[In this excerpt, Hsia uses the story of Lotus, a novel within the novel Chin P'ing Mei (The Golden Lotus), to illuminate the strengths and the moral attitude of the text. The extreme obscenity of some portions of the novel are, for Hsia, a key aspect of its forceful “moral realism,” and they represent some of the best writing in the work.]

One cannot expect a work to possess ideological or philosophical coherence when it manifests such obvious structural anarchy. Yet, before one can properly appreciate the finer aspects of Chin P'ing Mei, one must attend to its often mutually contradictory moral and religious assumptions. On the whole, the novelist shares those ambivalent attitudes commonly seen in the colloquial tales of the Ming period: outward conformity with Confucian morality versus a covert sympathy for lovers and seekers after individual autonomy; belief in the Buddhist doctrine of karma and retribution versus an undisguised contempt for monks and nuns; envious disapproval of the rich and powerful versus merciless snobbery toward the lowborn and unfortunate. These remain attitudes rather than components of a consistent world view because, like the professional storytellers, the author seems incapable of resolving the contradictions in his own thinking. His mind is nothing if not common as he by turns appeals to one or another of the popular prejudices.

Chin P'ing Mei has been labeled a naturalistic novel by modern critics. If it is one, then its naturalism owes nothing to the nineteenth-century theories of heredity and environment, but is rather an outgrowth of the Buddhist theory of moral retribution. In a sense, Hsi-men Ch'ing and Lotus are just as helplessly conditioned to an evil existence by their previous karma as the unfortunates in Zola are conditioned by their heredity and environment. In Buddhist terms, the novel is about the redemption of Hsi-men's evil deeds by the willing self-sacrifice of Moon Lady and their son's election of a life of Buddhist dedication. If we take Hsiao-ko to be the reincarnation of Hsi-men, then we may say that the wheel of karma has ceased to turn for the latter because his own individual sins have been canceled through the intervention of a Buddha. But the other characters affected by his evil and perpetrating evil on the strength of their own karma—Lotus, Vase, Plum Blossom, Ch'en Ching-chi, and all the rest—have to undergo a series of rebirths until they have acquired enough merit to get off the wheel of suffering. The announcement of their impending rebirths in the last chapter (though in strict accordance with Buddhist morality, perhaps few of them deserve to be reborn as human beings) indicates that for them the drama of retribution is not confined to one mundane existence. Hsü Chin P'ing Mei (A continuation of Chin P'ing Mei), written by Ting Yao-k'ang during the early Ch'ing period, does concern itself with the further adventures of Moon Lady and Hsiao-ko as well as those of the deceased characters in their next round of human and animal existence.¹

But though the author of Chin P'ing Mei anchors his work on the Buddhist idea of karma, he speaks in his own person usually not as a Buddhist, but as a Confucianist regretting the religious necessity for renunciation. As a Buddhist, he would have heralded the birth of Hsiao-ko with joy since he is destined to cancel out his father's sins. Instead, we find in chapter 75 the author's disapproving comment on Moon Lady's engrossment in Buddhist tales when she is already big with child:

In ancient times, a pregnant woman would never sit or recline in such a manner as to cause injury to the unborn child. She would never listen to erotic music or look at anything suggestive of immodesty. She would frequently occupy herself with the classics of Poetry and History as well as rare objects of gold and jade. Frequently, too, she would ask a blind minstrel to recite old poetry to her. In this way, when the child was born, he would have proper features and a handsome figure, and when he grew up, he would be intelligent. This is known as King Wen's method of educating the child in the womb. Now that Moon Lady was with child, she should not have allowed those nuns to recite “precious scrolls” to her and expound the doctrines of karma and transmigration. In consequence of this, an ancient Buddha was moved to resume incarnation on earth. And a few years after the child was born, he would be claimed by that Buddha and made to foresake the world. Alas, how sad that the child could not inherit the family property and continue the family line!²

This sense of regret, later reinforced when the novelist describes Moon Lady's extreme reluctance to part with her son, actually strengthens the pathos of the novel. It is as if the author were appealing to the Chinese reader's instinctive preference for Confucian values so as to make him see the horror and desolation wrought by Hsi-men's evil deeds. If he had not been so wicked, perhaps Moon Lady would not have been so easily seduced by the nuns, and if she had not been so seduced, her son would have been properly brought up on the Confucian classics and would have in time passed the palace examination and become a distinguished official. The family line would have continued and prospered. The author's Confucian sympathies therefore place the Buddhist scheme of redemption in the perspective of tragedy.

For a Buddhist novel, Chin P'ing Mei is surprisingly crowded with Buddhist monks and nuns (and also Taoist priests) of dubious character. Except for one or two mysterious monks of obvious sanctity or magic power,³ there is hardly one reputable representative of the religious community in the book. All the nuns that ingratiate themselves with Moon Lady are somewhat shady, and the author undoubtedly agrees with Hsi-men in placing them among professional matchmakers and other disreputable females whose avocation is to swindle their patrons and bring about amorous liaisons. This contempt for nuns and to a lesser extent for monks, commonly shared by the Chinese, stems not so much from a disrespect for religion as from a sense of snobbery: the nuns and monks, just like matchmakers, quack doctors, and unsuccessful scholars reduced to making a living as pedagogues or scribes, are automatically suspect because their social status is low. If not villains, they are at least comic types to be laughed at without qualms. With its merciless ridicule of all people of humbler status, Chin P'ing Mei may be said to have been a book consciously designed for the middle class. In addition to many comic quacks like Dr. Chao, there is Dr. Chiang, briefly Vase's husband, who suffers cruel abuse from his wife and Hsi-men without any redress.⁴ The pederast Wen Pi-ku, a poor scholar serving as Hsi-men's secretary, is an object of pure scorn.⁵ (In other Chinese novels we find many a pedagogue resorting to pederasty out of necessity rather than by personal choice. The economic implication of his comedy is that he is too poor to afford a wife or the pleasures of a brothel.) Then, of course, the sponging friends of Hsi-men literally eat the crumbs off his table. The novelist, who has very little sense of refined humor, specializes in the comedy of destitution and has great fun with these shiftless clowns.

