The Jia Baoyu In All Of Us

Making sense of Jia Baoyu

The Jia Baoyu In All Of Us

I love Dream of the Red Chamber for so many reasons.

I love the poetry. Cao Xueqin’s mastery of Chinese is absolutely remarkable. I seriously think it’s worth it to learn Chinese just to be able to read this book. Cao’s ability to create different speaking styles — and even different poetry styles — for each character is simply uncanny. I don’t believe there’s a book like it in the world (though I’m more than happy to be proven wrong).

I love the characters. As I’ve written before, most of us read Dream of the Red Chamber endlessly so we can bring Lin Daiyu back to life. The women in this novel are simply unforgettable. If you like Jane Austen or Louisa Alcott, you really need to read Dream of the Red Chamber.

But, above all, I feel like I understand Jia Baoyu.

We haven’t actually met Jia Baoyu yet, of course. We’ve heard about him secondhand through the gossip of Leng Zixing. We’ll learn a bit more about him tomorrow, through an unwittingly ironic and symbolic monologue that comes from the foolish mouth of Jia Yucun, a character that always manages to live up to his name.

But Jia Yucun’s long talk is pretty boring. There’s actually a better way to understand that bizarre statement of Jia Baoyu: “Girls are made of water, pure and clear. Boys are made of mud, foul and dull. My soul feels refreshed when I see a girl, but seeing a boy makes me feel absolutely filthy!” (女兒是水做的骨肉，男子是泥做的骨肉。我見了女兒便清爽，見了男子便覺濁臭逼人！)

So let’s dive right on in.