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

When Jin-lian met 西門慶 in front of her house, her next-door neighbor 王婆(wang2 po2), who ran a teahouse, witnessed everything. Being a widow who had to raise kids on her own, she wouldn’t give up any chance to gain benefit. Perceiving what was on these two’s mind through their flirting, she offered to help and solicited the two into having an affair. Not only did she spare her place for the two to date, but she incited Jin-lian to kill 武大郎 when the he discovered the adultery. In fact, She taught Jin-lian how to do it and joined in the act. She was the devil. Jin-lian would haven’t gone so far without her.

In 水滸傳, Jin-lian was cut open by武松after he came back from a business trip and found out what happened. After that, he also beheaded西門慶. The justice was done immediately. But in金瓶梅, jin-lian wasn’t brutally murdered by 武松 until much much later. Instead she married西門慶, entered his big family and led a well-off life for a while. Thus we get to have a colorful story.

Jin-lian ranked the fifth among 西門慶’s women. Compared with the other concubines, she was not outstanding in terms of her family background or wealth she possessed. It had never been easy for a woman to win the favor of the only man in the family and become his pet among the numerous concubines, let alone those outside of the family. For an ambitious and diplomatic woman like Jin-lian, maneuvers and tactics and back-stabbing 暗算(an4 suan4) were inevitable. Actually, they were inevitable for all the women, be it a concubine or a maid, or a geisha who tried to get into the family.

Beauty美色(mei3 se4) was never enough, for there were always prettier women out there. And sooner or later you got old and the man would get tired of your beauty. That was why those women had to do everything to please the man, sexually or non-sexually.

I remember there was a scene when Jin-lian and西門慶were in bed in a freezing cold winter night. When西門慶had to get up from the warm bedding, Jin-lian offered to be his urine bucket by allowing him to pee in her mouth, so that he didn’t have to suffer the cold air. 西門慶later told another concubine about this, without hesitation she offered to do the same. Imagine this, you guys living in post-women’s liberation days, have you started to regret not being born earlier?

Some people compare the women’s strife to the political condition in the end of Ming Dynasty. Different parties fought over each other, trying every means to win the emperor’s favor and grab power. I think it also makes sense to see this way. Politically or not, this novel successfully reveals human nature 人性(ren2 xing4), worldly life and wisdom 人情世故(ren2 qing2 shi4 gu4). Succeeding水滸傳, the novel is part of the major tradition and inspires the later authors to continue the tradition. For the Chinese people, it creates household names such as潘金蓮, 西門慶, 武大郎and武松, who are living in our mind and always a part of our language and life. (Perhaps later I’ll introduce Xiehouyu related to those names as a proof.)

As to Charlie Sheen, the modern version西門慶, honestly speaking, I’ve asked myself, what would I be like if I were a cash cow like him, who makes a million dollars for one episode of a sit-com? ( If the report I read was not exaggerating.) Will I still live such a “boring” life as I’m living? Will I be a philanthropist like Bill Gates, or a Charlie Sheen? Or somewhere in between? Or both, with Bill Gates during the day, and Charlie Sheen at night? – I’ll never get to know. But, what is it that makes the difference?

By the way, we call a cash cow 搖錢樹(yao2 qian2 shu4), a tree where you get money only by shaking it.

(THE END)

搖錢樹=摇钱树