红楼梦, or Dream of the Red Chamber

One of the five classes I took as part of the Yale-PKU program this semester was "Dream of the Red Chamber," a class that was literally devoted to the reading and discussion of one book. I'm sure you can guess the title. This book, 红楼梦 Hónglóumèng aka Dream of the Red Chamber aka Story of the Stone, is said to be one of China's greatest and most defining literary works (think of what the Shakespeare canon is to Great Britain).

Growing up in Nebraska and only recently having taken an interest in Chinese culture, I had absolutely no inkling of the importance of this book in China, or to the Chinese people. But now, four months after having started the book, I am officially part of the 红学 hóngxué (Redology) club (Redology being the study of this book).

Just kidding. There IS a club on campus dedicated to the study of this book, but I don't think I'll be joining. Reading this book has been enough. I admit, I skipped some chapters here and there, and maybe some of the longer and less understandable sections of poetry, but still, getting through 120 chapters on the lives of over 400 characters was mentally exhausting. You see, one of the reasons this book is so famous is because it is so incredibly long and complicated.


Anyway, what I really wanted to blog about was the value of what I have learned through this class, especially in the historical context of learning about Chinese civilization. I'm currently writing a paper on one of the lesser characters, Grannie Liu, as my final paper for this class, and its incredible going back through this book and thinking about what China must have been like back in the mid-1700s. First of all, society was amazingly complicated, especially as you got further and further up the ladder of hierarchy. With all the wives and concubines and cousins and maids floating around, as well as extended family in general, it's amazing everyone could keep everyone else's names straight. Furthermore, I made a comment in a previous post about the complications of modern Japanese formality, but now I think I'd like to see modern Japanese and old Chinese formality go head to head. Chinese formality at the time seemed to be heavily aided by Confucian thought about how to regulate one's life and interactions with others (Note: separate post on Confucianism forthcoming). What's more, I have a better feel now from where modern Chinese society evolved, or at least Beijing society. I learned about the fabrics they used, the materials and trinkets they valued, and the food they liked to eat.

Finally, I learned that the Chinese really, really, really like to manipulate their language. 成语，惯用语，and 歇后语 aside (idioms, turns of phrase, and allegorical sayings, respectively), the characters in the novel place a high premium on cleverly arranging characters to craft creative verses of poetry or name auspicious locations. I mean, they even make a drinking game of it. Although my lack of Chinese fluency didn't allow me to appreciate the verses as well as I should, I still admired the seriousness with which the characters took their literacy. It's sadly ironic that such creativity was so valued in schoolchildren then, but now it's one's skill in rote memorization that is rewarded.

As I really should be writing an actual academic paper on this book, I'm going to close now with my happiness on having committed to this class. It's a struggle, but it's a struggle well worth it. 加油！