#apparently one of the students made a mafia comparison

[marlynnofmany]

"The vikings were a mix of the mafia and pirates."

"Oh, so like 'I'll give you a walk-a the plank that you can't refuse.'"

"It's a nice farm here. Be a shame if something happened to it."

"Now I like you fine, but Olaf here, he hates -- where are we? England. He hates England."

[wildcardwriting]

Daemon’s Fate #5

[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]

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Daemon’s Fate on AO3

Summary: When Tsuna wasn’t born with a daemon, it drew attention. He was bullied so much that Nana was forced to take drastic measures. Yet, after Tsuna saves two animals (an abandoned baby phoenix, and a starved lion cub) they start following him around and people (including Reborn and the mafia) start making new assumptions… Poor them. Drabbles and some chapters.

XXxxxxXX

Part 5: Back Tracking

XXxxxxXX

The rest of the conversation was much tamer in comparison, but Reborn was far from pleased. Dino wasn't paying much attention anymore, going from shock to fear and back again. Normally Reborn would have snapped him out of it, but considering the situation was as mind-blowing as it was he let Dino have a few minutes. He needed to figure a few things out. The file he was given on his new student was falling to pieces the longer he was in Tsuna's presence. Now, normally he would have blamed this on poor skills and perhaps low-quality information people, but if Tsuna's hyper intuition was anywhere as good as the ninth's this was less about the people Iemitsu had put on his son's guard and more on the fact that Tsuna's latent skills were better than a civilian and better than a low-ranking mafia minion.

Reborn resisted the incredibly strong urge to sigh. He needed to gain back control of the situation, and reassess his training plans.

"Snap out of your shock, Dame-Dino," Reborn said using a bullet to help illustrate his words."A boss is supposed to be above it all."

"But, but Tsuna is trusting me with his daemons! How am I supposed to react to that? " He said looking seconds away from having a nervous breakdown. "I just met him and already he—"

Tsuna reaches across the table, to serve Dino some more tea, looking like the entire conversation had nothing to do with him. It made Reborn want to shoot at him, but he resisted the urge considering how close his student's daemons were and how likely they were to bite him if he did anything to Tsuna while they were away from him. This whole meeting was a huge mess, and while normally he thrived in creating chaos his student was apparently better at deflecting it off him than he first appeared.

"Your tea is going to get cold, Dino-san," Tsuna prompted when no one said anything after a few minutes. He took another cookie from the bowl in the middle of the table and bit into it casually as he leveled a rather serious look at the people sitting across from him. "But something is on your mind?" He asks turning not to Dino like it first seemed but to Reborn himself.

Reborn frowns. "You said good instincts. Elaborate." He presses but both of his students, past and present can hear the unsaid command.

Tsuna tilts his head and turns to his daemons. His mouth opens but there no sound—he's likely commanding his daemons. But he still doesn't immediately answer Reborn and its annoying.

There are few people who would even dare ignore him, but he knows better than to lash out at his student and frowns instead. To his left, he sees Tsubird nuzzled Dino one more time before flying off to land on Tsuna's shoulder. It was a show of support Reborn couldn't overlook, especially because Natsu followed less than a minute later. Both tensed and regarded Reborn like he was an enemy as they took their places across the table directly in front of Reborn. Any warmth that had been there only minutes before was gone replaced with distrust and anger, and yet Tsuna just sits there sipping his tea.

The disharmony between the two aspects of Tsuna is mind-bending, but instead of focusing on the one aspect that he still can't understand, he turns to his current student waiting for answers.

"I just do." He said reaching out to both of his daemons, patting them casually. Likely trying to comfort them, though why he was trying to comfort his daemons rather than the other way was curious. Daemons were a person's true nature, and most everything they did was a reflection of the person's soul that spawned them. Tsuna was acting like they were separate beings from him, distinct with all their own mannerisms and feelings. It was an odd reaction. Perhaps it was a cultural difference? It was hard to tell.

Reborn wasn't friendly enough with anyone from the Japanese Yakuza to get a general read on what was socially common in Japan, and considering even Iemitsu as his best source hadn't been to Japan in years, he was lacking information on what was commonly accepted and what wasn't socially. Parts of Tsuna's attitude could be a result of his native upbringing but there was so much he didn't know about his student that it was difficult to see what was nature and what was problematic. In Italy, a reaction like that meant therapy. In Japan, it could be common. He was left to guess. Until he managed to get Tsuna to trust him, he wouldn't know for sure.

