Xiaoshe'r

Her Story

An orphan drudge in Xia Jingui’s service, at the bottom of a household already unkind. Jingui’s campaign against Xiangling runs on small errands carried out by small people, and Xiaoshe’r is the girl sent to carry them. The novel gives her no family, no future and no line of her own. She exists as the hand that fetches what her mistress needs, and she is named only because a scheme requires someone’s hands.

In Xiang Li's Hands

She carries a red lotus-shaped lantern in both arms, under a black palace lamp hung with red tassels. Blue-green robe, mustard overjacket, eyes lowered and mild. The painting hands the household’s lowest servant a lantern festival, and gives her the light to carry.

The Calligraphy

Inscribed 小舍儿 — diminutive at the front, familiar 儿 at the back, a name built entirely out of the ways adults address children they do not need to know.

Connections

• Xia Jingui 夏金桂 — her mistress, whose errands she runs.
• Xiangling 香菱 — the target of the scheming she is drawn into.
• Baochan 宝蟾 — the senior maid of the same household, and Jingui’s other instrument.

Others of the same kind · maid – Baochai (All-spice Court / 蘅蕪苑) Ying'er 莺儿 · Wenxing 文杏 · Dian'er 靛儿 · Zhen'er 臻儿 · Tongxi 同喜 · Tonggui 同贵 · Xiaoluo 小螺 · Baochan 宝蟾

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