Filled with more than 400 characters and over 1000 pages long, the Dream of the Red Chamber is one of the Four Greatest Classical Novels in Chinese literature.
The story details the rise and fall of the aristocratic Jia family during the Ming Dynasty. In the midst of it all is a tragic love triangle between the main male character Jia Baoyu and his two cousins,Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai. The plot is so complex that it even has its own academic field, known as Redology.
The book itself was written back in the 18th century and almost three hundred years later, it is still much loved by Chinese readers. Dream of the Red Chamber was so popular in China that in the1980s, a multi-episode TV series was made based on the book, and Daguanyuan or Grand View Garden, a major setting in the story, was built in Beijing for this purpose.
The garden is located not far from the Forbidden City, on Beijing's second ring road. In the novel, this is where Jia Baoyu and his female cousins lived. Ma Juntong is a curator for this place, which is also the Beijing Redology Culture Museum.