Why a Booktrail?
Early 1900s: Torn from her family. Destined to become the most desired courtesan in China.
Peach Blossom Pavilion
What you need to know before your trail
Ever wondered what it must be like to be a Chinese courtesan in the Peach Blossom Pavilion…
Xiang Xiang, alone and friendless at thirteen is about to find out. Her parents can not protect her for they are gone. Her father has been falsely accused of murder and executed and her mother forced into a Buddhist nunnery. Xiang Xiang is taken enters the world of the courtesan and the Peach Blossom Pavilion and is given the name Bao Lan which means Precious Orchid.
She soon becomes one of China’s most successful courtesans but what she really wants is to avenge her parents and find the justice she craves.
Travel Guide
The Peach Blossom Pavilion might sound idyllic but its beautiful name hides quite literally a multitude of sins.
It’s inside this pavillion where lost and lonely girls, often torn from their families and homes are trained in what is described as ‘the fine arts of womanhood’ such as studying music, literature, painting.
It’s sad to realise that the girls are there to learn the art of pleasing and pleasuring men. They call it the art – the art of seduction but this is a life controlled by men’s desires and their so-called ‘duty’ and the lack of freewill and freedom.
Precious Orchid is just one girl of many who have to dance, serve tea and play music to entertain men. The life of these girls makes for harrowing and uncomfortable reading. Attention to detail is the attention to the sordid and unhappy events described in the book. The flowery terms for the sexual acts just show the contrast between the appearance and reality of the life and times of these women.
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