2009年8月19日星期三

Reflections on Emperor Guangxu's Residence in the Summer Palace



'Yulan Tang', Guangxu's residence





.....surrounded by walls built by Cixi



'Mother and Son' stones, put in front of the hall by Cixi to warn Guangxu


Viewed at the gate of 'Yulan Tang'


I had the chance to pay a visit to Emperor Guangxu's residence, more precisely his prison in the Summer Palace several days ago. It's a traditional four-section compound with three rooms around one yard, a residence called 'YuLan Tang', namely 'The Hall of the Jade Wave'. It was first used as his residence when he attended the levee of Empress Dowager Cixi, after the coup in 1898, this very place became his prison in summer months.

Yulan Tang is faced to Kunming Lake at the front gate and thus has a panorama of the beautiful imperial garden, that even mountains in the distant Western suburbs can be seen from that very place. Nonetheless, in order to warn Emperor Guangxu that he was no more than a prisoner, Cixi ordered walls to be built around the yard that all view from afar would be blocked.

The yard was so crowded with tourists that we had to stand upon our toes to take a look at the Emperor's bedchamber through the window pane, it is said that all the furniture have been arranged in the way it used to be when Guangxu lived here. I felt a nameless pain in my heart as my eyes wandered from the bed on which he slept to the clock he had once repaired.

What struck me the most were the relics of the thick grey walls. Before that day, I had always been somewhat skeptical towards the mentality of Cixi, that she might not have been that evil and distorted after all. However, ever since that day when I saw all those cold walls myself, I immediately realized that she hated her nephew to death that it was no surprise that she finally poisoned him.

The trees surrounding the house are mostly more than one hundred years old, after one day's exhausting walk in the garden under the blazing summer sun, I stood beneath an old tree and rubbed its wrinkled trunk with my palm, imagining that not much more than one century ago, a handsome yet melancholic young man had stroked on the very same spot of the tree, looking towards the very same pagoda upon the mountain, only to bend down his head again, lamenting his fate...

1 条评论:

  1. How touching! What a privilege to be able to visit this place.

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