The Jade Dragonfly

Introduction

A traditional long Suzhou tanci in which a jade dragonfly token leads a son back to the mother who gave him up

The Jade Dragonfly is a traditional long story of Suzhou tanci and one of the classic books listed under the national heritage item Suzhou pingtan. A young man of a leading Suzhou family falls in love with Zhizhen of the Fahua nunnery and, before he dies of illness, leaves her his family's jade dragonfly; she abandons the son she then bears, and the child is found and raised under the name Yuanzai. At sixteen Yuanzai tops the provincial examination, and with a letter written in blood and the jade dragonfly he traces his mother and meets her again at the nunnery. The storyteller Wang Baiyin, a pupil of Jiang Yuequan, founder of the Jiang singing style, was held to know this book more fully than almost anyone and was nicknamed the living Shen Fang after one of its characters. The performer Jiang Wenlan sang mainly this book in a thirty-year partnership with Su Siyin, and Yue opera has a full-length play on the same story.