From the Imagination of Others to Self Mirror Image: The Inheritance and Development of the Overseas Legends in Flowers in the Mirror. (English)

The coastal environment of Banpu in Haizhou has an important impact on Li Ruzhen's creation of Flowers in the Mirror which is structured according to the major characters' overseas travels. Actually the author mainly used the traditional overseas legends to write his book for he never experienced what he described about the overseas countries in person. The early legends about the alien lands reflect the ancient Chinese collective imagination of the overseas peoples and implicate the cultural function of enhancing the national unification. In the book, the behavior manners of the overseas peoples are just the concentration, extractive and the parody of the general mood of society in China at that time, thus making the overseas legends change from "the imagination of others" to "the sell mirror image"; through this transformation, the author criticized the society and expressed his political idea, thus greatly enriching the cultural function of legends of this type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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