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

Though “borrowed” from水滸傳, 潘金蓮’s story has some variations in金瓶梅. She was named金蓮 because of her well-bound feet. In ancient China’s foot binding 纏足(chan2 zu2) custom, beautifully bound feet were called 三寸金蓮 (san cun4 jin lian2), literally meaning three-inch golden lotus. Pan’s bound feet told us that she was not from a poor family. If so, she wouldn’t have had bound feet, which was a privilege to women from well-off families, who didn’t have to labor themselves.

Unfortunately Jin-lian’s dad passed away young. To make both ends meet, Jin-lian’s mom sold her to an official’s as a 樂妓 (yue4 ji4), which was something like Japanese geisha. They were taught to read and write and given musical training, so they could perform on social occasions when government officials or scholars got together drinking and feasting. 

According to the novel, Pan was not only attractive but smart and quit-witted. (Of course she was. How could a woman be “bad” if she’s not attractive or not smart?) She tried hard to excel in her line of business. But she seemed to have been doomed when her boss died as she was 15. She was sold again to a family surnamed Chang as a maid 婢女(bi4 nu3) or 丫環(ya huan3).

It was hard for such a young and attractive maid not to be paid attention by her lord Chang, the 老爺(lao3 yie2). It was nothing uncommon for a老爺 to deflower those maids that attracted him. And through this move the maids would be “promoted” to somewhere between the concubines and maids.

But Jin-lian was too charming for the wife not to be jealous of her. Jin-lian’s lord, who was in his 60s, showed some symptoms of an old man, such as backache and dripping urine from the enlarged prostate gland. The wife accused Jin-lian of causing her husband’s ail. The lord had no other choice but married Jin-lian off to 武大郎, who was short and ugly and sold steamed cakes for a living.

Not only did Chang marry Jin-lian to武大郎for free, but he gave money to this cowardly man as a sponsor for his business, so he could maintain a relationship with Jin-lian without any barriers. When武大郎 knew about what was going on with his wife and Chang, he chose to keep his mouth shut and continued to accept Chang’s sponsor.

So you can imagine how Jin-lian felt when she and武大郎were expelled out of Chang’s when Lord Chang passed away. The only support the in-her-20s Jin-lian had got was武大郎, a short and ugly and cowardly husband.

Had she been a mediocre woman without so much ambition, who was willing to come to terms with her fate and accepted it as it was, (認命)(ren 4 ming4) we would be surprised to see what happened later in her life.

But before she got forced out of Chang’s, she really didn’t have much choice in her life. She was sold around like merchandise. She was forced to marry a man she had despised. Though arranged marriages were commonly practiced back then, she would at least have a chance to marry someone who was a match, as what we call 門當戶對(men2 dang hu4 dui4) had her father hadn’t died so early.

With that in mind, it seemed natural for Jin-lian to have seduced her brother-in-law, who, unlike武大郎, was tall and masculine and a tiger-killing hero. And when she seemed to “hit it off” with a good-looking well-off young man like西門慶and did all she could to please him, she was trying to find her way out of this seemingly miserable life from an “aspiring” woman’s perspective.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

纏足=缠足

樂妓=乐妓

丫環=丫环

老爺=老爷

認命=认命

門當戶對=门当户对