Jin Ping Mei

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Jin Ping Mei (Chinese: 金瓶梅; pinyin: Jīn Píngméi; literally "The Plum in the Golden Vase", also translated as The Golden Lotus) is a Chinese naturalistic novel composed in the vernacular (baihua) during the late Ming Dynasty, attributed to Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng. The first versions of the novel exist in handwritten scripts, and the first block-printed book was released only in 1610. The more complete version today comprises one hundred chapters.

Jin Ping Mei is sometimes considered to be the fifth classical novel after the Four Great Classical Novels. It is the first full-length Chinese fictional work to depict sexuality in a graphically explicit manner, and as such has a notoriety in China akin to Lady Chatterley's Lover in English.

The novel describes in detail the downfall of the Ximen household during the years 1111-1127 (during the Southern Song Dynasty). The story centres around Ximen Qing, a social climber and lustful merchant whose wealth allows him a consort of wives and concubines. A key episode of the novel, the seduction of the lascivious, adulterous Pan Jinlian, occurs early in the book and is taken from an episode from Water Margin. After secretly murdering the husband of Pan, Ximen Qing marries her as one of his wives. The story follows the domestic sexual struggles of the women within his clan as they clamour for prestige and influence as the Ximen clan gradually declines in power.

Jin Ping Mei takes its name from the three central female characters — Pan Jinlian (whose name means "Golden Lotus"); Li Ping-Er, a concubine of Ximen Qing; and Peng Chunmei, a maid who rose to power within the family.

1 Evaluation
2 Connection to Water Margin
3 English translations
4 External links

[edit] Evaluation

Known for centuries as pornographic material and banned officially most of the time, the book is nevertheless surreptitiously read by many of the educated class. Only quite recently has it been re-evaluated as literature. The story contains a surprising number of descriptions of sexual toys and coital techniques that would be considered fetish today as well as a large amount of bawdy jokes and oblique sexual euphemisms. However this should not disguise its value as literature. Structurally taut, full of classical Chinese poetry and surprisingly mature even as early fiction, it also deals with larger sociological issues, such as the role of women in ancient Chinese society, sexual politics, while functioning concurrently as a novel of manners and an allegory of human corruption.

Some critics have argued that the highly sexual descriptions are essential, and others have noted its liberating influence on other Chinese novels on matters of sexuality, most notably in Dream of the Red Chamber. Little is known about the author except for some conjectures that he may be a Taoist priest who wrote to disclose the disintegrating morality and corruption of the late Ming Dynasty. Noted French sinologist Andre Levy hypothesizes that the novel could have actually been written by a woman.

[edit] Connection to Water Margin

The beginning chapter is based on an episode from "Tiger Slayer" Wu Song from Water Margin. The story is about Wu Song avenging the murder of his older brother Wu Da Lang.

In Water Margin, Ximen Qing was punished at the end by being brutally killed in broad daylight by Wu Song. In Jin Ping Mei, however, Ximen Qing lives till the end of the book.

[edit] English translations

The Golden Lotus (1939), translated by Clement Egerton, is an expurgated complete version in which some of the more explicit parts are rendered into Latin.

The best English version of the novel is published by Princeton University Press, translated by David Tod Roy. However to date it remains incomplete: only three of a projected five volumes have been published.

The Plum in the Golden Vase, or Chin P'ing Mei: Volume One: The Gathering (1993)
The Plum in the Golden Vase, or Chin P'ing Mei: Volume Two: The Rivals (2001)
The Plum in the Golden Vase, or Chin P'ing Mei: Volume Three: The Aphrodisiac (2006)