Dream of the Red Chamber: Commentary

Manuscripts

This includes all handwritten copies of Dream of the Red Chamber. Most of these include commentary in red, which is the famous 脂硯齋 (Zhiyanzhai, or red inkstone) commentary. None of these are original manuscripts; they are all copies of copies.

1754 甲戌本 Jiaxu manuscript

Purchased by Hu Shi in 1927; is now at Cornell university
Chapters 1-8, 13-16, and 25-28; original probably had 80 chapters.
Most copies we have are black and white. A color version was printed in Taiwan in 1961 but is rare.

1759 己卯本 Jimao manuscript

Held in National Library of China, Beijing
Originally 41 chapters with 13 recovered later for a total of 54 chapters (this is confusing, I know)

1760 庚辰本 Gengchen

In Peking University library
78 chapters survive; chapters 64 and 67 are missing, and chapters 17 and 18 are unseparated
This is the most complete “zhi commentary” version and is the basis for most of the modern critical versions of the novel
This one is the reason why you see chapters 17 and 18 combined in official published editions of the book.

戚序本 Qi-Preface

Manuscripts that contain a preface by Qi Liaosheng (戚蓼生) who was a scholar-official in the 18^th century
This includes all 80 chapters with integrated commentary
These were the earliest manuscripts to reach the public, going back to a photographic reproduction in 1911.
There are numerous versions of this manuscript out there, which can be pretty confusing. The thing they all have in common is the Qi Liaosheng preface.

蒙府本 Mongol Prince Mansion

Found in a Mongol Prince palace in the 1960s
120 chapters, but the last 40 chapters are unique
The final 40 chapters are usually considered a later patchwork and are likely not a Cao Xueqin original
Some variants in first 80 chapters

列藏本 Leningrad

Found in Leningrad in the 1960s; brought to China in the 1980s for study
78 chapters with some commentary but less than other manuscripts
Also has some unique readings
Seems to have gone from China to Russia sometime in the 1830s.

梦稿本 Dream

Owned by Qing dynasty scholar Yang jizhen (楊繼振); he got it sometime in the 19^th century
120 chapters
First 80 chapters seem to be a printed-style text
Last 40 chapters have traces of a revised draft
Could this be an earlier version of what Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E were working on?

楊藏本 The Yang Manuscript

This seems to have originally been published in 1973. This is a 120 chapter manuscript covered with deletions and so forth.

南圖本 The “Nanjing Library” version

Probably came from sometime in the middle of the 19^th century, kind of hard to tell
Includes Zhiyanzhai commentaries and the Qi Liaosheng preface

1784 甲辰本 Jiachen

Dated 1784 in the text
80 chapters
Includes a preface by Mengjuezhuren (夢覺主人)
Shows some editorial interventions, and seems to be a textual bridge

1789 舒序本 Shu-Preface

Dated 1789
Only 40 chapters
With preface by Shu Yuwei (舒元煒)

郑藏本 Zheng Zang Ben

Chapter 23 only
Discovered in Zheng Zhenduo’s collection

卞藏本 Bian Zang Ben

10 chapters that surfaced in 2006
Some people think this is a modern fake

Printed Versions

There are hundreds of different printed versions of Dream of the Red Chamber, probably because the text itself is not under copyright. It’s common to see random editions spring up from small and somewhat bizarre publishing companies in random parts of China. Some of these use font sizes that are so small that the text is literally unreadable.

I like to collect these different versions. However, the list below includes only the major variants that I am aware of rather than including every single different possible permutation of the book.

1791 程甲本 Cheng Jia edition

First completed and printed 120 chapter edition
Lots of differences from the old manuscripts with red ink commentary
Includes preface in which Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan explain that the final 40 chapters were reconstructed based on different manuscripts.
This was the most popular version of the text until 1927; almost all easily accessible versions were this text.

1792 程乙本 Cheng Yi edition

Revised edition that formed the base of the most popular version of this book in the 20^th century
Most changes in this version came to the final 40 chapters.
Includes additional preface note with more explanation about the provenance of the final 40 chapters; Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan claim that they found better quality original manuscripts of these chapters, but offer no real provenance information or explanation.
This is generally considered the popular version of the novel to this day; chances are that your Chinese grandparents read this version.

三家評本 19^th century commentary version

Includes three different commentators: Wang Xilian (王希廉), Zhang Xinzhi (張新之), and Yao Xie
This is what basically cemented the Cheng-Gao base in the understanding of this novel.
These commentaries did not take into consideration any manuscripts, which were difficult to find and very obscure.

Yadong Editions 亞東版

Published by Yadong Library in Shanghai
Prefaces by Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu
1921 edition was the Cheng Yi edition with Hu Shi’s preface; this is what turned the novel into a modern printed book
1927 edition was this version with further revisions and used the 1792 text as the base.
This is the version most prominent in the Republic of China era

1953 作家出版社 Zuojia Chubanshe

First standardized popular edition in the PRC

1957 人民文学出版社 Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe

Base text with the Cheng Yi veresion
Includes a preface by that reflects the orthodox Marxist interpretation
This was the standard text for two decades, though there was a period between 1966 and 1971 or so when Dream of the Red Chamber was not allowed to be sold in stores.
Includes explanatory footnotes for difficult to understand characters

1982 人民文学出版社 Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe

The first 80 chapters here are based on the Gengchen manuscript primarily
This is where they started combining chapters 17 and 18
This instantly became the standard version in China
This is basically the most important version of the novel since the Yadong Editions, and marked a major scholarly shift towards the manuscripts.

