Zhang Guolao 张果老
Zhang Guolao rides a white donkey facing backwards and carries a bamboo "fish drum" in his hands. This is how he is depicted among the Eight Immortals. In the tales of the Tang court he is called simply Zhang Guo. Emperor Xuanzong summons the old man to his presence, questions him about immortality and even offers him the hand of a princess. Zhang Guo listens to the proposal and asks to be allowed to return home, to the mountains.
Under Empress Wu Zetian, as the Old Book of Tang recounts, Zhang Guo (張果) lived as a hermit in the Zhongtiao Mountains. Where he came from, the chronicle's compilers did not know. He himself said he was several hundred years old, and in those parts he had a reputation as a man who knew the secret of longevity. When the empress sent for him, he pretended to be dead. Later he was seen in the mountains again. Before the eyes of Emperor Xuanzong's envoy, Zhang Guo lost consciousness and for a long time could not be revived. The envoy returned with his report, and only after a fresh invitation did the hermit agree to come to Luoyang.
At court there was a man who could foretell how long anyone had left to live. Xuanzong ordered him to question Zhang Guo, but he could not even determine the guest's age. In another legend, the court Daoist Ye Fashan knows that the old man was once the spirit of a white bat. He agrees to reveal the secret after extracting from the emperor a promise to intercede for him, and barely finishes speaking before he drops dead. The emperor takes off his shoes and crown and goes himself to plead for him. Zhang Guo is angry that the Daoist gave away the secret, but in the end he pours water over him and brings him back to life.
Xuanzong bestowed an honorary title on Zhang Guo and allowed him to return to the mountains. According to the New Book of Tang, the hermit soon died, and the emperor ordered a shrine, the Qixia Guan, to be built where he had lived. Even the chronicle mentions the version that this was shijie – liberation from the body. In the legend, the disciples bury their master, and when the coffin is later opened, it turns out to be empty.
The respectful "lao" in the name Zhang Guolao means "elder." In depictions he holds a yugu – a bamboo drum with sticks, known as the "fish" drum. Of his donkey it is told that he could cover a vast distance in a day. At a rest stop the old man would fold it up like a sheet of paper and put it away in a little box. When it was time to ride again, it was enough to moisten the bundle with water.
On screen Zhang Guolao usually appears together with the other immortals, including in stories where the main characters are quite different figures. Cheung Chok-Chow played him in the Cantonese Lui Tung-Ban's Three Tricks on White Peony (1949), and Bao Fang in The Yang's Saga (1985), where the immortals appear in the story of a celebrated military family. In the Singaporean Legends of the Eight Immortals (1998) the role went to Ling Siu. In Xiao Bai Xian Qian Zhuan Zhi Xun Yao Ji (2017), Zhang Guolao is shown as a child as well. In the childhood scenes he is played by Liu Si-Qi, and the adult Zhang Guolao by Ma De-Hua.
