Jia Qiang
贾蔷
“The Manager of the Pear Tree Court”
His Story
A great-grandson of the Ningguo line, orphaned young, raised by Jia Zhen and moved out when the talk got loud. In Chapter 9 he sets the schoolroom brawl going by egging on Baoyu’s page rather than raising a hand himself. In Chapter 16 he is sent to Gusu to buy twelve girls for the family theatre, and comes back manager of the Pear Tree Court. In Chapter 36 he brings the actress Lingguan a trick bird in a cage, and she tells him what a caged performing bird means to a girl like her.
In Xiang Li's Hands
She puts him inside the costume rather than beside it: opera robe in wet blue, red sashes, a stage headdress, a lit taper in his raised hand, grinning out of a smoky grey ground. The man who ran a troupe is painted as one of his own players.
The Calligraphy
贾蔷, upper left in two characters, the personal name alone — the plant name of his generation, no rank, no office, exactly as the household knew him.
Connections
- Lingguan 龄官 — the actress he loves and cannot buy his way toward.
- Jia Zhen 贾珍 — the kinsman who raised him and sent him to buy the troupe.
- Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — who in Chapter 30 watches Lingguan trace the character 蔷 in the earth without knowing whose name it is.
Others of the same kind · Jia clan – founders & Ningguo House Jia Xichun 贾惜春 · Jia Zhen 贾珍 · Jia Jing 贾敬 · Jia Daihua 贾代化 · Jia Fu 贾敷
Named on these pages Jia Rui 贾瑞 · Kuiguan 葵官 · Aiguan 艾官 · Qieguan 茄官 · Lingguan 龄官 · Baoguan 宝官 · Yuguan 玉官
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
