#91 Teaching at Taizhou Teachers College, China (Empress Dowager CiXi's Summer Palace in Beijing)

One of Beijing's greatest and most beautiful historical attractions is the SUMMER PALACE, a short distance outside of China's Capitol. No photos can capture the vastness, beauty, and serenety of this idyllic summer hide-away for China's last royal dynasty. Though the construction and expansion of this unique World Heritage Site had been underway for hundreds of years, it would be the Empress Dowager Cixi who would have the biggest impact on the palace's appearance.

The light of the last Chinese Royal Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, dimmed in 1908, with the death of this most controversial character and one of China's most powerful women, the Empress Dowager CiXi. Every year, on her birthday, at an auspicious hour, the Empress Dowager would set free 10,000 caged birds. It must have been a spectacular sight to see her and her entourage in the snow-covered grounds of the SUMMER PALACE as she opened cage after cage of exotic and brilliantly colored birds and then prayed, that they would not be recaptured.

In doing this, she hoped that Heaven would be good to her in her next life. She did not realize that her eunuchs were waiting on the other side of the hill to resell as many of the birds as they could catch.

***(For anyone who has seen one of my favorite films, "The Last Emperor", you will remember her as the aged Empress in the beginning of Bernardo Bertolucci's historical film-spectacle, as she appoints her nephew and still child "Pu Yi" to China's Imperial Throne, as the last emperor. As Cixi dies, a large black pearl is placed in her mouth, ending the life of a powerful woman, whose enigmatic and ruthless "behind the curtain reign" has become the subject of much speculation and fascinating writings.)***

Most of what is known about the Court of imperial China concerns the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for it was only then that eyewitness accounts were written. Before that, Court life was meticulously hidden from the curious eyes of outsiders, whether Chinese or foreign. Cixi was one of China's most powerful and "effective behind the scenes" ruler from 1861 to 1908, the year of her death.

In 1903, the wife of the American Minister to Beijing Mrs. Conger, persuaded the Empress Dowager to allow her portrait to be painted so that it could be shown at the World Exposition of St. Louis. This was a novel idea to the Chinese, whose portraits were painted only after death.

The American artist Katherine Carl, thus became the first foreigner since Marco Polo to stay in the Imperial Palace, and the first foreigner ever to enter the ladies' quarters. The portrait, measuring six foot by four, disappointingly small in Cixi's opinion, is now owned by the U.S. Government and hangs in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. Two other paintings of the empress were left with her in Beijing.

The Empress Dowager Cixi made her journey to near absolute power from being an imperial concubine, having borne the Xianfeng emperor's son. Cixi later seized power as regent to both the Tongzhi and Guanxu emperors (her son and nephew respectively). Cixi prevented her son Guangxu from implementing state reforms and, in her alliance with the Boxer Rebellion, paved the way for the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911.

Cixi's secretiveness pervaded all her dealings with foreigners. It is said, that a special court language was used when in the presence of foreigners who understood Chinese.

Chinese subjects were also traditionally forbidden to look at members of the imperial family, and Cixi was greatly surprised to learn that Queen Victoria, whom she greatly admired, took walks and carriage-rides in public places, where she could be seen by the populace at large.

The Empress Dowager Cixi was never alone, and even while sleeping she was attended by eunuchs and ladies-in-waiting, who were forbidden to fall asleep. It is said, that she rose at 5:30 every morning, and with her adopted son Guanxu she would receive her ministers and generals and deal with matters of state.

The rest of the day would be given over to walks in the SUMMER PALACE grounds, boat trips on the lake, and games of dice. Traditional theatrical performances were a particular joy for Cixi, which she enjoyed in a specially constructed theater at the SUMMER PALACE for her 60th Birthday.

Nearby is a display that includes a Mercedes Benz, the "first" car imported into China for the royal family.

Each year at Cixi's royal court was punctuated by festivities. Birthdays, the New Year, weddings, and seasonal festivals were celebrated with fire-works, day-long performances by euniuchs and Court troupes, presentation of gifts and extravagant banquets at which glittering gold, silver, and jade tableware would be heaped with hundreds of "exotic" delicacies, while wearing their grandest robes.

To avoid the intense summer heat, the imperial court used to leave the Forbidden City and stay in this specially built resort about 8 miles N.W. of Beijing. In the West we know it as the SUMMER PALACE, in China as "Yiheyuan" or the "Garden for Cultivating Harmony", though during her many decades of power, harmony was not a word that could descibe the SUMMER PALACE's history.

The resort encompasses a large hill and a series of palaces, pavilions, terraces, and covered walks along the northern shore of "Kunming Lake". Three-quarters of the SUMMER PALACE grounds are covered by water.

The exquisite "Old" SUMMER PALACE was ravaged and burned by the British and the French troops in 1860, as was the Forbidden City in Beijing, during the second Opium War, when the Chinese government was forced to open their economy to the sale of Opium by the European powers to the Chinese population, especially by England.

In 1888, the cunning Empress Dowager Cixi diverted funds allocated for improving the navy to the SUMMER PALACE's reconstruction at a new site to which she retired in 1889 until her death. To prove that the funds were for navy purposes, she ordered the construction of a marble boat, that to this day is one of the main attractions for visitors to the SUMMER PALACE.

The Palace was once again looted and destroyed by the British and the French in 1900, though again reconstructed at great expense. The SUMMER PALACE today is a splendid park and its buildings are in a fine state of preservation, informal and less imposing than the Forbidden City in the center of Beijing.

The SUMMER PALACE also borders the entrance to Tsinghua University, one of China's top Universities.

In 1860 when British and French troops captured Beijing, rampaging soldiers, on the orders of Lord Elgin set fire and pillaged the "Old" SUMMER PALACE, one of China's greatest historical treasures.

A young captain of the British Royal Engineers wrote after the destruction:

"....We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a Vandal-like manner most valuable property which would not be replaced for any price. The people are civil, but I think they hate us, as they must after what we did to the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificance of the places we burnt. It made one's heart sore to burn them; in fact, these palaces were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralizing work for an army. Everybody was wild for plunder...."

To many Chinese, the areas of the Old and New SUMMER PALACE remain a powerful symbol of imperial folly and Western agression.

The 38 attached photos of the SUMMER PALACE, located outside of Beijing, were taken during my summer visit to the Capitol of the P.R. of China. As you may note, it was not the clearest of days, one of China's great fears for the 29th Olympics this August. The pictures should still create a sufficient impression of the grandeur, that will great the visitors to Beijing's SUMMER PALACE during the summer of 2008. I invite you to enlarge the photos for greater details and I welcome and appreciate your comments, thoughts, questions, and suggestions. Thinking of you and missing you always.

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