In this episode, we puzzle over Grannie Liu’s arithmetic while questioning how age and social class more broadly inform her interactions with Grandmother Jia. A continuation of our discussion of chapter 39 of Dream of the Red Chamber (Story of the Stone), a classic work of historical Chinese...

We treat the first part of Chapter 39 of Dream of the Red Chamber (Story of the Stone, Hongloumeng), as Li Wan and friends wax philosophical on the importance of having good servants to dissipate loneliness... our discussion turns toward issues of social value, and the paradoxes of hierarchy and...