A summary of Jin Wenxue 金文学, "The Bedchamber Revealed" (開かれた寝室) in Kōshoku to Chūgoku bunka: Chūgoku no rekishi wa yoru ni tsukurareta 好色と中国文化：中国の歴史は夜に作られた  [Kawaguchi-shi, Japan: Nihon kyōhōsha, 2004], pp. 32-37.)

Lets take a look at the Chinese bedroom, which is a key to understanding sexual behavior and customs. We tend to think of Chinese bedrooms as closed, locked places, but they were open to a surprising degree in premodern China. Most bedrooms featured a large window, often covered with paper, but which anyone on the outside could look through rather easily. The bedroom was generally no more a place of privacy than any other room. And a potential voyeur need not poke a hole in the paper. Just the shadows against the paper of the window would likely have revealed the activity within. Bedroom construction provided almost no barrier to sounds—even flatulence would be plainly audible, much less the throes of sexual passion. Hence the proverb “The walls have ears.”

Even today, the bedrooms of wealthy households in Hong Kong and other parts of south China preserve a classical sense of eroticism. In general, such bedrooms are red in color and décor. On the wall would be an auspicious word, like 福 (fortune) or 寿 (longevity). Its walls would also be adorned with paintings of the “mountains and water” variety and/or the “flowers and birds” variety. A red rug would be spread across the floor. The bed would have pillars around it, which supported the bed frame as well as faint red curtains.

A woman entering the chamber would typically wear a red silk pajama-like garment that would cover her belly, but not anything below it. Sometimes she might also wear sheer silk underwear, but it would serve more to highlight the sexual body than to cover it. Before getting into bed with a man in the room, the couple would exchange drinks of hot wine or liquor, which might impart a pink glow to her cheeks.

One feature of Chinese beds is that they had two pillars protruding from them that looked somewhat like legs and which would be wrapped in red silk. These adjustable protrusions were for the women to use in suspending her lotus feet (bound feet) aloft.

Generally speaking, the occupants of such a room would have regarded the sex act as an obvious thing to do, and they did not worry about whether someone else might see or hear them doing something vulgar. Even Mencius praised the sex act as the loftiest of ethical deeds and classical texts took a similar sex-positive view.

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