Theatre, Books, Games and Recreation in Ming Communities, 1368–1644

Between 1368 and 1644, people in Ming communities encountered entertainment through dramatic performance, storytelling, books, music and games. These activities did not form one uniform culture. The theatre and literary life of wealthy southern cities differed from court entertainments in Beijing, while access to reading depended on literacy and varied with social position. Some leisure was created and consumed by educated elites; printed stories and performances also reached people beyond that group.

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Theatre, music and audiences

Several dramatic forms coexisted during the Ming. Four-act zaju plays, prominent in the preceding Yuan era, continued to be written and performed. Over time, multi-act chuanqi plays, developed from southern drama traditions, became more popular. Their music changed as playwrights and performers experimented with regional styles. By the late sixteenth century, Kunshan music, or Kunqu, had become a leading accompaniment for this drama.

Kunqu took shape around Kunshan and Suzhou in the south. The musician Wei Liangfu is often credited with refining its musical style during the Ming, drawing on different regional traditions; the precise early history is not certain. Liang Chenyu’s Washing Silken Gauze helped bring the style wider attention. Kunqu joined song, spoken passages, dance and acting. A flute and plucked instruments such as the sanxian accompanied the singers, while drums and clappers marked rhythm. Performers used controlled gestures and movement to express character and meaning as well as to tell the story. Its singing and speech followed carefully developed conventions, and its performers worked within role categories such as sheng, dan, jing and chou, with more specialised divisions within them. Sheng roles were male characters, dan roles female characters, jing forceful painted-face parts and chou comic characters.

Kunqu spread beyond its southern home. During the Wanli era it gained ground across parts of the lower Yangtze region; troupes carried it north to Beijing and west to Hunan, and it reached further regions by the end of the dynasty. Regional performance could adapt to local music and speech. In Fujian, accounts also describe Kunqu in seated singing, a form that did not require a full staged play. For audiences, therefore, theatre’s music and stories could be encountered through different kinds of performance.

Performers worked in household troupes as well as professional companies. Ming household troupes included groups of girls and boys, alongside ensembles of professional actors. Plays could be written by men of letters and performed for elite audiences, while particular works by the prince Zhu Youdun were staged at court festivities, holidays and anniversaries. The government also sought to regulate dramatic representation. A decree of 1373 restricted actors from portraying rulers, their consorts, loyal courtiers and celebrated figures, except when the characters were presented as proper models. Such rules were not always enforced, but they shaped the boundaries within which plays were written and performed.

Stories and reading beyond examination study

Reading for leisure was distinct from preparation for an official career, even when the same literate people took part in both. Civil-service examinations privileged Zhu Xi’s interpretation of Neo-Confucian teaching, and from the late fifteenth century candidates had to write in the structured form known as the eight-legged essay. Fiction and colloquial drama occupied a different literary world. Classical Chinese works were most accessible to the gentry, while writing in the vernacular reached literate people with less formal education, including merchants, women from educated households and lower officials.

Storytelling helped carry plots into print. Ming novels drew on tales that had circulated among storytellers in city markets, sometimes for generations. Short narratives known as huaben and later imitations of story scripts became popular, alongside longer novels. Publishers issued individual stories, collections and new versions of older works. Woodblock illustrations helped bring visual material into books, and color book illustrations appeared in the seventeenth century. Publishers also produced practical works, from travel guides and business advice to handbooks and materials for children. Visitors from Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries remarked on the abundance and affordability of Chinese books.

Journey to the West, printed anonymously in 1592, turns a pilgrimage to obtain Buddhist scriptures into a succession of fantastic adventures. The monk Tripitaka travels with companions including the powerful, unruly Monkey King, whose battles with demons combine comic action with religious themes. Wu Cheng’en is often credited with the novel, although the attribution remains disputed. Familiar stories could thus be reshaped into an extended printed narrative.

Card play and outdoor games

Late Ming card play included madiao, a gambling game for four players. Its deck developed over time: Lu Rong described an earlier, 38-card form in the fifteenth century, while later accounts describe a 40-card pack. Detailed rules were recorded in early seventeenth-century works associated with Pan Zhiheng and Feng Menglong. These records document a particular form of play, not a single unchanging set of rules for all card games.

The recorded 40-card deck had four suits: cash, strings of coins, myriads of strings, and tens of myriads. The cash suit included cards from nine down to one, as well as half-cash and zero-cash cards; its order ran in reverse, making zero cash the highest. The other suits had nine or eleven cards each. Some cards carried figures associated with Water Margin, and ten cards bore red stamps that brought bonuses in play. Players selected a banker, agreed on stakes, shuffled and cut the pack, then dealt eight cards to each person. The eight remaining cards formed the stock.

The banker faced the other three players, who could cooperate against the bank. Play proceeded counter-clockwise, one card at a time, through eight tricks. Players did not have to follow suit: the highest card in the suit led took the trick. A player who could not or chose not to compete could discard a card face down. The aim was generally to take at least two tricks; players below that threshold paid the banker, while a banker who lost paid the eligible winners. Particular card combinations and high cards could change the stakes or determine who became banker next. The game joined chance to tactics and negotiation, with the money wagered central to its recorded scoring.

Chuiwan used clubs to strike wooden balls into holes on an outdoor course. Ming paintings show its continued appeal, while the earlier Yuan manual Wan jing explains marked starting places, varied ground and the equipment needed for play. Players had to judge the terrain and control the force and direction of a stroke. Counters recorded success, and the manual prescribed penalties for dishonest play. Competition depended on agreed starting positions and holes rather than simply hitting a ball as far as possible.

Gardens and social recreation

Private gardens provided wealthy owners with settings for receiving guests, hearing music, viewing paintings and composing poetry. Winding paths and pavilions arranged changing views of rocks, water and plants. A gathering could move between a meal, a performance and the exchange of verses, making the garden a place to display both hospitality and learning. Commercial stages, storytellers and the book market supported other encounters with entertainment.

For the wider setting, see Ming China: Food, Dress and Recreation from 1368 to 1644.