Girl Power

In preparation for my summer immersion in China, I decided to brush up on my listening skills by watching a TV adaptation of the Chinese novel 红楼梦，also known as “A Dream of Red Mansions.” Written by Cáo Xuěqín sometime in the 18^th century, it chronicles the (mis)fortunes of the wealthy Jia family I think during the Qing dynasty. Given that the novel is one of the four great written Chinese classics, I hope to read it sometime in the future and appreciate its literary beauty. But with my current limited Chinese knowledge, I will settle for this adaptation. Perhaps after the summer I will give it a shot.

One thing that struck me about this novel was the abundance of female characters. I assumed that because Confucius was an important philosophical figure in Chinese history, he inevitably colored later novels and stories with his particular view of things. Although I know very little of Confucius teachings, the one thing I do know is that they are overwhelmingly misogynist—one famous saying of his that we learned in class was 女子无才便是德，which roughly means “a woman without ability is virtuous”. Essentially women are supposed to obediently serve the various men throughout each stage in life, from father to husband to son. But it seems I have overestimated the importance of Confucious teachings at least in this work.

In 红楼梦, the only permanent main male character is Jia Baoyu, who is portrayed in the beginning as a very silly and temperamental boy. Although I have only watched 7 out of 36 episodes, it is very apparent that the households are largely matriarchal, with strong females running the family affairs. However, these strong females are very much within a specific context—they have bound feet, they are kept in the house and never venture beyond the gates into the city, and they often speak in a roundabout manner to get at a point. Especially in the presence of men they like, the women take on coy and annoyingly high-pitched voices—perhaps this is just an adaptation present in the tv series that is absent from the novel. Particularly irksome is Lin Daiyu, who goes into a passive sulk whenever Jia Baoyu so much as speaks to another female. However, for the most part, especially in the character of Wang Xifeng, women efficiently exercise command within a domestic context.

It is refreshing to see females play such important and traditionally male-dominated roles in a classic Chinese novel. This pleasant surprise reminds me of the lesson in which we learned about 秋瑾，a radical female revolutionary who attempted to overthrow the corrupt Qing Empire. In a culture which seems to value boys much more than girls, it is nice to see some resilient female leaders.