Pipa Girl was originally a music prostitute, a type of singing girl. In ancient times, geishas were all under the "prostitution status". Whether they were geishas from ecclesiastical workshops or folk geishas, ??they were essentially slaves, not free persons. They suffer all kinds of discrimination politically and socially.
Text/Professor Zeng Daxing of Guangzhou University
Bai Juyi's "Pipa Song" is a famous piece in the history of Chinese poetry. This poem is very successful in describing music. I don't need to do this. Let’s talk. One issue I want to talk about is the authenticity of the image of Pipa Girl. The image of the Pipa girl is not realistic enough. To be more specific, she has a serious sense of loss about her life after her "eldest daughter married a businesswoman", which is not true enough. Pipa Girl was originally a music prostitute, a type of singing girl. In ancient times, geishas were all under the "prostitution status". Whether they were geishas from ecclesiastical workshops or folk geishas, ??they were essentially slaves, not free persons. They suffer all kinds of discrimination politically and socially. If they had not "removed their nationality", even if they got married and gave birth to a son, their son would not be able to take the imperial examination or become an official, and would only be a slave for generations. So their biggest wish is to be good. For example, Xu Yueying, a prostitute in the Tang Dynasty, wrote such a poem:
"Reminiscences of Feelings" Xu Yueying
She cried frequently because of the loss of her three followers. What is the use of this body in human relations? Although I play music and sing every day. Happy, I always envy Jingchai and cloth skirt.
The "three obediences" are to obey the father at home, to the husband when married, and to the son in death. This is the fate of women in ancient times. But prostitutes do not have such a destination. They have lost the protection of their fathers, and most of them have no husbands, children, and no one to rely on. They are thrown out of normal human relations, so they "cry frequently." Although they sing and dance all day long and wear gold and silver, these are not what they really want. What they really want is to live like ordinary women, even if they live in "Jingchai" or "cloth skirts" and if their life is harder, they I am also very envious and yearn for it.
How can we live a life like ordinary women? There is only one way: to be a good person. The so-called good behavior does not mean just getting married, but "deregistering", that is, canceling their "prostitution status" from the government and returning them to freedom. However, there are conditions for "denationalization". First, someone must redeem her from a religious workshop or brothel, which costs a sum of money; and then she has to go to the government to go through the formalities, which costs another sum of money. Who is willing to spend these two dollars for them? Only the kind of man who truly cares about them and loves them.
In this sense, Pipa girl should be very lucky. When her younger brother left to join the army and her aunt died, her appearance was changed in the evening, and her horses and horses were neglected in front of the door, she was still able to "marry a business woman" when she was old and golden. There were actually businessmen willing to redeem her and help her. It is not easy for her to "remove her citizenship" and then marry her.
Judging from the description of the work, the man married by Pipa Girl is not a very wealthy businessman. Because the tea he sells is "Fuliang tea", which is not a high-end tea, but a very ordinary and cheap tea. Moreover, he needs to purchase the goods himself, and he may not even have a horse boy under his command.
Although he is not rich, he still feels sorry for Pipa Girl. He personally went to "Fuliang" to purchase goods, ate and slept in the open, and took all kinds of risks, but let the Pipa girl stay in the prosperous Xunyang (today's Jiujiang City), where she only guarded the ship and had no other household chores.
Pipa Girl has a good husband
But Pipa Girl doesn’t appreciate it. She thought it was unfortunate that her boss married a businesswoman. Excuse me, if you don’t marry a businessman, what kind of woman can you marry? Can you marry an official? Can you marry a poet? Can you marry a “Wuling young man”? Yes, the “Wuling young man” was very popular in those days. You, the so-called "young people in Wuling are fighting for their heads, and they can't count the number of red ribbons". But are they willing to "exit" for you? Are they willing to marry you? You are so old and old, besides a kind businessman, who else is willing to marry you?
Pipa Girl also said, "A businessman values ??profits over separation. The month before last, I went to Fuliang to buy tea." Excuse me, if a businessman does not value profits and doesn't buy tea, what will you eat? What will you wear? What will you use?
In short, what happened to the Pipa girl? Speeches, whether in the past or today, are very wrong, very inappropriate, and very ignorant.
