"[6] Sai Jinhua was allegedly born with the name Zhao Lingfei (趙靈飛; 赵灵飞; Zhào Língfēi; Chao Ling-fei) on October 9, 1872.

[2] When she became his concubine she began using the name Hong Mengluan (洪夢鸞; 洪梦鸾; Hóng Mèngluán; Hung Meng-luan).

She was unable to dance at the parties she did attend due to her bound feet and because Hong Jun asked her not to.

[1] Wenxian Zhang, author of the Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work, Volume 2, wrote that when Sai Jinhua was in Berlin, she reportedly became the acquaintance of Alfred von Waldersee.

[4] David Der-wei Wang, author of Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849-1911, wrote that the affair between Sai Jinhua and Waldersee began at that point as legends have it.

[8] In addition to Waldersee, she met Emperor William II, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, and German Empress Victoria in Berlin.

[4] Ying Hu, author of Tales of Translation: Composing the New Woman in China, 1899-1918, stated that Waldersee much favored Sai Jinhua allegedly due to her proficiency in several European languages.

[3] Ying Hu wrote that she allegedly tried and sometimes succeeded in curbing the brutality of the troops through her bedside conversations with Waldersee.

[3] Wenxian Zhang wrote that Sai Jinhua "was credited with influencing Waldsee [sic] to moderate the harsh treatment of Beijing residents".

[8] The poem repeated a rumor stating that the two were in the palace of the Empress Dowager and that they ran out of it naked when a fire occurred.

[8] Sai Jinhua, in her biography, admitted that she was on good terms with Waldersee but, as stated by Hu Ying, she vigorously disputed that she had a sexual relationship with him.

[3] David Wang wrote that because of several reasons, including differences in political concerns, social status, and age, a romance between the two had not likely happened.

[12] Subsequently she married a member of the National Assembly,[4] Wei Sijiong, who was a former head of the Jiangxi Province Bureau of Civil Affairs.

[6] Sai Jinhua, who was in poverty at the time of her death,[4] subsisted off of the money curious historians and journalists gave her.

[15] In works she is portrayed as a heroine of the Chinese nation who saved the country single-handedly during a time of crisis or as a yaonie (妖孽; yāoniè; yao-nie), a woman with abnormal powers or a female demon.

Ying Hu, author of Tales of Translation: Composing the New Woman in China, 1899-1918, wrote that Sai Jinhua "is often portrayed in extreme colors" in fiction.

[3] Ying Hu wrote that "portraits of Sai Jinhua in the first decade of the twentieth century tended to be ambivalent, if not outright censorious".

In 1933 Liu Bannong, a professor of Chinese literature at Peking University, conducted an interview with Sai Jinhua.