How to Be a Failure and Still Get Rich: Ling Mengzhu’s “The Tangerines and the Tortoise Shell

In the Ming Dynasty, If you weren’t born into a noble family, and weren’t on track to pass the civil service exams, you pretty much had to make something of yourself…by yourself. But if fate’s on your side, well, maybe that’s enough. In this classic vernacular short story (hua ben), a man who just never seems to have any luck finally finds some, and in the last place he ever imagined. Along the way, we get an interesting glimpse at mercantile life in ancient China, as well as an early form of Orientalism.