Dongjing meng Hua lu or The Eastern Capital: A Dream of Splendor, is a memoir written by Meng Yuanlao . In 1126, Meng was made a refugee from Kaifeng, the thriving capital of the Northern Song Dynasty after Jurchen Jin invaders conquered northern China and forced the withdrawal of the Song court to the temporary capital, Hangzhou, in the south, then known as Lin'an. Meng's book is a detailed and nostalgic description of the old capital's urban life, seasonal products, and festivals, as well as foods, customs, and traditions. In later dynasties, the book was much imitated and taken as an authoritative picture of affluent Chinese culture. Nothing else is known of the author, evidently a minor government official, except that he lived in Bianjing between the ages of 13 and 27 before escaping to the south. His book was first printed in 1187, but the Preface is dated 1147, a number of years after the capital was moved, indicating that Meng started a draft at this point. The work was published in 10 volumes and traditional bibliographers classified it as travel writing. It is often cited under the abbreviated name, Meng Hua lu.
The meaning of the title
The literal meaning of the title is Dongjing, meng, Hualu. The allusion is to the Yellow Emperor's dream of the land of Hua Xu, "a sphere of perfect joy and harmony," where people knew no fear, selfishness, avarice, or pain. When he awoke, the Yellow Emperor came to the realization that the Way could not be achieved through the passions. By using the term, Meng Yuanlao in ironic contrast implies that he himself awoke to a world of "perfect shambles." The historian Wu Pei-yi adds that the Chinese word meng and the English word "dream" have quite different overtones: "In modern English usage dreams are often projected into the future: they stand for hopes or wishes. In China dreams are frequently used as figures for the past." Other uses of the word meng in Chinese literature include the 18th century novel, Honglou Meng and the 13th century essay, Mengliang lu, which is modeled on Menghua lu.
Meng's Preface tells the reader of the old capital: The preface boasts: "The treasures and curiosities from around the world are gathered here, all are sold on the market. The exquisite scents from all over the world were to be found here." Meng must have been well placed and had enough money to take advantage of the city's pleasures. He also describes imperial rituals, although he may have heard of them second hand.
The scholar Wu Pei-yi writes that "what distinguishes the book from other writings on cities is its detailed description of everyday life as it was lived in the streets and marketplaces.... Food and drink seem to have been everyone's preoccupation." Meng delights in street entertainments which serious writers disdained, even mentioning the performers by name: The descriptions of food include over one hundred famous dishes and snacks, local specialties, street snacks, as well as reflections on famous taverns, restaurants, pasta and noodle restaurant. The book is thus an important source for the history of Chinese food and drinking culture. It even describes regional cuisines during the Northern Song Dynasty. The numerous mentions of Sichuan cuisine are particularly striking. The evocation of an evening at a restaurant is particularly vivid:
Qingming Festival
The section in Book 7 describing Spring festival has been used to explain one of China's most famous scroll paintings, the Qingming Shanghe tu of Zhang Zeduan, which was taken as depicting the Spring Festival:
Literary value and influence
Evaluations of the literary style differ. Meng's own preface describes his language as "coarse and vulgar" and "not adorned by literary style." He warns: "Reader, please take careful note of this!" For many years Chinese critics agreed that the prose was of low quality because it mixed colloquialisms and poorly written literary Chinese. The modern expert Steven West, however, suggests that this inconsistent style resulted when Meng mixed passages from a journal of some kind with later compositions, then used slang and technical terms. Wu Pei-yi, another recent historian, believes that the book's appeal lies in "the elements of style that it shares with the modern art of photography: the vivid and minute inventory of visual detail, the refusal to delve behind the facade, the preoccupation with the present moment, and the concealment of a narrator."
The performance of Dongjing Menghua Lu
"Song Dynasty-Dongjing Menghua" is a performance on the water in Qingming River Park in Kaifeng. The performance lasts 70 minutes, and there are more than 700 actors involved.
Translations
In addition to the excerpts in Gernet and the other works above, sections of Duzheng jisheng describe city life in the two capitals and are translated in "The Attractions of the Capital", in Patricia Ebrey, ed., Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, pp. 178–185
