The Eight Immortals are among the most popular folk figures in China. They also represent a powerful message of inclusion.

Originating out of ancient Daoist tales of regular men and women who became immortal, the group shares adventures, often pictured traveling together on a large boat. What is of greatest interest here is how the eight represent different aspects of traditional Chinese society.

Some of the immortals represent groups in their mortal lives we might expect to see represented in medieval China. Zhang Guolao was both a magician and an elderly recluse. Cao Guojiu was a military man and a calculating member of the imperial court.  Zhongli Quan was an alchemist who discovered the elixir of life. Lu Dongbin was a teacher.  Lu’s favorite student was a young man named Han Xiangzi who also played the flute.

But there are also surprising inclusions. Tieguai Li had a disability and walked with a crutch. He Xiangu was a young woman, remarkable to be present at all in male society. And most curious of all was the eccentric Lan Caihe, who danced with one shoe off and one shoe on. Part trickster and contrary, Lan Caihe is thought to represent the poor and the mentally ill. His androgyny (more on that very soon) suggests he may well represent a queer presence in Chinese society as well.

Tieguai Li

Chinese names can seem forbidding to American readers. Tieguai means “iron crutch” in Chinese, so a more accessible way of referring to this beloved figure is as Iron Crutch Li.

 A Daoist adept, the rather handsome Li Hsuan had learned how to have his soul leave his body. On one occasion, Li had his spirit travel to a sacred mountain to hear the Daoist master, Laozi, lecture. Given that Laozi had not walked the earth for centuries, this was an opportunity Li could not resist. Li told the servant who he asked to watch his body that if he didn’t return in seven days, he should burn his body. But after six days, the servant learned his mother was very ill. Torn between loyalty to his mother and his master, the servant cremated Li’s body and left to go to her.

When Li’s spirit returned, he couldn’t find his own body and had to take possession of a beggar’s body who had recently died. The only problem was that one of the beggar’s legs was badly withered, requiring the use of a crutch, and the beggar’s eyes bulged in an unattractive fashion.

Li was naturally quite upset until Laozi appeared to him and reminded him that physical appearance didn’t matter. Thereafter, Li maintained a remarkable good humor and was always ready to help out those who were in distress. Li possessed a magic gourd that he slept in at night, and he could fly through the air or surf the waves of the ocean on the magic iron crutch Laozi gave to him. Little wonder that Iron Crutch Li one of their favorite immortals.

Li is a patron of beggars, the disabled and those who suffer physical distress. Given that his gourd is full of helpful medicines, Li is also the patron of pharmacists.

The Woman of the Eight Immortals: He Xiangu

To the modern reader, it will seem anything but inclusive that the Eight Immortals only include one woman in their group, He Xiangu. But in actuality, given the middle ages that these tales originated, it actually was a gesture of inclusion. Xiangu means “immortal goddess” in Chinese, so her name is in essence He, Immortal Goddess.

There are various versions of how He became immortal, all of which involve her eating less and less. To the modern ear, this evokes images of anorexia, but in an era when food was sometimes in short supply, this should not be taken as a sign of an eating disorder, but rather a sign of asceticism.

The most charming of the tales is something of a Cinderella story. Her mother died when she was just a baby and her father remarried, but then passed away as well. He’s stepmother was a cruel woman and worked her all day and night, providing her with very little food. One day a group of seven beggars came by, and even though He knew it would mean a beating, she fed them all, doling out each meal in a bowl with a soup ladle. The seven beggars, of course, were the immortals in disguise and they granted her immortality for her act of kindness. As such He Xiangu became the final immortal of the group. He Xiangu is portrayed holding that soup ladle or, alternatively, a lotus, with which she can cure illnesses.

A few more modern renditions of the Eight Immortals have portrayed Lan Caihe as the second woman in the group. But making Lan Caihe into a woman robs the figure of an intriguing gender ambiguity. It is little wonder that some modern gay men in China have claimed Lan as their patron. His is the most complicated legend and the task of unpacking it is taken up next.

A Man Who Doesn’t Know How to be a Man

Lan Caihe (rendered Lan Tsai-ho in older English texts) is typically portrayed in a tattered blue robe with one shoe off and one shoe on. He is shown either playing the flute, or carrying a basket of flowers. Though he has undergone a number of metamorphoses through the centuries, elements of androgyny in his legend have persisted through most of them.

Lan Caihe has been variously identified as a man, a woman, and a hermaphrodite. Perhaps the most telling description of all was offered by one Chinese historian who commented that, though Lan Caihe was a man, “he could not understand how to be a man.”

The earliest references to Lan Caihe appear to lack this sexual ambiguity. During the Southern Tang Dynasty, circa tenth century CE, Lan was characterized as a middle-aged man wearing a tattered robe, with one foot booted and one foot bare. Even then, he had many characteristics of a contrary (doing the opposite of a “normal” person), adding padding to his robe to sleep during warm summer nights and lying in the snow in only a thin gown during the winter, his breath like steam in the cold air. He would often entertain young and old alike with his jade castanets and quick wit.

Though Lan seemed a fool, frequently drunk and laughing at every question that was asked of him, he was in fact quite wise. He sang many songs praising the wisdom of the immortals, one of them lamenting the rapid passing of life. If people gave him money, he strung it on a string that he dragged behind him. Often the string would break, all of his coins going to the poor.

One day, while Lan Caihe was drinking at a tavern, a crane descended from the heavens to the sound of flutes. Without a word, Lan climbed atop the crane, the two flying up into the sky.

