author
jin shi 1053 Chuhou Wu
A Northern Song writer and official best remembered for compiling a lively collection of anecdotes about scholars, officials, and court life. His surviving work offers a small but vivid window into the culture and personalities of 11th-century China.
1 Audiobook
青箱雜記
by jin shi 1053 Chuhou Wu
About the author
He was a Northern Song dynasty scholar-official from Shaowu in present-day Fujian, and he passed the jinshi examination in 1053. Sources describe him as widely read and skilled in literary writing, and he went on to serve in a number of government posts.
He is most closely associated with Qingxiang zaji (Miscellaneous Records of the Green Box), a collection of notes and stories from Song-period intellectual and official life. The book is valued for its anecdotal glimpses of people, manners, and literary culture rather than for formal history alone.
Some later accounts also remember him for his involvement in political disputes of the period. Even so, his reputation today rests mainly on the work he left behind, which continues to interest readers for its mix of historical detail, personality, and everyday observation.