abstract: This article argues that the celebrated aesthetics of Tao’an mengyi 陶庵夢憶 by Zhang Dai 張岱 (1597–1689) are inseparable from the system of bonded labor that structured late-imperial Chinese elite culture. Often read as exemplary memory writing, the collection constructs an aesthetic centered on spectacle, surface, and perceptual disorientation. I argue that this aesthetic both depends on and obscures a pervasive system of human commodification, which I approach through the analytic lens of slavery. Drawing on recent scholarship that emphasizes the ubiquity of trafficking, the article shifts focus from defining enslaved populations to examining a broader system of social transactionality. Readings of essays on theater, visual display, and elite sociability show how aesthetic effects rely on the precise coordination—and erasure—of labor. Zhang Dai’s fascination with illusion and perfect staging reflects and reproduces a world structured by mastery over others. At moments, especially in depictions of sex work, this aesthetic distance becomes unstable, revealing underlying tensions. Ultimately, Tao’an mengyi not only represents but enacts an aesthetics of control, inviting readers to participate in transforming domination into aesthetic pleasure. 摘要: 本文主張，張岱之《陶庵夢憶》的美學與晚期帝制中國之依附性勞動體 制密不可分。其審美以奇觀、表面與感知錯置為核心，既奠基於亦遮蔽人身 商品化，本文以「奴隸制」作為分析概念。透過細讀戲曲、展示與社交場景，指 出審美效果依賴對勞動的精密調度並將其抹除，從而再生產支配他人的社 會結構。部分涉及性交易之描寫亦顯露出內在張力。總之，《陶庵夢憶》不 僅再現，亦實踐一種將支配轉化為審美愉悅的控制美學。
