Qin Keqing’s Voice
Before we read about Qin Keqing’s death, we saw how she appeared in a dream to Wang Xifeng:
Of course, the natural thing to wonder about this warning is precisely why Qin Keqing would be so interested about the Jia family finances, as well as whether Wang Xifeng actually understood the warning or not.
But the real fascinating thing here is that Qin Keqing’s speaking style in this post is completely different from what we’re used to. And this is very difficult to show in any translation.
One of the things that makes Dream of the Red Chamber really stand out is the way that Cao Xueqin was able to give completely different voices and speaking styles to completely different characters. These styles don’t quite come through accurately in translation. However, since this is a blog, we can slow things down a bit and take a closer look at Qin Keqing’s speaking style.
