Jiaoxing
娇杏
“One Backward Glance”
Her Story
A maid in the Zhen household. In Chapter 1 she is picking flowers in the courtyard when she notices the poor scholar lodging next door, and looks back at him twice. Jia Yucun takes the look as recognition of his worth. Made a prefect, he sends for her and takes her as a concubine; within the year she bears him a son, and when his principal wife dies she is raised into the place. The novel’s own summary of her is two lines: 偶因一着错，便为人上人 — one chance misstep, and she rose above everyone.
In Xiang Li's Hands
Two sheets, painting the same half-second: the head turned back over the shoulder. In the first she stands among plum branches, pink blossom-dots, in lilac, a round fan near her cheek. In the second, red autumn leaves, a turquoise robe, one hand lifted. The glance is the character, painted twice.
The Calligraphy
娇杏 on both sheets, the given name alone — the name she carried as a maid rather than any title she ended with, which keeps her at the moment of the glance and not at the promotion.
Connections
- Jia Yucun 贾雨村 — the lodger she glanced at, who makes her his concubine and then his wife.
- Feng Shi 封氏 — her mistress in the Zhen house, who sends her over when Yucun asks.
- Zhen Shiyin 甄士隐 — her master, whose patronage of Yucun set the whole sequence going.
Others of the same kind · Zhen family (Nanjing) Zhen Baoyu 甄宝玉 · Zhen Shiyin 甄士隐 · Feng Shi 封氏 · Feng Su 封肃 · Huo Qi 霍启 · Zhen Yingjia 甄应嘉
Named on these pages Yu Cun Zhi Zi 雨村之子
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
