WTF?

Floyd seems to be settling down for a long cozy sleep on the bean bag. Perhaps he's finally conqured his fear.





Lovely to see webcowgirl and shadowdaddy last night. Any attempt to describe our evenng would be in vain as webcowgirl has already done in much better than I possibly could. They is fab!

Overambitious

I'm trying to write my coursework for my Chinese class. I'm writing about 红楼梦 and having the hardest time getting it down. It's only supposed to be 300 words, I have been trying to write about the author, the plot and the popularity. However what I really want to write is this...

"My favourite character is Xifeng she is highly capable who organises the affairs of the whole household. In the start of the novel it is said that she was educated as a boy would have been and given the manly name of xifeng from her studies. However, later in the book it says that she never learned to read. She is a woman who uses every thing at her disposal to keep her position. When one of the men in the family wants to sleep with her she doesn't turn him down outright, as this could lead to scandal. Instead she leads him on and tricks him into suffering, this eventually leads to his death. But her position remains secure. The position of the family is reflected in how well xifeng is managing things. Things start to go down hill after she suffers a miscarriage. When she becomes ill, her husband takes a 2nd wife, and the servants start to act irresponsibly.

Dai yu was a flower in heaven who was watered every day, she is sent to earth to repay this with a life of sorrow. Her tears repaying the debt she owes. She is sickly, she writes poetry very well, she enjoys plays, and is not "the proper" woman of the story. As an orphan she feels alone and outside of the large family that she is living in. This often leads her to act jealous, insecure but is always quick witted and inteligent.

It is a book where the women are valued for their inteligence and wit more even than their beauty. There are many characters who are not beautiful but are highly regarded, such as pinger, while there are many characters who are beautiful, but thought of as manipulative, such as xue pan's wife.

There are many ways this book is different to the classical view of women in chinese stories. In many traditional stories, such as Romance of the western chamber, and peony pavilion, it is the traditional view of "beauty and scholar" yet in this story the women are valued as much for their talents as for their beauty. It is hardly surprising that the women the authors new, such as Gao E's friend, who were women who published their own poetry anthologies.

The other diffenence that Grandmother Jia mentions is the importance of the maids in the story. There are so many of them. (quote) In the book there are always many maids for each member of the family. All of whom have their own story and tragedies.

Traditional Chinese society has the reputation for being one of the most misogynist societies because of the tradition of foot binding. Foot binding is not even mentioned in this book, unlike novels such as jinpingmei. Here the point seems to be to show the importance of the role women play within the family and within society. It because it is so full of strong women characters that it is my favorite novel, and because of it's rich portrayal of the lives of these women that it remains so popular."

I just don't think my chinese is quite up to translating/writing all of this!