The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Thirteen-year-old Liang is going on his first hulijing hunt with his father. The hulijing is a demon that looks like a woman and steals hearts. Liang and his father have tied the merchant’s son, whom the hulijing has bewitched, to a bed. The merchant’s son’s cries attract the hulijing, and when Liang sees her, he feels mesmerized. He didn’t realize she would be so beautiful or so sad.

Liang’s father attacks the hulijing with the sword Swallow Tail, but he misses and hits a door. Liang’s job is to throw a pot full of dog urine on her, but the demon talks to him, calling him brave, and he hesitates. Still, a small amount of dog urine is enough, and it freezes her in the act of transforming into a fox. She runs, and Liang’s father chases her.

Determined to redeem himself, Liang traps the hulijing, only it is smaller than he remembered. It’s one of the hulijing’s children. He fights with the creature until it turns into a young girl, who asks him why he is chasing them. Liang explains that her mother bewitched the merchant’s son, but the girl says that her mother was trying to keep the merchant’s son alive. The two hear their parents fighting in the distance, and the hulijing loses. Liang’s father calls to Liang, asking if he’s seen any of the creature’s pups around, and he says no. The girl transforms and runs off.

It is five years later, during the Festival of the Dead. Liang and the hulijing girl, Yan, meet every holiday when families come together. He asks her how the hunting goes, and she replies that she can never seem to get enough to eat. Also, she is having trouble transforming. Liang concurs, saying there aren’t as many spirits around, and his father is worried about money. Yan says, “I think magic is being drained out of this land” (58).

A foreigner with yellow hair enters the temple and talks to a man dressed like a mandarin. The mandarin explains that it is hard for men to be working on a day they are supposed to visit their family’s graves. He adds that the railroad they’re building isn’t feng shui. The foreigner, Mr. Thompson, berates the superstition of the Chinese and uses his cane to break the hands off a buddha statue to prove his point. Yan and Liang agree that the world is changing, and they must survive.

Business has dried up for Liang and his father. One day, he finds his father has hanged himself in his bedroom. Liang notes that his father, like the spirits they hunted, could not survive without the “old magic.” Liang goes to Hong Kong.

Five years later, Liang is working in an engine room on one of the trains. It is Yulan, the night of the Ghost Festival. He hears men’s voices harassing a woman. It’s Yan, looking tired, thin, and brittle. Yan and Liang take the ferry to Kowloon together, and he asks her about her hunting. They make an offering to the ghosts, and Yan wonders if the underworld is still open for them, since the magic has left. Liang says it’s probably like people—some will survive, others will not. She dreams of her true form and ponders whether anyone “[i]n this new age of steam and electricity” was in their true form, except maybe those on the Peak.

Liang is 30 years old and learning about the new steam engines. One morning, two men come to the platform and talk about him, saying that training him might be cheaper than hiring a “real” engineer. Liang is to serve Mr. Alexander Findlay Smith, owner of the Peak Tram. He studies and repairs steam-powered equipment and assists in technological progress.

At age 35, Yan returns to Liang. Liang knows she is fleeing; he has seen news stories about her dalliance with the Governor’s son in the papers. She had stolen money from the man and disappeared. Yan shows Liang that her legs are made of chrome. She says the Governor’s son drugged her and had her “legs replaced because he prefers machines to flesh” (70). She had no choice but to let him continue. Her torso, arms, and hands are chrome. One night, he hurt her, and she struck back, only to realize how strong she was; “I choked him until he fainted, and then I took all the money I could find and left” (70).

She has come to Liang for help. He promises to help her reverse the process, but she wants something else. It takes them a year, but they succeed in turning her completely into a machine that can transform into a fox. There is a steam engine inside her: “The old magic was back but changed: not fur and flesh, but metal and fire” (72). Yan says she will find others like her and bring them back to Liang so he can transform them too. Liang says, “Once, I was a demon hunter. Now, I am one of them” (73).