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DAVID E. POLLARD : Real Life in China at the Height of Empire: Revealed by the Ghosts of Ji Xiaolan . xl, 334 pp. Hong Kong : City University of Hong Kong Press , 2014. $45. ISBN 978 962996 601 0 .
Reviews: East Asia
I would hazard a guess that the author enjoyed writing this book. After a long and eminent career working primarily in the fields of modern Chinese fiction and translation, in retirement David Pollard has turned his hand to translating and editing the biji (jottings) of the Qing scholar-official Ji Xiaolan (Ji Yun, 1724-1805). Ji is best known as an editor of the monumental Siku quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries), and as an official whose intellect earned him ministerial rank and favour at the Qing court. He was, however, also one of the most gifted eighteenth-century biji writers to record anecdotes of extraordinary happenings and stories of "the supernatural and curious". It is a rare privilege to catch a glimpse of a Qing official in his off-duty hours, still rarer to be afforded insight into the nitty-gritty of his daily life, and that of his family, colleagues and friends. As Pollard points out, despite Ji's meteoric rise up the ranks of officialdom, he was never a powerful policy maker (nor one suspects would he have wished to be). Nonetheless, these tales are an apt reminder that senior Qing officials were not necessarily out of touch with, or oblivious to, the everyday concerns of the emperor's subjects. The arduous nature of the examination system, postings to remote parts of the empire, and...