Lantian jade, an actor who once caused a sensation in Nanjing, turned into a corrupt and moldy Qian Furen when he appeared in the mansion of his old friend Mrs. Dou.
Qian Furen's old dreams are about splendor, love and hate, going abroad and leaving home, and the vicissitudes of the world. When I think about them, I think it's like the entrance of strong liquor, a knife and a broken throat.
An old dream about prosperity.
At the beginning, through Qian Furen's perspective, the article shows that the canopies in front of the rich and powerful people are gathering, and the traffic is busy.
Qian Furen's eyes are like a detector, peeping into every aspect of Mrs. Dou's mansion. The diamond ring as small as the lotus seed on Mrs. Dou's body is as big as the red sandalwood tables and chairs, western-style sofas, and the mansion as bright as a fire. Qian Furen told a lot about all kinds of decorations and literary plays.
Nobles don't necessarily have material things. However, the eyes of aristocratic appreciation must have ample material accumulation. Bai Xianyong followed the example of Daiyu in A Dream of Red Mansions. Every grass and tree, a table and a chair, exquisite, tasteful, elegant, and rich are unfolding with Qian Furen's eyes.
She could see "a two-foot-high blue and fine magnetic gallbladder bottle with a big golden bone and red meat in it" on a rectangle in the middle. In granny Liu's opinion, it can only be described in terms of "sifting the surface of the basket".
How rich her life used to be, and it naturally emerged in this prosperity.
However, Qian Furen's anachronism implies that prosperity is a thing of the past.
Through the mirror in Mrs. Dou's mansion, she sipped her messy hairstyle and found that the cheongsam made of the clothes at the bottom of the closet was not bright enough. Looking at the short cheongsam of the ladies present, she suspected that her long cheongsam was out of date.
Power is the best aphrodisiac in life. Qian Furen, who used to sit in the first place for banquets in Nanjing, is now invited to the second place as a guest in Taipei's Friends Mansion. The husband of a senior official has passed away, and Qian Furen's name can only be covered with dust over time. Mrs. Dou, an old friend, is a little wife to others, and she has to take advantage of her situation to hold a banquet on her birthday. Now, Mrs Dou is in this resplendent and brightly lit mansion, which reflects Qian Furen's helplessness and sadness.
Wealth and splendor, suddenly empty.
Cao Xueqin wrote A Dream of Red Mansions. Zhang Dai has done "Tao An Dreaming" and "Dream of the West Lake". Their wealth and prosperity are closely linked to their families. Because of the decline of the family, I have already tasted the hardships of the world. Qian Furen has not completely declined, but the world is cold and human feelings are warm and cold. When the banquet broke up, she watched the cars pick up all the people, and she even had to wait for a taxi at the end.
Bai Xianyong is the son of Bai Chongxi, a senior Kuomintang general. Because of his father's political status and family power, it is not uncommon for him to see a welcome.
Through what Qian Furen saw and heard and what she suffered, Bai Xianyong vividly showed the changes and disappointments of prosperity. Once rich, the reality of the down and out, intertwined into an inseparable old dream, like drinking more and more wine to stimulate people's sensitive nerves.
An old love dream that is constantly being cut and messed up.
Qian Furen, at the age of seventeen or eighteen, with a good voice, blocked all his youth and married a high-ranking husband who was nearly sixty years old, in exchange for luxury and wealth.
Cheng's handsome and considerate, gentle and attentive staff made her in spirit. The decline and death of her husband and the rich and leisurely life did not kill her heart. A throat-moistening jujube easily stirred her heart.
However, Staff Cheng is just playing along for the ride. He and Mrs. Dou's sister "Jiang Biyue" have already hooked up.
History repeats itself. Qian Furen once loved a young staff officer named "Yanqing". And her own sister, "Moon Red", actually got in the way and snatched love in the name of family. The former lover "Yan Qing" had a peach blossom in his eyes, and the frequent "Qian Furen" was full of flattery to power.
Today, Qian Furen used to be the best singer. She had a dreamlike name-lantian jade. Her best plays are "The Garden" and "Scared Dreams". In the play, Du Liniang was infected by the beautiful scenery in the garden, "but it was so colorful that it seemed to be ruined", thus feeling that life and youth were suppressed and destroyed. She bravely pursued love and wrote a love story with Liu Mengmei.
Du Liniang in the play is in sharp contrast with lantian jade outside the play. Du Liniang died for love and was born for love. He had a persistent and passionate pursuit of life and love. Lantian jade sang touching love on the stage, but lost the pursuit of love in life.
