With the Empress Dowager of China

by Katharine A. Carl

Most of the large courts of the Summer Palace have roofs of matting erected over them, to keep out the sun. These mat-roofs make, of the flower-filled courts, delightfully cool, outdoor parlors. The mat-sheds at the Palace are almost works of art. Tall poles, reaching from twenty to thirty feet above the roofs surrounding the courts to be protected from the sun, are painted in festive designs, and they support transversal beams, also gaily painted. Over these roof-beams are stretched strips of the beautiful matting which the Chinese excel in making. Matting-curtains drop from the roof of the sheds to a level with the Palace roofs. These side-curtains, as well as huge sections of the matting-roof, are movable, and may be opened and raised by means of cords and pulleys attached to the supporting pillars. The whole structure, supporting pillars and transversal beams, is tied together with ropes the same color of the beams, and not a nail is used. The mat-sheds are put up in June and taken down in September.

New ladies were arriving at the Palace every day for a week before the Birthday—members of the Imperial Family from a distance, and the wives and daughters of Manchu nobles who were of sufficient rank to present their congratulations in person. The young Empress never failed to introduce me to these ladies. A foreigner in the Chinese Court is a much more extraordinary circumstance than a Chinese at a European Court would be, and this was, in most instances, the first meeting of these Princesses with any foreigner; but they were uniformly courteous and even cordial, never evincing the slightest curiosity as to my dress or my habits. I doubted whether a Chinese at a European Court, or at our White House, would have been treated with the same consideration by all, even to the servants. The children, of whom there were several at Court at this time, were as well-bred as their elders in their treatment of the “foreign lady.”

After our first lunch in the court of the Theater, when the theatrical performance of the day was finished and the actors had left, I approached the stage of the Theater and began examining, with interest, its construction and appointments. The Palace Theater is raised about twelve feet from the ground, and its main floor is on a level with the Imperial loge. The building consists of three stories and a cellar. The latter is used for the few pieces of scenery of the scenic plays, and is where the simple devices used for moving it are manipulated. Like the Greek theater, the stage is open on three sides; and the actors come out and speak their parts, their entrance being to the left and the exit to the right of the stage.

Her Majesty was within her loge while I was examining the construction of the Theater; but she evidently noticed my movements, for the eunuchs soon threw open the great plate doors and she descended the steps of the Imperial loge and came across the court to where I was standing. She asked me if I would not like to go on the stage and look over the building and examine things thoroughly. She added, “You probably may never have such a chance to see a good Chinese theater again.” She, herself, went up the steps leading from the court to the stage, and told me to follow her.

The stage is about twenty-five feet square, is roofed over, and projects into the court, its three sides being open. The fourth side has doors and curtains for the entrance and exit of the actors. There are no actresses in China. The men perform the parts of women, and represent them with such success that I was much surprised when I learned there were no actresses. At the back of the stage sit the musicians, who accompany all the theatrical performances in China.

Her Majesty, herself, led the way across the stage and we went behind the scenes. Here, I examined closely a number of “Floats” that were to be used, in the procession in honor of the Emperor, on the day of the Birthday. These floats had all been designed by the Empress Dowager. After we had looked at these, she suggested that I had better see the upper floors. These latter are not in general use in Chinese theaters. The theaters, even at the other Palaces, have but one stage. The steps which lead to the second stage, and thence to the third stage, are behind the scenes. The two upper stages are used for spectacular plays and tableaux, when certain of the players group themselves in pyramidal form on these superposed stages and speak their lines therefrom. The upper stages have also trap-doors and pulleys for use in the spectacular plays. Her Majesty went up, herself, to show me these stages. She mounted the steep and difficult steps with as much ease and lightness as I did, and I had on comfortable European shoes, while she wears the six-inch-high Manchu sole in the middle of her foot, and must really walk as if on stilts.

Neither the Empress Dowager nor any of the Manchu ladies bind their feet; that custom prevailed in China before the Manchu conquest. The Manchus have adopted many of the manners and customs of the Chinese, but the Manchu women have retained their own individuality; and to-day, after more than two hundred and fifty years in China, they still wear their native costume, entirely different from the Chinese women. They still dress their hair in the picturesque Manchu fashion. They not only have never bound their feet, but they have as great a horror of it as Europeans have. Manchu ladies are not bound by the same rigid social conventions as are the Chinese women. They are less circumscribed and have more individual freedom than any other Oriental women. In fact, the Manchu woman seems to be, to other Oriental women, what the modern American woman is to her European sisters.

CHAPTER VIII HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR KWANG-HSU

The Emperor Kwang-Hsu was barely eighteen years old when Her Majesty the Empress Dowager, Regent of the Empire, handed over to him the reins of Government, admonishing him in a parting Imperial Decree to “discipline his body, develop his mind, love his People, and give unceasing attention to the administration of Government,” which Decree His Majesty responded to in fitting terms, by another Decree, begging “Her Majesty the Empress Dowager to continue to advise him in important affairs,” saying he “would not dare to be indolent,” that only after prayer and sacrifice “to Heaven and Earth and his Ancestors would he Himself begin to administer affairs of State on the 15th day of the First moon of the 13th year of his Reign”! He began to reign by our count the 25th day of February, 1889, under the appellation of “Kwang-Hsu” (Glorious Succession). The name under which an Emperor of China reigns is not his own, but one chosen for him, and has generally some appropriate signification or some symbolic meaning.

His Majesty Kwang-Hsu is the twelfth Emperor, who has reigned over China, of the Dynasty of the “Great Purity,” as the Manchu Dynasty is called.[2] His reign began at the age of five years, under the Co-Regency of the Empress of the Eastern and Empress of the Western Palaces. The former died in 1881, and from that time on Her Majesty, the present Empress Dowager, ruled alone as “Regent.” His reign, counting the years of the Regency, has already lasted thirty years, the third in point of length of any of the Emperors of the Manchu Dynasty.