1983 紅樓夢校注 Taipei version

Also uses the Gengchen manuscript for the first 80 chapters, but with parts of the Leningrad manuscript
This is the scholarly version in Taiwan
Note, however, that it’s much easier to find versions of the 1792 text in Taiwan through publishers like 三民書局.

When The Text Is As Interesting As The Book

Daniel Evensen — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 02:03:41 GMT

When The Text Is As Interesting As The Book

It’s a little bit late in coming, but I finally finished up a quick overview of the history of the text of Dream of the Red Chamber:

This is what we’d normally call “higher criticism,” which refers to criticism that focuses on the text itself. “Lower criticism” is more like what you read on this blog every day - that involves reading the commonly accepted text and arguing incessantly about what it means.

Of course, the problem with Dream of the Red Chamber is that analysis of the text itself brings with it a lot of assumptions and complications, including some things that can be really difficult to understand.

The other problem is that it’s really not easy to find copies of all these various manuscript variants and the various versions that have been published over the years.

I have my ways, however, and have slowly been piecing together a pretty comprehensive collection of all of this stuff.

Soon - in fact, hopefully by the end of this week - I’ll have a major update to the files area of this site with a bunch of helpful files. These will include:

Published translations in multiple languages (basically as much as I can find)

All Chinese editions of the book I’ve been able to come across, including manuscripts and printed copies

Numerous commentary books and articles that have come up over the years

And more!

Of course, collecting all the books is one thing. Actually reading them is another. But we’ve got time on our hands. Stay tuned as I slowly start working through the world of commentaries.

Late Spring?

Daniel Evensen — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 10:42:14 GMT

Late Spring?

A friend of mine had a question after reading yesterday’s poem.

The question revolves around these two lines:

軟襯三春草，柔拖一縷香。

They softly contrast with the late spring grass,
Gently leaving a single sweet scent.

In particular - should we call 三春 “late spring,” or something else?

First of all, you need to realize that the phrase 三春 always has a deeper meaning in Dream of the Red Chamber. The character 春 here refers to the names of the four Jia family “sisters:” Jia Yuanchun, Jia Yingchun, Jia Tanchun, and Jia Xichun.

We were actually introduced to this way back in chapter 2, though it’s easy to forget:

雨村道：「更妙在甄家風俗：女兒之名亦皆從男子之名，不似別人家另外用這些『春』『紅』『香』『玉』等豔字。何得賈府亦落此俗套？」子興道：「不然。只因現今大小姐是正月初一所生，故名元春，餘者都從了『春』字。上一輩的卻也是從弟兄而來的。現有對證：目今你貴東家林公的夫人即榮府中赦政二公的胞妹，在家時名喚賈敏。不信時，你回去細訪可知。」

“What’s even more remarkable,” remarked Yucun, “is the naming custom in the Zhen family. Their daughter’s names follow the same pattern as their son’s names. They’re not like the other households, which insist on gaudy names like ‘spring,’ ‘red,’ ‘fragrant,’ or ‘jade.’ How could the Jia family stoop to such vulgar customs?”
“It’s not like that,” replied Zixing. “It’s only because their oldest daughter was born on the first day of the New Year. That’s why they called her ‘Primordial Spring,’ or ‘Yuanchun.’ The others just followed with the same ‘Spring’ character [Chun]. The daughters of the previous Jia generation, however, did follow the naming pattern of their brothers. Here’s the proof: the wife of your employer, Master Lin, is the full younger sister of the Rong mansion’s Jia She and Jia Zheng. She was named Jia Min. If you don’t believe me, ask them yourself when you go back.”

In general, the phrase 三春 refers to the three remaining Jia family sisters, now that Jia Yuanchun is part of the Imperial harem.

Now, there are actually two different ways to think about 三春. One is “the three springs,” or the three girls with “Chun” in their name, as I described above. And the other way is to think about the three different time periods within spring.

These time periods are pretty easy to understand. You’ve got 初春, or the first part of spring; 仲春, or the middle part of spring, and 暮春, or the late part of spring.

Now, you can assign numbers to each of those. If you were to use numbers to differentiate the different time periods within spring, then 三春 would naturally be the same as 暮春, or “late spring.” That’s how I translated 三春 in yesterday’s poem.

I’ve used the same translation approach when we came across 三春 in the past, too. See this post, for instance:

三春爭及初春景？虎兔相逢大夢歸。

Can the late spring rival the first dawn of spring?
When the tiger meets the rabbit, the great dream is done.

In this poem, the assocation between 三春 (the third spring, late spring, or whatever) and 暮春 (late spring) is obvious. It’s written in direct contrast to 初春. And there’s a really good chance that this poem refers to one of the three Jia sisters.

However, there are also times where 三春 really can’t be translated as “late spring.” Take this, for example:

將那三春看破，桃紅柳綠待如何？

As she sees through the splendor of the three springs,
She wonders what use the reds and greens of spring are.

In this case, 三春 absolutely needs to refer to all three of the periods of spring, rather than only the last one. Note as well the reference to the colors green and red, which is something that we’ve seen come up pretty frequently in chapters 17 and 18.

There’s also a poem where 三春 is almost impossible to translate to English:

勘破三春景不長，緇衣頓改昔年妝。
可憐繡戶侯門女，獨臥青燈古佛旁！

Clearly seeing that the spring won’t last forever,
She suddenly changed into dark robes.
What a shame that this daughter of wealth
Now sleeps alone by the dim lamp of an ancient Buddha!

