Open "Dream of the Red Chamber", and what comes to you is a Jiangnan atmosphere. Seeing a canal city, hearing is the sound of the canal water, it is not difficult to see that the story takes place along the Grand Canal.
Although there are dozens of place names mentioned in the book, the story takes place in the cities along the Grand Canal in Gusu, Huzhou, Weiyang, Jiangning, Lin'an, and Yangzhou. The story begins with "the ground sinks to the southeast, and in this southeast corner there is a place known as Gusu, and there is a city known as The Gate of The Gate..." It can be seen that the "dream" comes from Suzhou, and the important dock on the canal - Zhangmen, ending in changzhou's Old Ximen Ancient Canal on the north bank of the "Biling Station", but it is one of dozens of stations on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. In many places in the story, yangzhou, the city of origin of the Grand Canal, is mentioned in many places, and only on the book catalog, there are two times marked "Yangzhou", indicating that Yangzhou is an important place in the story. The story takes the Rongguo Mansion as the main line, unfolding in the four major families on the banks of the Grand Canal, that is, the Jia family with white jade as the tang jin as a horse, the Xue family with pearls as gold as iron, the Jinling historian and the Jinling Wang family, these four people are listed by the "talisman" of this province, and the "province" here should be the province where Jinling is located, the province of the Great Canal Valley. The characters that appear in the book and the events that occur are all related to the four major families.
Miao Yu mentioned the "Xuan Tomb PanXiang Temple" where she lived five years ago, or the "Xuan Tomb Mountain Sheng'en Temple" in Suzhou, where the Suzhou people's Dharma name Miao Yu brought hair to practice. Some of the place names in the book can still be found in cities along the Grand Canal, such as the "Daoxiang Village" in Daguanyuan, which has a Daoxiang Village in Suzhou and Beijing; the "Lotus Xiangxie" where Xi Chun lives in the book has the same name on the ground floor of the Jianshan Tower in Suzhou Humble Administrator's Garden.
The witness of the whole story of "Dream of the Red Chamber" is Jia Yucun, who is a canal city of Huzhou people; Zhen Shiyin, is a eunuch of Gusu Yixiang in Jiangnan Canal City. The heroine of the book, Lin Daiyu, appears from Yangzhou and then takes a boat along the Grand Canal to her grandmother's house. In the story, Dai Yu, Miao Yu, etc. are from Suzhou; Xue Baochao, Shi Xiangyun, etc. are from Nanjing; and Jia Mu calls Wang Xifeng a Jiangnan spicy.
Many characters borrowed the saying of "psychic treasure jade" by a monk and made a journey of "too illusory" in various cities on the banks of the Grand Canal. Therefore, "Dream of the Red Chamber" is the story of the canal city and the story of the flow of the Grand Canal.
Qing Dynasty hand-painted "Dream of the Red Chamber"
The activities of the characters in "Dream of the Red Chamber" are also full of the humanistic customs of the Great Canal Basin. From the layout of the Grand View Garden, from the back door from the outside of the water (should be the water of the canal) into the park, the structure of the water around the flowers and willows bustling, gentle and rich township, it can be said that there is no water everywhere in the park, with the pool as the center, the pavilion xuan xie built around the pool, which has a window view, there is a cloister connected, and the ancient trees, green bamboo, mountain stones, flowers in the park constitute a remote and quiet artistic picture. Reading the Grand View Garden of "Dream of the Red Chamber" is like visiting the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou. For example, "I opened the door with a command, only to see a green ridge in front of me... Jia Zhengdao: "If it is not this mountain, once you enter the garden and see all the scenery in the garden, what is the fun?" How similar this is to the entrance to the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou.
There are many water features in the park, "a clear stream, from the depths of the flowers and trees zigzag in the stone gap", "this pavilion presses the water to form", "a school of springs", "overhearing the sound of water babbling", "only to see more flowers falling on the water, the clearer the water", "to a bridge, see the water like a crystal curtain rushing in" and so on, and suzhou gardens are in the same vein.
