Xing Furen

Her Story

Wife of Jia She, the elder Jia brother, and mistress of nothing much. She bore no children — 「我一生无儿无女的」 — and the young people under her roof are not hers: Jia Lian is her stepson, Yingchun is Jia She’s daughter by a concubine.

Chapter 46 states her plainly, through what Xifeng knows: 邢夫人禀性愚犟，只知承顺贾赦以自保，次则婪取财货为自得 — obstinate and dull, knowing only how to humour her husband and stay safe, and after that how to accumulate. Money passing through her hands is squeezed and the difference kept, on the argument that if he spends she must save.

The same chapter is her humiliation. Jia She wants Yuanyang, his own mother’s personal maid, as a concubine, and sends his wife to get her. Lady Xing approaches the girl privately first, on the theory that consent obtained in advance is hard to withdraw. Yuanyang says nothing to her, then kneels before Grandmother Jia with a pair of scissors, hacks off her hair and swears never to marry anyone. The chapter title does not name her and does not need to: 尴尬人难免尴尬事 — an awkward person cannot avoid an awkward business.

Chapter 73 is worse, because it costs other people. The simpleton maid Sha Dajie, hunting crickets in the garden, picks up an embroidered pouch with erotic figures on it and walks straight into Lady Xing, who takes it, frightens her into silence, and has it delivered to Lady Wang by her own servant — 「要给王夫人难看」, to make her sister-in-law lose face. Chapter 74 is the night search of the garden, and everything that follows.

In Chapters 118 and 119, with Xifeng dead and Jia Lian away, Wang Ren and Jia Huan arrange to hand Qiaojie to an outside prince’s household. Her grandmother is told it is an excellent match and raises no objection. Ping’er and Granny Liu get the child out.

Nothing she does is her own idea. That is the point of her.

In Xiang Li's Hands

The harshest face in this group. An older woman in three-quarter view, glancing back over her shoulder at the viewer: deep folds from nose to mouth, creases at the eye, a small downturned mouth, the look sour. She holds a broad ochre-gold fan up beside her cheek, half screening herself. Blue-green robe scrolled in gold, orange sash, striped skirt, a long red ribbon whipping away right. Behind her on the left hangs heavy curtaining, grey, blue and red. She is the only one of the eight painted between a curtain and a fan, and the only woman here the brush declines to flatter.

The Calligraphy

邢夫人 — a surname and a form of address, Madam Xing; there is no personal name to give, because the novel never supplies one and neither does anyone in it. Set well out to the right in a middling, upright hand, the three characters have the flatness of a household roster entry. She is her husband’s wife on the paper exactly as she is in the book.

Connections

• Jia She 贾赦 — her husband, whose errands are the whole of her recorded activity.
• Yuanyang 鸳鸯 — Grandmother Jia’s maid, whom she was sent to procure and who refused her in Chapter 46.
• Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 — her stepson’s wife, who runs the household she nominally outranks.
• Wang Furen 王夫人 — her sister-in-law, whom she embarrasses with the embroidered pouch in Chapter 73.
• Jia Yingchun 贾迎春 — Jia She’s daughter by a concubine, raised under her roof and never her charge.

Others of the same kind · Jia household – wives, concubines, in-laws Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 · Li Wan 李纨 · Qin Keqing 秦可卿 · Wang Furen 王夫人 · You Erjie 尤二姐 · You Sanjie 尤三姐 · Xue Baoqin 薛宝琴 · Xing Xiuyan 邢岫烟 · Li Wen 李纹 · Li Qi 李绮 · You Shi 尤氏 · Xue Yima 薛姨妈 · Zhao Yiniang 赵姨娘 · Zhou Yiniang 周姨娘 and 11 more

Named on these pages Jia Yingchun 贾迎春 · Xing Xiuyan 邢岫烟 · Yanhong 嫣红 · Wang Shanbao jia de 王善保家的 · Fei Pozi 费婆子 · Xing Zhong 邢忠 · Xing Dequan 邢德全 · Yingchun Rumu 迎春乳母

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