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I would hope that they would spend a little more time and be
accurate."
Mu Lan was not Japanese. She was a Chinese woman who lived in the
fifth century, according to Chinese archaeologists. Her grave is
(near) the city of Luoyang in the province of Henan.
To help right some of the wrongs, Hu's publishing company,
Victory Press, has published a Mu Lan gift set. The set includes
an accurately depicted Mu Lan doll, an audio cassette tape and a
fully-illustrated book that tells Mu Lan's tale in both English
and either Chinese, Vietnamese, French or Spanish.
Hu says the story of Mu Lan has been told for centuries in various
forms: oral tradition, poems and now movies and books.
Mu Lan is famous for disguising herself as a man to represent her
family in battle in place of her infirm father. She fought in bloody
campaigns for several years before she returned home. After the war,
she was summoned to the court by the emperor who wished to appoint
her to high office as a reward for her outstanding service. She
declined . . . Her former comrades didn't learn she was a woman
until much later, when they visited her at home.
Victory Press' version of the legend was written and illustrated
in Beijing by a well-known father-daughter team, Cheng An Jiang
and Wei Jiang, who have written other books about ancient China
and East Asia for the publishing house.
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