Court Life in China | Page 5

the Emperor, or the choosing of serving girls

for the palace, those in charge of these matters will know where they
can be obtained.
This custom is not considered an unalloyed blessing by the Manchu
people, and many of them would gladly avoid registering their
daughters if only they dared. But the rule is compulsory, and every one
belonging to the eight Banners or companies into which the Manchus
are divided must have their daughters registered. Their aversion to this
custom is well illustrated in the following incident:
In one of the girls' schools in Peking there was a beautiful child, the
daughter of a Manchu woman whose husband was dead. One day this
widow came to the principal of the school and said: "A summons has
come from the court for the girls of our clan to appear before the
officials that a certain number may be chosen and sent into the palace
as serving girls." "When is she to appear?" inquired the teacher. "On
the sixteenth," answered the mother. "I suppose you are anxious that
she should be one of the fortunate ones," said the teacher, "though I
should be sorry to lose her from the school." "On the contrary," said the
mother, "I should be distressed if she were chosen, and have come to
consult with you as to whether we might not hire a substitute." The
teacher expressed surprise and asked her why. "When our daughters are
taken into the palace," answered the mother, "they are dead to us until
they are twenty-five, when they are allowed to return home. If they are
incompetent or dull they are often severely punished. They may
contract disease and die, and their death is not even announced to us;
while if they prove themselves efficient and win the approval of the
authorities they are retained in the palace and we may never see them
or hear from them again."
At first the teacher was inclined to favour the hiring of a substitute, but
on further consideration concluded that it would be contrary to the law,
and advised that the girl be allowed to go. The mother, however, was so
anxious to prevent her being chosen that she sent her with uncombed
hair, soiled clothes and a dirty face, that she might appear as
unattractive as possible.
The prospects for a concubine are even less promising than for a

serving maid, as when she once enters the palace she has little if any
hope of ever leaving it. She is neither mistress nor servant, wife nor
slave, she is but one of a hundred buds in a garden of roses which have
little if any prospect of ever blooming or being plucked for the court
bouquet. When, therefore, the gates of the Forbidden City close behind
the young girls who are taken in as concubines of an emperor they shut
out an attractive, busy, beautiful world, filled with men and women,
boys and girls, homes and children, green fields and rich harvests, and
confine them within the narrow limits of one square mile of
brick-paved earth, surrounded by a wall twenty-five feet high and thirty
feet thick, in which there is but one solitary man who is neither father,
brother, husband nor friend to them, and whom they may never even
see.
When therefore the time came for the selection of concubines for the
Emperor Hsien Feng, and our little Miss Chao was taken into the
palace, her parents, like many others, had every reason to consider it a
piece of ill-fortune which had visited their home. The future was veiled
from them. The Forbidden City, surrounded by its great crenelated wall,
may have seemed more like a prison than like a palace. True, they had
other children, and she was "only a girl, but even girls are a small
blessing," as they tell us in their proverbs. She had grown old enough to
be useful in the home, and they no doubt had cherished plans of
betrothing her to the son of some merchant or official who would add
wealth or honour to their family. Neither father nor mother, brother nor
sister, could have conceived of the potential power, honour and even
glory, that were wrapped up in that girl, and that were finally to come
to them as a family, as well as to many of them as individuals. Their
wildest dreams at that time could not have pictured themselves dukes
and princesses, with their daughters as empresses, duchesses, or
ladies-in-waiting in the palace. But such it proved to be.

II
The Empress Dowager--Her Years of Training

The kindness of the Empress is as boundless as the sea. Her person too
is holy, she is like a deity. With boldness, from seclusion, she ascends
the Dragon Throne, And saves her