And then Nana called them down to dinner, and the moment was lost.

XXxxxxXX

"So did you managed to get along?" Nana asks them as they enter the kitchen and start taking their seats at the table.

Tsuna smiles again, mysteriously. Reborn starts to wonder if perhaps that's Tsuna's default expression, perhaps like Fon hiding his emotions behind a smile instead of a sleeve.

"Dino-nii was very kind," He tells her, taking the plates from her hands and starting to serve everyone. Neither Reborn or Dino miss the change of honorific but let it pass. If upstairs was any indication Tsuna only said what he wanted, regardless of what anyone demanded.

Setting the plates out, Tsuna moved around the table adding food here and there, seemingly at random. Apparently, this was something of a routine because Nana takes a seat at the far right of the table and doesn't argue with him.

"Natsu and Tsubird really like Dino-nii," Tsuna tells her as he pours some more espresso into Reborn's tiny cup.

Nana brights up so much at the statement, Reborn can nearly see the flowers that spring to life. Her own daemon is apparently just as proud because it hops off her shoulder and starts rubbing up against Tsuna's cheek, lovingly.

"Oh, that is so wonderful Tsu-kun!" She smiles and then turns to Dino. She pauses for a second, surprised before smiling again. Reborn figures she noticed the rather odd patch of green on Dino's shoulder.

"Your daemon is so cute, Dino-kun." She says changing tracks from whatever she had been going to say.

Dino blinks himself, having entirely forgotten the presence of his own daemon in the aftermath of Tsuna's. He turns to his right shoulder. "This is Enzo, he's a Sicilian pond turtle." He says beaming and looks back to Enzo petting him.

"A good daemon," Tsuna says, finally taking his own seat. He starts to separate some food into some smaller plates, presumably to feed his own daemons.  "I think it matches you."

Dino and Romario blink at the odd comment. Of course, the daemon matches Dino, its Dino's daemon. It wouldn't make sense otherwise if it didn't match him.

Reborn, on the other hand, frowns. That was a rather odd comment for his student to make.

What exactly is he trying to say?

Tsuna pauses in his motions and looking at the trio he must have seen something in their expressions because he starts to elaborate. "I'm not sure how much you know about the Daemonic Theory and Symbolism...? "

He waits for the trio to reply.

Romario shakes his head, and Reborn stays nothing.

Daemonic Theory and symbolism was a complicated, delicate, and exhaustive science that was used to explain the differences in character traits among Daemons and how it linked to personality, but it was an esoteric field that not many people went into to, mostly because it required a level of memorization that was left to dedicated scholars. Reborn himself only had a passing awareness of the science, knowing only very general things about Daemons and how it related to families. It helped his awareness and his study of people for work but not much more. His time was limited and it was probably the same with both Romario and Dino.

"Not much, I admit,"  Dino tells Tsuna, interrupting Reborn's thoughts. Dino rubs his head rather sheepishly, unknowingly answering for the group.

Tsuna nods but doesn't look surprised. "Turtles are known for their determination, endurance, and longevity. A person with a turtle daemon is a survivor, often as a result of overcoming a great challenge. A person with a turtle daemon is stability and protection for those around them." He pushes the small plates of food to his daemons and looks up to met Dino's eyes. "I think it's a good match, don't you think?"

"I think so too," Nana added in. "After all, he's your new brother, right?"

Tsuna nods and both of the Sawada's dig into the food, like Tsuna, did nothing special.

While across the table Dino is bright red. Next, to him, Romario is still in shock. Neither having seen that piece of information coming or the fact Tsuna himself would know about his particular daemon. Did his instincts forewarn him or did he know it naturally? Dino couldn't even begin to guess, but Reborn might. Glancing to his right, Reborn looks especially intrigued, and Dino tries not to shiver at the thought.

An interested Reborn was never a good thing.

He himself has only had that look directed at him two times, and both times were painful, to say the least. For Tsuna to have that same look directed at him, is scary. He wonders how exactly his new little brother will take Reborn's interest.

Reborn smirks and placing his cup of espresso on the table reaches for his chopsticks. He looks ready to eat, but his eyes are Tsuna.

He'd like to test this new found knowledge of Tsuna's.

"What about chameleons? Or Monkeys? Perhaps a centipede?" He says rapid firing questions.

Dino turns to Reborn in surprise.