In this connection, it is interesting to note that Hsi-men Ch'ing has not always been presented in so unfavorable a light as is generally supposed. He is a man of wealth and position, and for the most part he is spared the author's ridicule. Our final impression of him is that of a likable person, cheerful, generous, and capable of genuine feeling. If he is frequently engaged in nefarious deals, he as often impresses us with his bounty. If he is a notorious seducer of women, the author makes it quite clear that his victims are begging to be seduced. In extenuating Hsi-men's crime, he is appealing to the Chinese prejudice that it is inevitably women who bring men to ruin with their sexual aggression and dangerous cunning. Nearly all Hsi-men's mistresses are shown to have been women of shady background and lewd disposition before they are approached by Hsi-men. Wang VI and Madame Lin are notorious for their promiscuity.⁶ Even Hui-lien (Wistaria, in Egerton's translation), the wife of the servant Lai Wang and the most pathetic of Hsi-men's victims, has a shady past. A maid in Judge Ts'ai's house, she is dismissed from service after she has been found sharing a paramour with her mistress behind the judge's back. Then she is married to a cook and finds time to have an affair with Lai Wang. After her husband has been conveniently killed in a brawl, she joins the Hsi-men household as Lai Wang's wife and easily attracts the attention of her new master. Though she is not as bad as the novelist initially depicts her,⁷ there is no doubt that she is a foolish and vain woman of loose morals.

In his long career as a profligate, then, though Hsi-men has been privileged to deflower young courtesans as an honored customer at brothels, he has not actually seduced a single virgin or virtuous woman from a good family. An indolent sensualist among easy women, he is almost the exact opposite of the energetic seducer in the Western tradition—Don Giovanni. He is certainly not a Vicomte de Valmont, the deliberate corrupter of innocence in Laclos's novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses. But fortunately for the Chinese novel, if Hsi-men is a mere creature of self-indulgence in contrast to the diabolic French hero, his principal partner in lust—Lotus—does suggest the determination and evil cunning of the Marquise de Merteuil. The Chinese author, of course, lacks the artistry and intellect of Laclos, but if his work does attain moments of moral horror, it is certainly due to his unflinching presentation of Lotus' character. To this aspect of the novel's art we shall return.

But, as has been earlier mentioned, even the portrayal of Lotus has not been entirely unsympathetic, largely because of the author's ambivalent attitude toward the sexual function. Superficially, he is the stern moralist who seizes every opportunity to condemn adultery and debauchery, but the very fact that he takes so many pains to describe the sexual act belies the attitude of moral censure. While a dry, slangy, and at times almost clinical style suffices for most of the shorter passages, in the more elaborate accounts of coition the author relishes its every detail (even when he is not resorting to verse) with a kind of dispassionate lyricism which seems to imply that, while the participants may otherwise disgust us, the act itself, the performing organs, and the human bodies themselves are beautiful sights to contemplate. There are nauseating and even sadistic scenes that nullify that impression, and there is coarse comedy as when, for instance, lascivious-minded onlookers watch a copulating couple. But, on the whole, the sexual act when performed to the mutual pleasure of the partners is never entirely robbed of its human meaning, and for the many frustrated women characters it remains the sole redeeming event in their dull captive existence.

It is a pity that, except for the expensive photolithographic reprints of the tz'u-hua version, cheap modern editions of the novel have always appeared in an expurgated form even though the longer erotic passages are invariably well written. While on most occasions the author is content to borrow and adapt cliché-ridden verses and popular songs, he seems to have composed these passages with loving care. For one thing, his vocabulary, ranging from low dialectal terms to euphemisms of extreme poetic refinement, is quite astounding. To be sure, it is not all his own since sex manuals have been composed as early as the Han dynasty⁸ and erotic imagery has always been noticeable in certain types of Chinese poetry. Nevertheless, Chin P'ing Mei, the first full-length erotic novel in China, has gone far beyond its predecessors in its elaboration of sexual description. Like many Western amatory poets, the author is not without humor in his use of the double-entendre and the mock-heroic style. But, even in his playfulness, he seems to savor the reciprocal joy of the performers in every movement of their play. For the duration of their coupling, their moral stance outside the bed is forgotten and they are seen solely as lovers absorbed in the game of amorous combat.

The author also appears quite sensitive to the pain of sexual frustration. While Hsi-men cavorts with his women, his neglected wives appear the more lonely as they occupy their time with silly chatter and ugly squabbles, with birthday parties and conversations with nuns. With all her moral rectitude and reluctance to press her sexual claims as the first wife, Moon Lady appears perhaps the loneliest of them all. Even Golden Lotus, when she is being temporarily neglected by Hsi-men, invites commiseration as she projects herself in the role of the lovelorn woman in the popular songs. Though the author of Chin P'ing Mei makes no attempt to reconcile the claims of conventional morality and the instinctive self, there is little doubt that his elaborate descriptions of sexual play and his acute sympathy for sexual deprivation represent a kind of personal commitment to values ostensibly denied by the novel.

When all the points that conspire to make the novel a work of haphazard realism and moral ambiguity are conceded, a strong case can nevertheless be made for its being a work of terrifying moral realism if one is able to concentrate on the major episodes involving the main characters—especially Hsi-men, Lotus, Vase, and Moon Lady—and to refuse to be distracted by all the intervening passages of satire and burlesque, of comic frivolity and didactic solemnity. Fortunately, nearly all the “romance” episodes come pell-mell after chapter 80 so that they hardly affect the “novel” within the novel that we shall be considering in this section.⁹

Golden Lotus is clearly the dominant character in that “novel.” Except in her poetic moments, when she appears languid and dispirited, she is the most clear-headed and calculating character of the lot. She is born and reared a slave, and her savagery is the savagery of the slave, abject in her selfishness, cunning in her struggle for security and power, and ruthless toward her rivals and enemies. The plaything of an old roué and the victim of a travesty of marriage to a “seven-inch dwarf,” she is definitely among the injured and insulted, and the modern tendency, among playwrights and novelists who have portrayed her career, is to sympathize with her, at least for her early attempt to achieve a kind of normal happiness with her brother-in-law Wu Sung.¹⁰ But in the novel there is little evidence that she feels romantic about him, certainly not after her beauty has caught the eye of Hsi-men Ch'ing. (In the end, of course, Wu Sung returns as her nemesis. But one cannot take Part III seriously: if she were consistent with her earlier character, she would have tried to avoid rather than have entered with apparent alacrity the trap he sets for her.) And there is little in her character that calls for pity. She herself is unpitiful, and Plum Blossom, in defending her against her detractors, once praises her spirit of cheng-ch'iang, that is, her fierce determination to excel and beat the competition.¹¹ She is pitiless in her murder of her first husband, as in her treatment of her stepdaughter, Ying-erh. When Hsi-men deliberately neglects her following their first fling together, she releases her fury by clawing Ying-erh's face until blood flows.¹² This is a recurring situation: whenever she feels mistreated or sexually frustrated, she inflicts sadistic punishment on her own slave, whether she be the step-daughter or the maid Chrysanthemum (Ch'iu-chü).

