Note 113 — XV. MISS YING-NING; OR, THE LAUGHING GIRL.
Herbert Allen Giles translation
This scene should for ever disabuse people of the notion that there is no such thing as “making love” among the Chinese. That the passion is just as much a disease in China as it is with us will be abundantly evident from several subsequent stories; though by those who have lived and mixed with the Chinese people, no such confirmation will be needed. I have even heard it gravely asserted by an educated native that not a few of his countrymen had “died for love” of the beautiful Miss Lin, the charming but fictitious heroine of The Dream of the Red Chamber.
Play-goers can here hardly fail to notice a very striking similarity to the close of the first act of Mr. W. S. Gilbert’s “Sweethearts.” return to text