In that particular combination, there's no way he isn't asking about the other Arcobaleno. Especially, because while he might not know which daemon and human combination pair Reborn is getting at with the monkey question, Dino knows centipede Daemons are incredibly rare. Lal Mich is the only mafioso that he knows high up enough in the mafia for Reborn to know and interact with so it's probably not much of a stretch to guess that Reborn likely means the Storm Arcobaleno as the daemon monkey pair, as the other possible one.

Tsuna slowly blinks at the questions, but answers regardless. "Centipede daemons are born of great difficulty, they face problems often in romance or socially. They are tough, sneaky, and constantly on the move. To have a centipede daemon as a partner is to be hardworking, stubborn and reach for greater heights. They are hard to know but the greatest supports... and monkeys." He hums for a second. "That's a little more difficult."

"Really? In what way?" Reborn said looking curious.

Tsuna looks to him meeting his stare dead on. "Monkey daemons are characterized by their relationships. Do you want general, or something more specific? "

"Acquaintances.. would probably be most accurate." Reborn hedges, looking pensive.

Tsuna figures that's probably normal in the mafia were relationships and bonds of trust are hard to come by. Criminality, let alone social criminality really isn't something he knows a lot of, even considering his recent studies under Reborn. For all he knows the relationship is complicated, Tsuna doesn't know, but thinking about what he knows about Reborn and what Monkey partners and their ties to life he can make a guess.

"Monkey daemons are known to be playful, they signify safety, bravery, and emotional intelligence. Among friends and family, they bond deeply but have difficulty seeing the situation from another angle. They are sensible and resourceful. Monkey daemon pairs are a source of profound wisdom if they allow themselves to move on from the past, and don't think too hard on the future." Tsuna says reaching for his tea.

He tries not to think too much on how he sounds. He had no idea that when he started learning about Daemonic Theory and Symbolism that he was signing himself up to be interrogated. Dino is looking at him like he's some sort of bomb waiting to go off, and Reborn looks incredibly evil. He knew not many people actually studied Daemonic Theory and Symbolism but this was starting to get a little ridiculous. He would have thought people in the mafia would be studying it if only to get some advantage out of being able to read other people. Yet, for some reason, Reborn seems surprised...? It a weird sensation to finally be able to read his tutor after nearly five weeks of trying and failing to get rid of the little murderer baby, but Tsuna can't really find it in himself to be too charitable considering the mess Reborn is causing him.

"And chameleon?" Reborn says inching slightly closer to his student as if to listen better.

"What about them?" Tsuna frowns and takes a large bite out of his food. What he knows about chameleons is his own business. If Reborn wants to know about his own daemon, he can go look it up. Tsuna isn't his minion.

Reborn pouts...? Or frowns?

It hard to say on such a small face, but Tsuna could care less.

"I thought you knew all about Daemonic Theory and Symbolism, Dame-Tsuna," Reborn says inching ever so close to sounding mocking.

The chopsticks break in Tsuna's hands. While on his sides his daemons start growling. Even Nana herself doesn't seem happy with how the conversation is progressing, as she frowning disapprovingly. Dino and Romario pausing in their motions, the tension starting to build. It like the two have forgotten about everyone else in the room but considering who Tsuna is picking a fight with Dino can't help but be a little awed. He'd never had the courage to talk back to Reborn as a student and yet somehow in the last few hours he's seen his little brother do that multiple times over and over again and yet nothing happened. At all.

If anyone else had tried to pull that kind of thing with Reborn in the mafia, they'd be sporting a few bullet holes, but Dino guesses that trying that same tactic on the heir of the Vongola Family is a different matter entirely. After all, his own family had some backup heirs if Dino couldn't take up the mantle. The Vongola doesn't really have that option anymore. Tsuna is all they got, and if Reborn is too rough with him, there was going to be problems. But still, the amount of pure courage Tsuna is packing is pretty impressive.

"I didn't say I knew everything," Tsuna says not even looking at Reborn anymore.

"Oh, I thought you knew...?"

"Whether I do or don't is none of your business—"

"Considering I'm your home tutor—"

"Means nothing." Tsuna hisses. His eyes are burning fury. He pushes his plate to the side and getting to his feet he lets his daemons perch on his shoulders. "You are nothing to me. I don't trust you. Ietmisu does, and maybe your boss does, but not me." He pushes his chair in, and places his plate in the sink leaves the kitchen. He almost runs up the stairs to his room, closing the door with a quick but sharp sound.

