Wanyan Jinchi

(c. 1770 - c. 1840)

Most of what we know about the Manchu poet Wanyan Jinchi comes from an introduction to her work published by her granddaughter in 1873. “Whenever the moon was bright and the breeze pleasant, she would call for a brush and chant her poems, which she then would paste on the walls,” the introduction states. “She was very nearsighted, and when she wrote her characters, the brush often would soil her eyelashes. By nature she was peaceful and easygoing. All her life she never spoke a harsh word or showed an angry face. In general, she was much like her poetry.”