Her drama proper begins with her removal to the Hsi-men house. Upon being introduced to the other wives, she knows right away that none is her match in beauty. Nevertheless, to safeguard her position, she ingratiates herself with Moon Lady and assiduously cultivates the favor of her lord not only by eagerly complying with his sexual demands but by making him a present of her pretty maid, Plum Blossom. With his favor more or less assured, she further strengthens her position by forming an alliance with the good-natured Meng Yü-lou, and then she tests her power by picking a fight with the wife enjoying the least favor with their husband, Hsüeh-o. Hsi-men is prevailed upon to kick and beat the latter violently.¹³ His eagerness to please her reassures Lotus and emboldens her to adopt a more aggressive policy toward Moon Lady. In the future she will time and again incite her lord to punish her enemies and demand from him proofs of his love.

But Lotus is also a nymphomaniac, Early conditioned to the notion that a woman's duty is to please her man, she has long capitalized on her slavery to make her lot endurable: to regard herself indeed as a sex instrument, but not so much to please her partner as to gratify herself. Soon she finds Hsi-men's sexual attentions inadequate: though spending little time with the other wives, he is a man of vigor with a roving eye, and a habitué of the local brothels. During one of his prolonged absences, therefore, Lotus forms a liaison with a boy servant, Ch'in T'ung, to satisfy her sexual hunger, but in doing so she incautiously affords the other wives a chance to avenge themselves. Hsüeh-o and Li Chiao-erh inform against her, and the enraged Hsi-men immediately orders his servants to give the boy “thirty terrible stripes till his flesh was torn and the blood ran down his legs,”¹⁴ and then dismisses him from service. But Lotus herself receives much lighter punishment: she is stripped of her clothes and commanded to kneel before her master to be cross-examined. Since the boy has already been harshly punished for his undeniable crime, one might logically expect Hsi-men to exact a confession from her: if he so wishes, he could beat her to death without incurring any legal difficulty. During the interrogation he does lash her once, but then he “looked again at the kneeling woman, her flower-like body unclothed. She was uttering piteous sounds and weeping so touchingly. His anger flew to Java, and with it all but a fraction of his determination to punish her.”¹⁵ Then he beckons Plum Blossom to come over. As he asks her to confirm Lotus' lying words, he keeps on fondling her. His undignified manner of holding court indicates that Lotus' nudity has aroused him (hence his need to fondle Plum Blossom) and he questions the latter so as to get out of a difficult situation without losing face. In this round of battle with her master, Lotus is exposed to public shame and she will be from then on much more on her guard when having trysts with Ching-chi. But the fact that Hsi-men does not have the heart to give her due punishment shows that she still enjoys the upper hand.

Then, to the further advantage of Lotus, Hsi-men becomes much more mellowed as the novel progresses. He still seeks sexual diversity, but more out of habit than out of an inner compulsion. His outbursts of anger become fewer as he becomes increasingly inured to his social and official routine. As a lover, he is now more intent on impressing women with his sexual prowess and giving them pleasure than on receiving pleasure himself. An occasional sadist, he is almost masochistically resigned to punishing himself with strenuous dissipation. In time he shows a more accommodating disposition which finds satisfaction in doing favors for others. His cruel treatment of Vase for her marriage to Dr. Chiang may be said to represent his last imperious act of domestic despotism. Upon installing her as his sixth wife, he absents himself from her chamber for the first three nights. Highly humiliated, she attempts suicide on the third night but, still in a punishing mood the next evening, he whips her and orders her to kneel before him in her nakedness.¹⁶ From then on, however, he finds so much contentment in her love and devotion that he cannot help being humanized under her influence. Vase's great love for Hsi-men is not something easily reconcilable with her cruelty to her first two husbands: this change in her character is primarily dictated by plot requirements so that she may serve as a complete foil to the aggressive and selfish Lotus. But, psychologically speaking, it is not entirely implausible that she should undergo this transformation because, as she repeatedly tells Hsi-men, with him she has finally found sexual fulfillment.¹⁷ He is able to satisfy her as no one else has been, and out of her supreme gratitude she becomes a concerned and affectionate wife.

For Lotus, Vase constitutes the greatest threat to her continuing enjoyment of her privileged position. Quite unlike Vase, she uses her sex primarily as a weapon in the battle for domination and measures her security by the frequency of her husband's visits. She tolerates his desire for sexual diversity only so long as the objects of his attention pose no threat to that security. In chapter 11-50, she has two rivals besides Vase, neither quite so serious. The first is the courtesan Cassia (Li Kuei-chieh), Li Chiao-erh's niece, who takes herself seriously because Hsi-men is her first, deflowering patron. She engages Lotus in a minor feud but, with so many other minor characters to attend to, the novelist soon loses interest in her and she drops out of the competition after chapter 12. The other rival is the pathetic and simple-minded Hui-lien, whom Lotus regards as more dangerous because there is the possibility of her becoming the seventh wife and therefore sharing Hsi-men's favors with her on a legal basis. And she cannot stand her bragging about her improved status as a mistress. When Hui-lien's husband grumbles about his cuckoldom, therefore, it is Lotus who incites Hsi-men to take harsh measures against him. He is first maltreated in prison and then banished to his home town, and the heartbroken Hui-lien commits suicide as a result.¹⁸ Lotus gloats over this triumph.

But Vase is much harder to dispose of. She is a rich lady well liked by everybody whereas Lotus herself is a lowborn slave generally detested in the household. Moreover, the fair-skinned Vase is a beauty in her own right, and once Lotus whitens her own body in an attempt to lure Hsi-men from his new love.¹⁹ But not only is he genuinely fond of Vase and grateful for her money; she soon becomes pregnant whereas, despite her practice of black magic, Lotus remains childless after her two miscarriages. Powerless to score any advantage over her rival, she is reduced to making jeering remarks about her pregnant condition in front of their husband. Hsi-men, however, immediately puts a stop to her impudence by inflicting upon her a mild form of sadism (in chapter 27, generally regarded by Chinese readers as the most obscene chapter in the whole book). The form of her punishment, however, still expresses his fondness for her in that it merely serves him as an excuse for further sexual experimentation. But insofar as Lotus is denied equal partnership in the game, she is being punished. She suffers a temporary setback.

