The Last Empress and the First Hai Gui

-by Ernie Diaz

History has shrouded her in disapproval, but an eyewitness account of Empress Dowager Cixi reveals a tough, smart old broad who played the game of power better than any so-called man in the kingdom. Was she flighty? Sure. She grew up with status determining not just what you had for breakfast, but whether you were allowed to eat it sitting down. Furthermore, such status could be irrevocably lost by a careless act or gesture. That kind of game makes the strongest souls neurotic.

But this is no apologia for the Dragon Queen. It’s a tribute to the journal-power of China’s first modern hai gui [returning sea turtle], Princess Der Ling. Her father, a high-ranking Manchu, astonished his peers by giving his daughters an education, in France no less, a progressive attitude that elicited an impeachment attempt. The Princess earned her title by converting an invitation to visit Cixi [Suh - shee] into a court appointment, once the former’s brains and grace became apparent to the latter. A century after the empress’ demise is a fine time to examine the cross-cultural ferment produced by the Princess’ time in the Forbidden City. Der Ling’s insights remain germane, and thoroughly applicable for the expat.

If you’re in the middle, do the edges matter? Not if you’re too complacent to take a look. Most of Cixi’s ladies in waiting viewed the wide world outside their gilded cages as a curious yet essentially trivial tableau. “Is there a king in England?” queries the 4^th daughter of Prince Qing, on meeting Der Ling. “I had thought that our Empress Dowager was Queen of the World.” The cream of a nation’s leadership staying so willfully thick is a recipe for embarrassment leading to disaster, tantamount to a presidential candidate not knowing who the leader of Russia is.

A pity, then, that education could be viewed as an elective indulgence for women, even with a woman ruling the land. However, more than a few of Der Ling’s royal girl friends used their heads for more than displaying elaborate hairpins. “The United States is a republic and very friendly toward us, but I am sorry that such a common class of people go there, as they will think we are all the same. What I should like to see is some of our good Manchu people go, as then they would see what we really are,” opines another princess. A little education is a dangerous thing indeed, so often does it bear the bitter fruit of pride and shame.

Cixi, however, made up for any lack of book-learning with razor-sharp intuition and innate genius for playing the game of power. Furthermore, she was anything but callous to the ten thousand self-debasements those in her presence were expected to perform. “I am sorry you have to eat standing, but I cannot break the law of our great ancestors,” she tells Der Ling during a hundred-course meal. “Even the Young Empress cannot sit in my presence. I am sure the foreigners must think we are barbarians to treat our Court ladies in this way, and I don’t wish them to know anything about our customs. You will see how differently I act in their presence, so that they cannot see my true self.” Damn you, face, for your grim price: perversely bowing to cruel custom, as long as no outsiders are watching. It’s hard to cast a stone for her mask-wearing, though. Stifling your personality is the first universal law of self-importance.

Stifling the flow of information, on the other hand, is essential to politicking. Cixi relied on her prodigious memory storage, tetrabytes more than her rivals’, to slash through webs of deceit like Indiana Jones in a forgotten tunnel. Der Ling won her honored position as first lady in waiting largely due to her fluency in English and French, enabling her to play the trusted yet anonymous translator to the Empress. Instant power is almost as hazardous as earned power. Envy and passive dissembling were daily realities, both for Der Ling and her liege.

“Why don’t you tell me you speak Russian; I won’t know or be able to find out,” Cixi asks her, admonishing Der Ling for her frankness about complete lack of the language. Naively candid, Der Ling is nonetheless sharp enough to catch the Queen eyeballing a flustered-looking courtier, and to surmise that he was B.S.-ing Cixi about her skills for the benefit of his private agenda. When saying “I don’t know,” constitutes a drop in status, praise and promotion can be wielded as weapons.

Little surprise, then, if those in the highest places start wielding such weapons willy nilly. Beset by a foul mood, Cixi spies two hairs inadvertently let fall by her eunuch hairdresser. She demands he replace them; when he can’t, she leaves his punishment to Li Lian Ying, her head eunuch, dreaded for both his power and capricious cruelty. “Why not kill him?” Li conjectures; the mortal beating commences immediately.

Besides the instructive, extensive view into the Chinese imperial mindset, Der Ling’s account contains plenty of dish on the peculiarities of self-imposed imprisonment. A megalomaniac old woman, a few dispirited noblemen, a few hundred royal concubines, and two thousand men deprived of their gonads make for highly entertaining melodrama. The fact that they’re just like us underneath all the exotica makes for cross-cultural edification.

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