Lantian jade, who sang opera many years ago, is in contrast with Qian Furen today. Her play once made a sensation in Nanjing, and it was not too much compared with Mei Lanfang. Now, she is staring at the people on the stage without singing a word.
Lantian jade's life has changed dramatically in the visual transformation of being seen and seen. An old dream about love, the fetter of cruel reality, and the entanglement of love and hate, which is hard to level, is like the entrance of strong liquor and the broken throat of a knife.
An old dream of going abroad and leaving home.
The carved wine with cut throat is a spark, which has set off Qian Furen's resentment and nostalgia for the past.
The time, place, people, events and things of A Dream in the Garden have all changed greatly. Mrs. Dou went from thirty years old when she left to "forty years old" when she met again. The banquet was held from Nanjing to the residence in Taipei. Qian Furen's decaying husband and Mrs. Dou's sister's husband are all dead. Others, such as cheongsam, have become shorter and high-rise buildings have increased. Even the hero in the article unconsciously talks about change.
Use change to set off the same. Human nature remains unchanged, and there is still a fascination with power and wealth. Love between men and women, joys and sorrows. Feeling the years that have passed. Pursuing and losing exquisite beauty and art. The memory of my hometown has not changed.
In the process of change and invariability, a cut-throat carved wine also stung Qian Furen's heart.
Bai Xianyong used a wonderful stream of consciousness to express Qian Furen's complex psychological activities. She has experienced the changes of the world. Her past is intertwined with reality, regret and longing.
Once, Qian Furen was a person on the stage. She sang Du Liniang's plays in exchange for the audience's affection and affection. As an actress, she is watched, bought, played, judged, loved and bored on the stage.
Now, she is sitting under the stage, watching Jiang Biyue, who is charming, provocative and sharp, coquetry, while the people under the stage are holding and coaxing to make all kinds of gaffes. As a guest, she watched her old friends greet and send them, and it was another dream of prosperity.
Personnel are fickle, never. On the surface, she is critical of Taipei's carved wine, and the cheongsam fabric is uncomfortable; In fact, she is missing and thinking about her hometown. Qian Furen has seen prosperity and loneliness, and he misses his hometown even more. This is the eternal theme of poets for thousands of years, and it is also the constant worry of wanderers who go out.
A play is like life, and life is like the vicissitudes of life.
Qian Furen's old dream is complicated, which is mixed with her personal experience and perception of life, and permeates the changes of the times and the vicissitudes of personnel.
Li Bihua's Farewell My Concubine is also a story about people and plays. Although Cheng Dieyi experienced great changes of the times, his life was more pure. He loves Duan Xiaolou, a teacher, and plays like a fool, making his life a play. Because he plays a woman with clear love and hate, he demands himself by the standards of that era for women. People and drama are one, nothing is more than this.
Lantian jade in A Dream in the Garden is not. Being an actress, she can't decide her own destiny. She tried to distinguish between drama and real life. All kinds of amorous feelings on the stage, infatuated with love and hate, belong to Du Liniang. In real life, many people will tell her something about fate. She will accept, practice and even pay the price. Confusion and pursuit appear alternately. She is not an opera idiot, but a layman living in the world.
Lantian jade's life is like a drama, from a player who is despised by everyone, to a lady who lingers in the upper class, and then to the widow whose husband died.
In A Dream of Red Mansions, the sentences of The West Chamber and Peony Pavilion have been quoted to imply the love between Bao Dai. Three scenes ordered by the Lady Dowager in front of the Buddha when she was playing in Qingxu Guan: The White Snake, Full Bed Wat and South Kemeng. These three scenes also hint at the process from Jia Jiayi's prosperity to prosperity and gradual decline. Pointed out the wealth, passing away.
People like going to the theatre. Life is also watched like a play.
Bai Xianyong made great efforts to protect Kunqu opera, and brought it into people's field of vision again with the youth version of Peony Pavilion. This "Dream in the Garden" also implies his cherish and love for Kunqu Opera.
His life is also quite legendary. His family origin, homosexual tendencies, literary creation, admiration for China's classical literature and so on have attracted much attention. For readers, it is not necessary to appreciate the author to appreciate a good article. However, the understanding of the author is conducive to the understanding of article creation.
Dreams can help people imagine and soothe the soul. As for the old dreams, the truth, goodness and beauty of the past are memorable enough. The past can't be traced, and the newcomers can still learn.
Drink this cup of spirits from my old dreams, even if the knife breaks my throat.