Jiejin Stories
01 · Historical Records
Xie Jin, courtesy name Dashen, style name Chunyu, posthumous title Wenyi, was a native of Jishui county, Jiangxi. He passed the metropolitan examination in the twenty-first year of the Hongwu reign of the Ming, 1388, was the first Grand Secretary of the Ming cabinet, and chief-edited the Yongle Encyclopedia. Hence the stories of his boyhood, such as matching bamboo and the character ge, were widely current locally from the Ming. In the Ming the Xie Jin stories were already widely current among the people; the famous huaben novel The Poetry Talks of Bachelor Xie is a Ming work and is more than six hundred years old today.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Xie Jin was exceptionally clever from childhood and could chant poems and compose couplets at six or seven, so that for a time he was famed as a child prodigy. The Xie Jin stories spread widely: besides Jiangxi they also circulate in more than ten provinces and cities across the country, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Henan, Hebei and Shaanxi, and even in overseas Chinese communities and in parts of Vietnam. The Xie Jin stories are a collection of stories recounting mainly Xie Jin's family background, daily life, examination career, official career and personal dealings. They are rich in content, and the figure of Xie Jin they portray—caring for the people, patriotic and loyal to the sovereign, clever and resourceful, eloquent, humorous and wittily outspoken—is deeply loved by the masses. The Xie Jin stories are also a subject favoured by many literary and artistic forms, such as the crosstalk Bachelor Xie, the play Xie Jin Disturbs the Court, the animated film Young Xie Jin and the television drama Great Ming Eccentrics. The Xie Jin stories circulate widely not only throughout Jiangxi but also in all parts of the country, and are extremely well known. Their content is comprehensive and their number great: every story connected with Xie Jin, from childhood to adulthood, from the family to officialdom, from the examination hall to daily life, from the common people to his colleagues, is covered in every respect. The Xie Jin stories have lasted several hundred years and are still flourishing; in his home district of Jishui anyone with the least knowledge of the world can tell a story about Xie Jin. In village lanes, teahouses, under the big trees, in the halls, on campus, by the rice fields and beside the ponds—the telling of the people may be heard everywhere.
Matching Bamboo and the Character Ge
The stories of Xie Jin's chanting poems and composing couplets in childhood, told of as a child prodigy.
The Poetry Talks of Bachelor Xie
A Ming huaben novel, a representative text of the Xie Jin stories.
Resourceful Stories such as Taking the Bedbugs by Wit and Solving a Riddle
The resourceful stories of Xie Jin current in Jishui and elsewhere in Jiangxi.
The Xie Jin Stories Training Base and Public Telling
The transmission activities carried out at the local training base and institute and in schools and villages.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Through the collecting and general survey of the relevant local institutions, many related stories current in Jishui and elsewhere in Jiangxi have been sorted out, including more than a hundred and seventy pieces such as The Pork Skin Leaks Water, Chanting a Poem on the Mountain, Arguing over an Examination Paper and Passing the Examination, “Song of Liangzhou”, Taking the Bedbugs by Wit, Xie Jin as a Guest, Solving a Riddle, and Why the Sorghum Does Not Head.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The locality has also built a Xie Jin stories training base and a Xie Jin stories training institute. This heritage item continues in the form of collective transmission, with many bearers, and when telling the stories they are full of expression and vivid, with very strong appeal. Xie Jin is the pride of the people of Jishui in their hearts; his stories interpret the spiritual character of the people of Jiangxi through the ages—farming and reading as a family tradition, honouring culture and valuing education, and cultivating themselves to serve the country—giving people instruction and enlightenment, and having positive significance in establishing a style of integrity and honesty, transmitting local culture, enlivening the cultural life of the masses and promoting social harmony.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。