section_path: Defining the genre/East Asian definition
section_name: East Asian definition
paragraph_text: East Asian definition
  
  East Asian countries, like China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan, use the word 小說 (pinyin: xiǎoshuō), which literally means "small talks", to refer to works of fiction of whatever length. In Chinese, Japanese and Korean cultures, the concept of novel as it is understood in the Western world was (and still is) termed as "long length small talk" (長篇小說), novella as "medium length small talk" (中篇小說), and short stories as "short length small talk" (短篇小說). However, in Vietnamese culture, the term 小說 exclusively refers to 長篇小說 (long-length small talk), i.e. standard novel, while different terms are used to refer to novella and short stories.
  
  Such terms originated from ancient Chinese classification of literature works into "small talks" (tales of daily life and trivial matters) and "great talks" ("sacred" classic works of great thinkers like Confucius). In other words, the ancient definition of "small talks" merely refers to trivial affairs, trivial facts, and can be different from the Western concept of novel. According to Lu Xun, the word "small talks" first appeared in the works of Zhuang Zhou, which coined such word. Later scholars also provided a similar definition, such as Han dynasty historian Ban Gu, who categorized all the trivial stories and gossips collected by local government magistrates as "small talks". Hồ Nguyên Trừng classified his memoir collection Nam Ông mộng lục as "small talks" clearly with the meaning of "trivial facts" rather than the Western definition of novel. Such classification also left a strong legacy in several East Asian interpretations of the Western definition of “novel” at the time when Western literature was first introduced to East Asian countries. For example, Thanh Lãng and Nhất Linh classified the epic poems such as The Tale of Kiều as "novel", while Trần Chánh Chiếu emphasized the "belongs to the commoners", "trivial daily talks" aspect in one of his work.