Apparently, Reborn underscored how bad his relationship with Tsuna was in his call.

Dino sighed.

Great.

XXxxxxXX

So this chapter was mainly to work through some issue plaguing Dino, Reborn and Tsuna.

Tsuna still doesn't trust Reborn at all and he has good reason to. Being near Reborn is causing him so much grief.

Reborn is still an arrogant little jerk who thinks throwing random variables at Tsuna is enough to changes things, but he's wrong. At its doing is showing him how much Tsuna and his pets hate him. Yes, Reborn is starting to notice that Tsuna is a little odd, but the extent of it is still beyond him right now, but he's starting to understand that maybe, maybe his methods aren't working.

Dino is pretty much caught in the crossfire between Tsuna and Reborn. Reborn didn't really tell him anything about his new student. He's confused and pretty much in awe of Tsuna right now.

Also, Reborn and Dino don't really know that Tsuna told Nana about the mafia, or what Tsubird's real species is. They just guess he was some random red bird.

Extra Info: Romario's daemon was pretty much ignored, but it's a Convolvulus Hawkmoth.

Next Chapter | Previous Chapter

Daemon’s Fate on AO3

[dragnews]

Was This Powerful Chinese Empress a Feminist Trailblazer?

BEIJING — She entered the world of an ancient empire as a teenage concubine, chosen by the emperor to share his bed for her good looks, immaculate comportment and, above all, her ability to sing.

The male-dominated court was a swirl of intrigue, forced suicides and poisonings. Eunuchs assigned to the emperor prepared her for sex with the ruler, undressing her and carrying her to his bed. After the Emperor Xianfeng’s death, she governed in the name of young male heirs — from behind a screen.

Perhaps as an escape from these oppressive restrictions, Empress Dowager Cixi (pronounced TSIH-shee), the de facto ruler of China in the final decades of the imperial dynasty, rebuilt a fantastic wonderland, the Summer Palace. It’s an extended estate of glittery lakes, luxurious gardens and elaborate wooden pavilions on the edge of the nation’s capital, attracting up to 100,000 visitors a day.

Most of them are curious Chinese from across the country who read in their Communist Party-authorized school books that Cixi was a harridan who stole the nation’s wealth and was responsible for China’s humiliating defeat by the Japanese in 1895.

But was she? Cixi, a peer of Queen Victoria’s and apparently iron-willed, has invited revisionist interpretations that view her as a feminist, at least in the context of the late 19th century, when women in China were treated little better than spittoons.

Strong women in China are often portrayed as power-hungry, and sometimes irrational, and are notably absent from the highest ranks of government. There is no Hillary Clinton figure in contemporary China (the real Mrs. Clinton is vilified by the government for talking about human rights in the country), or an Angela Merkel, who has stood up to China on trade.

When Bo Xilai, a rival to the current ruler Xi Jinping, was put on trial for corruption, he described his wife as “insane” in an effort to lessen his sentence.

So harking back to the pre-communist era for a feminist trailblazer makes sense. And to search for feminist ideals in a woman who ruled for nearly 50 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908, is understandable.

But the case of Cixi — who was isolated, undereducated and never made a break for personal freedom — is a hard argument to make.

A Chinese historian, Jung Chang, began the re-evaluation of Cixi with her biography, “Empress Dowager Cixi.” Ms. Chang, who lives in exile, argues the empress brought medieval China into the modern age, calling her an “amazing stateswoman.”

But Ms. Chang’s damn-the-man portrait of Cixi is a tad too generous even for some sympathizers. How could the empress dowager have ushered in groundbreaking innovation when much of her career was devoted to her drive to preserve the imperial family that crumbled three years after her death?

And Cixi did undermine a bold reform program begun by her adopted son, Emperor Guangxu, who favored a constitutional monarchy, not an absolute one. She then supported the Boxer rebellion, an anti-foreign, anti-Christian uprising that cost China dearly, a move she later blamed on her bossy male advisers.

A Chinese scholar, Zhang Hongjie, recently took up the cause of the empress in a sympathetic essay, “Woman Cixi,” featured in an anthology about Chinese women and men who have struggled against the odds.

He argued that she was held back by her lack of education, a given at the time because she was a woman, and that she should be given credit for trying to make amends for her mistakes at the end of her rule. But Mr. Zhang said his positive portrait made little impact.

