Jia Qiong
贾琼
“A Name in the Roll of Kinsmen”
His Story
One of the 玉 generation of poor Jia cousins, present at the family’s public occasions and absent from its story. He stands in the roll of clansmen summoned to Ningguo for Qin Keqing’s funeral in Chapter 13. His one moment of consequence is not his own: at Grandmother Jia’s eightieth-birthday gathering his mother brings his young daughter, called Si-jie 四姐儿, and Grandmother Jia takes such a liking to the girl that she keeps her in the house.
In Xiang Li's Hands
She paints him grinning sideways, hair loose and unbound with a red ribbon, a dark outer robe slung over one arm, a blue scroll gripped in his hand. The face is weathered and freckled and comic — not a handsome cousin but a specific, slightly disreputable man.
The Calligraphy
贾琼, two characters upper right, the personal name alone with no rank, which is all a poor relation of the clan is ever given.
Connections
- Jia Mu 贾母 — at whose birthday his daughter is presented and taken in.
- Jia Zhen 贾珍 — head of the senior line, who calls the clansmen in for the Ningguo funeral.
Others of the same kind · Jia clan – collateral branches Jia Rui 贾瑞 · Jia Dairu 贾代儒 · Jia Chang 贾菖 · Jia Ling 贾菱 · Jia Ping 贾萍 · Jia Jun 贾菌 · Jia Yun 贾芸 · Jia Qin 贾芹 · Jia Xing 贾荇 · Xiluan 喜鸾 · Sijie'r 四姐儿
Named on these pages Sijie'r 四姐儿
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
