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The visual inspiration behind Kang Danshim's portrait - Portrait of a Beauty by Shin Yun-bok (a painting I previously referenced) from the early 18th century, the time period during which she lived. The sheer depth and forethought of the writing and insane details of the production!

I've been posting about a book called Dream of the Red Chamber for a while. I'm kinda obsessed with it but the tags here on tumblr are pretty much barren. I want to get more people to be interested in it, so here's something more informative with minimal screaming.

Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) is a 18th century Chinese novel by Cao Xueqin. It isn't very well-known outside of the Sinophone aka the Chinese-speaking world, whereas where I come from it's considered a masterpiece and classic and is so well-known and holds so much cultural significance even the people who haven't necessarily read the book make references to it - like, basically everybody knows about the book. It certainly deserves to be known and loved by more people - that's why I'm making a post about it. This post is NOT going to be an attempt to cover everything, though, because there is just so, so much to the book; instead, I am creating a guide to make it easier for people to get started if they are interested.

What is Dream of the Red Chamber about? Why do people love it?

The best way to sum it up is calling it a family saga mixed with a bit of fantasy. It tells the story of the rise and fall of a big and powerful family, focusing on the story of the young girls, the maid servants, and the wives that all live together and run the household. The only male main character Jia Baoyu is a young heir of the family, who grew up among these women and girls. He loves and understands them, loves being surrounded by them, and deeply identifies with them. My dad, who is also a fan of the book, loves saying that Baoyu 'has the heart of a maiden'.

The book is funny and full of drama, and at the same time it's also poetic, tragic and profound, and the tragedy of the characters is written in such a kind way, as if the author wants you to love them and remember how wonderful and alive they are despite the fact that a gloomy fate will claim them all.

The book is also so queer in a way that no other Ming/Qing dynasty Chinese novels can compare. Obviously there are no modern queer labels because it was written in imperial China, but there are characters who are interested in both men and women, characters who are interested in no one, and affairs between boys and between girls; many main characters have the kind of relationships with their gender that make my Chinese transgender heart sing with empathy.

If you want to hear from English speakers who fell in love with the book and learn more about the context and literary/cultural value of the book, I recommend starting with 'Why is China’s greatest novel virtually unknown in the west?' by Michael Wood on The Guardian and 'Why you should read China’s vast, 18th century novel, Dream of the Red Chamber' by Josh Stenberg on The Conversation.

Dream of the Red Chamber is a long novel with many different versions and possibly hundreds of adaptations. How should I begin?

There are two translations that I know have received good reviews:

A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang. My partner is reading this version. It's a very faithful translation with footnotes to make up for the language and cultural barriers. (Note: the Yangs finished their translation in prison in China during the Cultural Revolution.)

The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes and John Minford. It's a translation that takes more artistic liberties than the Yangs version. For example it differs in the way it translates character names and its writing style. Hawkes wanted to recreate the experience of reading the novel in Chinese for English speaking readers, but it may also be harder for you to talk to those who read the book in Chinese about certain characters and details.

There is also a public domain translation by H. Bencraft Joly, which was first published in the 19th century, and you can find it on Project Gutenberg.

The 1987 36-episode TV adaptation Dream of the Red Chamber is well-loved and considered by many Chinese people to be the best adaptation of the book. Every later adaptation would be compared with the 1987 one and found lacking. I personally love this adaptation a lot, and I think out of all the adaptations I've seen (including TV series, films and Chinese opera) it has the best interpretations of the book and the characters. It also has the best songs, which were adapted from the poems in the book. You can stream the series with English subtitles on the Internet Archive.

If you want something shorter that covers the main romance plot line and includes a few iconic scenes from the book, I recommend the 1977 film adaptation The Dream of the Red Chamber casting legendary actress Brigitte Lin as Jia Baoyu (she also portrayed an iconic classic wuxia character as a trans woman in another film franchise, but I digress). You can find the film with English subtitles on Youtube.

me at the end of every my royal nemesis episode:

my heart breaks so incredibly much for seori because even her original present self is someone lost to this world. who knows how lonely she was and is still if she's there at all. danshim has been similarly lonely and fending for herself all her life. even now she's trying her best and doing so well in this unknown world after being fucking framed and killed. so even seori's new identity as danshim, which earned her more confidence and fighting instincts as well as love, is not enough. there's just something about her across time and space in a way that makes these selfish people unleash their bullshit on her.

it's as if this man has decided she is too destined to be lonely for him. as if it's her destiny in all her lives. does this even make sense? he's so selfish and controlling and emotionally manipulative. why would you tell this young girl who just admitted to you that she's a lonely person that it is her loneliness that makes you disapprove her relationship with segye?

I'm hoping they do this right because the puzzle pieces have been sprinkled throughout and now they need to piece them together. Segye's therapist (and #1 Segye/Seori shipper) has been dropping hints: time isn't linear, past lives can run parallel to present lives. We think we know everything that happened in the past but more reveals seem to be on the horizon. Like why is the Grand Prince's love poem/portrait torn in two? Is there more to Kang Danshim's name being erased from history than just being labeled a criminal?

The drama has made it clear that Seori, Segye, Mundo and Gwangnam are reincarnations of Danshim, the Grand Prince, the King and the dog. This means they are same people/beings but with new memories. Though it's pretty obvious from many things that Segye has said and done that his subconscious is aware of his past life, even before the dreams started surfacing.

If their past and present lives are running parallel, then there may be things in the past that Danshim has to do to move sideways to the future. From what I remember, at the time of her "death", the Grand Prince was in exile but not dead. The Grand Prince only put up with this to save Danshim. Once he learns of her death, he has no reason not to take action. Now that Danshim is revived, she is no longer confined to the palace and could seek out the Grand Prince. She can tell him about their future lives and send a message back to Segye that he will see in his dreams. They can't stay in the past because the king has too much power and hates them so much he won't let them stay alive for long if they are together. He would hunt them down like he hunted the dog.

There is also the odd events around Seori's brief moment as a celebrated child actor. After that role she was never able to channel that talent into another good role. Her grandmother has talked about her temporary personality change as a child. Was this around the same time? When Danshim first came to the present, she inexplicably shed tears watching Seori's younger self in her iconic role. As if her soul was linked through space and time to another version of herself.