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清宮禁二年記

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Text ID
KR4k0203
Date
1911–1914
Dynasty
清

Qīng Gōngjìn Èr Nián Jì 清宮禁二年記

Two Years in the Forbidden City by 裕德菱

About the work

Qīng Gōngjìn Èr Nián Jì 清宮禁二年記 is a continuous prose memoir by 裕德菱 Yù Délíng (also romanized as Princess Dé Líng or Der Ling, 1875?–1944), a Manchu noblewoman who served as lady-in-waiting to Empress Dowager Cíxī 慈禧太后 from 1903 to 1905. It is the Chinese-language version of her famous English memoir Two Years in the Forbidden City (first published in New York, 1911). The work is a first-person account of court life under Cíxī, covering palace ritual, imperial audiences, performances, the reform atmosphere, and the author’s eventual departure from court and subsequent marriage to an American diplomat.

Tiyao

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Abstract

Yù Délíng 裕德菱 (ca. 1875–1944) was the daughter of Yù Gēng 裕庚, a Manchu official of the Bordered Yellow Banner who served as Chinese Minister to France (1895–1903). She grew up partly in Europe and Japan and was conversant in English and French. After her father’s posting ended, the family returned to China in January 1903 aboard a ship via Annam (Vietnam), arriving in Shanghai and then Tianjin — events described in detail at the opening of the text in the Kanripo file. Through imperial favor, Yù Délíng and her sister Rónglíng 容齡 were summoned to court and became ladies-in-waiting to Empress Dowager Cíxī, serving 1903–1905. During this period Yù Délíng witnessed the day-to-day life of the imperial palace, including ceremonies, theatrical performances, the Empress Dowager’s character and manner, and the broader political atmosphere of the late Qīng court. She left the palace when her father’s health declined and subsequently married Thaddeus White, an American diplomat, becoming a naturalized American citizen.

The English original, Two Years in the Forbidden City (Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1911), was written in English and became an international bestseller that shaped Western understanding of Cíxī’s court for decades. Yù Délíng wrote several sequels in English: Imperial Incense (1933), Son of Heaven (1935), and others. The Chinese text in the Kanripo corpus represents a translation or Chinese-language version of the memoir, likely produced in the early Republican period (ca. 1911–1914). The text ends with the author describing her marriage and naturalization as an American citizen, and her lasting affection for the two years spent serving Cíxī.

Because the work was composed in English and translated into Chinese, and because the events it describes span 1903–1905, the Kanripo Chinese text should be dated to the early Republican period when such translations circulated. The narrative remains a primary — if not always critically reliable — source for Cíxī-era court culture, supplemented by the memoirs of other courtiers and the scholarly literature on the late Qīng palace.

Translations and research

  • Der Ling (Yù Délíng), Two Years in the Forbidden City. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1911. [The English original on which this Chinese text is based.]
  • Sterling Seagrave, Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China (Alfred A. Knopf, 1992) — contextualizes Der Ling’s testimony.
  • Ying-chen Peng, “Princess Der Ling and the Making of Empress Dowager Cixi,” Biography 36.4 (2013): 707–741 — scholarly reassessment of Der Ling’s memoir.
  • Sue Fawn Chung, “The Much Maligned Empress Dowager: A Revisionist Study of the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi (1835–1908),” Modern Asian Studies 13.2 (1979): 177–196.

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