• 2016-04-10

The CCS in cooperation with the University of Texas (UT) at Austin organized the "Taiwan Lectures on Chinese Studies". Professor Li-chuan Ou from the National Taiwan University, Department of Chinese Studies, was invited to speak on the topic: "A New Perspective on Dream of the Red Chamber: The Concealed Aristocratic Culture of Traditional China". It was delivered in Chinese. Professor Huaiyin Li, Director of East Asian Studies Center at UT chaired the session. About one hundred persons attended the presentation. Among them were Lorraine Haricombe, UT Library Director, Faculty members, students and researchers.

From the perspective of cultural history, Professor Ou placed the "Dream of the Red Chamber" in the space-time context at the time when it was written to explore the misunderstandings generated by this book because of the differences in the contemporary space-time and cultural background.

She believes that "Dream of Red Chamber" is the one and only truly nobility fiction in Chinese literature that reflects the Qing Manchu aristocratic family life story. Professor Ou first used the theory of Western scholars to analyze the class characteristic of the aristocratic family, emphasizing its cultural level and education. She then discussed the Eight Banners (jakvn gvsa; baqi: the institutional division of the Qing Dynasty population, administrative and military system) and other system content. She explained that the four families in "Dream of Red Chamber" are part of the

"aristocratic " class.