Court Life in China | Page 3

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ISAAC TAYLOR HEADLAND'S THREE BOOKS THAT "LINK
EAST AND WEST"
Court Life in China: The Capital Its Officials and People.
The Chinese Boy and Girl
Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes

COURT LIFE IN CHINA THE CAPITAL ITS OFFICIALS AND
PEOPLE
By ISAAC TAYLOR HEADLAND Professor in the Peking University

PREFACE

Until within the past ten years a study of Chinese court life would have
been an impossibility. The Emperor, the Empress Dowager, and the
court ladies were shut up within the Forbidden City, away from a world
they were anxious to see, and which was equally anxious to see them.
Then the Emperor instituted reform, the Empress Dowager came out
from behind the screen, and the court entered into social relations with
Europeans.
For twenty years and more Mrs. Headland has been physician to the
family of the Empress Dowager's mother, the Empress' sister, and many
of the princesses and high official ladies in Peking. She has visited
them in a social as well as a professional way, has taken with her her
friends, to whom the princesses have shown many favours, and they
have themselves been constant callers at our home. It is to my wife,
therefore, that I am indebted for much of the information contained in
this book.
There are many who have thought that the Empress Dowager has been
misrepresented. The world has based its judgment of her character upon
her greatest mistake, her participation in the Boxer movement, which
seems unjust, and has closed its eyes to the tremendous reforms which
only her mind could conceive and her hand carry out. The great
Chinese officials to a man recognized in her a mistress of every
situation; the foreigners who have come into most intimate contact with
her, voice her praise; while her hostile critics are confined for the most
part to those who have never known her. It was for this reason that a
more thorough study of her life was undertaken.
It has also been thought that the Emperor has been misunderstood,
being overestimated by some, and underestimated by others, and this
because of his peculiar type of mind and character. That he was unusual,
no one will deny; that he was the originator of many of China's greatest
reform measures, is equally true; but that he lacked the power to
execute what he conceived, and the ability to select great statesmen to
assist him, seems to have been his chief shortcoming.
To my wife for her help in the preparation of this volume, and to my
father-in-law, Mr. William Sinclair, M. A., for his suggestions, I am

under many obligations.
I. T. H.

CONTENTS
I. THE EMPRESS DOWAGER--HER EARLY LIFE II. THE
EMPRESS DOWAGER--HER YEARS OF TRAINING III. THE
EMPRESS DOWAGER--AS A RULER IV. THE EMPRESS
DOWAGER--AS A REACTIONIST V. THE EMPRESS
DOWAGER--AS A REFORMER VI. THE EMPRESS
DOWAGER--AS AN ARTIST VII. THE EMPRESS DOWAGER--AS
A WOMAN VIII. KUANG HSU--HIS SELF DEVELOPMENT IX.
KUANG HSU--AS EMPEROR AND REFORMER X. KUANG
HSU--AS A PRISONER XI. PRINCE CHUN--THE REGENT XII.
THE HOME OF THE COURT--THE FORBIDDEN CITY XIII. THE
LADIES OF THE COURT XIV. THE PRINCESSES--THEIR
SCHOOLS XV. THE CHINESE LADIES OF RANK XVI. THE
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE CHINESE WOMAN XVII. THE CHINESE
LADIES--THEIR ILLS XVIII. THE FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF A
DOWAGER PRINCESS XIX. CHINESE PRINCES AND
OFFICIALS XX. PEKING--THE CITY OF THE COURT XXI. THE
DEATH OF KUANG HSU AND THE EMPRESS DOWAGER XXII.
THE COURT AND THE NEW EDUCATION

I
The Empress Dowager-Her Early Life
All the period since 1861 should be rightly recorded as the reign of Tze
Hsi An, a more eventful period than all the two hundred and forty-four
reigns that had preceded her three usurpations. It began after a
conquering army had made terms of peace in her capital, and with the
Tai-ping rebellion in full swing of success. . . .

Those