"Red Beans" is one of the many poems and songs in "The Story of a Stone", a novel/semi-autobiography written by Cao Xuequin in the 18th Century.  It is one of the Chinese literature masterpieces. 

The poem/song depicts a heart broken lover spends his sleepless nights by throwing red beans out of his bedroom window and his sorrow.

This English translation (please click to enlarge), is written on a photo of the cover of a limited reproduced edition of "The Story of a Stone" 1760 editor's edition that is full of the editor's comments on the margin.  I bought it in the 80s; the original is in The Beijing University, China.

Red beans represent true love in Chinese culture, thus in wedding banquets we serve red beans soup or red beans cake as desserts.  Artist Xu Bei-hong selected a big piece of round red bean and sent it to his jeweler to set it in an engagement ring for his second wife.

Do You Know? by JSL (Revised)

 The Storm, oil on canvas by Pierre August Cot (1837 - 1833) 

Do You Know? by JSL (Original) 

 The Mountain Ghost (Mountain Spirit), oil on canvas by Xu Beihong (1895 - 1953)

A brief history of the mountain ghost:

Qu Yuan (340 BC - 278 BC) was a Chinese patriotic poet from southern Chu during the Warring States, he committed suicide by throwing himself into a river because his suggestions in saving the state in danger was not accepted by the emperor.  We commemorate of his death on Dragon Boat Festival.  He described mountain ghost in one of his poetries titled "Nine Songs" as a negative spirit.  The mountain spirit became an unpopular character in Chinese culture.  (Some say Qu Yuan poetries implied that he was a gay who committed suicide because he was no longer favoured by his lover, the emperor, but this is a subject for historian to study.)

Painting "The Mountain Ghost":

In the evening news on 01 March, a reporter announced that one of Xu Beihong's painting "Put Down Your Whip" will be in Sotheby's auctions on 07 April 2007 and price will be scored for many thousand millions in Hongkong currency.  Immediately another painting "The Mountain Ghost" by the same artist flashed in my mind and I wonder if it is available for auctions, what rocket price will it be?  The unavailable painting  inspired me to write the poetry titled "Do You Know". 

If readers like to know more about the painting "Put Down Your Whip", please visit http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotDetail.jsp?lot_id=159340316  (Well, this picture was sold at HK$72 million today 07/04/2007.)

If readers like to read my interpretation of "The Mountain Ghost" and why I composed "Do You Know", following is the short story of their life.

Who was the artist's model in his painting of this evil character in Chinese culture?  Well, if one has seen Jiang Biwei's photos or paintings of her youth, one would recognise the face of this mountain ghost was similar to Jiang Biwei, his 2nd ex-partner in an innocent teenage expression.  The painting was exhibited in 1943; 5 years after the end of their 21 years of relationship, but the continue disputes in entitlement of assets and valuable items between the couple were not ended yet.

Jiang Biwei was furious when this painting was exhibited because in her opinion Xu Beihong used his brushes to paint her as a be-hated, low, greedy, lustfulness, and evilness mountain ghost, poison under cover of her sugary beautiful face and good body, riding on her new lover represented by the black tiger to advance into the land of wild and sensual represented by the animal and the forest.

Jiang Biwei didn't recognise that the painting was to tell the story of her courage and bravery in running away from her elite family to Japan with the artist, a peasant's son in 1917 when she was 18.  She was already engaged and scheduled to marry in a few months.  He was already married and had a son.  Although her engagement and his first marriage were formally arranged by their families, but during the last era of Ching dynasty and the fall of it, western value and cultural influenced a handful of young educated intellectuals strongly in China.  They sought freedom in choosing their spouses instead of accepting arranged marriages.  Her parents accepted their union and supported the poor artist and their daughter emotionally and financially when the couple was in Paris to study and during their unsettled hard years.  But it was still a big scandal in the high and low societies in China at the time.  They never got married formally because traditional value and custom were still strongly upheld by the majority of people in China and her family.  (Some marriages were still being arranged as late as in 1960s in Hongkong!)

In 1930 when the artist was 35 and she was 32, after 13 years of hardship with a son and a daughter out of this relationship, he was famous as an artist in China; their life was heading to a promising and rosy direction.  He had another scandal upsetting another family and the society; it was his first affair with one of his teenage students.  Xu Beihong placed announcements in newspaper to announce that he had never married Jiang Biwei and their relationship was ended.  After about 6 or 8 years when his student lover left him to marry someone else and during the tough time of the 2nd world war, he returned and asked Jiang Biwei to consider reconciliation.  The artist had many other affairs with student, model, house maid ... openly, thus Jiang Biwei refused because she had moved on and loved him no more.  He was upset, angry and disappointed by her refusal and believed that the true reason of her not accepting him back was that she was dating the foreign minister whose wife was a French woman.

My first interpretation:

• The artist used his brushes to depict his 2nd ex-partner in her teenage prime to express his sweet memory of their relationship.
• His mixed feelings of his hatred and love of this woman because she didn't accepted him as he was and forgave his varied mistakes made.

My other opinions are:

• The beautiful nude wearing a natural crown made of herbs, shyly hiding her naked good body with one hand represents the artist's admiration of all his young lovers' beauty, innocent, braveness and courage in running away from their families to be with him.
• The lady looking backward while riding on a black tiger on the way to the depth of a forest full of colourful flowers, greens and waterfall represents all the artist's young lovers riding on him, the lustful mountain ghost as their protector, ventured into the dangerous jungles illustrated beautifully by him, into their unknown journeys; looked backward at their family members and the traditional values they have abandoned.

Inspiration:

In the beginning of his first affair with his teenage student, the artist once said to Jiang Biwei, "I truly love you when I am with you, and I truly love her when I am with her."  I wonder if he had said the same to all his women.

However, I believe him, he was telling the truth from his heart.   I know many male and female mountain ghosts, when they are deeply and madly in love, regardless of their age, their lovers' situations, personalities, etc. & etc. every one of them ventures into the jungle bravely and willingly with her or his mountain ghost.

© J.S. Li (Hong Kong)