To this day a man expert in the art of pang ch'en is nicknamed "Little Master Chin" or "the oil peddler" by those wise in matters concerning breeze and moonlight.
I just finished one of the great late Ming love stories, "The Oil Peddlar and the Queen of the Flowers," translated by Wang Chi-chen. It's the story of Yaochin aka Meiniang, "The Queen of Flowers," a poor orphan girl turned courtesan, and Chin Chung, a poor orphan boy who becomes a respectable oil merchant. As the last sentence of the story (quoted above) indicates, it has a happy ending.
I quite liked the quaintness of Wang's 1943 translation, with its Wade-Giles, use of words like "erstwhile" and "sycee," and snappy poetry translations: "For he who can read his fair lady's thoughts/Only he is without peer in the arena of love." I want to get right back to my reading, but I leave this note here for further updating, especially after I locate the Chinese text of the story.
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