3. The Pregnant Ghost
Kirsty Logan explores Pu Songling’s classical Chinese ghost stories, where a ghost woman gave birth to a living child. From 2020.
'She will be made whole in her life and her afterlife, even if that means bending the rules of nature and society to suit herself.'
Kirsty Logan explores the ghostly tales found in Pu Songling’s ‘Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio’, a collection of hundreds of fantastic, and slippery tales of ghosts, spirits and demons that include a most unusual ghost - a pregnant ghost, that gives birth to a living child.
Kirsty finds out how ghosts come to exist within a culture of ancestor worship - where the souls of dead family members should be at peace due to the care and veneration they receive from their descendants, and how the ghosts that emerge can be symbols of hope, or terror.
Illustration by Seonaid Mackay.
Produced at BBC Scotland by Elizabeth Duffy.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2020.
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Luo Hui - The Ghost Mask
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Luo Hui - Ghosts, Beasts and Demons in Human Skin in Pu Songling's tales
Our Extra Interview today is Dr. Luo Hui
Dr Luo Hui is a senior lecturer in the School of Languages & Cultures at Victoria University of Wellington. His research focuses on Chinese literary and visual cultures, with particular interest in translation, adaptation, reception, and issues of soft power.
In his early 20s he dove into the strange and slippery realm of Pu Songling’s ghost stories, and it became a topic of personal and academic fascination ever since. Here he tells us why ghosts have so much meaning in Chinese culture, and explores the idea of becoming as seen through Songling’s terrifying and bewitching female demons, beasts and ghosts.
Broadcasts
Wed 21 Oct 202013:45BBC Radio 4- Fri 24 Sep 202114:45BBC Radio 4
- Wed 28 Oct 202609:30BBC Radio 4 Extra