I’m really not sure what to do with 三春 here, unless we translate it as “late spring” again. This one is a head scratcher.

Anyway, in the poem we saw yesterday, 三春 is mentioned in connection with an actual place. While it very likely refers to the three Jia sisters, the context of the visual image makes the most sense if we simply call it “late spring,” and not something like “the three springs:”

蘅蕪滿靜苑，蘿薜助芬芳。
軟襯三春草，柔拖一縷香。

Wild ginger fills the quiet courtyard,
The climbing vines add their fragrance.
They softly contrast with the late spring grass,
Gently leaving a single sweet scent.

Of course, if you think about what this poem represents, it’s pretty clear that it refers to a girl whose appearance and beauty sets herself apart from the three Chun sisters.

I’ll also note in my own defense that both David Hawkes and the Yangs struggle with this passage. Hawkes translates it as “summer” for some bizarre reason:

Fragrance of flower-drifts in these quiet confines
Mingles with headier scents of eglantines,
And summer’s herbs in a soft, spicy bed
Their aromatic perfumes subtly spread.

The Yangs at least call it “spring,” but they seem to get the picture completely wrong:

Alpinia fills the courtyard free from dust,
By climbing fig its fragrance reinforced;
Softly they heighten the fresh green of spring,
Gently they trail their perfume, ring on ring.

Anyway, I’d love to know what you think about all of this!

What’s Going On?

Daniel Evensen — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:03:18 GMT

What’s Going On?

Okay - it’s time to start digging.

Yesterday’s poem is confusing. If you have no idea what in the world is going on, don’t feel bad. Join the club.

Let’s back up a little bit and see if we can figure this out together.

Propriety and Emotion

Daniel Evensen — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:03:21 GMT

Propriety and Emotion

Normally this would be a post for paid subscribers only. However, the poems by Xue Baochai and Lin Daiyu are quite significant when it comes to understanding 紅樓夢, or Dream of the Red Chamber. As a result, I’ve decided to make this post free for all readers. If you enjoy this, please consider a paid subscription to this publication. There’s a lot more like this to come.

There’s a major difference between actually reading a book and just reading about the book.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in my life reading articles about Dream of the Red Chamber. And one of the things that pops up over and over again is what a genius Cao Xueqin was, especially when it comes to his poetry. In particular, critics and readers tend to praise Cao Xueqin for giving each character their own unique poetic voice.

Of course, this is one of the hardest things to translate. Poetry can never be translated in a one-to-one sense from one language to the other; it simply doesn’t work that way. And so there’s naturally no way you can simply read two poems translated from Chinese to English and see the original author’s brilliance right away.

The best thing we can do is dive into the language and closely analyze things. And so let’s do it. Let’s compare Xue Baochai’s poem with Lin Daiyu’s poem.

We can start off with the most obvious similarities. Both poems, like the poems by the other girls start off with similar general descriptions of the garden.

Here’s Xue Baochai’s first two lines:

芳園築向帝城西，華日祥雲籠罩奇。

The fragrant garden was built west of the Imperial City;
The bright sun and auspicious clouds envelop it magically.

And here’s what Lin Daiyu wrote:

宸遊增悅豫，仙境別紅塵。

The Imperial visit brings us joy,
This fairyland is cut off from the mortal world.

The basic idea in both poems is the same. There are direct references to the imperial visit in both, as well as a sense of some sort of supernatural blessing on the garden itself.

But that’s where you see the difference in the characters of Xue Baochai and Lin Daiyu. Xue Baochai defines the garden in terms of its relationship to the seat of power. For her, it “向帝城西,” or “it lies to the west of the Imperial City.” Xue Baochai uses the seat of political power as a reference.

Lin Daiyu, on the other hand, sees the garden as completely separate from the mortal world. 紅塵 means “red dust,” and is a phrase we’ve seen pop up from time to time. Lin Daiyu talks about the garden as being a mystical realm (仙境) completely separated (別) from the mortal world, or from the “red dust” (紅塵).

The reason for this difference is quite simple. Xue Baochai represents the more practical side of life. She’s the ultimate Confucian girl, concerned with society and focused on making sure that things happen in proper order. Lin Daiyu, on the other hand, wants to exit the society completely and search for a better world apart from the drudgery of mortality.

When we look at the next two lines, we see a similar contrast. Here’s what Xue Baochai writes:

高柳喜遷鶯出谷，修篁時待鳳來儀。

The tall willows rejoice as the orioles leave the valley;
Tall bamboo trees constantly await the ceremonial arrival of the phoenix.

And here’s what Lin Daiyu created:

借得山川秀，添來氣象新。

Borrowing the beauty of the hills and streams,
This place takes on a brand new air.

Of course, this is where the world of English translation completely lets us down.

Xue Baochai is making two weighty literary allusions here.

The first one is the talk about “orioles leaving the valley,” or 鶯出谷. This is a direct quotation from The Classic of Poetry, or the 詩經. The original passage is “出自幽谷，遷于喬木,” or “It comes out from the dark valley and moves to a tall tree.”

This passage is an image of a worthy person rising from obscurity into public prominence. Xue Baochai is comparing Jia Yuanchun leaving the palace to visit with the oriole leaving the valley, and brilliantly alludes to the fact that Jia Yuanchun emerged from relative obscurity to her current imperial position. It’s actually a fantastic literary allusion when you think about it.

