Liu Laolao

Her Story

She is not a Jia, not a servant of the Jias, not even a tenant. She is an old countrywoman, mother-in-law to a smallholder called Wang Gou’er, and the connection that gets her through the gate is threadbare: two generations back the village Wangs had claimed clan kinship with Lady Wang’s father.

Chapter 6. Short of money for the winter, she walks in with her grandson Ban’er, talks her way past the gatemen, and is received by Wang Xifeng, who gives her twenty taels — a year’s living for a household like hers.

Chapter 39. She comes back with the first of the harvest, meaning to pay for what she took. Grandmother Jia hears there is an old woman in the house of her own age, and keeps her.

Chapter 40 is the famous one. Xifeng and Yuanyang set her up as the joke of the table and coach her line: 「老刘，老刘，食量大似牛，吃个老母猪，不抬头。」 Xifeng plants a whole plateful of flowers in her hair, 横三竖四. Told she has been got up as an old monster, she answers: 「我虽老了，年轻时也风流，爱个花儿粉儿的，今儿老 风流才好。」 She knows exactly what is being done to her and takes payment for it in kind.

Chapter 41: she cannot believe the eggplant, drinks too much, and falls asleep on Baoyu’s bed.

Chapter 42: Xifeng asks her to name the baby, born on the seventh of the seventh month. She calls her Qiao 巧 — 「以毒攻毒，以火攻火」 — and promises 「遇难成祥， 逢凶化吉」.

Chapter 113: the house has fallen, Grandmother Jia is dead, and she comes a third time. Xifeng, dying, says 「我的巧姐儿也是千灾百病的，也交给你了」.

Chapter 119: Jia Huan, Jia Yun and Wang Ren are arranging to sell Qiaojie to a foreign prince. Grannie Liu sees no difficulty — 「扔崩一走，就完了事了」, just go. A hired cart out of the back gate, Ping’er and Qiaojie and her own granddaughter Qing’er, and the child is hidden in the village until it is safe. Qiaojie’s Chapter 5 verse had said it already: 「偶因济刘氏，巧得遇恩人。」

In Xiang Li's Hands

Chapter 40, and nothing else. Her right arm is up over her own head, wrist heavy with two green bangles, fingers in the spray of chrysanthemums and red blossom stuck along her white head-cloth. She is laughing with her mouth open and her teeth showing, the eyes gone into creases; the face is built from dozens of short dry wrinkle-strokes, more line than any young woman in this collection gets. She is mid-stride, teal robe and rose-red skirt swung out behind her in wet ink. Behind her, bare paper — no table, no garden, no audience. She is laughing at the joke, not inside it.

The Calligraphy

The sheet reads 刘姥姥: her surname, then 姥姥, granny, a plain northern village word for an old woman. No 太太, no 奶奶, no honorific of any kind, and no personal name — she has none in the book. It sits in the top left corner rather than down a margin, which is rare in this collection, and the Cheng editions print her as 劉老老.

Connections

• Jia Qiaojie 贾巧姐 — whom she named in Chapter 42 and hid in her own village in Chapter 119.
• Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 — who gave her twenty taels in Chapter 6, made a joke of her in Chapter 40, and gave her daughter into her keeping in Chapter 113.
• Grandmother Jia 贾母 — the only other old woman in the book who treats her as company rather than entertainment.
• Ping’er 平儿 — who dressed Qiaojie to get her past the gate and went with them to the village.
• Miaoyu 妙玉 — who would not use again the cup she drank from in Chapter 41; Baoyu asked for it to be given to her to sell.

Others of the same kind · outsider – townsfolk, tenants, tradespeople Liu Xianglian 柳湘莲 · Jiang Yuhan 蒋玉菡 · Wang Gou'er 王狗儿 · Liu Shi 刘氏 · Ban'er 板儿 · Qing'er 青儿 · Feng Yuan 冯渊 · Ni Er 倪二 · Bu Shiren 卜世仁 · Yinjie 银姐 · Fang Chun 方椿 · Shi Daizi 石呆子 · Yun'er 云儿 · Wu Liang 吴良 and 4 more

Named on these pages Miaoyu 妙玉 · Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 · Jia Qiaojie 贾巧姐 · Zhou Rui jia de 周瑞家的 · Wang Gou'er 王狗儿 · Liu Shi 刘氏 · Ban'er 板儿 · Qing'er 青儿 · Mingyu 茗玉

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