For the South, more water is inseparable from the ship. There are "four lotus picking boats and one boat" in the Grand View Garden. The depiction of Jia Mu leading everyone and Grandma Liu to Lotus Champs, Li Cui'an and other places is the most beautiful scene of the life of the rich and noble families of the Jiangnan Canal. Describing the Lotus Champs as "followed by a zigzag bamboo bridge", the creaking bamboo bridge is a unique view of the canal water. In addition to the protagonist Lin Daiyu from Yangzhou, taking a boat along the Grand Canal to Shenjing's grandmother's house, there are many descriptions of boat trips along the canal, such as Jia Yuanchun marrying the emperor, or provincial relatives, all of whom went north along the Grand Canal by boat, or went south; Xue Pan went out to collect accounts, or operated along the Grand Canal...
The water of the Grand Canal adds to the scenery and vitality of "Dream of the Red Chamber", and also brings spirituality to the people living on the banks of the Grand Canal. In "Dream of the Red Chamber", the description of eating fat and delicious crabs in Jiangnan is exquisite; the people in "Dream of the Red Chamber" drink tea is also very elaborate, "one cup is a product, two cups are stupid things to quench thirst, three cups are drinking cattle and drinking donkeys"; Miao Yu uses the rainwater of the old year to make tea; everyone drinks more southern low-grade wine, still interested, and even "that jar of wine, how to eat it." It's funny, it's gone." Even Jia Mu said in a rambling voice, "Just sit in a boat and drink." In addition to drinking tea, drinking wine, listening to Kunqu opera, the crowd also flew kites, "let go of obscurity", which is in line with the proverb of the canal city of Hangzhou: "Put a broken harrier in March." ”
The language art of "Dream of the Red Chamber" is the creation of the language of the masses, and its dialect is mainly southern dialect, mixed with Beijing dialect, which is closely related to the author's life experience. Such as Daiyu burial flowers "Nong this burial flower people laugh foolishly, he buried Nong know who is? "Nong" is a classic feature of the Wu language, and the ancient saying is often self-proclaimed. In "Dream of the Red Chamber", Madame Wang said that the "niangzi" in "the lady who sells oil combs her hair" is exactly the name of the married woman in the drama of the Canal Valley. There are also horizontal and vertical, coiled, biqing, picking vegetables, boiling hot, easy, not getting, passing people, and cooking vegetables "less oil is good", are the dialect of the authentic Grand Canal flowing through, emitting the sound of the flowing water of the Grand Canal.
The description of food in "Dream of the Red Chamber" is detailed, not only long, but also quite detailed, enough to show the food culture of the Canal River Basin. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 200 references to drinking tea in "Dream of the Red Chamber", such as Lin Daiyu saying: "Brew a bowl of my Longjing tea for the second master." There are also more than three hundred places talking about drinking, drinking yellow wine, Shaoxing wine and Wuxi Huiquan wine; eating rice, red rice porridge, less noodles, such as Fangguan said: "I am not used to eating that noodle." There are at least two places in the book that mention the canal city of Wuxi specialty gluten, fried gluten dishes, and seasonal vegetables "reed artemisia", delicious "pepper oil lettuce sauce". The "shrimp ball chicken skin soup", "steamed duck stuffed with sake", "rouge goose breast" listed in "Dream of the Red Chamber" are all famous dishes in Jiangnan on the canal. The book describes the practice of "eggplant" in Suzhou and Zhejiang regions in the most informative way, arousing the hunger of countless readers, no wonder Liu Grandma said: "Eggplant has run out of this flavor." The book also mentions "buns with tofu skin", which is a well-known breakfast in Yangzhou; the Baoyu mentioned in the book "drank two bowls of bitterness" that was both appetizing and detoxified, and the "ham fresh bamboo shoot soup" that Yangzhou people called "one sip of solution", are all famous dishes made of bamboo shoots from the Canal River Basin.
The water of the Grand Canal provided fresh ingredients for the people of the Yangtze River Delta, forming the Yangpai and Hangzhou cuisines, and also added ink to Cao Xueqin's depiction of the luxury of the food of the officials and eunuchs.