After Vase has given birth to a boy, Lotus feels keenly her total eclipse. In her desperation, she tries to win her man back with proofs of sexual solicitude or to persuade the other wives to turn against her rival. When nothing comes of these efforts, she punishes her own slave, the maid Chrysanthemum, often without the slightest provocation, to give vent to her frustration. The most shocking instance occurs in chapter 58 where her torture of Chrysanthemum serves at once to spite Vase and to aggravate the condition of her sickly baby, Kuan-ko. That evening Lotus has stepped on dog dung and her new shoes are soiled. With a heavy stick she first beats the guilty dog, whose howling wakes up the child in the adjacent suite of rooms. But she continues beating it for a while even after Vase has sent her maid Welcome Spring over to ask her to desist. Next, Lotus berates Chrysanthemum for having kept the dog in her compound at this late hour and orders her to come forward to examine the shoes:

Tricked, she bent her head to look at them. Golden Lotus struck her face several times with one of the shoes until her lips were cut. Chrysanthemum drew back and tried to stop the blood with her hand.

“You slave, so you want to get away from me, eh?” Golden Lotus cursed her. Then to Plum Blossom: “Drag her here and have her kneel down before me. Then get the whip and strip all her clothes off her. I will give her thirty stripes if she takes them nicely. If she tries to dodge, I'll whip her all over.”

Plum Blossom pulled off Chrysanthemum's clothes. Golden Lotus bade her hold the girl's hands, and the blows fell upon her like raindrops. That slave girl shrieked like a pig being killed.

Kuan-ko had only just closed his eyes and now he was startled by the noise. This time Vase bade Embroidered Spring come to Golden Lotus, saying, “My mistress asks the Fifth Lady please to forgive Chrysanthemum. She is afraid the noise will frighten the baby.”

A little earlier, old woman P'an [Lotus' mother, who was paying a visit] was lying on the brick-bed in the inner room when she first heard the screams of Chrysanthemum. She hurriedly got up and asked her daughter to stop, but Golden Lotus would not listen to her. Now that Vase had sent Embroidered Spring over, she again came forward and tried to snatch the whip from her daughter's hand, saying, “Chieh-chieh, please don't beat her any more and give the lady over there cause to complain that you are trying to frighten her baby. I don't mind your breaking a stick over a donkey, but we must not harm that precious sapling.”

Golden Lotus was already wild enough, but when she heard her mother's words she was so inflamed with anger that her face turned purple. She pushed her mother away and the old woman all but fell down. “Old fool,” she said, “you go over there and sit. This doesn't concern you and why do you want to interfere? What's all this crap about a precious sapling and breaking a stick over a donkey? You are in league with everyone else to injure me.”

“You thief, you will surely die an untimely death,” retorted the old woman. “When did I behave like a spy? I came here only to beg a little cold food. How could you push me around like that!”

“If you put in a word for her again, see if I don't fix that old bitch over there,” Golden Lotus warned. “And I can tell you this: nobody is going to stew me in a pot and eat me up.”

Hearing her daughter scolding her so, old woman P'an went to her room and whimpered. Golden Lotus lashed Chrysanthemum twenty or thirty more times. Then she beat her with a stick until her skin and flesh were torn. Before she let the girl go, she drove her sharp nails into her cheeks and scratched them all over.

All this time Vase could only cover the baby's ears with her hands. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She was furious but there was nothing she could do.²⁰

By this scene Lotus has already decided on her course of revenge: to kill Vase's son and deprive her of her major source of advantage. Since the child is especially susceptible to fright, she now trains a cat to pounce on him. Long plagued by illness, he succumbs to the traumatic experience.

Confronted with Lotus' second major act of treachery (her first being her adultery with Ch'in T'ung), Hsi-men acts with surprising timidity. Though both Vase and Moon Lady have no reason to doubt that Lotus has deliberately trained the cat to scare the boy, Hsi-men makes no attempt to find out the truth when informed of his critical condition:

Hsi-men Ch'ing flew into a furious rage. He went straight to Golden Lotus' room and, without a word, took the cat by the legs and dashed out its brains on the stone flags underneath the eaves. There was a thud. The cat's brain was scattered like ten thousand peach blossoms, and its teeth like broken jade. Verily,

No longer would it catch mice in the world of men,
As it returned to the world of shades as a feline fairy.

When Golden Lotus saw her cat destroyed, she just sat on her bed and did not stir once. But no sooner had he crossed her doorsill than she muttered a curse, “Thief, someday you will die a robber's death. If you dragged me out of here and killed me, you would indeed be a hero. But what had the cat done to you that you should rush in like one gone crazy and hurl him to his death? When he goes to the court in hell and demands his life from you, I hope you will then be prepared. You thief and fickle scoundrel, you will come to no good end.”²¹

Recall how, in dealing with her earlier adultery, Hsi-men has at least gone through the motions of an interrogation; at this more dangerous manifestation of her malignity, he merely vents his wrath on the cat without even bothering to ask her any question. Though at the moment he may be too upset to punish her, still, he never returns to this task following the death of his son. We may blame the novelist for his failure to provide a major scene of confrontation, but his quiet handling of the present scene may imply that Hsi-men is now too much aware of Lotus' power over him to want to challenge it. She remains thoroughly insolent, acting the part of an injured woman whose beloved pet has been unaccountably destroyed. Hsi-men appears to beat a hasty retreat as Lotus' muttered curses trail after him.

