Saohua

His Story

A boy of Baoyu’s outer study, named in a list with Yinquan 引泉 and Tiaoyun 挑云 and given nothing to do. He belongs to a set of servants whose names were chosen to sound like a scholar’s amusements — draw the spring, pick the clouds, sweep the blossom. The name is the character. That is the whole entry, and inflating it would be inventing him.

In Xiang Li's Hands

Crouched under an enormous lotus leaf held up like an umbrella, a green frog sitting on top of it, a seed-pod on its stalk alongside. Pale blue robe, red collar, a black rock behind. Delighted, mid-hide. The sweeping is nowhere; the play is everything.

The Calligraphy

Inscribed 扫花 in the upper right, the two characters loose and wide-spaced — a work-name that reads as a line of verse.

Connections

• Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — master of the study he belongs to.
• Yinquan 引泉, Tiaoyun 挑云 — the boys he is listed with, named on the same principle.

Others of the same kind · page / boy servant Mingyan 茗烟 · Chuyao 锄药 · Saohong 扫红 · Moyu 墨雨 · Yinquan 引泉 · Tiaoyun 挑云 · Banhe 伴鹤 · Shuangrui 双瑞 · Shuangshou 双寿 · Li Gui 李贵 · Wang Rong 王荣 · Zhang Ruojin 张若锦 · Zhao Yihua 赵亦华 · Qian Qi 钱启 and 5 more

Named on these pages Yinquan 引泉 · Tiaoyun 挑云 · Banhe 伴鹤

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