Kim's Review: The Lost Daughter Of Happiness

Geling Yan's "Lost Daughter of Happiness" is set in San Francisco during the Gold Rush Era. The story revolves around Fusang, a young girl kidnapped from her home in China, shipped under inhuman conditions to San Francisco and sold into prostitution at China town.

Whether, Fusang has resigned herself to her situation, too slow-witted to realise her predicament, has the serenity of a saint or just too amiable a disposition is not clear. But whatever her reasons or her qualities, they help keep her alive in a profession where her fellow workers contract innumerable diseases and drop dead like flies.

The other girls in your line of work started losing their hair at eighteen, their teeth at nineteen, and by twenty, with their vacant eyes and decrepit faces, they were as good as dead, silent as dust.

 There is a bit of a love triangle too. Chris a young boy of European descent first purchases her services as a 12 year old "little white devil", he is besotted with her and follows her around and even saves her life, but he faces tremendous pressure from his family and society to conform. Ah Ding / Da Yong is a Chinese mafioso of types who may or may not be the husband she was married to, in absentia in China. He controls a large part of all the prostitution rackets and other gang activity in China town, slowly involving himself in fostering a union of underpaid and overworked Chinese mining labourers. He is not sure of his feelings for Fusang, especially after she is gangraped.

Fusang is sold in slave auctions, has people coming from miles to see her deformed bound feet, has suitors fight bloody duels for her, almost dies of TB, is saved by the Christian ladies of the Rescue society, stolen back by Da Yong, brutally gangraped by a white mob, yet she survives it all.

Fusang is a real person who achieved a notorious kind of celebrity in her time, Geling Yan may have tried to unravel the mystery around her, but reading the book just left me with more questions.

The narrator is a later wave Chinese immigrant who tries to draw parallels between her own life and that of Fusang's, but neither her character or Fusang's is ever completely revealed. The identity of the narrator is left as a mystery and she just drops hints of what she is going through, but her voice keeps distracting from the main story, although her character doesn't develop beyond that.

The book does protray Gold Rush San Fransisco in all its ugliness, the prostitution, the hatred for Chinese immigrants among the earlier European immigrants, the stoic Chinese who just keep going back no matter what is thrown at them.

As a work of historic fiction, it is a good read with insight into the era, but as a story, at the end, the reader is left with more questions than answers.

Rating. 2.75 / 5

Kim's Review : The Last Empress

The Last Empress continues the story of Empress Tzu Hsi from where it leaves off in Empress Orchid

5 year old Tsai Chun is anointed as Emperor Tung Chih with Empress Orchid and Chief Empress Nuharoo as regents. As he is too young to reign and Empress Nuharoo has no interest in world affairs, it is left to Empress Orchid to rule on her son's behalf. In this task, Empress Orchid depends a lot on her husband (Late Emperor Hsien Feng)'s brother - Prince Kung - to provide a rational voice in the increasingly polarised court. She also depends on the Han Chinese Generals Tseng Kuo-fan, Li Hung Chang and Yung Lu to relay the truth to her on matters concerning the country and its governance and in maintaining law and order, especially along the borders.

Tsai Chun is hence left to the care of tutors, eunuchs and an extremely indulgent Empress Nuharoo who lets him do as he pleases since (even though he is only 5) he is the Emperor of China. Without a firm hand to guide him, and with tutors too terrified of his tantrums to teach him, he grows into a rather callous and indolent youth.

Bored and constricted by the Forbidden City, he takes to visiting city brothels and dies at the age of 19 in 1875 of what was suspected to be an STD. He had barely ruled as Emperor for 2 years even though he enjoyed the title for 14.

Already reeling from the execution of her favourite eunuch An-te-hai, Empress Orchid lost the will to keep living. It is only with great difficulty that her new chief eunuch Li Lien-Ying nurses her back to health.

Since Emperor Tung Chih died without an heir, a new Emperor had to be chosen. But according to Chinese Imperial Family law, the successor to the throne could not be a member of the same generation as his predecessor. Finally, 3 year old Prince Tsai-t'ien, son of Prince Ch'un (Emperor Hsien Feng's brother) and Rong (Empress Orchid's sister) is chosen as Emperor Guang Hsu.

Disappointed with how Tsai Chun turned out and blaming his upbringing, Empress Orchid, vows to do a better and more involved effort with Guang Hsu.

Unfortunately, Empress Orchid soon has to deal with the deaths of her allies in coourt, the Taiping Rebellion, war with Japan, the Opium wars and the Boxer Rebellion. Add to this the Western nations that were publicly flaying her in the press, while chipping away at China's territory and demanding financial compensation for their defeats.

