SHENYANG - An 800-year-old manuscript of "The Romance of the West Chamber," one of China's most popular love dramas, is to be put on display in Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning province.
The manuscript, discovered in Tatirang, a village in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, is one of the earliest copies of the story. It was found in 1986 by a herdsman, along with 27 other documents.
"The Romance of the West Chamber" is about a young scholar and the daughter of a minister, who fell in love without parental approval. Written by Wang Shifu, a playwright of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), it is recognized as a plea for freedom of marriage in a time when marriages were always arranged.
Bai Wenyu, curator of the Shenyang Palace Museum, told Xinhua that Tatirang was once a Yuan city on a busy traffic line. "From the documents we can deduce that soldiers came from distant Shaanxi province. They read this book to kill time and quench their homesickness."
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263 Registration Number: 130349 