Pipa Girl is not a fallen person from the end of the world
Pipa Girl’s mistake is actually Bai Juyi’s mistake. Because Pipa Girl is just the Pipa Girl in his works, and may not be the real Pipa Girl in life. Bai Juyi's mistakes mainly include four points:
It is not necessarily unfortunate to marry a businessman
First, she lacks understanding of the fate of prostitutes. He believes that happiness is called happiness when the singing girls play the piano and sing in romantic places, and the "Wuling young man" competes for red envelopes and tips; drinking and fighting with the "Wuling young man" makes "the clouds on the tip of the head are broken by the grate, and the blood is red." "My skirt is stained by wine", that is happiness; hanging out with "Wuling young man" every day, "this year's laughter will be followed by the next, the autumn moon and spring breeze can be spent leisurely", that is happiness. However, prostitutes become unhappy if they become good, quit their citizenship, get married, and live a stable, peaceful, secure, and caring life.
In other words, a geisha is happy as a slave, but not as a free person.
Second, he lacks understanding of businessmen. He has a deep-rooted concept of light business in his mind. He believes that it is a misfortune for Pipa girls to "marry a merchant's wife". If you don't marry a merchant's wife, how can you marry a poet's wife? Are you, Bai Juyi, willing to marry her? You sympathize with her misfortune so much, why don't you marry her back? Yeah! He also said, "Businessmen value profits over separation." Excuse me, merchants do not do business and do not pay taxes to the country. What do you, a poet and national civil servant, eat? What do you wear? Where do you live? What do you play? Bai Juyi's understanding of businessmen is not as good as his contemporaries. We only need to look at Zhang Ji's "Salesman's Music" to know that the poet's understanding of businessmen at that time had reached a high level. So at this point, we should not use the limitations of the times to excuse him.
Third, as a national civil servant (Jiangzhou Sima, equivalent to a secretary-general of the Jiujiang Municipal Government today), he called a married woman to his boat to drink wine and play the piano in the middle of the night. Not only did she not say anything, but she also used a lot of inappropriate remarks, inappropriate sympathy, and inappropriate tears to incite people to be dissatisfied with their husbands and with their lives. Pipa Girl didn't want to get on his boat at first, but she was always hesitant because it was late at night after all. But as for him, he was "calling a thousand times" and had to get people to come out. This is a bit like some corrupt officials nowadays, who have to ask literary and artistic workers to come out to accompany them to drink and sing.
Fourth, Bai Juyi belittled Jiangzhou culture. We know that Jiangzhou in the Tang Dynasty is now Jiujiang, Jiangxi. Jiangzhou governed Xunyang (now the seat of Jiujiang City Government). There is a county below Jiangzhou called Pengze, where Tao Yuanming served as county magistrate. After he resigned, he returned to his hometown Lili, which belongs to today's Xingzi County. Both Pengze County and Xingzi County belong to Jiujiang City today. In other words, Jiangzhou in the Tang Dynasty was the hometown of Tao Yuanming and the hometown of China's top poets. The fact that Tao Yuanming was born in that place shows that the culture there is not backward. Not only is it not lagging behind, it is even very advanced. Bai Juyi has expressed his admiration and pursuit of Tao Yuanming more than once in his other works. But in this song "Pipa Xing", he actually degraded the culture of Tao Yuanming's hometown into a complete mess. "There is no music in Xunyang in a remote place, and I can't hear the sound of silk and bamboo all year round." What's more, "there are no folk songs and village flutes, and it's hard to listen to the hoarse and mocking music." You, Bai Juyi, are from Zhengzhou, a northerner. If you don’t understand Jiangzhou folk songs from the south, can you judge that Jiangzhou folk songs are not good folk songs?
Failure is related to mood
Bai Juyi’s Therefore, there are so many misunderstandings about Pipa Girl's marriage, businessmen, and Jiangzhou folk songs. In addition to his class position and level of understanding, it is also related to his mood at the time. He was demoted to Jiangzhou and felt aggrieved. The problem is that when he wants to vent his grievances, he creates a phantom in his mind, creating an unreal image of the Pipa Girl, and then vents his unhappiness to this unreal image. Bai Juyi also said: "We are both fallen people in the world, so why should we know each other before?"
In fact, you are the fallen person in the world! The Pipa girl has found her destiny in life and married a kind businessman. , what have people fallen into? You impose your sense of degradation on a pipa girl who has been liberated, completely ignoring the truth of history and reality. This cannot but be said to be a failure. What's more, in order to vent his unhappiness, he demoted both businessmen and Jiangzhou culture.
Of course, when I point out these failures of Bai Juyi, I do not mean to completely deny his poem, nor do I mean to deny him as a person. To be honest, "Pipa Xing" is very successful in its description of pipa music, but what is unsuccessful is its description of pipa girls.