The same goes for 鳳來儀, or “the ceremonial arrival of the phoenix.” This is an allusion to the 尚書, or the ancient Book of Documents. It’s a symbol of the arrival of a virtuous sage ruler, one who is blessed by the cosmos for his moral virtues.

The rejoicing tall willows and the tall bamboo trees both point towards the splendor and majesty of the imperial visitor. Or, in other words, nature itself respects Confucian virtue in Xue Baochai’s poetic tongue. And, honestly, her two lines are absolutely brilliant.

Lin Daiyu’s two lines are much simpler. The garden manages to borrow its beauty from its own landscape, and is refreshed by the imperial visitor. There’s no amazing poetic allusion in Daiyu’s two lines; instead, she writes a simple natural description, focusing more on the feeling than on the social order.

The next two lines show the biggest contrast between the two poets. Xue Baochai writes this:

文風已著宸遊夕，孝化應隆歸省時。

The power of literature was clear on the night of the Imperial outing;
The transforming power of filial piety reached its peak with this homecoming visit.

And here is what Lin Daiyu writes:

香融金谷酒，花媚玉堂人。

Its fragrance is blended with the wine of Golden Valley,
The flowers smile up at our noble guests.

Xue Baochai makes direct references to two clearly Confucian concepts: the power of literature (文風) and the “transforming power of filial piety” (孝化). And she describes how the Imperial Consort’s brings about the height of both powers.

Lin Daiyu, on the other hand, makes a reference to 谷酒, or the literary drinking parties of Shi Chong during the Jin dynasty. It’s an intelligent literary allusion, and is combined with the unforgettable sight of the flowers smiling up (媚) at the imperial visitors.

I don’t think there could be any clearer way to distinguish between the mentalities of the two girls. Xue Baochai is focused on decorum and the proper world of Confucianism in these two lines, while Lin Daiyu is focused on personifying nature and making something magical happen.

And then come the final two lines, and both poems have absolutely brilliant final two lines. Here’s Xue Baochai’s:

睿藻仙才瞻仰處，自慚何敢再為辭？

As I gaze up at your immortal literary talent,
I feel so ashamed; what more could I write?

And this is what Lin Daiyu writes:

何幸邀恩寵，宮車過往頻？

How fortunate we are to receive this Imperial grace!
Might the palace carriage return here frequently?

Xue Baochai’s final two lines represent her excellent cultural competence. They are filled with proper praise for the imperial visitor. 睿藻 means something like “brilliant imperial writings” and praises Jia Yuanchun’s literary excellence; 仙才 means “immortal talent” and is another word of praise, and Xue Baochai ends up explaining that she is ashamed and could never write further.

Of course, this is a proper and required gesture of self-effacement, something that is natural for this kind of poem. If you look back, you’ll realize that the other girls also ended their poems on a similar note, though not with quite the same level of literary brilliance.

And this, of course, is where Lin Daiyu’s poem really stands out.

何幸邀恩寵 means something like “How fortunate I am to be favored with such grace.” This isn’t formal language, though. Rather, it feels personal and emotional, as if Lin Daiyu were really writing her heart out on the page.

And the fascinating part about Daiyu’s poem is that 宮車過往頻 line at the end, which is a sincere wish that Jia Yuanchun could come around more frequently.

Lin Daiyu’s final lines are not about giving formal and formulatic praise to the imperial visit. Rather, they read more like a poem written between friends. Daiyu exposes a bit of the emotional reality behind her character with those two final lines.

You can think of it like this. Lin Daiyu’s poem is a direct reflection of who she is, and is almost completely free of convention and self-effacement. Xue Baochai’s poem is filled with ritual and hierarchy, but is curiously lacking in emotion.

That’s not to say that one poem is better than the other. Both are absolutely brilliant, and it’s very rewarding to dive in and see what you can find. They simply represent opposite ends of poetic theory. One is formal and carefully calculated, the other is fully emotional and utterly vulnerable.

Civilizing Literature and Filial Piety

Daniel Evensen — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 10:02:01 GMT

Civilizing Literature and Filial Piety

Xue Baochai’s poem tells us a lot about her character. And I’m talking about more than just the fact that she’s got amazing literary talent.

Let’s take a deeper dive. In particular, we’re going to focus on two lines in the middle of her poem:

How To Add Sound In Anki

Daniel Evensen — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:03:41 GMT

How To Add Sound In Anki

Here’s a quick guide on how to add sound files to your Anki deck:

The trick here is understanding how the [sound:xxx] field works.

It’s actually pretty simple once you’ve seen it a few times. Anki automatically will look for media files, including sound, images, and so on, in your collection.media folder.

Anki is capable of playing MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, and a bunch of other files. In fact, if you really want, you can also have Anki play video files, though I’m having a hard time envisioning how you’d work this into your daily study.

And, just so you know, Anki will use either mpv or mplayer to play media files. If you’re on Linux like I am, you’ll want to make sure that you have one or both installed to get these audio files to work right.

Pandora’s Box

Daniel Evensen — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:54:42 GMT

Pandora’s Box

I’ve talked about this before, but it’s time to bring it up again.

The biggest issue with Dream of the Red Chamber has to do with its textual history.

I’ve been trying to stay away from diving too deep into this, in large part because it can really confuse the story. But there’s really no way we can get away from this.

