Her appearance and attitude are like that of a dragon and phoenix, which have the connotations of being noble and extraordinary. Her posture and the way she holds herself exude regalness. For more information, see the entry on longfeng. In the premodern Chinese context, long 龍 [dragon] and feng 鳳[phoenix] are usually opposite concepts with long associated with the emperor and feng associated with the empress. But they can also be used as a compound longfeng, as in this case, to generally represent something extraordinary and hinted the feeling of royalty. A related concept is fenghuang 鳳凰 [phoenix]. While as a compound fenghuang generally means the female side of the royal family, like the empress, sometimes they are understood separately with feng being male phoenix and huang being female phoenix. It depends on the context to understand what the word actually refers to.
Language and Culture Center (LCC) at Duke Kunshan University
