Hidden Reference

Something you might have missed

Hidden Reference

There’s a ton of stuff to say about Qin Keqing’s eerie trip into Wang Xifeng’s dreams. And I’m going to have quite a few commentary posts about this over the next few days and weeks.

However, the most interesting part for me is a linguistic bit that you probably didn’t notice. And you’ll never catch it if you read The Story of the Stone or A Dream of Red Mansions, since those translations simply don’t call this out.

The interesting part comes from this otherwise innocuous statement:

秦氏道：「嬸孃，你是個脂粉隊裡的英雄，連那些束帶頂冠的男子也不能過你，你如何連兩句俗語也不曉得？」

“Auntie,” replied Keqing, “you truly are a hero among women. Even those men who gird their belts and don their hats can’t match you. But how is it, then, that you can’t understand a simple common saying?

That probably doesn’t seem like much to you. However, when I read this while translating, I was particularly impressed with the specific phrase 那些束帶頂冠的男子 (those men who gird their belts and don their hats).

It felt like I had read something like that before. And the truth is that I have - and you probably have, too.

In fact, you last saw it in the very first translation post in this project:

忽念及當日所有之女子，一一細考較去，覺其行止見識皆出我之上，我堂堂鬚眉，誠不若彼裙釵。

I started to think about the women I used to know. When I really thought about it, I realized that their actions and insights far surpassed my own. Though I am a grown man with a mustache and beard, I am truly no match for their skirts and hairpins.

Now, this isn’t a direct quotation or paraphrasing. However, the concept here is exactly the same.

You see, Cao Xueqin has a very distinct habit of referring to men and women by the things that they wear. And, if you think about it, you’ll see it over and over again in Dream of the Red Chamber. Cao Xueqin might not tell you much about how a character looks, as in whether they are skinny or fat, whether they are tall or short, how black their hair is or how red their lips are or something like that. But he will always tell you all about the clothing that they wear.

And so we see that Cao Xueqin refers to women by their skirts and hairpins (裙釵), just as he refers to men in terms of their belts and hats (束帶頂冠).