潘金蓮, the bad bad woman (I) (Literary figure)

Abundant news about Charlie Sheen are widely spreading on the paper and the radio. I don’t know why, but the news of this “bad man” just keeps reminding me of 潘金蓮(pan jin lian2), the “bad bad woman” in Chinese literature.

潘金蓮made her debut emergence in the Classical novel 水滸傳(shui3 hu3 zhuan4), Water Margin. To realize her more, you have to go to another classical novel, 金瓶梅 (Jing ping2 Mei2), which was labeled as an obscene porn 淫書(yin2 shu) and forbidden. (A forbidden book is called 禁書jin4 shu) The title of the novel is generally considered a combination of three women’s names, 潘金蓮、 李瓶兒(li3 ping2 er2) and 春梅(chun mei2), three of the many concubines of the protagonist’s,  西門慶(xi men2 ching4)

The brick-thick novel is about the life of the protagonist 主角(zhu3 jiao3)and his big family; how he had achieved success, made a big fortune and died young in the “bad woman” Pan’s bed; how his wife 妻(qi) and concubines 妾(qie4) had maneuvered and fought against each other to get his favor, as well as the power to control the whole family.

My friend Spenser told me something interesting about this novel. He said that the author 蘭陵笑笑生(Lan2 ling2 Xiao4 xiao4 Sheng) wrote the book to revenge for his father, who had been killed by a corruptive official. He wrote those pornographic stuff that was rarely seen back then and presented it to this feud. As he had expected, the official was lured by this 淫書and absorbed himself in it. The enemy was poisoned to death by the arsenic that had been applied all over the pages of the book.

I’d never heard of such a story before. If it is true, I think that’s quite a smart way to get even. At a time when you couldn’t count on the judiciary (the official himself WAS the judiciary!), you were totally on your own. Such a story sounds so much like one from a Kung-fu novel, with feuds, revenge, poisons. . . etc. These days, all we can do to our “enemy,” I guess, is sent him an email with bugs in it to crash his computer. (And pray that all his “vital” info is in it!)

In Chinese literature, 潘金蓮 is typical of a promiscuous devil woman. (We use the adjective 水性楊花(shui3 xiang4 yang2 hwa) to refer to a promiscuous woman.) She is水性楊花 because she not only seduced her brother-in-law 武松(wu3 song), the famous tiger-killer hero, but also committed adultery with several men, such as西門慶, who later became her husband, and her son-in-law 陳經濟 (chen2 jing ji4). She is devil because she not only murdered her husband 武大郎(wu3 da4 lang2), 武松‘s brother, to marry西門慶, but led to 西門慶’s death by luring him to take too much aphrodisiac 春藥(chun yao4).

(TO BE CONTINUED)

西門慶=西门庆

潘金蓮=潘金莲

水滸傳=水浒传

淫書=淫书

禁書=禁书

李瓶兒=李瓶儿

蘭陵笑笑生=兰陵笑笑生

水性楊花=水性杨花

春藥=春药