Biography of Cao Xueqin

Author: Zhou Ruchang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1992-01-01
Features: There has been a legend that in the 1970s of the 13th century, Marco Polo, an Italian, came to China and served as an official under the Yuan Dynasty for 17 years. He was well-versed in Chinese culture and language, traveling through all the provinces of China—naturally, he spent the most time in the capital, "Dadu," which is now Beijing. In 1292, he left China. Six years later, he was captured in war and imprisoned. In prison, he reminisced about his travels in the East, praising the wealth of China's resources and the prosperity of its culture, especially the magnificent, grand, beautiful, and well-organized architecture and layout of Dadu. This charm of Eastern civilization left him utterly astonished, expressing that it was beyond words to describe.
This recollection was recorded and became a renowned work in Europe: The Travels of Marco Polo. From then on, Europe gained a fresh understanding and yearning for China. However, when it came to the later dynastic changes and transformations in China's capital, it seemed that no second Marco Polo arose to document these observations, and few people knew about them. Four hundred years later, in the city of Dadu, a rare genius and eccentric lived—a person who, to this day, Europe seems to have no book introducing. Who was this person? None other than the greatest Chinese novelist, Cao Xueqin.