Do you know about this Chinese classic:The Story of the Stone

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Hi,these days it suddenly comes to my mind to find out the popularity of the classical Chinese novel "The Story of the Stone"(also "A Dream of Red Mansions"," Dream of the Red Chamber", "Red Chamber Dream" or "Hong Lou Meng") among readers outside China. " The Story of the Stone", written by Cao Xueqin (also Tsao Hsueh-chin) in the mid 18th century,is a great masterpiece of Chinese literature,generally acknowledged as the No.1 among all classical Chinese novels. It's a great realistic work with high achievement in both idiological and artistic terms.Mao Zedong (known as Chairman Mao among the old generation of Chinese), the most famous Chinese politician ,once said," You can never understand the feudal society of China without reading "The Story of the Stone". That's true. If you consult British or American encyclopedia, you can surely find the explanations of this novel. The following is the one in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Red_Chamber (it's so tiring to type the link:( The Story of the Stone" is well known to Chinese people. Just like the saying " There are one thousand Hamlets in the minds of one thousand readers of Shakespere", it's no doubt there are millions of Jia baoyus (Jia baoyu is the main protagonist in the novel) in the minds of millions of Chinese readers. In China even greatest public attention is aroused every time the novel is adapted for screen. As for the spreading of the novel outside China, it's said "The Story of the Stone" was first traslated into English more than 200 years ago and till now it has been translated into almost 20 languages. However,I am wondering about it's real popularity among non-Chinese readers, so I start this discussion. Welcome to have a participation! My questions is: how much do you know about "The story of the Stone" or Have you ever heard about it?