View source for The Plum in the Golden Vase

*''Chinese/Japanese'': 金瓶梅 ''(Jīnpíngméi / Kinpeibai)''

''The Plum in the Golden Vase'', also known as ''The Golden Lotus'', is considered one of the Four Great Classic [[Ming Dynasty]] Novels, along with the ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'', ''[[Journey to the West]]'', and ''[[Suikoden|The Water Margin]]''.

The text is highly erotic, even pornographic, and so while highly prized as a work of literature, it is also not nearly as widely celebrated as the other three. The story, in one hundred chapters, tells of the various activities of a wealthy lecher, who has lavish parties and an extremely active social and sex life, but never finds real love; he dies "an empty shell" of a man, and the last twenty chapters detail the unraveling of his household. Each of his five primary lovers represents a different aspect of human nature, and the story as a whole has been described as "a moral fable of the way greed and selfishness destroy" people.<ref>Jonathan Spence, ''The Search for Modern China'', Second Edition, W.W. Norton & Co. (1999), 10.</ref>

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