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Ching Shih
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Ching Shih (simplified Chinese: 郑氏; traditional Chinese: 鄭氏; pinyin: Zhèng Shì; Cantonese: Jihng Sih), also known as Zheng Yi Sao (lit. "wife of Zheng Yi") (simplified Chinese: 郑一嫂; traditional Chinese: 鄭一嫂; pinyin: Zhèng Yī Sǎo; Cantonese: Jihng Yāt Sóu), was a prominent female pirate in late Qing China. As Ching Shih engaged in illicit activities throughout her life and prospered in this way, little is known about her early life, including her date of birth. In 1801, she was working as a prostitute on one of Canton's floating brothels, and later that year she married Zheng Yi, the notorious Chinese pirate. Zheng Yi belonged to a family of successful pirates who traced their criminal origins all the way back to the mid-seventeenth century. Following his marriage to Ching Shih, Zheng Yi used military assertion and his family's reputation to gather a coalition of competing Cantonese pirate fleets into an alliance. By 1804, this coalition was a formidable force, and one of the most powerful pirate fleets in all of China.
In 1807, Zheng Yi died, and the "Widow Ching" (as she has been referred to by some) maneuvered her way into his leadership position. At that point, the fleet under her command had established hegemony over many coastal villages, in some cases even imposing levies and taxes on settlements. In the words of Robert Antony, Ching Shih "robbed towns, markets, and villages, from Macao to Canton." [1] She ended her career in 1810, accepting an amnesty offer from the Chinese Government. She kept her loot, married Chang Pao and opened a gambling house. She died in 1844, at the age of 69. [1]
A semi-fictionalized account of Ching Shih's piracy appeared in Jorge Luis Borges's short story The Widow Ching, Lady Pirate (part of A Universal History of Infamy, first edited in 1954), where she is described as "a lady pirate who operated in Asian waters, all the way from the Yellow Sea to the rivers of the Annam coast", and who, after surrendering to the imperial forces, is pardoned and allowed to live the rest of her life as an opium smuggler. Borges acknowledged the 1932 book The History of Piracy, by Philip Gosse (grandson of the naturalist Philip Henry Gosse), as the source of the tale. [2]
In 2003, Ermanno Olmi made a film, Singing Behind Screens, loosely based on Borges's retelling, though rights problems prevented the Argentine writer from appearing in the credits. [3] [4]
The movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End depicts a "Mistress Ching" as one of the nine pirate lords. This character seems likely to have been inspired by Ching Shih, even though the film is set over a century before she lived.
Afterlife (manga) an OEL graphic novel (2006) depicts Ching Shih as a Guardian who fights demons to protect the denizens of the underworld.
- ^ Antony, Robert. Like Froth Floating on the Sea: The world of pirates and seafarers in Late Imperial South China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
- ^ Borges, Jorge Luis. A Universal History of Infamy. Dutton, 1972.
- ^ Cantando dietro i paraventi at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Variety, 23 October 2003. Singing Behind Screens.