“Cixi is still a negative character,” he said.

Her endeavors to preserve the imperial family above all else make for comparisons with Michael Corleone, the fictional Mafia boss.

“She had one of the most ruthless, savvy political minds, she was like a gangster,” said Jeremiah Jenne, a historian who leads visitors on walking tours around the Summer Palace, where he points out 500-year-old juniper and cypress trees, and paint-faded pavilions like the Hall for Dispelling Clouds, which was renovated in 1895 for her 60th birthday extravaganza.

Cixi had the Summer Palace rebuilt after an invading European army looted and burned the original, which, with its jewel-encrusted furniture and over-the-top silks, was said to be on par with Versailles.

Her reconstruction was not quite as opulent, but it was a sumptuous personal pleasure ground, intended to signify the strength of the family and its immense retinue of courtiers.

Despite the scholarly ruminations about Cixi, many Chinese tourists seem more interested in her extravagant lifestyle and come to see what is left of the loot, much faded because of neglect by the Communist Party’s cultural administrators.

A favorite is the “marble boat,” officially known as the Boat of Purity and Ease, a two-story wooden pavilion with wide verandas built into the side of the lakeshore and painted to resemble pale marble.

The official school curriculum says Cixi stole funds from the imperial Navy to renovate the boat just two years before the outbreak of war with the Japanese. Because of her thievery, the textbooks say, China lost the naval battles against Japan in 1894.

Crowds, shoulder-to-shoulder on a recent spring day, pressed against the lakeside rail, taking selfies framed by the newly green willow trees that dipped into the water.

“She had an expensive lifestyle, and China had one disaster after another,” said a middle-aged primary schoolteacher, who identified herself as Ms. Ye. She said she had no sympathy for Cixi.

“When you are backward as China was then, people will take advantage of you,” she said.

In the gift shops, there are no images of Cixi, just a few pieces of pink silk emblazoned with her calligraphy, sold as wall hangings. Commemorative coins with the portrait of Mao Zedong, cheap bangles, tea sets and hand fans do a brisker trade.

“No one likes her,” one of the young saleswomen said. “In history she is bad. Who would buy souvenirs of Cixi?”

Young Chinese tourists showed more sympathy.

“As a woman, she couldn’t make decisions in politics like the men,” said Xiao Yangchuan, 18, a first-year university student. “I think we should see her as a real person. She has her own flaws, and we should understand her era,” she said.

In the last decade of her life, the empress dowager tried to polish her image by making herself more accessible, especially to Western diplomats. But in the end, she could barely overcome the impression that, like many royals in the West, she was most interested in her dogs, gardening and fancy clothing, wrote Sterling Seagrave in his empathetic biography, “Dragon Lady.”

Pictures of her are banished to a pavilion near the exit of the palace grounds, where a large sepia photo shows her, surrounded by ladies in waiting, dressed in an embroidered gown with pearls said to be the size of canary eggs, and long talon-like finger nails.

The day before she died, the young emperor, Guangxu, was found dead — of natural causes, imperial records show. In 2008, Chinese medical investigators found extraordinarily high levels of arsenic in his remains, leading to a popular conclusion that the Empress had killed him to try to stop him from introducing political reforms after her own death.

Did she do it? “I am going with Cixi,” said Mr. Jenne, the historian.

In her final years, she was known as the “old Buddha,” a term that friendly biographers say was a term of endearment. Others see it as an appropriately scornful term for a woman who was barely literate, left little for other women to emulate and led the bankrupt Qing dynasty to its downfall in a country whose government remains as male-dominated as ever.

Follow Jane Perlez on Twitter: @JanePerlez.

Elsie Chen and Karoline Kan contributed research in Beijing.

The post Was This Powerful Chinese Empress a Feminist Trailblazer? appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2NEXUDG via Today News

[cleopatrarps]

Was This Powerful Chinese Empress a Feminist Trailblazer?

BEIJING — She entered the world of an ancient empire as a teenage concubine, chosen by the emperor to share his bed for her good looks, immaculate comportment and, above all, her ability to sing.

The male-dominated court was a swirl of intrigue, forced suicides and poisonings. Eunuchs assigned to the emperor prepared her for sex with the ruler, undressing her and carrying her to his bed. After the Emperor Xianfeng’s death, she governed in the name of young male heirs — from behind a screen.

