Pinghua (评话) was originally referred to the performance art of story-telling in which the performer told the story without any singing or musical accompaniment. It became very popular in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Later, the content of those stories were recorded in writing and this is how vernacular fiction came into being. In the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), the term pinghua was used to refer to vernacular records of stories with historical themes. By the Ming (1368-1644) and the Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, it came to refer to vernacular stories irrespective of theme. Pinghua mainly targeted at ordinary people living in urban areas. It mostly mirrors the vicissitudes of their life with a simple vernacular language. Differing from the poems and articles of officials and scholars, it speaks for the ordinary people and depicts their psychological aspects. Pinghua has high literary and artistic values. Stories to Enlighten Men (喻世明言), Stories to Warn Men (警世通言) and Stories to Awaken Men (醒世恆言), Amazing Tales (拍案惊奇) and Amazing Tales, Second Series (二刻拍案惊奇) (the five are jointly referred to as “Three Story Collections and Two Series of Amazing Tales”三言二拍) are the five most famous collections of vernacular short stories of the Ming Dynasty. Many stories from them have been translated into many languages shortly after the collections were published. The twenty stories in this collection were selected from the above mentioned five collections. They were translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang.