The death of her son has also completely broken Vase's spirit. She no longer cares to keep up her struggle against Lotus and resigns herself to ill-health and death, leaving Hsi-men disconsolate and Lotus in a position to regain her dominance. But, in the short run, the removal of her rival has the effect of further alienating Hsi-men from Lotus not because he bears her any grudge but because, in the clutches of grief, he wants to keep vigil in Vase's bedchamber and does not feel the usual sexual stimulation. Then, one night, out of his gratitude to the nurse-maid Ju-i (Heart's Delight, in Egerton's translation), who has remained doggedly loyal to her dead mistress, he takes her to bed with him and lets nature reassert itself. Lotus is amused but not alarmed: she cannot dominate him unless he takes an active interest in women. While still grieving for Vase, Hsi-men now spends his nights with Ju-i; the affectionate courtesan Moonbeam (Cheng Ai-yüeh-erh), certainly the most charming girl in the whole book; and, of course, Lotus. Then he takes his trip to the capital.²²

Lotus' specialty as a sex partner takes the form of fellatio or, in Chinese euphemism, p'in-hsiao (tasting or playing the flute). The night before Hsi-men takes off for the capital, he and Lotus play that game, indicating his increasingly passive role even in bed. Upon his return, he spends his first night with Lotus, but he cannot fall asleep even after he has made love to her. Since Lotus also remains unsatisfied, she again suggests the game of p'in-hsiao to prove her utter devotion to him. At the risk of offending the reader, I must quote the ensuing important passage which happens to be one of the most disgusting scenes in the novel:

The woman made that suggestion for no other reason than to tie Hsi-men's heart to her. Moreover, he had been away from her for half a month; during all that time she had been so starved of sex that she was aflame with lust. Now that he was again with her, she wished she could enter his belly and stay there for good. So for the whole night she relished the flute without once letting it leave her mouth. When finally Hsi-men wanted to get off the bed to urinate, the woman still would not release the flute, saying, “My dearest, please pass all the urine you have stored up right in my mouth and let me swallow it. It is not worth the trouble to get up and expose your warm body to the cold.” Hearing this, Hsi-men was filled with boundless delight. He said, “Baby, I don't believe anyone could love me as much as you do.” Then he really passed water in her mouth and she let it go down her throat and slowly she swallowed it all. Hsi-men asked, “Does it taste good?” Golden Lotus answered, “It tastes a little alkaline. I would like to have fragrant tea leaves to take the taste away.” Hsi-men said, “There are some fragrant tea leaves in my white silk jacket. Get them for yourself.” Golden Lotus pulled the jacket from the headboard toward her, took a few leaves, and put them in her mouth.²³

For emphasis, the author concludes the scene with a didactic comment:

Readers, concubines are always ready to lead their husbands on and bewitch them. To this end, they will go to any length of shamelessness and endure anything no matter how revolting. Such practices would be abhorrent to a real wife properly married to her husband.²⁴

This episode, which could have been thought up only by a perverted genius, marks a new stage of Hsi-men's dotage. Apparently under the impression that Lotus really cares for him, from then on he spends most of his nights with her, to the consternation of his other wives, and she in turn becomes far more demanding and censorious of his behavior. A tired debauchee now occasionally complaining of aches in the groin and limbs, he almost has to get Lotus' permission to stay with other women. One evening he tells her that he is going to stay with Ju-i:

“Why don't you undress?” she asked.

He hugged her and smiled apologetically. “I came especially to tell you I am going over there tonight. Please give me that bundle of love-instruments.”

“You convict,” the woman scolded him. “So you think you can hoodwink me and get by with a nice excuse. If I had not been waiting at the side door, you would have gone there already. You think you would then have asked for my permission? This morning you promised that slut that you would sleep with her tonight and tell stories about me. That's why you didn't send a maid here, but asked her to bring the fur coat herself and kowtow to me. That slut, what does she take me for, trying to play tricks on me that way! When Vase was alive, you treated me like dirt. You think I won't get mad just because you are going to her old nest with some other birdie?”

“Who said I promised her anything?” Hsi-men Ch'ing said, again putting on a smile. “If she hadn't come and kowtowed to you, you would have had just as much cause to curse her.”

The woman deliberated for a long while and then said, “I will let you go, but you shall not take along that bundle. The things will all be filthy after you are through with that slut. Since you are going to sleep with me tomorrow anyway, let them stay clean.”

“But I am so accustomed to them I don't know what to do without them.”

Hsi-men Ch'ing badgered her for a long time, and she finally threw the silver clasp at him. “Take this thing if you must have it,” she said. Hsi-men Ch'ing put it into his sleeve as he said, “This is better than nothing.” Then he eagerly stepped out.

The woman called him back. “Come here. I am talking to you. I suppose you are going to sleep with her in the same bed the whole night through? If you do so, even the two maids there will feel ashamed. You'd better stay a little while and then let her sleep elsewhere.”

“Who said I shall sleep with her long?” Hsi-men said. He was leaving again.

Again the woman called him back. “Come here,” she said, “I order you. Why are you in such a hurry?”

“What do you want now?” Hsi-men Ch'ing said.

“You can sleep with her only because I let you, but I forbid you to talk a lot of nonsense about me. If you do, you'll encourage her to be brazen in front of us. If I find out you have done anything of the sort, I will bite off your thing the next time you come to my room.”

“Oh, you funny little whore,” Hsi-men Ch'ing said, “how can I put up with so many of your instructions?” Then he went straight to that other place.²⁵

One perceives a changed tone in their relationship: Hsi-men is now the furtive and apologetic husband and Lotus the righteous, commanding wife who has him at her beck and call with such rude commands as “I am talking to you” and “I order you.”

The next evening Lotus counts on Hsi-men's presence in her bedroom. According to the calendar, it is an auspicious night for getting pregnant, and she has prepared a special medicine for that purpose. But Hsi-men, after a busy day with his colleagues, is being detained in Moon Lady's room where other ladies of the house and women guests are gathered for a party. Impatient, Lotus goes straight to Moon Lady's suite to call him:

Seeing that Hsi-men Ch'ing showed no sign of leaving, she stepped forward and pulled aside the curtain, saying, “If you are not coming, I shall go. I haven't patience to wait for you any longer.”