Perhaps as an escape from these oppressive restrictions, Empress Dowager Cixi (pronounced TSIH-shee), the de facto ruler of China in the final decades of the imperial dynasty, rebuilt a fantastic wonderland, the Summer Palace. It’s an extended estate of glittery lakes, luxurious gardens and elaborate wooden pavilions on the edge of the nation’s capital, attracting up to 100,000 visitors a day.

Most of them are curious Chinese from across the country who read in their Communist Party-authorized school books that Cixi was a harridan who stole the nation’s wealth and was responsible for China’s humiliating defeat by the Japanese in 1895.

But was she? Cixi, a peer of Queen Victoria’s and apparently iron-willed, has invited revisionist interpretations that view her as a feminist, at least in the context of the late 19th century, when women in China were treated little better than spittoons.

Strong women in China are often portrayed as power-hungry, and sometimes irrational, and are notably absent from the highest ranks of government. There is no Hillary Clinton figure in contemporary China (the real Mrs. Clinton is vilified by the government for talking about human rights in the country), or an Angela Merkel, who has stood up to China on trade.

When Bo Xilai, a rival to the current ruler Xi Jinping, was put on trial for corruption, he described his wife as “insane” in an effort to lessen his sentence.

So harking back to the pre-communist era for a feminist trailblazer makes sense. And to search for feminist ideals in a woman who ruled for nearly 50 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908, is understandable.

But the case of Cixi — who was isolated, undereducated and never made a break for personal freedom — is a hard argument to make.

A Chinese historian, Jung Chang, began the re-evaluation of Cixi with her biography, “Empress Dowager Cixi.” Ms. Chang, who lives in exile, argues the empress brought medieval China into the modern age, calling her an “amazing stateswoman.”

But Ms. Chang’s damn-the-man portrait of Cixi is a tad too generous even for some sympathizers. How could the empress dowager have ushered in groundbreaking innovation when much of her career was devoted to her drive to preserve the imperial family that crumbled three years after her death?

And Cixi did undermine a bold reform program begun by her adopted son, Emperor Guangxu, who favored a constitutional monarchy, not an absolute one. She then supported the Boxer rebellion, an anti-foreign, anti-Christian uprising that cost China dearly, a move she later blamed on her bossy male advisers.

A Chinese scholar, Zhang Hongjie, recently took up the cause of the empress in a sympathetic essay, “Woman Cixi,” featured in an anthology about Chinese women and men who have struggled against the odds.

He argued that she was held back by her lack of education, a given at the time because she was a woman, and that she should be given credit for trying to make amends for her mistakes at the end of her rule. But Mr. Zhang said his positive portrait made little impact.

“Cixi is still a negative character,” he said.

Her endeavors to preserve the imperial family above all else make for comparisons with Michael Corleone, the fictional Mafia boss.

“She had one of the most ruthless, savvy political minds, she was like a gangster,” said Jeremiah Jenne, a historian who leads visitors on walking tours around the Summer Palace, where he points out 500-year-old juniper and cypress trees, and paint-faded pavilions like the Hall for Dispelling Clouds, which was renovated in 1895 for her 60th birthday extravaganza.

Cixi had the Summer Palace rebuilt after an invading European army looted and burned the original, which, with its jewel-encrusted furniture and over-the-top silks, was said to be on par with Versailles.

Her reconstruction was not quite as opulent, but it was a sumptuous personal pleasure ground, intended to signify the strength of the family and its immense retinue of courtiers.

Despite the scholarly ruminations about Cixi, many Chinese tourists seem more interested in her extravagant lifestyle and come to see what is left of the loot, much faded because of neglect by the Communist Party’s cultural administrators.

A favorite is the “marble boat,” officially known as the Boat of Purity and Ease, a two-story wooden pavilion with wide verandas built into the side of the lakeshore and painted to resemble pale marble.

The official school curriculum says Cixi stole funds from the imperial Navy to renovate the boat just two years before the outbreak of war with the Japanese. Because of her thievery, the textbooks say, China lost the naval battles against Japan in 1894.

Crowds, shoulder-to-shoulder on a recent spring day, pressed against the lakeside rail, taking selfies framed by the newly green willow trees that dipped into the water.

“She had an expensive lifestyle, and China had one disaster after another,” said a middle-aged primary schoolteacher, who identified herself as Ms. Ye. She said she had no sympathy for Cixi.

“When you are backward as China was then, people will take advantage of you,” she said.

