Crucial Points in the Ying-ying Story.

On stories in general: The characters can lie or fail to tell the truth, but the author always knows and tells the truth. So if a character is deceiving somebody in the story, the author may just report that character's words without informing us that the words the character speaks are untrue. ("The con man said, 'These diamonds are worth a mint!'")

The following list may not be complete. (I keep finding new wrinkles in this story every time I read it.) There may be no definite answers to some of the questions, or the answers that you may find could depend on which translation you read. (For instance, in Waley's translation it is hard to tell whether the daughter asked her mother anything more revealing than something like, "How would you feel if I were to get married to Zhang?" But the Chinese text seems to me to make it appear that the mother had to have known what was going on, otherwise she would not have said, in effect: "You got yourself into this mess, so you get yourself out of it.") But I think it would be helpful to you in writing your analysis of "what was really going on between Zhang and Ying-ying" if you considered the following questions:

(1) From what you know of Zhang as he is revealed more and more thoroughly throughout the story, what probably accounts for his intense attraction to Ying- ying despite the fact that she treats him in an insulting way during their first encounter?

(2) From everything you have managed to piece together about Ying-ying, what makes her behave at that first meeting in a way that broke the morés of her culture even more strongly than it would have broken the morés of our own culture?

(3) Given the kind of instructions he received from the bondservant, and given the scandal it would have caused if a written message were discovered by any third party, is it likely or possible that Zhang might have written a smutty poem to Ying-ying?

(4) If Zhang had sung the song to Ying-ying that begins: "Come to my tent, Oh, My beloved!" Ying-ying probably would have been justified in regarding that as an indecent proposal. But if Zhang only wrote poems extolling her beauty, intelligence, etc., etc., even though Ying-ying might with good reason suspect that there was an erotic component to Zhang's interest in her (since he appeared to be a healthy young man), would she have been justified in treating that as a poem that essentially propositioned her?

(5) After she received his two "vernal poems," what real courses of action did Ying- ying have open to her? And why, in your view, did she invite him to her apartment at midnight?

(6) Why did Zhang go to her rooms? What possible courses of action might he have planned for himself? What things might he have anticipated happening?

(7) How would Zhang have felt (given all we know about his previous isolation) when Ying-ying "spiked" him? How would he have looked and acted?

(8) What possible things might have accounted for Ying-ying's decision to go to Zhang's apartment a couple of night later and offer herself to him? Did someone have a gun at her head? Or, on the other hand, was she completely free in that decision?

(9) What range of factors might account for Zhang's not barring his door as soon as he learned that she was on her way over that night? Was his decision to sleep with her because somebody had a gun to his head? Or, on the other hand, was he completely free in that decision?

(10) Why did Ying-ying disappear from sight for several days?

(11) How might Zhang have felt during the days when she hid behind closed doors?

(12) What significance might Zhang's additional poems, written during this interlude, have had to Ying-ying? Does that impact account for her decision to welcome him to her own bedroom?

(13) What expectation did Zhang set up by asking Ying-ying how her mother might react if they were to get married?

(14) When Ying-ying refers to their "eternal commitment," why does Zhang never say anything?

(15) Ying-ying was clearly aware that she was in a bad fix unless Zhang would marry her. Everyone might learn that she wasn't a virgin, and then it would be hard to find a good husband, or she might conceal the fact until after the marriage, but on the bridal night it would become a big issue. What would Ying-ying have needed to do to make a marriage possible or more likely? How did she actually behave?

(16) Zhang originally wanted Ying-ying more than anything in the world, and one would assume that he would have planned on marriage and a long and happy life together. He had gotten the cart before the horse just as much as Ying-ying had. What would he have needed to do to work toward a viable relationship? How well did he perform in that regard?

(17) Why did Zhang go to the big city? Aside from his need to prepare himself for his career, do you see any other factors that might have motivated him to go?

(18) How did Ying-ying interpret his going to the big city?

(19) What kinds of arguments and appeals did Ying-ying make to Zhang because of his going to Chang-an? What does that say about her psychology, her mind-set?

(20) Do you see any difference in their relationship, in the way each of them conducted themselves, after Zhang came back from his first stay in Chang-an? Were they making progress toward a better relationship?

(21) After he went to Chang-an the second time, Zhang had an exchange of letters with Ying-ying, and then he decided to break off with her. He gives a very esoteric explanation to his friends. But if you just look at the course of events that led up to that point, can you form your own estimate of why he decided to break the relationship with Ying-ying?

(22) Why do you think Zhang tried to see Ying-ying once more, after he had married some other woman, and after she had married some other man?

(23) What was the psychology behind Ying-ying's final message to Zhang? Is it consistent with that of the young woman we saw at the beginning of the story? Is it consistent with the Ying-ying we saw during her two periods of cohabiting with Zhang?

(24) Some Chinese people call Zhang the "heartless lover." Does his last communication to Ying-ying show him to be that kind of person? In other words, what was the psychology behind his final message?

If Ying-ying had been someone like the heroine in the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon movie, i.e., an independent young woman who was capable of defending herself both physically and emotionally, both as tough and as sharp as a nail, how would that have changed this story? What if Zhang had been a totally sheltered youth who had always been kept up at home and was suddenly thrust into a situation in which he was totally infatuated with this much more powerful Ying-ying? Waley's translation (in the Birch anthology) makes Ying-ying appear to be the one at fault. Many Chinese writers who have commented on this story speak of Zhang as the heartless lover. I am asking you to understand these characters -- for one thing because I think it's probably based on a true story -- and I am not asking you to judge them. But if one were to judge these people I think it would be only fair to understand what external influences they were under. Keep in mind that something that happens to a person in early childhood can keep him or her under its control for that individual's whole life.