Collected in the hall are mainly historical relics related to Cao Xueqin’s life and experiences, Cao’s family history in Zhengbaiqi village and replicas of objects depicted in Dream of the Red Chamber.
The hall includes five exhibition rooms, which respectively display the former residence of Cao, his sanctum in which he wrote his masterpiece, beautiful scenery of Fragrant Hill that once inspired the novelist, discoveries on Cao’s birth and life and other documents regarding this former residence that have been collected over the past two hundreds years. In addition, there are also some monuments and engravings which prove the relationship between the Cao’s and the area of Fragrant Hill.
Originally a small village museum, the hall was constructed centering on No.39 house of Zhengbaiqi, Fragrant Hill in the city of Beijing. In 1971, some poems were discovered inscribed on the west wall of the house, and one of the poems was recognized as consistent with a couplet presented to Cao Xueqin by E Bi, a friend of Cao, according to historical resources. Thereafter, some redologists did some textual researches and proved that Cao once lived and wrote here during his old age.
Inside the exhibition room
In memory of the prominent novelist and his literary contribution, the small museum has been expanded to the present day′s Cao Xueqin Memorial Hall, with an area of 8 hectares in Beijing Botanical Gardens (which is located on the original site of Zhengbaiqi, or the Plain White Branch of the Manchus Banner) have been particularly opened up for the project. The Hall is also named “Village of Yellow Leaves”, for poems and literary works have referred to Cao as “writing in the Village of Yellow Leaves at the foot of the west hill.” In front of the hall hangs a plaque presented by Mr. Qi Gong, a renowned calligrapher and scholar. The exhibition rooms not only tell Cao’s life experience, but also display tangible items that concern Cao or Dream of the Red Chamber. The wall-poems have been re-engraved according to the original marks. The village sports scenic spots featuring willows, zigzag lanes, fences and steam from kitchens, and each of them is given a poetic Chinese name. Visitors are certain to be enchanted by the idyllic picture here in which they can find tea-houses, taverns, ancient pottery, stone mills and vegetable fields all in the backyard.
(Source: bjchinese.bjedu.cn)