Hsi-men Ch'ing said, “My child, you go first. I will come when I've finished my wine.” Golden Lotus went away.²⁶

Even for Lotus, this is unheard-of impudence: to charge into Moon Lady's room uninvited and try to drag their common husband away from her in front of all her guests. Little wonder the hitherto uncomplaining Moon Lady is provoked to pour forth in a magnificent tirade the accumulated resentments of the other wives against Lotus:

Then Moon Lady said, “I don't want you to go to her. And I have something more to tell you. It looks as if you two were wearing only one pair of pants. What kind of manners are these to barge in like that and force you to leave! That shameless slut! She thinks that she alone is your wife and the rest of us nobodies, and you are contemptible enough to go along with her. No wonder people are criticizing you behind your back. We are all your wives and you ought to treat us decently. You needn't advertise the fact that that one in the front court has got you body and soul. Since you came back from the Eastern Capital, you haven't spent a single night in the inner courts. Naturally people are annoyed. You should put fire into the cold stove before you begin on the hot one, and you have no right to allow one woman to monopolize you. So far as I am concerned, it doesn't matter because I don't care for games of this sort. But the others can't stand it. They don't say anything but, however good-natured they are, they must feel resentful. Third Sister Meng didn't eat a thing all the time we were at Brother Ying's place. She probably caught a chill in the stomach and has been feeling nauseated ever since. Mistress Ying gave her two cups of wine, but she couldn't keep it down. You should really go and see her.”²⁷

Hsi-men stays that night with Meng Yü-lou. But, even though her plans for the night remain unfulfilled, Lotus has affronted Moon Lady not thoughtlessly but deliberately, to advertise her improved position that can stand the combined assault of the other wives. Chapter 75, from which the preceding three excerpts have been taken, details their belated desperate attempts to curb her power. But their efforts come to little: Lotus is brought to give perfunctory apologies to Moon Lady but she retains her absolute dominion over their common husband.

By now Lotus is openly carrying on with Ching-chi whenever Hsi-men is not around to watch her. Precisely because Hsi-men himself is approaching his end (he dies in chapter 79), he seems to have partially recovered his zest for sexual conquest. His new mistress is Madame Lin, a lewd woman of the higher class, but for the first time in his life he is itching after something virtuous and unobtainable: the young and attractive wife of his newly arrived colleague, Captain Ho.²⁸ The night during the Lantern Festival when he is keeping his tryst with Wang VI, remembrance of the beautiful image of Mrs. Ho gives him a semblance of passion and he is literally exhausted. He falls into a dead sleep as soon as he returns to Lotus' bed in the small hours of the night. Lotus, wide awake with lust, finds him completely limp and incapable of sexual combat. In deep frustration, she finally wakes him up to ask where the aphrodisiac pills are, empties out the last four pills in the box, and takes one herself. Though well aware that the normal dosage per night is one pill (and Hsi-men has already taken that pill in readiness for his bout with Wang VI), Lotus has him swallow all three with a cup of strong white liquor so as to restore his virility even in his state of extreme fatigue. Soon the pills take effect. She then sits astride his inert body, applies some aphrodisiac ointment to harden the erection, and hungrily seeks deep penetration. She reaches orgasm twice, wetting in all five towels. But the somnolent Hsi-men cannot release himself even though his thoroughly congested glans is now assuming the color of raw liver. Scared, Lotus sucks it with her mouth until a large quantity of semen finally squirts out.

At first it was semen, and then it turned into a fluid composed mainly of blood, and there was no more hope for him. Hsi-men had fainted away, with his stiff limbs outstretched. Frightened, the woman hurriedly placed a few red dates in his mouth. But blood had followed semen and, now that the blood supply had been exhausted, his penis kept on squirting nothing but cold air until the ejaculatory motion stopped.²⁹

The author immediately adds to this grim passage a didactic summary of Hsi-men's career as follows:

Gentle reader, a man's supply of vitality is limited even though there are no bounds to his desire for sexual pleasure. It is also said that the addict to sexual pleasure has shallow spiritual capacities. Hsi-men Ch'ing had abandoned himself to lust, not realizing that when the oil in a lamp is exhausted its light will fail and that when the marrow in his bones goes dry a man will die.³⁰

But even a short-lived rake doesn't necessarily have to die a horrible death. The ghastly account of Hsi-men's collapse, while supporting the didactic passage, actually gives the impression of his murder by an unfeeling and insatiable nymphomaniac. In the next few days, while the best doctors are being summoned to succor him, Lotus still takes advantage of his peculiar condition (“His swollen scrotum was large and shiny like an eggplant”)³¹ to get sexual satisfaction: “His penis was firm as iron and day and night it stayed erect. At night, Lotus, who should have known better, would still sit astride him and have intercourse with him. And during a single night he would faint away and then regain consciousness several times over.”³²

The cumulative use of explicit pornography has finally yielded an unmistakable moral interest—in her triumphant posture over a moribund body to extract the last few pleasurable moments out of it and in her total contempt for the person of Hsi-men Ch'ing, Lotus is herself exposed as a loathsome creature of utter depravity. But, ultimately, Lotus' triumph proves her undoing. If Hsi-men is her instrument of pleasure, he is more importantly her source of power and security. Without his protection, she will be again a slave girl defenseless against the world. But in her insane pursuit of momentary pleasure, she becomes quite reckless of her future, and the ultimate pathos of her life is that all her cunning and cruel schemes for assuring herself a favored position in the Hsi-men household have been designed to secure a steady supply of sexual pleasure. She sees nothing beyond sex.

In reviewing the highlights of this self-contained novel about Lotus and Hsi-men, we have seen that their relationship is informed neither by the sentiment of love nor by what we would normally call sexual passion. As Westerners understand it, passion demands exclusiveness: though for obvious reasons Lotus wants to monopolize Hsi-men, she does not seriously expect from him complete loyalty, nor is she loyal to him though, confined to the house under the jealous surveillance of all the womenfolk, she has far less opportunity for promiscuity than her husband. She takes a passing fancy to a boy servant and later forms a liaison with a son-in-law, practically the only man in the household besides her master who is not of the servant class. For both sensualists, their bond is mainly physical: with all his variety of erotic adventures, Hsi-men still regards Lotus as the most satisfactory bedfellow, and Lotus, with her limited association with men, cannot expect a sexual partner of greater virility. On the elementary level, therefore, theirs is the biological drama of animal copulation. While man appears initially more aggressive and domineering than woman, he is her biological inferior and is inevitably beaten in the unequal combat. On that level Lotus appears as the queen bee or black widow spider except that, in her conscious contrivance for pleasure, her rapacity has ceased to be procreative.³³

Their relationship further shows the degeneracy of love in a polygamous and promiscuous society. When a man can buy as many concubines and slave girls and enjoy as many mistresses and prostitutes as his money and strength incline him to, he tends to regard each of his acquisitions as a thing rather than as a person. (It is of interest to note that in China pornographic stories began as reports of life in a royal or imperial harem.)³⁴ A concubine can, of course, secure the love of her husband with her infinite solicitude, as Vase does in the novel, but normally when a woman is regarded by her master as a thing, she, too, loses sight of her humanity. The apparent irony that the slave girl Lotus should turn out to be far more evil than the slave master Hsi-men is therefore understandable. As a man of wealth and position, he receives so much flattering attention from his wives and mistresses, his friends and hangers-on, that he can afford to be pleased with himself and to appear good-natured and generous. Though obsessed with sex, he has so many business interests and official duties to attend to that he turns to his women in the evenings as an agreeable break in his routine. Moreover, as a social conformist, he has to be pleasant and polite to the outside world and maintain a façade of good manners. Lotus, on the other hand, enjoys none of these social advantages. Isolated from the outside world and living in a household of constant squabbles, she doesn't have to be pleasant and watch her manners (in contrast, the courtesans, because it is their job to entertain their customers, appear much more vivacious and courteous than the wives of Hsi-men). She pursues no cultural interests (except her occasional singing) and has no visitors of her own (except her mother). All her thoughts are therefore directed to the one object that redeems her dull and mean existence—her enjoyment of sex—and her life is further brutalized as a consequence.

