Manchu Storytelling in Late Imperial China: Space, Performance, and Ethnicity in Beijing, 1736-1911

Zidishu (bannermen tales), a storytelling genre created by Manchus, was popular in Beijing and Northeast China during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This paper reconstructs various milieus for zidishu’s performances, including both public and private arenas. By reconstructing zidishu performances as well as introducing three linguistic types of zidishu, I argue that zidishu was intimately tied to elite, Manchu literati aesthetics and their amateur culture in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Beijing. The practice of zidishu helped bannermen maintain a sense of Manchu distinctiveness in the everyday world shaped by the reality of interactions between the Manchus and Han Chinese.