Hong lou meng: chapters 45-48, horny men, Chinese culture and poetry

1/ I like that the widow Lý Hoàn (Li Wan) is raised to be a traditional woman in Chinese society, to have a very limited education and to know her place, but she’s not depicted as all lovely, passive, and meek. The stuff she says to Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) in chapter 45 are delicious. 

2/ I’ve come across a few articles on the internet, by Chinese people or Westerners, saying that Westerners (should) read Hong lou meng to understand China and the Chinese—what they don’t say is that Hong lou meng depicts and exposes some rather ugly aspects of Chinese culture and society in the 18th century. In the previous blog post, I noted the treatment of the servants at the birthday party. Chapter 45 has a scene where a female servant kowtows to her mistress Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) for giving her husband Chu Thụy (Zhou Rui) 40 strokes by the heavy bamboo instead of firing him. Chapter 48 shows the powerlessness of normal people when facing a corrupted government official like Giả Vũ Thôn (Jia Yucun). 

3/ After showing how shitty it is to be a servant in 18th century China, Cao Xueqin goes on, in these chapters, to depict how much shittier to be a good-looking female servant, because if you are, like Uyên Ương (Yuanyang/ Faithful), some animal of a master like Giả Xá (Jia She) may want you as a concubine or a chamber-wife. Cao Xueqin lets us see that at least there’s still the matriarch of the house and there’s nothing Giả Xá (Jia She) can do while his mother Giả Mẫu (Jia Mu) is there, so that’s the good thing about hierarchy and respect for elders, but Cao also hints at the same time that Uyên Ương (Faithful) is only safe while Giả Mẫu (Jia Mu) is alive.

I like that we have seen Uyên Ương (Faithful) before, playing a prank on the old countrywoman and making fun of her, and now we see her better—the other servants are not all lovely and perfect and full of goodness like Tập Nhân (Xiren/ Aroma), Tình Văn (Qingwen/ Skybright) for example can be jealous and sarcastic, and Uyên Ương (Faithful) can be razor-sharp when she loses her temper. 

4/ It’s funny how similar Giả Xá (Jia She) and Giả Liễn (Jia Lian) are. Like father, like son. But if Giả Liễn (Jia Lian) is married to a lion named Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng), his mother Hình phu nhân (Lady Wing) is rather soft on her husband, or perhaps rather scared of him, and Giả Xá (Jia She) can do whatever he wants. 

Giả Bảo Ngọc (Jia Baoyu) is different from his father Giả Chính (Jia Zheng) however. He is more sensitive and perceptive, and to his father’s disappointment, has no interest in chasing name and reputation. His sensitivity makes me think of Genji. 

5/ Chapter 47 brings schadenfreude to anyone who dislikes Tiết Bàn (Xue Pan). Everyone, I guess. 

Interestingly, the incident with Liễu Tương Liên (Liu Xianglian) is set up in a way that it makes me think of some previous incidents: 

- The competition between Tiết Bàn (Xue Pan) himself with another man at the beginning of the novel over Chân Anh Liên (Zhen Yinglian), who is now Hương Lăng (Xiangling/ Caltrop). Note too that the avenger is Liễu Tương Liên (Liu Xianglian), sharing the same name Liên (莲 Lian) with the girl. 

- The story about Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) and Giả Thụy (Jia Rui). Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) uses brains and manipulation, Liễu Tương Liên (Liu Xianglian) manipulates then uses force.

- Giả Liễn’s (Jia Lian) affair and Giả Xá’s (Jia She) attempt to get a chamber-wife. The first one gets interrupted, the second one doesn’t get what he wants, and the third one, well… 

Tiết Bảo Thoa (Xue Baochai) is smarter and has more sense than her mother. We can see that she may not be warm or passionate but isn’t a cold, heartless bitch, and she knows her brother is wrong.  

6/ One of the things that rather bug me about Hong lou meng is that generally I don’t know how old the characters are. In these chapters, I believe that Giả Bảo Ngọc (Jia Baoyu) is about 14 according to the East Asian age reckoning, Lâm Đại Ngọc (Lin Daiyu) is about the same, Tiết Bảo Thoa (Xue Baochai) is about 15, and Giả Mẫu (Jia Mu) is not yet 75, but what about everyone else? 

So in an early chapter I saw Giả Trân (Jia Zhen) yell at his son Giả Dung (Jia Rong) and weirdly tell a servant to spit in his face, and now Giả Xá (Jia She) beats the shit out of his son Giả Liễn (Jia Lian), and my thoughts both times are “but how old is the son???”. 

7/ Like The Tale of Genji painting a vivid picture of the Heian court and describing many aspects of Japanese culture in the 10th century, Hong lou meng depicts many aspects of Chinese culture at the time such as festivities, funeral rites, cuisine, drinking games, card games, music, poetry, classic literature, painting, architecture, gardening, fashion, mythology, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and so on. 

Chapter 48 is about Chinese poetry—Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) teaches Hương Lăng (Caltrop), Cao Xueqin teaches Chinese readers. 

To learn Chinese poetry, Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) says, one must first read Vương Ma Cật or Vương Duy (Wang Wei), Đỗ Phủ (Du Fu), and Lý Bạch (Li Bai), before reading others. Guess what, nobody says old texts are irrelevant and should be replaced with contemporary works. 

8/ In chapter 48, Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) and Bảo Thoa (Baochai) are again contrasted, in the way they behave towards Hương Lăng (Caltrop) when she wishes to learn to compose poetry—Bảo Thoa (Baochai) is Sense, thinking that the girl doesn’t need poetry; Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) is Sensibility, teaching her how to read and how to write poetry because why not. They act according to their essence.