7 h 23 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a voyage to strange kingdoms makes familiar customs look absurd—and the treatment of women impossible to ignore?
In Li Ruzhen's Flowers in the Mirror, a heavenly quarrel opens a world of earthly wonders. Tang Ao loses his scholarly degree through links to people out of favor at court. He leaves official life and sails overseas with the merchant Lin Zhiyang and the seasoned sailor Duo Jiugong.
Their journey turns familiar habits upside down. In the Land of Gentlemen, bargaining becomes a contest of kindness; in the Land of Women, the roles of the sexes are reversed. Alongside these adventures, gifted young women gather through a new kind of examination, bringing questions of education, ability, and respect to the heart of the story.
What you’ll discover
- Kingdoms that unsettle Explore strange lands where ordinary customs become comic, unsettling tests of what people accept.
- Women at the center Meet gifted young women whose abilities challenge the limits placed on their education and lives.
- A scholar at sea Follow Tang Ao as he leaves official life to seek wonders and a freer existence.
- Heaven meets earthly power Enter a fairy story where Wu Zetian's command to flowers sets events in motion.
- Wit with a purpose Enjoy puzzles, games, and learned jokes woven into a serious argument for women's equality.
Who will love it
For readers who love travel fantasy, satire, and ideas about women and fairness, and anyone curious about Chinese fiction, mythical kingdoms, and gifted young women.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A winter order sends flowers to earth
- Tang Ao loses his degree and takes to the sea
- Strange lands show our own habits turned around
- In the Land of Women the roles are reversed
- The daughter searches and the women come together
- What the book argues and how it is told
Who’s who
- Tang AoA gentle scholar who loses his degree, leaves official life, and sails overseas in search of wonders and a freer way to live.
- Lin ZhiyangTang Ao's brother-in-law and a merchant, who leads the trading voyage and suffers a painful fate in the Land of Women.
- Duo JiugongAn experienced old sailor and pilot who guides the travelers and knows many tales of the seas they cross.
- Tang GuichenTang Ao's determined daughter, who takes to the road to find her father and meets the other gifted young women.
- Wu ZetianThe Tang empress whose proud command to the flowers sets the story going and whose court shapes the world of the women.
- The Spirit of the Hundred FlowersThe heavenly guardian of the flower fairies, who is blamed for the winter blooming and sent down with her companions.
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- Audiobook
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Flowers in the Mirror
by Li Ruzhen · 1827
Tang Ao sails to strange lands where familiar customs turn upside down and reveal the cruelty they conceal.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A winter order sends flowers to earth
The story opens in heaven. The Queen Mother of the West is holding a birthday feast, and the hundred flower fairies are in attendance with their guardian, the Spirit of the Hundred Flowers. Down on earth, the Empress Wu Zetian has come to rule China, and the tale takes a sharp view of a woman holding the throne. One snowy day she orders every flower in her garden to bloom at once, and she does so in a drunken moment of pride.
The flowers obey. In the normal order of things they should wait for spring, and the gods have to decide what that means. The Spirit of the Hundred Flowers, who was away and did not watch over them, is judged to have failed in her duty. As a result, the fairies are sent down into the human world to be born as girls.
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What is Flowers in the Mirror about?
It is a Chinese novel about the scholar Tang Ao, who sails to strange lands that satirize real customs, and about a group of gifted young women. It argues for fairer treatment of women.
Who wrote Flowers in the Mirror and when?
Li Ruzhen, a Qing dynasty scholar, wrote it over many years and saw it published in the 1820s. The story is set earlier, in the Tang dynasty under the Empress Wu Zetian.
What happens in the Land of Women?
It is a country where the roles of men and women are reversed. A male traveler is made to suffer the pain of foot binding, which shows readers how cruel the custom is.
The author
Li Ruzhen
1763–1830 · Chinese Qing dynasty novelist
Li Ruzhen was a Chinese writer who lived from 1763 to 1830, during the Qing dynasty. He was born in Daxing, near Beijing, and later lived in Haizhou, in what is now Jiangsu province. He wrote the novel Flowers in the Mirror, which was first published in 1827.
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