Xi Feng’s Way with Words
Xi Feng, or Phoenix, is among the most compelling characters in the Hong Lou Meng. Whenever she steps into a room she dominates the scene, and even when she absent, her influence is felt throughout the two households. One reason for her dominance in the family hierarchy is her quick wit and golden tongue, which she uses with expert precision: she can tear a strip off an underling, negotiate her way to financial advantage, or have a room in stitches. Having not grown up with a classical education, Xi Feng lacks the literary allusions and clever jokes of other young ladies of the household, as Dai Yu snobbily remarks. Yet this does not hold her back in the slightest.
A certain meretricious talent
I am very much enjoying the Penguin Classics version of the Hong Lou Meng, and in particular some delightful phrases courtesy of David Hawkes' excellent translation. One of these concerns the main character of Bao Yu in Chapter 17, during a set-piece scene that pits the enfant terrible entertainingly against his disapproving father. An imperial edict has made provision for an annual visit home for all palace concubines, provided they can be received in the manner to which they are accustomed. Cue a hasty scrambling to construct what amounts to a pleasure garden in the grounds of the family estate. Bao Yu is unfortunate enough to run into his father, who takes him round with a group of literati and demands that he thinks up names and couplets for the various beauty spots they encounter.
