#mulan annotated

Now we’re here! This is most likely the penultimate post of Mulan Annotated. It was such a wild ride, and this was so educational doing this. Not to mention that I spent half-a-day googling Chinese cupboards. LOL.

Anyway, I’ve spent some time in this post talking about Chinese guardian lions, and let me tell you something--the gates of this Forbidden City have two male lions, unlike the one below, because the one below has a female lion with a baby cup under her paw (it’s the one on the right).

The conventional is to have one male and female, like the one shown in black and white, but the detail was probably taken out to make it easier to animate. Probably.

The Emperor’s hat has lost its beads! Noo.

Is it still the Emperor’s hat when all the beads are gone? Hmmmm.

All right, this scene is so very powerful in ‘90s cinema, and let me tell you why. The gang of three disguise themselves as women while the soundtrack of the training montage plays, which is a deliberate and obvious way to undermine all the gender roles that have been instilled in them right from the very beginning.

But by embracing their feminine side, all of them show that strength (which is often perceived as male) and femininity are not mutually exclusive, and that they go hand in hand. In fact, their femininity provides them with the element of surprise and helps then defeat Shan Yu because it’s not seen as a threat.

TL;DR The movie’s message is never underestimate women, people shouldn’t be boxed into gender roles, and that is why, at the end of the day, I still love this movie.

The part where Shan Yu commands the Emperor to bow to him is pretty significant, because, according to the ancient Chinese worldview, China was the centre of the world and everything surrounding it had to bow to it and swear allegiance to it. In history, many vassal states have sworn allegiance to China and admitted its superiority, so doing this actually undermines the worldview that the Emperor is the centre of the universe.

You see what I mean about strength and femininity not being mutually exclusive? 

I think Disney’s designers were not terribly, uh, careful with the sword designs because the closest design to Shan Yu’s sword is the Moro Kris Sword from the Philippine Islands, that looks like this:

Source here.

We also see smaller Kris blades used by people from Brunei, Malaysia, and Thailand.

If the Huns were really based on the Mongols, the sword will look like this:

Source here.

Chien Po is freaking out because you’re not allowed to touch the Emperor at all. He has the mandate of heaven, which kinda of means he was chosen by the gods to rule China. 

But this is a life-or-death situation, so I guess it’s an exception.

Something’s missing from the doors. A couple of guardian lions, perhaps?

Here we go. Source here.

The makers of the movie in this video (watch from the 5:13 mark) have emphasised that this moment is important in the film because Shan Yu underestimates her abilities as a woman. 

By now, we know one of the film’s messages is that femininity and strength and not mutually exclusive, and her using the fan proves just that.

According to Ancient Chinese Weapons: A Martial Artist's Guide by Jwing-Ming Yang, here’s what a fan can do:

The words on the yellow barrel are 大竹 (dà zhú), which is literally written as big bamboo. 

The words at the bottom are 危险 (wéi xiǎn), which means danger.

I don’t think anyone in the history of China has ever done this. Like, no Emperor and nation has bowed to a hero, but hey--that’s how you take creative liberties with a story, I guess.

The closest we have was Liu Bang, who established the Han dynasty while he was still living. His father had to bow to the Emperor, but Liu Bang decided that he shouldn’t. (Because filial piety, amirite?)

After this, the Emperor asks Mulan to be a member of his council. There was only such a thing in the Qing dynasty, although the original story does have the Emperor asking Mulan to be a military advisor of sorts, as well.

In this version and both versions, all Mulan does is want to go home, because that’s who she is at the end of the day--someone who is filial.

Yes, filial piety is a thing that Confucius came up with and it’s basically the respect and obedience you have to have for one’s elders, and doing whatever it takes to protect your family.

This Emperor’s crest/necklace probably didn’t exist at all and was used to further the plot.

However, in the Qin dynasty, when the first Emperor united all the Warring states, a piece of jade was carved to symbolise his eternal rule. It was called the Heirloom Seal of the Realm.

"Having received the Mandate from Heaven, may (the emperor) lead a long and prosperous life." (受命於天，既壽永昌) were written by Prime Minister Li Si, and carved onto the seal by Sun Shou.

The seal was passed up to the Tang dynasty, but was lost during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907-960).

I’m back with the second instalment of Mulan! Now that the prologue is out of the way, we’re looking at how Mulan spends her days. The whole sequence in which she gets out of bed and does her chores proves that she’s really smart. I cannot confirm if her pyjamas was what women in ancient China wore -- probably not, perhaps it was some kind of robes -- but these were the most glaring discrepancies i could find:

I don’t think the script would look like this in ancient China, btw, since the simplified version was developed in the 1950s.

Here’s a diagram of the evolution of the Chinese script below, from this website:

Since the ballad of Mulan was written in the Tang Dynasty, the script was probably in the Standard Script, as highlighted in the diagram. That was when this form of writing really matured.

And no, that’s not how you write characters on bamboo books. It actually looks more like this:

This image is from Wikipedia, and is from the Shanghai Museum dated around 300 BC. It’s commentary of the Classic of Poetry.

Anyway, back to the text. While Mulan is reading it, she says, “quiet, demure, graceful, polite, refined, poised, and punctual.” She is reading from the right to the left. 

文静, wén jìng, I guess, could be quiet, but it also connotes calmness.

娴淑, xián shū, however, is completely wrong. It should either be 娴熟 (xián shú), or 贤淑 (xián shū). The first one meaning skilled, and the second one meaning to be a virtuous woman.

优雅 (yōu yǎ) is graceful, which is correct.

礼貌 (lǐ mào) is more like courtesy, to be honest, but polite is all right as translation.

坦然 (tǎn rán) is calm and undisturbed more than poised or refined.

准时 (zhǔn shí) definitely means punctual.

Before I forget...

It’s not actually possible to do this unless the rice is very sticky, and the way you eat rice from a bowl is bringing it to your mouth and using the chopsticks to push it directly into your mouth.

Also:

If Mulan’s parents ever saw this, they would kill her! Every Chinese person who is taught that they should never ever do that to their chopsticks because it looks like you’re burning incense to your ancestors! Chopsticks should be laid horizontally across the bowl.

There you go.

Ok now let’s talk about architecture:

I gotta give the animators props for including a moon gate here, for sure. You can find this in lots of Chinese gardens.

Also, I screencapped the general layout of Mulan’s house from this video:

This is clearly a siheyuan, and the origin of houses like that dates back to the Shang Dynasty, if not, the Zhou. Judging from the layout, you can tell that Mulan’s family was pretty wealthy. (In the original text, it was her father who taught her how to fight, something that the privileged class did with their children, anyway, judging from the bios of Princess Pingyang). 

Anyway, the house looks close enough to the one you can find on Wikipedia, and you can read more about it here.

And here’s a picture:

I don’t understand why Fa Zhou doesn’t have an altar to worship his ancestors? Like, who does that?

And offering just one stick of incense is pretty stingy, considering people go all out to worship their ancestors.

Ok this is kinda over the top, but I didn’t want to use other people’s pictures (it’s kinda intrusive) so I chose an illustration. I think these tablets come from Taiwan, because one of the movie’s character designers, Chen Yi-Chang came from there. But altars should be there with offerings, especially when it comes to ancestral worship.