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BUTTERFLY LOVERS: THE CHINESE ROMEO AND JULIET

The title of this great folktale in Chinese is composed of the names of the two main characters -- Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai -- which is often abbreviated to Liang Zhu. Liang Shanbo was a scholar from an ordinary family, while Zhu Yingtai was the only daughter of a wealthy family.

In the Eastern Jin dynasty, women were not allowed to go to school. Yingtai tried her best to persuade her parents to send her to school, and finally was able to attend classes in disguise as a man. On her way to the school from her hometown, Yingtai met Liang Shanbo, and they became best friends. During the time studying at the same school, no one discovered Yingtai’s true identity, including her closest friend Shanbo. Yingtai soon found herself falling in love with him, but she could not express her feelings to him without revealing her secret.

Three years later, Yingtai’s family asked her to go back home. With sadness, Shanbo accompanies his “best brother” for 18 miles to see “him” off, and this famous scene in the story is called 十八里相送 (shí bā lǐ xiāng sòng.) During the long journey, Yingtai hinted that she was a woman to Shanbo several times, and even suggested that she be a matchmaker between him and her “sister”, which is Yingtai herself, but Shanbo was too blunt to discover the truth.

It was months later, when Shanbo finally realized that Yingtai was a woman. The two were extremely devoted to one another, and Shanbo decided to propose. However, Yingtai’s parents had already arranged her to marry Ma Wencai, a man from another rich family. Filled with heartbreak and regret, Shanbo became critically ill, and died soon after.

The most dramatic part of the story happens on the day of marriage, when the strangely strong winds prevent the wedding procession from passing the bridge where Shanbo's grave was. Yingtai stopped to pay her respects at his grave. Suddenly, lightning and thunder split open the grave. Unwilling to get married with anyone except for Shanbo, Yingtai jumped into his grave without hesitation. Everyone was stunned as the grave reopened, and a pair of beautiful butterflies came out and flew away together.

Source: TutorMing China Expats & Culture Blog
http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/butt...