Qing say it is Wei. The family name Huā (花, meaning "flower") has become the most popular in recent years in part because of its more poetic meaning.

Appearance in popular culture

The story of Hua Mulan has inspired a number of film and stage adaptations without taking into account pre-modern Chinese plays and operas about the subject. These include the following:

• Hua Mulan Joins the Army (1927 film) – a Chinese silent film released by the Tianyi Film Company and directed by Li Pingqian.
• Mulan Joins the Army (1928 film) – Mingxing Film Company production, directed by Hou Yao. The film was unsuccessful, in part due to the Tianyi film that was released the previous year.
• Mulan Joins the Army (1939 film) – popular Chinese film made during the war, directed by Bu Wancang.
• Lady General Hua Mulan (1964 film) – Hong Kong opera film.
• A Tough Side of a Lady (1998 film) – Hong Kong TVB drama series of Mulan starring Mariane Chan as Hua Mu Lan.
• Mulan (1998 film) – Disney animated feature based on the Mulan legend. Its sequel, Mulan II, was released in 2005.
• Hua Mu Lan (1999 series) – Taiwan CTV period drama serial starring Anita Yuen as Hua Mu Lan.
• Mulan (2009 film) – Live action film about the Chinese Legend.
• Maxine Hong Kingston re-visited Mulan's tale in her 1975 text, The Woman Warrior. Kingston's version popularized the story in the West and led to an adaptation by Disney, but contained many arbitrary changes that have been widely criticized by other Asian-American scholars, such as Frank Chin.^{[citation needed]}
• Cameron Dokey created 'Wild Orchid' in 2009, a retelling of the Ballad of Mulan as part of the Once Upon A Time series of novels published by Simon Pulse, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
• The Legend of Mu Lan: A Heroine of Ancient China^[1] was the first English language picture book featuring the character Mulan published in the United States in 1992 by Victory Press.
• Hua Mulan Crater on Venus is named after her.^[2][3]
• New Tang Dynasty TV's 2006 Chinese Spectacular featured a stage performance of the story of Mulan.
• Kingdom Hearts II, an RPG by Square-Enix and Disney Interactive Studios that features a world based on the Disney film

Bibliography

• Dong, Lan. Mulan's Legend and Legacy in China and the United States (Temple University Press; 2010) 263 pages; Traces literary and other images of Mulan from premodern China to contemporary China and the United States.

See also

• Woman warrior
• List of women warriors in folklore

References

1. ^ http://www.heroinesinhistory.com/mulan.html
2. ^ "Named Venusian craters". In Lunar and Planetary Inst., Twenty-Fourth Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. March 1993. Bibcode 1993LPI....24.1219R. 
3. ^ "Venus Crater Database". Lunar and Planetary Institute of the Universities Space Research Association. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/vc/vcinfo/?refnum=269. Retrieved 2011-05-06. 

External links

• Ode to Mulan The original poem in Chinese and English side-by-side translation.
• The poem in Chinese calligraphy (images), simplified characters, traditional characters, and an English translation
• The poem in printed Chinese, with hyperlinks to definitions and etymologies
• The female individual and the empire: A historicist approach to Mulan and Kingston's woman warrior
• Mulan in Legends
• The Legend of Mu Lan: A Heroine of Ancient China A bilingual Chinese/English picture book of the Mulan legend