An announcement was made by the united Western powers, regarding the "spheres of influence in China". Germany & Russia had agreed that the entire Yangtze basin from Szechuan to the delta at Kiangsu was British. Britain agreed that Southern Canton & Southern Yunan were French. A belt from Kausu through Shensi, Shansi, Hunan & Shantung was German. Manchuria & Chihlu were Russian. The freedom-loving United States secured equal rights & opportunities for all nations in the leased areas & termed their attitude 'the open door policy'

Caught between opposing factions with the court, Ironhats, Manchu princes, Boxers, Peasant uprisings, foreign incursions, assassination attempts, Empress Orchid formidably still holds on to power until her death.

Achee Min's writing offers a fascinating insight into Chinese History and culture. The clearly unfair treatment of China by the Western powers is an indicator as to why relationships between these nations have never been completely mended. The kind of unjustified aggression and disastrous financial penalties imposed upon China by "outsiders" who refused to respect local customs and beliefs would definitely have sown deep seeds of mistrust which will take generations to repair.

Anchee Min acknowledges that her writing is fictionalised and some tales may not ring true with historians, but both these books have been a fascinating read and provided new insight into well established culture.

Rating: 4/5

 

Kim's Review: Empress Orchid

Orchid Yehonala is a 17 year old forced to support her impoverished family after her father died. Her only saving grace - she is of Manchu blood andher Father before he died was above the rank of Blue Bannerman. Forced into a corner by an uncle who provides the roof over their heads but now wants Orchid to marry his son, she comes across an edict that every Manchu girl between 13-17 must present herself among the women whom the Emperor will choose his wives and concubines from.

The Chinese Emperor's polygamy is very different from the polygamy practiced by the Indian Kings and princes. While in India, a royal marriage was often to improve political and financial relations, in China, the purpose is only to procreate. Only a son of the Manchu Emperor and a Manchu woman can occupy the Emperors throne and hence the Chinese Emperor has a one-time ceremony in which he chooses 7 wives (1 main Empress, 6 minor wives) and as many concubines as he desires.


Orchid is fortunate to be chosen as an Imperial Consort of the 4th rank, who then becomes the mother of Emperor Hsien Feng's only son, thus raising her status to Empress Tzu Hsi.

Empress Tzu Hsi has been widely reviled in history, mostly due to the writings of biased European journalists who found themselves in China during the tumultuous changes of the 20th century. Sir Edmund Backhouse was incredibly vicious and claimed to have been extremely close to the Empress.In 1974, he was revealed to be a counterfeiter who had never even entered the Forbidden City. But the damage in the foreign press and at Oxford had already been done with multiple repercussions.

Anchee Min in her 2 books about Orchid Yehonala tries to set the record straight and put the events of those years in perspective from the Empresse's perspective.

Empress Orchid is a gripping tale, especially as it is mostly factual and hence a fascinating introduction into the Imperial Chinese court and its functioning within the Forbidden City.

Everything is governed by rules and rituals. Eunuchs wield enormous power. The Manchu's (5 million population) rule the roost in court, even though they seem to have lost touch with reality. The Chinese Han (395 million population) are more in touch with ground reality and have experienced the harsh truths of the world outside the Forbidden City, but are ignored within the court, in a kind of Apartheid.

The Emperors wives and consorts conspire to gain the Emperors attention and to sustain it once gained. But those who take up too much of his time and interest are punished for that by the Grand Empress (Queen Mother)

Empress Orchid, deals with Orchids early troubles, before she is chosen as an imperial consort. Once chosen, the lonely nights she spends while trying desperately tries to get the Emperor to choose her for the night, how her intelligence and forthrightness evokes a kind of trust, her difficult pregnancy before she becomes the mother of his only son.

Until this point, the novel talks mostly about her, her feelings, her attempts, her fears and hopes for herself. Once she becomes the mother of a child - Guang Hsu, it is then that she begins to look at the larger picture. She starts to help the Emperor with court documents and taking an interest in International affairs given the threats at their doorstep, and her anxiety about the China her son will inherit.

However as the foreign invasions continue, the Emperor and his family are forced to abdicate to Jehol where Emperor Hsien Feng succumbs to his illnesses of body and spirit. As Guang Hsu is very young at the time of his passing, a powerful court official Su Shun tries a coup. But Empress Orchid uses every tactic she knows and presses every contact she knows, to prevent this from happenning and places Tsai Chun on the throne as Emperor Tung Chih with herself and Chief Empress Nuharoo as regents

The book ends with the 5 year old Emperor Tung Chih and his court returning to the Forbidden City and the proper burial ceremonies for Emperor Hsien Feng who died when barely 30 years old.

It was a good change to read Chinese History from this perspective. There is always more than one side to a story and it is important that a tale like this is told and read and acknowledged. It gives insight and perspective into future actions and reactions.

I can't wait to start The Last Empress which deals with the 2nd part of Empress Orchid's life and one in which she takes a prominent political role.

Rating: 4/5

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