As I explained in this post about a year and a half ago, there’s a huge difference between the officially published versions of Dream of the Red Chamber and the handwritten manuscripts that have survived over the years:

Now, we know for a fact that Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E did some extensive editing of whatever manuscripts they had before publishing the book in 1791. By this time, original author Cao Xueqin had been dead for years; in fact, Cao Xueqin passed away in 1765.

We also know that the handwritten manuscripts themselves are not complete. In fact, Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E noted in their introduction to the 1791 published edition that they had compiled the book from scattered handwritten manuscripts that were clearly incomplete.

The problem comes when there are significant differences between the two versions. And that’s exactly what has happened with Jia Tanchun’s first poem.

We know that this version of the poem is directly attributable to Cao Xueqin:

萬象爭輝匾額　探春
名園築出勢巍巍，奉命何慚學淺微。
精妙一時言不出，果然萬物有光輝。

All Things Complete In Splendor Tanchun
A famous garden built on such a grand and towering scale;
Having received this command, how can I complain that my learning is shallow and meager?
Such exquisite refinement; words fail to capture it in a single moment.
Indeed, everything here radiates its own brilliance.

The interesting thing about this poem is that it’s almost exactly the same as Jia Yingchun’s poem:

曠性怡情（匾額）
迎　春
園成景物特精奇，奉命羞題額「曠怡」。
誰信世間有此境？游來寧不暢神思？

Plaque: Carefree and Happy
Ying Chun
The garden is complete, and its scenery is very rare and fine;
To obey the command, I timidly compose this “Carefree and Happy” poem.
Who would believe there would be such a place on earth?
How could wandering around here not refresh your mind?

If you dive into these two poems, the similarities are amazing.

The first line in Yingchun’s poem, 園成景物特精奇 (the garden is finished and the scenery looks amazing and rare) is almost directly reflected in Tanchun’s first line, 名園築出勢巍巍 (the famous garden was built on a grand and tremendous scale).

The second lines are almost exactly the same. Both refer to the fact that the poems were ordered, and both mention that their abilities are poor: 奉命羞題額「曠怡」(To obey the command, I timidly compose this Carefree and Happy poem) is Yingchun’s version, and 奉命何慚學淺微 (Now that I’ve received the command, how can I complain about my shallow and meager learning) is Tanchun’s version.

And the final two lines also repeat each other - I’ll let you look at those yourself.

Personally, I think that Cao Xueqin himself likely went back to revise this poem in particular. In my opinion, I think that the relatively shallow original Tanchun poem was likely a placeholder - and I suspect that the Yingchun poem also might have been a placeholder that Cao Xueqin never got around to revising.

The longer Xichun poem is fascinating, as I mentioned yesterday:

文采風流（匾額）
探春
秀水明山抱復回，風流文采勝蓬萊。綠裁歌扇迷芳草，紅襯湘裙舞落梅。
珠玉自應傳盛世，神仙何幸下瑤臺。名園一自邀遊賞，未許凡人到此來。

Plaque: Elegance and Literary Grace
By Tanchun
The beautiful waters and bright mountains embrace and wind back around,
This refined charm and literary brilliance surpasses Penglai.
The brilliant green looks like performance fans, fooling even the fragrant grass,
And the red flowers set off the Xiang skirts that dance with the falling plum blossoms.
Pearls and jade should naturally be celebrated in this golden age;
How lucky we are that the immortals descended from the Jade Terrace!
Once this famous garden invites you in to admire its beauty,
It will hardly allow any ordinary mortal to enter.

In particular the line 綠裁歌扇迷芳草，紅襯湘裙舞落梅 (The brilliant green looks like performance fans, fooling even the fragrant grass, / And the red flowers set off the Xiang skirts that dance with the falling plum blossoms.) is absolutely brilliant.

This probably won’t make much sense until we finally get to chapter 81, but I strongly doubt that Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E were capable of composing a poem like this. I strongly feel that this is actually a Cao Xueqin poem.

The thing that we’ll learn about Jia Tanchun as the story continues is that she is fiercely independent and quite proud of herself and her own achievements. Comments in this poem, such as 名園一自邀遊賞，未許凡人到此來 (one you’ve strolled around this famous garden, no other mortal will be allowed to enter) allude directly to Tanchun’s sense of pride and self worth.

Anyway, the long story short here is that I think the longer poem is legitimately a Cao Xueqin creation, even if we don’t have a handwritten manuscript to prove it.

Why Jia Yingchun’s Poem Doesn’t Work

Daniel Evensen — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:49:40 GMT

Why Jia Yingchun’s Poem Doesn’t Work

This might seem obvious to some of you, but I think it’s worth going over anyway.

Yesterday we took a look at the first poem about the Grand View Garden. This was Jia Yingchun’s poem, which you can read here if you haven’t already:

There are a few specific issues with this poem that make it fall flat.

Why All The Renaming

Daniel Evensen — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 10:36:37 GMT

Why All The Renaming

The past few posts have been filled with Jia Yuanchun renaming just about everything in the garden:

又改題：「有鳳來儀」，賜名瀟湘館。「紅香綠玉」，改作「怡紅快綠」，賜名怡紅院。「蘅芷清芬」，賜名「蘅蕪院」。「杏簾在望」，賜名澣葛山莊。

Jia Yuanchun also changed some of the other inscriptions. She named the building with the inscription “The Phoenix Arrives in Ritual Splendor” the “The Xiaoxiang Building.” She changed the inscription “Red Fragrance and Green Jade” to “Delighting in Red and Rejoicing in Green,” and called the building “The Red Delight Building.” The building called “The Pure Fragrance of Wild Ginger and Angelica” she named “Wild Growth Building.” “Apricot Banner In Sight” she named “The Hemp Washing Villa.”

