Jia Qiaojie is one of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling (refers to the twelve excellent ladies) in the book of The Dream of Red Mansions. She is the youngest girl of the twelve beauties.
She is daughter of Wang Xifeng and Jia Lian. However, the name Jia Qiaojie was not given by her parents. In the book, she was depicted as a girl with poor health ever since she was a child. One day, when Granny Liu (an old rural lady) visited the family of Jia, Wang Xifeng talked about her sickly daughter with Liu. Then she asked Liu to give a name for her daughter (In ancient times, people believed that the name given by the poor can be beneficial to health). Knowing she was born on the 7th day of 7th lunar month, Granny Liu called her “Qiaojie”.
At the very beginning, she lived in the family of Jia as a princess. However, as the family began to decline, her fate changed tremendously. The princess was sold to the bagnio by her relatives. Fortunately, she was saved by Granny Liu, who was once helped by Jia’s mother. Granny Liu did not care about her experience in bagnio. Finally, she married the grandson of Liu and lived a poor but happy life in the country. So, most readers regard her as the luckiest one of the Twelve Beauties.
The writer has pinned part of his hope on the ending of Jia Qiaojie. People should look for a way out after the decline of the family of Jia. Maybe living in seclusion is a better choice.
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