木兰从军

English (for the teacher)

Many people first met Mulan in the Disney animated film. In the film, her secret is found out very quickly. But in the Ballad of Mulan, a folk song more than a thousand years old, she keeps it from everyone for twelve whole years.

The story begins with a sigh. Mulan was sitting at her loom, but her family couldn’t hear any weaving, only one sigh after another.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

In fact, the night before, she had seen the list of men called up for the army. The emperor was going to war, the list came in twelve parts, and every one of them had her father’s name on it. But her little brother was still too young, and Mulan had no older brother.

“I’ll buy a horse and go in Father’s place!”

So Mulan went round all four markets: a horse from the east market, a saddle from the west, reins from the south and a whip from the north. One set of gear bought in four different places: far more trouble than shopping online today.

In the morning she said goodbye to her parents; by evening she was already spending the night by the Yellow River. She couldn’t hear her parents calling her, only the rushing water of the Yellow River. One more day on the road and she reached the mountains of the north, with the cries of enemy warhorses in her ears.

From then on, she travelled thousands of miles with the army. Mulan rode on, over one mountain after another. Nights in the north were bitterly cold, the night watch’s gong carried on the cold wind, and the moon shone on her iron armour. The war went on year after year, and many never made it home.

Twelve years later, the war was finally over. The emperor was delighted: he gave Mulan many rewards and wanted to make her a high official. But Mulan said, “I don’t want to be an official. All I want is a fast horse to take me home.”

When her mother and father heard their daughter was coming home, they went out beyond the city walls to meet her, holding each other up. When her older sister heard, she hurried to dress up at the door. When her little brother heard, he started sharpening a knife at once, ready to kill the pigs and the sheep.

Mulan went to her own room, took off her uniform, put on her old clothes, sat at the window combing her hair and did her make-up in the mirror.

Then she went out to see her comrades. They were all stunned: twelve years fighting side by side, and none of them had known Mulan was a girl!

Mulan smiled: “The male rabbit’s feet are always kicking, and the female rabbit’s eyes are always half-shut. But when two rabbits run side by side, close to the ground, who can still tell which is the male and which is the female?”

Those two rabbits later became an idiom: pūshuò mílí. Today, when a criminal case or a relationship gets too tangled to see through, Chinese people love to call it “pūshuò mílí”.