This might seem like filler or something meaningless to you. But it’s not.

Politics and Personal Life

Daniel Evensen — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 11:59:22 GMT

Politics and Personal Life

Just a quick note today about something you might have missed. This is short because I’m a bit shorter on time than I normally like.

You might have noticed that Jia Yuanchun’s voice on her tour of the Grand View Garden is almost entirely political.

Take yesterday’s couplet, for example:

天地啟宏慈，赤子蒼生同感戴；
古今垂曠典，九州萬國被恩榮。

Heaven and earth display their great kindness,
Children and commoners all feel gratitude and reverence.
From ancient times to the present an unprecedented rite descends,
The Nine Provinces and the various states are covered in favor and glory.

This is about as impersonal and political as you can get.

What we’ve seen so far is an interesting dichotomy between Jia Yuanchun’s desire to return as a child and the duty she has as a representation of imperial authority.

This seems to reflect a sort of inner conflict that Jia Yuanchun has with herself. There are times where it seems that she wants to cast away the imperial hoopla and just be the person that she once was. And yet there are other times where she seems to see herself in a position to help her family out because of her political position.

We’re going to see even more of this in the near future as Jia Yuanchun starts renaming various buildings in the garden. There are also deeper connotations for the names that she chooses - but we’ll get to all of that in a future chapter.

How Anki Can Help You Read Old Chinese

Daniel Evensen — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 10:04:18 GMT

How Anki Can Help You Read Old Chinese

I’ve been studying Chinese from a variety of approaches since the summer of 2004. I’ve been through some ups and downs in my linguistic journey.

While I’m certainly not the world’s foremost expert on language learning, I’ve learned a thing or two over time. In fact, most of my actual learning has come from unfortunate mistakes I’ve made over the years.

One key lesson I learned a few years back is to always use software like Anki. And here are a few reasons why:

Now, if you’re interested in reading something like Dream of the Red Chamber, or the Confucian classics, or Tang poetry, or even just trying to learn enough cursive script to decipher Chinese calligraphy, you still should use something like Anki.

Here are a few tips I’ve learned over the years for using Anki to study classical (or “old”) Chinese:

Characters change depending on the context.

With tens of thousands of characters to choose from, you’d think that classical authors would refrain from using somewhat unusual characters to write.

You’d be wrong.

In fact, you’ll run into a problem as early as the first sentence of the Confucian Analects:

子曰：「學而時習之，不亦說乎？」

The Master said, “Isn’t learning and applying what you learned at the right time a wonderful thing?”

The problem here is 說, of course. If you’ve learned modern Chinese, you’ll instantly think shuō when you see that character, which means “to say.”

If your Chinese is a bit more advanced, you might think it reads shuì, which means “to persuade.”

The truth, however, is that it reads yuè in this circumstance, and is basically a character that stands in for the character 悅, “to be happy.”

The problem that you’ll have is that this sort of thing happens all the time. It happens with tons of different characters, and it always happens in a way that surprises you.

The best way to deal with it in Anki, in my opinion, is to focus on learning things in context as best as possible. If you run into an unusual reading for a character, you want to learn that reading within its context.

The problem, of course, is that 說 becomes yuè in only a few instances. You don’t want to create a card specifically to teach yourself an unusual reading that only comes up once in a blue moon. The secret is to create cards that require you to read and understand things in the proper context, instead of trying to learn unusual things completely removed from their context.

Break the hard stuff up.

Of course, the exact opposite theory also applies.

While you do want to learn the unusual stuff in the context of the phrase or sentence that you saw it, you also want to stay away from trying to learn extremely long phrases or sentences.

The reason you want to avoid this temptation is because it will make your Anki study sessions unbearable. And, yes, I say this because I’ve got experience doing it the wrong way.

Take the first sentence of Dream of the Red Chamber for example:

作者自云曾歷過一番夢幻之後，故將真事隱去，而借「通靈」說此《石頭記》一書也，故曰「甄士隱」云云。

The author says that, after having had a kind of dreamlike experience, he decided to hide the truth, relying instead on “spiritual communication” to write this book, The Story of the Stone. This is why he used names such as Zhen Shiyin.

Now, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that there’s a lot of stuff going on here. Phrases like 一番夢幻 (a kind of dreamlike experience), 通靈 (spiritual communication, though this translation is debatable), and the connection between 將真事隱去 and the name 甄士隱 will take you a lot of time to think through.

Because there’s a lot going on here, I strongly recommend against sticking this sentence into your Anki deck.

There are things here you can learn, of course. 云 means “to say” when it’s on its own, for example. 自云 therefore means either to say to oneself or to personally say something. 云云, meanwhile, is a set two character phrase that means “and so on.”

I recommend learning the individual words on their own and leaving it at that. You want to save learning phrases and sentences for instances where there is a certain grammatical usage that you’re interested in learning for whatever reason, or for cases where a sentence or phrase is particularly meaningful for you. Remember that the nice thing about Anki is that you’ll wind up keeping whatever it is you’ve learned in your head over the long term - and it’s kind of funny to see how stuff you’ve memorized tends to spill out at odd times and in odd places.

