Hangchow, a floral winter plum tree has been popular. It has become a subject for famous painters. However, the tree's beauty lies in its sickness: abnormal shapes and bent branches with giant knots and exposed roots were preferred. Straight and healthy trees were considered plain and tasteless. Foliage was trimmed off and the tree reduced to bare trunks.
Once the tree growers understood what their customers
wanted, they began to shape the trees. In order to suppress normal growth, the trees were bound like a woman's feet. The branches were braced to form desired shapes. The trees grew sideways and downward. They were considered "fabulous" and "elegant" when released.
Winter plum flowers all over China are diseased now, because the growers had invited worms to create knots. The grotesquely shaped branches caused the tree to suffer a slow death, while merchants profited.
One man gathered his family fortune and went to the local nursery. He purchased three hundred pots of diseased winter plums. Turning his house into a convalescent home, the man began to care for the trees. He cut off the braces, destroyed the pots, and planted the trees in the ground. He left the trees alone to grow naturally and covered the soil with rich compost. Although the sickest winter plum didn't survive the disease, the population did.
Tung Chih was like those winter plum trees, I thought, closing the book. Since birth, he had been bent and twisted into a showpiece. I had dreamed of him swimming in the lake near my hometown of Wuhu. I even fancied him riding on the back of a water buffalo like the boys I knew when I was a girl. But Tung Chih was a winter plum that was bound and braced and skewed. His schooling included everything but common sense. He was taught pride but not understanding, revenge but not compassion, and universal wisdom but not truth. Endless ceremonies and audiences drove him to desperation. Tung Chih achieved the desired form, but at the cost of his life. He was deprived of an understanding of himself and the world, robbed of options and opportunities. How could he not have grown sideways?
Flirting with brothel girls might have been Tung Chih's attempt to find out who he was behind the mask of an emperor. Maybe he possessed a hunter's nature and had needed to pursue freedom and adventure. Three thousand concubines competing for his dragon seeds killed the hunter in him. Had I seen things from his point of view, I might have learned of his suffering. After his funeral I discovered more obscene materials in his bedroom. They were hidden inside his pillows, between his sheets, under his bed. The books had the lowest taste and quality. The private world of my son, the Emperor of China.
I remembered my husband once saying to me, "You come to occupy
my bed like an army." He said it with disgust in his voice. I had participated in forcing the same displeasure on my son, which made his death a true revenge.
I sent Li Lien-ying to invite my daughter-in-law Alute for tea. To my shock, she sent back a message threatening to commit suicide.
I was confused and asked for an explanation.
"I will be entitled to the regency when I give birth to a son," Alute declared in her return message. "And I expect you to hand over power. However, I have been told that you will never step down because you live only for that power. I can see no other option but to remove myself from this indecent world. I have decided that my unborn child should go with me."
I had never taken Alute seriously when she acted like this. I had let it pass when she hadn't bothered to be sweet or humble in front of me. She didn't like my wedding gift, a light green silk-embroidered summer dress. Openly she criticized my taste and insisted on redecorating her entire palace. When I invited her to my favorite opera,
The Peony Pavilion,
she kept her head turned away throughout the performance. She believed that as an Imperial widow I should be ashamed of myself for enjoying a
Once the tree growers understood what their customers
wanted, they began to shape the trees. In order to suppress normal growth, the trees were bound like a woman's feet. The branches were braced to form desired shapes. The trees grew sideways and downward. They were considered "fabulous" and "elegant" when released.
Winter plum flowers all over China are diseased now, because the growers had invited worms to create knots. The grotesquely shaped branches caused the tree to suffer a slow death, while merchants profited.
One man gathered his family fortune and went to the local nursery. He purchased three hundred pots of diseased winter plums. Turning his house into a convalescent home, the man began to care for the trees. He cut off the braces, destroyed the pots, and planted the trees in the ground. He left the trees alone to grow naturally and covered the soil with rich compost. Although the sickest winter plum didn't survive the disease, the population did.
Tung Chih was like those winter plum trees, I thought, closing the book. Since birth, he had been bent and twisted into a showpiece. I had dreamed of him swimming in the lake near my hometown of Wuhu. I even fancied him riding on the back of a water buffalo like the boys I knew when I was a girl. But Tung Chih was a winter plum that was bound and braced and skewed. His schooling included everything but common sense. He was taught pride but not understanding, revenge but not compassion, and universal wisdom but not truth. Endless ceremonies and audiences drove him to desperation. Tung Chih achieved the desired form, but at the cost of his life. He was deprived of an understanding of himself and the world, robbed of options and opportunities. How could he not have grown sideways?
Flirting with brothel girls might have been Tung Chih's attempt to find out who he was behind the mask of an emperor. Maybe he possessed a hunter's nature and had needed to pursue freedom and adventure. Three thousand concubines competing for his dragon seeds killed the hunter in him. Had I seen things from his point of view, I might have learned of his suffering. After his funeral I discovered more obscene materials in his bedroom. They were hidden inside his pillows, between his sheets, under his bed. The books had the lowest taste and quality. The private world of my son, the Emperor of China.
I remembered my husband once saying to me, "You come to occupy
my bed like an army." He said it with disgust in his voice. I had participated in forcing the same displeasure on my son, which made his death a true revenge.
I sent Li Lien-ying to invite my daughter-in-law Alute for tea. To my shock, she sent back a message threatening to commit suicide.
I was confused and asked for an explanation.
"I will be entitled to the regency when I give birth to a son," Alute declared in her return message. "And I expect you to hand over power. However, I have been told that you will never step down because you live only for that power. I can see no other option but to remove myself from this indecent world. I have decided that my unborn child should go with me."
I had never taken Alute seriously when she acted like this. I had let it pass when she hadn't bothered to be sweet or humble in front of me. She didn't like my wedding gift, a light green silk-embroidered summer dress. Openly she criticized my taste and insisted on redecorating her entire palace. When I invited her to my favorite opera,
The Peony Pavilion,
she kept her head turned away throughout the performance. She believed that as an Imperial widow I should be ashamed of myself for enjoying a
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