Jia Min
贾敏
“The Mother Who Is Already Gone”
Her Story
Grandmother Jia’s only daughter, married out to Lin Ruhai of Yangzhou, mother of Lin Daiyu. She dies in Chapter 2, before the story properly starts, and her death is what sets it moving: it releases Jia Yucun from his post as Daiyu’s tutor and sends Daiyu north to the Rong mansion in Chapter 3. Yucun’s one memory of her is of her daughter’s handwriting — Daiyu always wrote 敏 a stroke short and read it aloud as 密, the taboo on a mother’s name.
In Xiang Li's Hands
A black cloak in broad wet ink floods two-thirds of the sheet; she is turning away inside it, face in three-quarter over the shoulder, a blue floral robe and red sash surfacing below. The most striking figure here is a woman the novel never lets us meet, painted mid-departure.
The Calligraphy
贾敏, at the right in the clear paper the cloak does not reach — the maiden surname and the given name that her daughter was never allowed to write in full.
Connections
- Lin Daiyu 林黛玉 — her daughter, sent to the Jia house on her death.
- Lin Ruhai 林如海 — her husband, who outlives her by only a few chapters.
- Jia Mu 贾母 — her mother, who says she loved this child above all her others.
Others of the same kind · Jia clan – Rongguo House Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 · Jia Yuanchun 贾元春 · Jia Tanchun 贾探春 · Jia Yingchun 贾迎春 · Jia Mu 贾母 · Jia Zheng 贾政 · Jia She 贾赦 · Jia Lian 贾琏 · Jia Huan 贾环 · Jia Lan 贾兰 · Jia Zhu 贾珠 · Jia Daishan 贾代善
Named on these pages Lin Ruhai 林如海 · Jia Daishan 贾代善
Dream of the Red Chamber
Xiang Li painted all 413 characters of the novel between 1975 and 1985, the first person to complete the entire cast. See the whole collection · Chinese Empresses