Katherine Anne Porter once wrote that Lady Chatterley's Lover describes a life that is nothing “but a long, dull grey, monotonous chain of days, lightened now and then by a sexual bout.”³⁵ If this description is somewhat unfair to Lawrence's novel, it could be applied to Chin P'ing Mei with far greater justice except that the chain of days in the Hsi-men household is not lightened but rendered more ponderous by the high frequency of sexual combat. Lotus is so dead earnest about sex that its enjoyment leaves no room for spontaneous and carefree fun. She is at nearly all times so grimly occupied that one is almost startled to find her in a rare moment of thoughtless merriment. In chapter 15, while on a visit to Vase's house during the Lantern Festival, Lotus stays upstairs to watch the street sights below:

Golden Lotus, Meng Yü-lou, and two singing-girls continued to look out the window at the fair.

Golden Lotus rolled up the sleeves of her white-silk outer jacket to show off the sleeves of her inner jacket which were embroidered all over with gold thread. She further displayed her ten fingers, all lustrous and daintily shaped like stalks of scallion. On them were six gold rings in the form of stirrups. Leaning half out of the window, she cracked melon seeds with her teeth and threw the shells at the people in the street. She laughed with Yü-lou all the time. Now and again she would point to something in the street and say excitedly, “Big sister, come and look at the pair of hydrangea-lanterns under the eaves of that house. They whirl back and forth and up and down so prettily.” Then: “Second sister, come and look at the big fish-lantern hanging from the lantern-frame by the gate opposite our house. Dangling from that big fish are so many little fish, turtles, shrimps, and crabs. They move about in unison so gaily.” Then she called Yü-lou, “Third sister, look over there at the grandma-lantern and grandpa-lantern.”

Suddenly a gust of wind made a large hole in the lower part of the grandma-lantern, and Golden Lotus laughed unceasingly.³⁶

In this scene Lotus is still new in the Hsi-men household and she flaunts her beauty without guile and retains the natural grace of a child in her gleeful enjoyment of the sights. The child in her rarely emerges after that. For Lotus as for most other members of that household, it is their willing forfeiture of innocence through their preoccupation with pleasure, security, or salvation that spells the boredom and horror of their existence.

Notes

1. In Chung-kuo wen-hsüeh fa-chan shih (The development of Chinese literature) (Peking, Chung-hua shu-chü, 1963), III, 1064, Liu Ta-chieh gives Ting Yao-k'ang's dates as 1599-1670, though other literary historians consulted by me give only approximate dates. His 64-chapter novel, although erotic, demonstrates the workings of karma with didactic explicitness. Subsequently, an author with the studio name of Ssu-ch'iao Chü-shih condensed the work to 48 chapters, renamed all its characters, and gave it the new title Ko-lien hua-ying. The latter is available in a German translation by Franz Kuhn under the title Blumenschatten hinter dem Vorhang (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1956); Vladimir Kean, tr., Flower Shadows Behind the Curtain (New York, 1959) is a shortened translation of the German version. For further information on Hsü Chin P'ing Mei and Ko-lien hua-ying see Dr. Kuhn's introduction to Kean's translation. The author of Chin P'ing Mei is supposed to have written a sequel called Yü chiao li (not to be confused with Yü Chiao Li, listed in Bibliography VIII), but this work, if it ever existed, has been long lost.

2. CPM, ts'e 16, chap. 75, p. 1b.

3. I have already mentioned P'u-ching, who claims Hsiao-ko at the end of the novel, and the mysterious Indian monk who gives Hsi-men the aphrodisiac pills and ointment in chap. 49. While the latter's fierce looks suggest “a veritable Lohan [Arhat],” (Egerton, II, 305), the former is supposed to be the incarnation of an ancient Buddha. In Hsü Chin P'ing Mei P'u-ching is definitely identified as an avatar of the Bodhisattva Kshitigarbha.

4. The story of Chiang Chu-shan is given in chaps. 17 and 19.

5. Wen Pi-ku is unmasked in chap. 76. His name puns with the phrase wen p'i-ku (warm the buttocks). Many of Hsi-men's sponging friends have such punning names.

6. A paramour of her brother-in-law, Wang VI enters into a liaison with Hsi-men with the connivance of her husband. Madame Lin's lewdness is known even among the local courtesans. It is Cheng Ai-yüeh-erh who informs Hsi-men of Madame Lin's availability in chap. 68. Hsi-men calls on the lady one afternoon in chap. 78, and they are in bed the same evening.

7. Hui-lien's past history is recounted in chap. 22. See Egerton, I, 349-50.

8. Cf. Han shu, chüan 30, Yi-wen chih (Essay on bibliography), which lists eight sex manuals.

9. In Part II, only the story of the servant Miao Ch'ing and his murdered master Miao T'ien-hsiu as given in chaps. 47-48 blocks the flow of the narrative. It is adapted from one of the crime-case stories in the collection known as Lung-t'u kung-an or Pao kung-an. Hanan believes that this borrowed tale “causes perhaps the only serious break in the Chin P'ing Mei's continuity” (“Sources,” p. 42).

10. Ou-yang Yü-ch'ien, noted for his varied activities in behalf of the modern Chinese theater, wrote P'an Chin-lien, a short play first published in Hsin-yüeh Yüeh-k'an, I, No. 4 (1928). Among the many popular historical novels by Nan-kung Po, a Hong Kong author now residing in Taiwan, is P'an Chin-lien (Taipei, Ta-fang shu-chü, 1965).