Learn before you memorize.

This is the part that everybody gets wrong with Anki.

There’s a major temptation out there to try to use Anki to replace your own learning instead of supplementing it. This is what they call incremental reading, and it can work if you do it the right way.

But the last thing you want to do is stick stuff in your Anki deck that you haven’t actually learned before.

Let’s say you’re interested in learning something like this Su Dongpo poem called “Flowering Crabapple” (海棠) that I quoted a few weeks back:

東風裊裊泛崇光，香霧空濛月轉廊。
只恐夜深花睡去，故燒高燭照紅妝。

The gentle east wind wafts, casting a radiant light;
A fragrant, misty haze hangs soft as the moon shifts around the veranda.
Fearing only that deep in the night, the blossoms will fall asleep,
I light tall candles to illuminate their rosy beauty.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on here - and, if you like the poem, you might be tempted to stick the entire thing into your Anki deck.

Before you do something like that, though, you might want to take a few minutes to actually think about what is going on here.

Su Dongpo turns the crabapple into a person. The personification is obvious in the third line: he describes his fear that the flower will fall asleep deep in the night (只恐夜深花睡去).

In fact, if you think about it, Su Dongpo turns all sorts of things into people. The wind, for example, is described as 裊裊, which means something slender and swaying - almost like it’s a dancer’s sleeve. The flower has a female face that is illuminated by the candle (照紅妝). And the moon turns past the corridor (月轉廊) as if it were a person wandering around outside.

There’s nothing wrong with memorizing the entire poem, of course. However, your appreciation of the art and the imagery here will be enhanced if you take the time to read deeply before you start cramming stuff like this into your Anki deck.

Remember that learning a ton of different stuff as quickly as possible won’t necessarily help you master the language faster. It’s much better to read deliberately and read for understanding and mastery than to try to get through as much as possible as quickly as possible.

Palace Of Illusions

Daniel Evensen — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 10:44:38 GMT

Palace Of Illusions

If you’re a wanna-be writer, like so many of us are, Dream of the Red Chamber probably feels really intimidating to you. Cao Xueqin not only creates an intricate world filled with overwhelming descriptions, but his world also remains internally consistent.

As we’ve seen recently, Jia Yuanchun had to go from one boat to another boat just to reach the palatial building that the family built for her:

You Can't Go Home Again

Daniel Evensen — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 11:51:58 GMT

You Can’t Go Home Again

Now that we’re really going through the novel slowly, we can take a little bit of time out to think about a couple of things.

Jia Yuanchun clearly wants to go home again. But, as Thomas Wolfe reminds us, you really can’t go back home.

I know how Jia Yuanchun feels, by the way.

We were living and working in Beijing, China back in 2017. I was working for the State Depatment as a Foreign Service Officer. And, as is usually the case, we wound up faced with “home leave,” a U.S. government requirement that we return to the United States for a certain period of time every couple of years to reacquaint ourselves with American culture and life.

I’m serious when I say that, by the way. It’s not a benefit of having the job. Home leave is a requirement, and it can be difficult on those who do not have an actual set residence in the United States.

Anyway, we went back to my parents house. And, just like Jia Yuanchun feels in chapter 18 of Dream of the Red Chamber, I felt frustration when I realized that I really couldn’t go back home again.

Going home isn’t just going back to a place or meeting with certain people, of course. Going home means going back to the way things once were. It’s about going back to the feelings and thoughts that you once had, your ideals and frustrations and hopes and dreams and disappointments. It’s very much about trying to live your life again in reverse, about going back over your own footsteps again and making a better decision the second time around.

And it’s impossible. Not only can you not travel backwards in time, but you literally cannot go home again.

That’s why Jia Yuanchun changed the name of her exquisite mansion in this passage:

石牌坊上寫著「天仙寶境」四大字。賈妃命換了「省親別墅」四字，於是進入行宮。

On the stone archway was a four character inscription that read “Treasure Realm of the Celestial Immortals.”
Jia Yuanchun saw this inscription and ordered that it be replaced with “Villa for a Family Visit.” And then she entered.

The talk about celestial immortals probably made Jia Yuanchun feel uncomfortable. She wanted to go back home to her family, and wanted all the pomp and circumstance to be gone.

This is a very natural human desire. It’s a feeling and emotion that transcends manmade culture. But, of course, you just can’t go back home again.

I don’t think anybody expressed this desire better than Goethe:

Gib ungebändigt jene Triebe,
Das tiefe schmerzenvolle Glück,
Des Hasses Kraft, die Macht der Liebe,
Gib meine Jugend mir zurück!

Give back, untamed, those impulses,
That deep, pain-filled happiness,
The strength of hatred, the power of love,
Give me back my youth!

And, yeah, it sounds better in German. Trust me.

Artificial Life

Daniel Evensen — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:57:08 GMT

Artificial Life

One of the most interesting things about Jia Yuanchun’s initial visit to the Grand View Garden is the way the garden itself is described.

Remember that we’ve seen a few times in this novel where the dichotomy between what is “false” (假) and what is “true” (真) shows up. For example:

Why Chinese Characters Aren't Going Away

Daniel Evensen — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:41:41 GMT

Why Chinese Characters Aren’t Going Away

A little over a hundred years ago, there was a movement to try to push the Chinese language away from the Chinese characters.

