Court Life in China: The Capital, Its Officials and PeopleHeadland, Isaac Taylor
History
Court Life in China: The Capital, Its Officials and People
Headland, Isaac Taylor
China -- Court and courtiers; Cixi, Empress dowager of China, 1835-1908; Empresses -- China -- Biography; Women -- China
She went to the wall and took down a neat gilt frame which contained
their curriculum, and which she asked her eldest daughter to copy for
me. They had five studies each day, six days of the week, Sunday being
a holiday. They began with arithmetic, followed it up with Japanese
language, needlework, music and calisthenics, then took Chinese
language, drawing, and Chinese history with the writing of the
ideographs of their own language, which was one of the most difficult
tasks they had to perform. The dignified way in which the pupils
conducted themselves, the respect which they showed their teacher, and
the way in which they went about their work, delighted me. The
discipline it gave them, the self-respect it engendered, and the power
of acquisition that came with it were worth more perhaps than the
knowledge they acquired, useful as that information must have been.
The Princess Ka-la-chin, the fifth sister of Prince Su, is married to
the Mongolian Prince Ka-la. It is a rule among the Manchus that no
prince can marry a princess of their own people, but like the Emperor
himself, must seek their wives from among the untitled. These ladies
after their marriage are raised to the rank of their husbands. It is
the same with the daughters of a prince. Their husbands must come from
among the people, but unlike the princes they cannot raise them to
their own rank, and so their children have no place in the imperial
clan. Many of the princesses therefore prefer to marry Mongolian
princes, by which they retain their rank as well as that of their
children.
Naturally a marriage of this kind brings changes into the life of the
princess. She has been brought up in a palace in the capital, lives on
Chinese food, and is not inured to hardships. When she marries a Mongol
prince, she is taken to the Mongolian plains, is not infrequently
compelled to live in a tent, and her food consists largely of milk,
butter, cheese and meat, most of which are an abomination to the
Chinese. They especially loathe butter and cheese, and not infrequently
speak of the foreigner smelling like the Mongol--an odour which they
say is the result of these two articles of diet.
Prince Su's fifth sister was fortunate in being married to a Mongol
prince who was not a nomad. He had established a sort of village
capital of his possessions, the chief feature of which was his own
palace. Here he lives during the summers and part of the winters;
though once in three years he is compelled to spend at least three
months in his palace in Peking when he comes to do homage to the
Emperor.
During one of these visits to Peking the Princess sent for me to come
to her palace. I naturally supposed she was ill, and so took with me my
medical outfit, but her first greeting was:
"I am not ill, nor is any member of my family, but I wanted to see you
to have a talk with you about foreign countries."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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