Kingston's talk-story about Fa Mu Lan is derived from a classical Chinese folk story about a woman named Mu-lan. Anonymously written in the fifth or sixth century by a Chinese poet, "The Ballad of Mu-lan" sketchily details how Mu-lan, about whose deeds many different versions have since been composed, fights in place of her father when he is drafted into the emperor's army. After the war ends, Mu-lan returns home to her family and resumes her normal life.
The scarcity of detail in the many versions of Mu-lan's story is markedly different than in Kingston's revision of the tale. For example, one version of "The Ballad of Mu-lan" begins with the folk heroine volunteering to fight in place of her father, whereas Kingston details Fa Mu Lan's education as a woman warrior; Fa Mu Lan has an older brother who replaces his father in the first round of army conscription, but Mu-lan has no older brother so must go in place of her father when the army first drafts him; and Kingston's woman warrior fights against the emperor, but Mu-lan fights for him.
The greatest similarity between Mu-lan and Kingston's Fa Mu Lan is that each heroine returns home after fighting and assumes her traditionally female duties. In one version of "The Ballad of Mu-lan," when the folk heroine, who is weaving at the beginning of the poem, comes home from fighting, the first thing she does is remove her "wartime gown" and put her "old-time clothes" back on, an act that symbolizes that she will resume her duties as a daughter in the household. In Kingston's talk-story, in which Fa Mu Lan marries and has a son, the woman warrior conforms to Chinese custom by going to live with her husband in his family's home. Kneeling at her parents-in-law's feet, she tells them, "I will stay with you, doing farmwork and housework, and giving you more sons."
Whether or not Kingston personally sees herself as Fa Mu Lan has been hotly debated in recent criticism. Is she the woman warrior? Much of the confusion occurs because Kingston initially believes that she first heard the Fa Mu Lan story only after she became an adult, but then she remembers that she and her mother used to sing about the woman warrior when she was yet a child. "After I grew up," Kingston writes, "I heard the chant of Fa Mu Lan, the girl who took her father's place in battle. Instantly, I remembered that as a child I followed my mother about the house, the two of us singing about how Fa Mu Lan fought gloriously and returned alive from war to settle in the village."