Honestly, when you think about it, you can understand the sentiment. The Chinese written language can be daunting to learn even if you are a native speaker. If you want to achieve full fluency and a complete mastery of every possible character, you’ll be studying for a very long time.

But the problem that the anti-character movement has always had is that Chinese characters are actually a good way to transmit subtle information. And besides, Chinese characters have also historically been the linguistic glue that kept the vast country together.

You can see the influence of those characters to this day, actually - especially if you study dialects. For example, take the Taiwanese Hokkien word siáng, which means “who.” Despite the fact that the word is clearly only a single syllable, the most common way to write it per Taiwan’s Ministry of Education is two characters: 啥人, which literally means “what person.”

You’ll see the same thing if you try to say “yesterday” in Taiwanese Hokkien. The word is pronounced tsa̋ng and is clearly one word; yet the characters are written with two syllables, 昨昏, or literally “yesterday evening.”

You also see the same thing in the 訓讀字 (kunyomi) phenomenon in Japanese. This is where Japanese uses Chinese characters to write native Japanese words. It’s a pretty obvious example of places where the characters themselves contain meaning independent of their sound.

So, for example, 心 (heart) is pronounced こころ (kokoro) in Japanese, which is a native Japanese pronunication. And yet a compound word such as 心配 (anxiety) is pronounced しんぱい (shinpai), which is clearly a reading that comes from Chinese.

Of course, this becomes even more fun when you have the phrase 心を配る, which means to pay attention to something. Here 心 is prounounced こころ, and 配 is pronounced くば - both native Japanese pronounciations despite the fact that both characters use the Chinese pronunication when paired together.

Anyway, this phenomenon only happens because the Chinese characters themselves do indeed convey meaning. In fact, if you think about it for a little while, you’ll realize that the ability of Chinese characters to convey meaning on their own independent of pronunication makes them quite a bit more interesting than the relatively flat Latin alphabet.

And, of course, this also helps explain why characters themselves can be a form of art independent of their meaning - something we see frequently in Chinese calligraphy:

Anyway, the long story short here is that you really should take the time to study Chinese characters if you’re going to learn the language anyway. It’s very rewarding, and is a lot more insightful and interesting than it seems at first.

Family Joy

Daniel Evensen — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:49:20 GMT

Family Joy

You’ve probably never had a family reunion quite like this one.

Cao Xueqin makes it absolutely clear that Jia Yuanchun’s return home is nothing like a normal family reunion:

Lin Daiyu’s Emotions

Daniel Evensen — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:58:31 GMT

Lin Daiyu’s Emotions

When I first read Dream of the Red Chamber all the way through a few years ago, I was convinced that Lin Daiyu was simply emotionally unstable.

Yesterday’s translation passage is actually a pretty good example of her uncontrollable emotions. Her reaction to Jia Baoyu being forcibly robbed of everything that was on him was really over the top:

黛玉聽說，走過來一瞧，果然一件沒有，因向寶玉道：「我給你的那個荷包也給他們了？你明兒再想我的東西，可不能夠了！」說畢，生氣回房，將前日寶玉囑咐他沒做完的香袋兒，拿起剪子來就鉸。

Daiyu heard what Xiren said and went over to take a look. Sure enough, every single piece was gone. She turned to Baoyu and asked, “Did you give them the pouch I made for you as well? If you ever want me to make you anything ever again, you can forget about it!”
Daiyu then marched back into her room angrily. She picked up an unfinished fragrant bag that Baoyu had asked her to make a few days earlier, grabbed a pair of scissors, and began cutting it into pieces.

We’re going to see this come up over and over again in this book. However, Lin Daiyu doesn’t act this way because she is emotionally immature or out of control or anything like that.

Rather, the reason Lin Daiyu finds herself so caught up in the moment is because her emotions (the 情 we keep talking about) define her character at the most basic level.

Emotion, or 情, is a concept that comes up over and over again in Dream of the Red Chamber. Most English translators call 情 something like “lust” or “passion,” but the truth is that it’s a much more basic concept in this book than those nouns would indicate. Both Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu are defined by their emotions, and both characters seem completely incapable of suppressing the way that they feel in favor of the way that they need to act in any given situation.

Emotion, of course, is a significant part of this book going back to the very beginning, as I mentioned a little over a year ago:

And the interesting thing is that this emotion is never really defined as a “good thing” or a “bad thing” in this story. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s so bad that it’s blamed for the entire downfall of the family, as I noted here:

In fact, this concept of emotion (情) is also one of the most important things that the famous commentary of Zhiyanzhai (脂硯齋) teaches us:

But, in yesterday’s small translation snippet, we actually see emotion at work. Rather than telling us that Lin Daiyu is emotional, Cao Xueqin does a masterful job of showing us just how strong her emotional response can be.

It’s not out of the question for a girl to feel jealous or frustrated or upset at her boyfriend, like Lin Daiyu did yesterday. However, it is at least a little bit over the top for her to decide to suddenly destroy precious things she has been painstakingly creating just to express her emotions. You’ve got to wonder why she couldn’t just write a poem or go for a walk or sing a song or punch a pillow instead.

Green And Red

Daniel Evensen — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 10:00:58 GMT

Green And Red

I was wrong yesterday when I said that Jia Baoyu’s statement didn’t have any literary precedent.

Well, I suppose I was sort of wrong. Let me know what you think about this poetic example.

Poetry And Literalism

Daniel Evensen — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:02:50 GMT

Poetry And Literalism