presented in the “Zuo Commentary” (Zuozhuan 左轉), work originally compiled around the 4th century BC. Duke Zhuang of Zheng 鄭莊, in the first year of Duke Yin 隱, is in conflict with his mother and younger brother, Duan 段, as she favors his brother. Then, Zhuang, after publicly vowing he would never see her again, regrets this and finds himself in a dilemma—how to be filial to his mother while not going back on his very public vow. He finally finds a fair solution thanks to a stratagem of a wise and filial man, Kaoshu 考叔. (Radice, “Confucius and Filial Piety,” 193).

138. Radice, “Confucius and Filial Piety,” 44. In his analysis of Wutongyu [Rain on the Wutong Tree] by Bai Pu (1226–1306?) and Changsheng Dian (Palace of Long Life) by Hong Sheng (1645–1704), Qian Zhongshu assumes that there is no true internal conflict in the heroes of Chinese operas. See Chu Kwangtsien, Psychology of Tragedy; Shih Chungwen, The Golden Age of Chinese Drama; and Lau, “Duty, Reputation, and Selfhood in Traditional Chinese Narrative,” 367–371. Roetz (Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age, 99) has also pointed out how in antiquity conflicts tended to be more genuinely tragic.

139. Bureaucrats often confronted the dilemma of choosing between the application of impersonal norms that governed official duties and the legitimate satisfaction of sentiments that bounded them to their families, kinsmen, and friends (C.K. Yang, “Some Characteristics of Chinese Bureaucratic Behavior,” 134–164). On the conflict between loyalty and filial duty, see Hsieh Yuwei, “Filial Piety and Chinese Society,” 185. The ban on taking up an official position in one’s province of origin was designed to avoid some of these conflicts. A similar phenomenon can be observed among traveling merchants who left their places of origin to engage in interprovincial trade; as they distanced themselves from the bonds of their home environment, they gradually dispensed with feelings and obligations that might otherwise have been stumbling blocks for their business. See Jin Yaoji, “Renji Guanxi zhong Renqing zhi Fenxi,” 97–101; De Glopper, “Doing Business in Lukang,” 297–326; and Cartier, “Le Marchand Comme Voyageur,” 39–50.

140. Shi Diantou, 3: 36–57.

141. Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story, 203.

142. Martin Huang, Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China, 211–229.

143. This story is emblematic for the apparent contradiction and ambiguity between chastity and women’s increased autonomy, or filial piety