Author: Jiufeng Zhenren
The novel "Dream of the Red Chamber", with a broad picture of life, reflects the social life at that time. Therefore, in this broad background of life, many Western-made products are displayed in the works.
China has experienced thousands of years of continuous civilization development, and naturally has an excellent heritage in agriculture, aquaculture, textiles, ceramics, etc., and also absorbs and introduces planting, textile and other technologies from all over the world. For example, a variety of clothing fabrics reflected in the novel: scarlet carpet, emerald flower crepe dress, big red crepe silver rat skin skirt, doraemon fox fur jacket, doraemon cardigan and so on.
Readers are most concerned about the chime bell, pocket watch, glasses, glass and glass mirror, etc., as well as the Western drug "Ivona". These things, many scholars unthinkingly believe that western items or manufactures only appeared in the Qing Dynasty.
Before enumerating and distinguishing one by one, let everyone read a passage of Liu Tingjie's "Made in the West". Liu Tingjie ,no. 10 in the garden, was born and died without examination, but it is known that he lived from the sixteenth to the fifty-fourth year of the Kangxi Dynasty. His Magazine in the Garden was engraved in the fifty-fourth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, with Kong Shangren as the foreword. "Made in the West" is selected from it. Its Wenyun:
Since the Westerners entered China, the strangeness of their manufacturing and the ingenuity of their minds have not been seen alone, nor have they been heard of. Such as organ, japanese rules, water wheels, chiming bells, clairvoyants, tailwind ears, microscopes, music of the cage, portraits of gathering and scattering, and so on. Its best application is like glasses. Ancient people who have not heard of the dizziness and can cure it, Du Ling "looks like an old flower in the fog", only to hear it. There are glasses that make the dimwitted see brightly, the small ones see the big, the far ones see the near, although the elderly people can still light the fly head. And it is even more strange that the system can be based on its age and be matched by twelve hours. The price of the black crystal is high, and the white crystal is also expensive. Only the best of white glass, but a few stars. There are no unavailable people, nobility, men and women, and true treasures. Everyone has to use it, and it becomes a cloth and a millet. As for the algorithm, it is beyond the ordinary, far and near, high and low, the size of the or little, instantly known, burning like a palm, more ancient than ever.
There is a record of self-chiming bells here. In fact, the famous optical instrumenter Sun Yunqiu (1628~ 1662) at the end of the Ming Dynasty was a self-chiming bell calibrator, who calibrated the self-chiming bell with a "natural dial" in the folk. This shows a problem, the self-chiming bell in the late Ming Dynasty was not only found in the princely general's mansion, but also in the large households of the people.
Speaking of Sun Yunqiu, I have to say glasses. Sun Yunqiu, Zi Wenyu, a native of Wujiang County, Jiangsu Province, is the earliest optician in China, and his polished glasses are deeply loved by all walks of life. In "Dream of the Red Chamber", Jia Mu uses glasses, which seem to be rare, which shows that the era of the work did not occur in the Qianlong period, because from Liu Zaiyuan's "Made in the West", we can see the popularity of glasses known to women and children.
Glasses were introduced to China since the Yuan Dynasty, and were still relatively expensive during the Ming Dynasty, and in the Shunzhi period, glass glasses could only be bought for four or five dollars. This is completely consistent with Liu Zaiyuan's saying during the Kangxi Period that "there are only a few stars" and "it turns into a cloth and a millet". It can be seen that the glasses in "Dream of the Red Chamber" not only cannot explain that the story takes place in the Qianlong period, but from the perspective of rarity, the background of the era will only be earlier.
In the "Dream of the Red Chamber", "The Seventh Time Sending Palace Flowers Jia Lian Plays Xi Feng Yan Ning Fu Bao Yu Hui Qin Zhong" there is a comment: "Yu Su's collection of Qiu Shizhou's "Dark Spring Map of the Shadow Window", his mind and ink, is already unparalleled, to see this Ah Feng's biography, then feel that the painter is too plated", here mentioned the Ming Dynasty painter Qiu Shizhou, everyone is of course very familiar with Qiu Shizhou (Qiu Ying), but do you know that in the collection of the National Palace Museum, there is Qiu Shizhou's "Nandu Prosperous Scenery Picture Scroll"?
The "Nandu Fanhui Scenery Picture Scroll" is called "Nanjing's native "Qingming River Map"" ." Measuring 355 centimeters long and 44 centimeters wide, the scroll vividly depicts the grand situation on both sides of the Qinhuai River in Nanjing during the Ming And Yongle years. From right to left, the painting begins with a rural farmhouse in the suburbs, centered on the city's Nanshi Street and Beishi Street, and ends in front of the Ming Forbidden City. The picture scroll market is longitudinal, the shops are lined up, the cars, horses, and pedestrians are shoulder to shoulder, and the signage advertisements are numerous, and the following is the gradual enlargement of an element in the panorama:
Look, ming dynasty glasses can enter the art work, appear in the "Dream of the Red Chamber", it is even more needless to make a fuss.
Speaking of glass, with the foreign exchanges and trade of the Ming Dynasty, Western glass and its production methods gradually began to be made locally from the influx. (Note: China's Warring States period produced glass, the composition is different from the West) By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the country already had Western-style glass firing technology, but due to the social unrest in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the sporadic industries that appeared everywhere were completely erased by the Qing Dynasty, and it was not until the Yongzheng period that there was an official glass firing plant. This is from the "Qing Palace Internal Affairs Office Archives Collection", we can see that There was a special glass firing factory in Yongzheng during the five years (see "Yongzheng Furniture Thirteen Years of Yongzheng Dynasty Furniture and Incense Archives" "Firing Glass Factory"). It is not surprising that glass mirrors can be seen in The relevant information of Matteo Ricci and John Tong. Their active period in China was during the Ming Dynasty's Wanli Period and the Chongzhen Dynasty.
As for the introduction of tobacco, the "Magazine in the Garden" also recorded, "The name of tobacco is Tamba, which is found in the "Fenganyu Dialect", and the New City is also the Yao Brigade "Lu Shu". Produced in Luzon. "Luzon is now the Philippines, a Spanish colony at the time, and tobacco was introduced from the Fujian coast. Of course, the "Wang Qia" snuff in the novel was introduced from Spain or Portugal at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Due to the lack of historical data, it is still difficult to determine the conclusion.
Similarly, there is also a Western drug "Iphna" in "Dream of the Red Chamber". The second issue of the Journal of Dream of the Red Chamber in 1985 published an article signed by Yang Naiji entitled "Archival Verification of "Iphuna" and "Wendurina". He believes that among the Western medicines preserved by Kangxi recognized by Dominicus parrenin and others in the Yongzheng period, there was "Li Fei Na", and the appendix was "Iphrna" in "Dream of the Red Chamber". Before it was clear what "Li Fei Na" was, it was identified as an unknown "Iphra", and could only admire the meticulousness of its excavation data, and did not dare to agree with its bold idea.
(Transcript: Anne)
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Proofreader: Wang Huadong Annie Editor: Xiaoxiang Night Rain
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