In the gift shops, there are no images of Cixi, just a few pieces of pink silk emblazoned with her calligraphy, sold as wall hangings. Commemorative coins with the portrait of Mao Zedong, cheap bangles, tea sets and hand fans do a brisker trade.

“No one likes her,” one of the young saleswomen said. “In history she is bad. Who would buy souvenirs of Cixi?”

Young Chinese tourists showed more sympathy.

“As a woman, she couldn’t make decisions in politics like the men,” said Xiao Yangchuan, 18, a first-year university student. “I think we should see her as a real person. She has her own flaws, and we should understand her era,” she said.

In the last decade of her life, the empress dowager tried to polish her image by making herself more accessible, especially to Western diplomats. But in the end, she could barely overcome the impression that, like many royals in the West, she was most interested in her dogs, gardening and fancy clothing, wrote Sterling Seagrave in his empathetic biography, “Dragon Lady.”

Pictures of her are banished to a pavilion near the exit of the palace grounds, where a large sepia photo shows her, surrounded by ladies in waiting, dressed in an embroidered gown with pearls said to be the size of canary eggs, and long talon-like finger nails.

The day before she died, the young emperor, Guangxu, was found dead — of natural causes, imperial records show. In 2008, Chinese medical investigators found extraordinarily high levels of arsenic in his remains, leading to a popular conclusion that the Empress had killed him to try to stop him from introducing political reforms after her own death.

Did she do it? “I am going with Cixi,” said Mr. Jenne, the historian.

In her final years, she was known as the “old Buddha,” a term that friendly biographers say was a term of endearment. Others see it as an appropriately scornful term for a woman who was barely literate, left little for other women to emulate and led the bankrupt Qing dynasty to its downfall in a country whose government remains as male-dominated as ever.

Follow Jane Perlez on Twitter: @JanePerlez.

Elsie Chen and Karoline Kan contributed research in Beijing.

The post Was This Powerful Chinese Empress a Feminist Trailblazer? appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2NEXUDG via News of World

[party-hard-or-die]

Was This Powerful Chinese Empress a Feminist Trailblazer?

BEIJING — She entered the world of an ancient empire as a teenage concubine, chosen by the emperor to share his bed for her good looks, immaculate comportment and, above all, her ability to sing.

The male-dominated court was a swirl of intrigue, forced suicides and poisonings. Eunuchs assigned to the emperor prepared her for sex with the ruler, undressing her and carrying her to his bed. After the Emperor Xianfeng’s death, she governed in the name of young male heirs — from behind a screen.

Perhaps as an escape from these oppressive restrictions, Empress Dowager Cixi (pronounced TSIH-shee), the de facto ruler of China in the final decades of the imperial dynasty, rebuilt a fantastic wonderland, the Summer Palace. It’s an extended estate of glittery lakes, luxurious gardens and elaborate wooden pavilions on the edge of the nation’s capital, attracting up to 100,000 visitors a day.

Most of them are curious Chinese from across the country who read in their Communist Party-authorized school books that Cixi was a harridan who stole the nation’s wealth and was responsible for China’s humiliating defeat by the Japanese in 1895.

But was she? Cixi, a peer of Queen Victoria’s and apparently iron-willed, has invited revisionist interpretations that view her as a feminist, at least in the context of the late 19th century, when women in China were treated little better than spittoons.

Strong women in China are often portrayed as power-hungry, and sometimes irrational, and are notably absent from the highest ranks of government. There is no Hillary Clinton figure in contemporary China (the real Mrs. Clinton is vilified by the government for talking about human rights in the country), or an Angela Merkel, who has stood up to China on trade.

When Bo Xilai, a rival to the current ruler Xi Jinping, was put on trial for corruption, he described his wife as “insane” in an effort to lessen his sentence.

So harking back to the pre-communist era for a feminist trailblazer makes sense. And to search for feminist ideals in a woman who ruled for nearly 50 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908, is understandable.

But the case of Cixi — who was isolated, undereducated and never made a break for personal freedom — is a hard argument to make.

A Chinese historian, Jung Chang, began the re-evaluation of Cixi with her biography, “Empress Dowager Cixi.” Ms. Chang, who lives in exile, argues the empress brought medieval China into the modern age, calling her an “amazing stateswoman.”

But Ms. Chang’s damn-the-man portrait of Cixi is a tad too generous even for some sympathizers. How could the empress dowager have ushered in groundbreaking innovation when much of her career was devoted to her drive to preserve the imperial family that crumbled three years after her death?

