Pu Lin

Also known as Zi Tianyu

Pu Lin, styled Tianyu, was a Yangzhou pinghua storyteller of the Qianlong era whose dates are unknown. Li Dou's Yangzhou Huafang Lu records that his right hand was short and crooked and that he grew up poor. The nephew of an old woman who kept a tea stove earned his living by storytelling and rehearsed in her home; listening there, Pu Lin decided he could do it too and, putting his own experiences under the name Pi Wu, created the story Qingfeng Zha. Its lively, comic portraits of street people such as Pi Wu the Hothead made it famous; the same book lists it among the great Yangzhou tales, and it remains in the traditional repertoire.