Unlike many of the other immortals, Lan doesn’t seem to be based on any specific historical individual. One theory is that he may have been based on Northern refugees that fled to the south after the fall of the Tang Dynasty. Such refugees probably dressed poorly and may well have sang for their money. Lan’s contrary aspects, however, suggest a deeper archetypal origin.

Lan Caihe and Actors who Dress as Women

The sexual ambiguity of Lan Caihe appears to have emerged with the increasing popularity of plays about the Eight Immortals. Lan wore women’s clothes, speaking with a man’s voice, as early as the Ch’ing Dynasty. In Chinese theatre, men often played women’s parts, given the restrictions of female access in everyday life. Men specializing in women’s parts were called tan actors.

The small acting troupes that put on plays throughout the countryside of China were limited to the number of actors they had available. Given the small number of female parts in the immortal dramas (as noted, there was only one undisputed female immortal, He Xiangu), tan actors would act out the part of Lan. Because the tan actors were more accustomed with female gestures, Chinese scholar       Grady speculates that the theatrical figure of Lan Caihe became increasingly feminine, until some came to identify Lan as a young girl. But the whole matter seems to be more subversive than that. John Ferguson notes that in plays, Lan “wears the clothes of a woman and talks with the voice of a man.” (p. 123). It appears that the sexual transgressive nature of the immortal was highlighted rather than disguised.

All of this begs the question of why tan actors began taking the part of Lan Caihe. It may be Lan’s already established contrary qualities drew the cross-dressing actors to the part in the first place. Tan actors were frequently sought for sexual liaisons by admiring male audiences. It may be that Lan was meant to represent another aspect of the diversity of Chinese culture, in the then familiar figure of the cross-dressing male actor, or more broadly, a man feminine by nature.

A Yuan Dynasty play entitled Lan Caihe, written around the 14th century, lends some support to this notion. Here, the title refers to the name of a medicine, while the hero of the piece was named Hsu Chien. Hsu worked at a brothel, although there was no indication from the description of the play that he was a tan actor. By the end of the play, Lan became an immortal.

Lan Caihe: Then and Now

There are numerous tales of the Eight Immortals, both as individuals and as a group. One of the more famous group tales features their journey across the Eastern Sea to attend the birthday celebration of Xiwangmu, Queen of the Immortals. Deep beneath the surface of the water, a dragon prince became enamored of the light reflecting off of Lan Caihe’s jade clappers. The dragon prince proceeded to take both Lan and his clappers captive. Only the intercession of Guan Yin, goddess of mercy, was able to put a stop to the resulting war between the dragons and the immortals.

All of this may give some clues as to how Lan Caihe was transformed from a middle-aged beggar to a sexually ambiguous young man. Once his youthful appearance was established a further confusion occurred. Han Xiangzi was a young student who gained the power to make flowers grow once he became an immortal. As such, Han was frequently portrayed with a basket of flowers. However, the Chinese word for basket sounds like lan. As such, the image of a young man with a basket became identified as Lan Caihe, and, by default, the image of a youth playing a flute with Han.

It is the figure with the flute who retains a sexually ambiguous quality even today. Many modern visualizations of the flute-playing immortal show him with only one knot of hair atop his head, in the fashion of a young woman, even though he is clearly portrayed as male. The young man with the flower basket is portrayed with two knots of hair, one each on either side of his head, the traditional style of young men.

Despite his contrary behavior, Lan Caihe is clearly not insane. A character from a Ming Dynasty play observed that it is the pursuit of money that is crazy, not making music with long castanets. “Whenever you meet the old man with the blue robe,” the character advises, “dance with him awhile in the spring wind.”

The Eight Immortals’ Spirit of Inclusiveness

Many of the stories of the Eight Immortals engender a sense of wonder and compassion in those that hear them. A tale of Lan Caihe, delightfully drawn in the graphic novel, The 8 Immortals, conveys this spirit admirably. One morning, a large lumbering young man named Zhu Zi finds a sleeping Lan Caihe shivering in the snow. Zhu Zi carries him inside and offers him food, but Lan prefers wine!

Later that day, Lan watches as Zhu Zi plays with a group of children, only to find that their parents don’t approve. It emerges that Zhu Zi is mentally slow and adults fear that his condition might be contagious. Knowing Zhu Zi’s exemplary heart, Lan sets out to change all that.

As it happens, the village in which he lives is vexed by their inability to build a bridge over the river that borders it. The river is inhabited by a monstrous fish that swallows up their every effort. Lan disguises himself as Zhu Zi and offers to build the bridge. Zhu Zi is horrified, but with Lan’s help, Zhu Zi defeats the monster and builds a magnificent bridge made out of jade from Lan’s clappers.

Thereafter, Zhu Zi is accepted and respected by all the villagers.

In our current fractured culture, where half of the population sees the other half as irreparably wrongheaded, the task of all of us is to find stories that build a bridge to a place of community where people of good heart are universally accepted. The Eight Immortals shine a light on one such way.

Mark Carlson-Ghost

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

References

Chan, K. S. (1996). The 8 Immortals, tr. by K. K. Kiang. Singapore: Asiapac Books.

Chao, Ching-shen (1975). An analysis of the Eight Immortals. Echo, 5 (2/3), 80-81.

Ferguson, John (19   ). Chinese mythology. Mythology of All Nations, Vol. 8: Chinese and Japanese Mythology, pp. 123-24.

Grady, Diane (1975). Legends of the Eight Immortals. Echo, 5 (2/3), 29-32, 37-40, 45-48, 96.

Werner, E. T. C. (1932/1994). Chinese Myths and Legends. London: Dover, pp. 214-16, 293, 303-04.

Wong, E. (2001). Tales of the Taoist Immortals. Boston: Shambhala Publications.