How Chinese classic novel Dream of the Red Chamber opened the eyes of Hong Kong Arts Festival executive director Flora Yu to a world she never knew existed
- Dream of the Red Chamber (1791), by Cao Xueqin, is widely loved for its psychological realism, intricate plotting and incredible wealth of historical detail
- Flora Yu, who read it as a child, says she interprets it differently every time she reads it, and it helped shape her as a person
One of the classic Chinese novels and one of the world’s great works of literature, “Dream of the Red Chamber” (1791), by Cao Xueqin, is an epic depicting the gradual fall of a prominent family, widely loved for its psychological realism, intricate plotting and incredible wealth of historical detail.
Flora Yu Kit-yee, executive director of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, tells Richard Lord how it changed her life.
I remember it rather clearly: I was about eight or nine when I first read it – that’s a very young age to be reading Dream of the Red Chamber.
I loved reading; I spent a lot of time reading all sorts of stuff. I used to go to a community centre that had a tiny library near where I lived in Kowloon. I would go there often and grab whatever I saw on the shelves.
One day I saw they had organised some sort of book-report writing competition. I happened to have grabbed Dream of the Red Chamber, which I knew nothing about at that point, and thought I’d write about that.
I won the competition. At that tender age, winning it helped to shape me a little bit. It confirmed to me that I was someone who could write decently well. I thought, “Maybe I really do like literature.”
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I knew during my secondary school years that I’d concentrate on the arts; because of that, I ended up joining arts organisations including the Hong Kong Arts Festival and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.
Of course, when I first read it, with my limited understanding of the world, I treated Dream of the Red Chamber mainly as a very interesting story; just like everyone at entry level, I was focused on the romance of the two main protagonists.
What’s great about the book is that it can be read by the masses but it’s also a great literary classic that people can spend their entire lives studying.
I remember being fascinated, even at that age, by what I found to be the really beautiful poetry throughout.
It’s a book I’ve read and reread many times. It’s so complex, so full of details and values that are so universal yet every time you read it, you end up with a different interpretation. How you interpret it depends on what stage you are at in life.
All these years, I’ve been fascinated by the world described by the author, which is so completely different from mine. It’s about the downfall of a family in a feudal society. It opened my eyes to a whole world I never knew existed.
It’s also a case study in how not to run an organisation. The family has a lot of money and a lot of guanxi, but there’s a lot of mismanagement.
We all have weaknesses and we all want better lives for ourselves. In this book, when people are trapped in some kind of fate, they still struggle and try their best to go against it.
The characters are more three-dimensional than you’d expect – and that applies to so many of them. The book says so much about what it means to be human.
