An interactive bilingual database for Pinhua Baojian (品花宝鉴), a 60-chapter Qing dynasty novel by Chen Sen (陈森) depicting the culture of male entertainers in Beijing. The database makes the novel's characters, chapters, and literary references accessible to readers in both Chinese and English.
Live: https://ph-bj.github.io
WHAT IT CONTAINS
- Character profiles with roles, hometowns, and chapter appearance counts
- Full Chinese text for all 60 chapters with aligned English translations
- Bilingual chapter summaries for every chapter including the preface
- All books and works cited across the novel, aggregated by frequency
- An interactive character relationship network graph
- Per-chapter statistics: length, dialogue density, works cited, content tags
- Bilingual profiles of major gardens and spaces in the novel
- A lacunae viewer documenting textual gaps and editorial inferences
AUTHORSHIP
Authored by TengChao Zhou (2026).
AI tools were used as development assistance. Project direction and editorial intent are human-led.
TECH
React 19, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS, D3, Recharts, Motion