And Cixi did undermine a bold reform program begun by her adopted son, Emperor Guangxu, who favored a constitutional monarchy, not an absolute one. She then supported the Boxer rebellion, an anti-foreign, anti-Christian uprising that cost China dearly, a move she later blamed on her bossy male advisers.

A Chinese scholar, Zhang Hongjie, recently took up the cause of the empress in a sympathetic essay, “Woman Cixi,” featured in an anthology about Chinese women and men who have struggled against the odds.

He argued that she was held back by her lack of education, a given at the time because she was a woman, and that she should be given credit for trying to make amends for her mistakes at the end of her rule. But Mr. Zhang said his positive portrait made little impact.

“Cixi is still a negative character,” he said.

Her endeavors to preserve the imperial family above all else make for comparisons with Michael Corleone, the fictional Mafia boss.

“She had one of the most ruthless, savvy political minds, she was like a gangster,” said Jeremiah Jenne, a historian who leads visitors on walking tours around the Summer Palace, where he points out 500-year-old juniper and cypress trees, and paint-faded pavilions like the Hall for Dispelling Clouds, which was renovated in 1895 for her 60th birthday extravaganza.

Cixi had the Summer Palace rebuilt after an invading European army looted and burned the original, which, with its jewel-encrusted furniture and over-the-top silks, was said to be on par with Versailles.

Her reconstruction was not quite as opulent, but it was a sumptuous personal pleasure ground, intended to signify the strength of the family and its immense retinue of courtiers.

Despite the scholarly ruminations about Cixi, many Chinese tourists seem more interested in her extravagant lifestyle and come to see what is left of the loot, much faded because of neglect by the Communist Party’s cultural administrators.

A favorite is the “marble boat,” officially known as the Boat of Purity and Ease, a two-story wooden pavilion with wide verandas built into the side of the lakeshore and painted to resemble pale marble.

The official school curriculum says Cixi stole funds from the imperial Navy to renovate the boat just two years before the outbreak of war with the Japanese. Because of her thievery, the textbooks say, China lost the naval battles against Japan in 1894.

Crowds, shoulder-to-shoulder on a recent spring day, pressed against the lakeside rail, taking selfies framed by the newly green willow trees that dipped into the water.

“She had an expensive lifestyle, and China had one disaster after another,” said a middle-aged primary schoolteacher, who identified herself as Ms. Ye. She said she had no sympathy for Cixi.

“When you are backward as China was then, people will take advantage of you,” she said.

In the gift shops, there are no images of Cixi, just a few pieces of pink silk emblazoned with her calligraphy, sold as wall hangings. Commemorative coins with the portrait of Mao Zedong, cheap bangles, tea sets and hand fans do a brisker trade.

“No one likes her,” one of the young saleswomen said. “In history she is bad. Who would buy souvenirs of Cixi?”

Young Chinese tourists showed more sympathy.

“As a woman, she couldn’t make decisions in politics like the men,” said Xiao Yangchuan, 18, a first-year university student. “I think we should see her as a real person. She has her own flaws, and we should understand her era,” she said.

In the last decade of her life, the empress dowager tried to polish her image by making herself more accessible, especially to Western diplomats. But in the end, she could barely overcome the impression that, like many royals in the West, she was most interested in her dogs, gardening and fancy clothing, wrote Sterling Seagrave in his empathetic biography, “Dragon Lady.”

Pictures of her are banished to a pavilion near the exit of the palace grounds, where a large sepia photo shows her, surrounded by ladies in waiting, dressed in an embroidered gown with pearls said to be the size of canary eggs, and long talon-like finger nails.

The day before she died, the young emperor, Guangxu, was found dead — of natural causes, imperial records show. In 2008, Chinese medical investigators found extraordinarily high levels of arsenic in his remains, leading to a popular conclusion that the Empress had killed him to try to stop him from introducing political reforms after her own death.

Did she do it? “I am going with Cixi,” said Mr. Jenne, the historian.

In her final years, she was known as the “old Buddha,” a term that friendly biographers say was a term of endearment. Others see it as an appropriately scornful term for a woman who was barely literate, left little for other women to emulate and led the bankrupt Qing dynasty to its downfall in a country whose government remains as male-dominated as ever.

Follow Jane Perlez on Twitter: @JanePerlez.

Elsie Chen and Karoline Kan contributed research in Beijing.

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