11. CPM, ts'e 17, chap. 78, p. 23a.

12. This episode takes place in chap. 8.

13. In chap. 11.

14. Egerton, I, 163 (CPM, ts'e 4, chap. 12, p. 8a).

15. CPM, ts'e 4, chap. 12, p. 9b.

16. This incident takes place in chap. 19.

17. In chap. 17 Vase is grateful to Hsi-men for his sexual attentions after being long neglected by her first husband. She tells her lover, “Who is ever like you in knowing how to please me? You are the medicine that cures my sickness. Night and day I can think only of you” (CPM, ts'e 5, chap. 17, p. 2b). Later, Vase marries Dr. Chiang to spite Hsi-men for his neglect. Following their reconciliation, however, she again praises him, using the same medical metaphor, “You are the medicine that cures me. Once treated by you, I could think only of you day and night” (CPM, ts'e 5, chap. 19, p. 15b).

18. In chap. 26.

19. In chap. 29.

20. CPM, ts'e 13, chap. 58, pp. 14b-15a.

21. CPM, ts'e 13, chap. 59, pp. 12a-b.

22. Vase dies in chap. 62 and Hsi-men takes his trip to the capital in chap. 70.

23. CPM, ts'e 16, chap. 72, pp. 10b-11a.

24. Ibid., pp. 11a-b.

25. CPM, ts'e 16, chap. 75, pp. 1b-2b. The antecedents relevant to our understanding of this conversation are as follows. Early that morning, after a night of love-making, Lotus asked Hsi-men to give her the sable coat that used to belong to Vase. After getting up, he went straight to Ju-i's room to get the coat. To placate Ju-i, who complained of his neglect, Hsi-men gave her a few pieces of Vase's clothing and promised her to stay the coming night with her. Ju-i then personally took the sable coat to Lotus and kowtowed to her. In the afternoon Hsi-men entertained some important guests at home. After he had seen them off to their sedan-chairs, upon his return to the house he was intercepted at the side door by Lotus and taken to her room.

    This excerpt contains at least two misprints. On page 2a, l.4, the period should be removed after the phrase ch'en-tao since it does not form a sentence with the preceding characters but begins a new sentence, Ch'en-tao t'ou-li pu-shih ya-t'ou … (That's why you didn't send a maid …). On the same page, l.6, the phrase lung p'an-tzu must have been a misprint for lung la-tzu, since the characters p'an (Mathews', No. 4893) and la (No. 3757) look rather alike. For the meanings of ch'en-tao and lung la-tzu, see Lu Tan-an, Hsiao-shuo tz'u-yü hui-shih (A dictionary of phrases and idioms from traditional Chinese fiction), pp. 608, 253.

26. Ibid., p. 17a.

27. Ibid., pp. 17a-b.

28. Hsi-men first sees her in chap. 78.

29. CPM, ts'e 17, chap. 79, p. 9b.

30. Ibid., pp. 9b-10a.

31. Ibid., p. 13b.

32. Ibid., p. 16a.

33. However, as noted earlier, Lotus has had two miscarriages while living with Hsi-men. After his death, she cohabits with Ch'en Ching-chi and again becomes pregnant. In chap. 85 she undergoes an abortion.

34. The first such story is “Chao Fei-yen wai-chuan,” most probably of the Han period; it is translated as “The Emperor and the Two Sisters” in Wolfgang Bauer and Herbert Franke, eds., The Golden Casket. Though scholars are not agreed about its date of composition, Chin Hai-ling tsung-yü wang-shen (King Hai-ling of the Chin dynasty destroys himself through unrestrained debauchery), the most blatant example of pornography in the San-yen collections and certainly one of the earliest such stories to employ the vernacular, adapts its salacious material partly from official history. Hanan traces Chin P'ing Mei's indebtedness to Ju-i-chün chuan, a Ming pornographic story in the literary language about Empress Wu and one of her favorites (“Sources,” pp. 43-47).

35. Katherine Anne Porter, “A Wreath for the Gamekeeper,” Encounter, XIV, No. 2 (1960), pp. 72-73.

36. CPM, ts'e 4, chap. 15, pp. 3b-4a.

Bibliography

A

Chin P‘ing Mei tz‘u-hua. 21 vols., Peiping, Ku-i hsiao-shuo k‘an-hsing-hui, 1933; 5 vols., Tokyo, Daian, 1963.

Hsin-k‘o hsiu-hsiang p‘i-p‘ing Chin P‘ing Mei (Chin P‘ing Mei: a new block print edition with illustrations and notes). There are no satisfactory modern reprints of this Ch‘ung-chen edition.

Egerton, Clement, tr. The Golden Lotus. 4 vols. London, Routledge, 1939; New York, Paragon Book Gallery, 1962.

Kuhn, Franz, tr. Kin Ping Meh, oder, Die Abenteuerliche Geschichte von Hsi Men und seinen sechs Frauen. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1930.

Miall, Bernard, tr. Chin P‘ing Mei: The Adventurous History of Hsi Men and His Six Wives. New York, Putnam, 1940; reprint: Capricorn Books, 1962. A translation of the Kuhn version.

B

Bishop, John L. “A Colloquial Short Story in the Novel Chin P‘ing Mei,” in Bishop, ed., Studies in Chinese Literature.

Feng Yuan-chün. “Chin P‘ing Mei tz‘u-hua chung ti wen-hsüch shih-liao” (Materials for literary history in Chin P‘ing Mei), in Kuchü shuo-hui (Studies in old drama). Peking, Tso-chia ch‘u-pan-she, 1956.

Hanan, P. D. “A Landmark of the Chinese Novel,” in Douglas Grant and Millar MacLure, eds., The Far East: China and Japan. University of Toronto Press, 1961.

—“The Text of the Chin P‘ing Mei,” Asia Major (new series), ix, Pt. 1 (1962).

—“Sources of the Chin P‘ing Mei,” Asia Major (new series), x, Pt. 1 (1963).

Wu Han. “Chin P‘ing Mei ti chu-tso shih-tai chi ch‘i she-hui pei-ching” (The age in which Chin P‘ing Mei was written and its social background), in Tu-shih cha-chi (Notes on history). Peking, San-lien shu-tien, 1957.

Yao Ling-hsi, ed. P‘ing-wai chih-yen (Papers and reference materials on Chin P‘ing Mei). Tientsin, Tientsin shu-chü, 1940. Reprint: Nagoya, Saika shorin, 1962. Contains a valuable glossary by the editor.