Cíxī Hòu Sīshēnghuó Shílù 慈禧後私生活實錄
A True Record of the Private Life of Empress Dowager Cixi by 德齡 (撰)
About the work
Cíxī Hòu Sīshēnghuó Shílù 慈禧後私生活實錄 is a 35-chapter (huí 回) first-person memoir-style account of the inner life of the Qīng court, centered on the figure of Empress Dowager Cíxī 慈禧太后 (1835–1908). It was authored by 德齡 (Dé Líng, Princess Der Ling, 1885–1944), a Manchu-bannerman noblewoman of mixed ancestry who served as Cíxī’s first lady-in-waiting and personal interpreter from 1903 to 1905. The work is the Chinese-language counterpart or adaptation of Der Ling’s celebrated English-language memoir Two Years in the Forbidden City (1911), which brought her international fame. The catalog assigns it to the Republican era (民國), and internal evidence confirms it was written and circulated after the fall of the Qīng in 1912.
About the work
The text opens with a vivid panoramic scene of a vast imperial procession — Empress Dowager Cíxī being conveyed in a golden palanquin along a road strewn with golden-yellow sand from the Summer Palace (Yíhéyuán 頤和園) toward the Rehe 熱河 (Chengde) imperial retreat. The narrator — explicitly identified as Der Ling herself, accompanied by her sister Rónglíng 容齡 — rides in one of the six red-lacquered palanquins following Cíxī’s litter, attended by the formidable chief eunuch Lǐ Liányīng 李連英. The 35 chapters cover the full range of court life at the Summer Palace and on the Rehe journey: the imperial kitchen (御膳房), the clothing storerooms (御衣庫), audiences with the Guāngxù Emperor 光緒帝, Empress Dowager’s daily toilette (太后的梳粧檯), the imperial kennels (御犬廄), court performances (梨園別部), the imperial physicians (御醫), shooting expeditions (射圍), and reflections on the Empress Dowager’s character and rule (仁愛與公正, “Benevolence and Justice”; 玉體橫陳, “The Imperial Body at Rest”; 異兆, “Ominous Signs” — the final chapter).
The text is rendered in fluent literary vernacular Mandarin (白話). The first-person narrator frequently interposes her own observations and emotional responses, maintaining the memoir register of the English original. The chapter title 玉體橫陳 (“The Imperial Body at Rest/Displayed,” ch. 34) is evocative — the four-character phrase echoes a famous cí lyric — but is used here in a dignified descriptive sense about the Empress Dowager’s physical appearance and health.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
Princess Der Ling (裕德齡 Yù Dé Líng, 1885–1944) was the daughter of Yù Gēng 裕庚, a Hàn-Chinese bannerman of the Manchu Zhèngbái Qí 正白旗 who served as Qīng minister to Japan (1895–1899) and to France (1899–1902). Raised partly in Japan and Paris, Der Ling was educated in French and English alongside her sister Rónglíng 容齡, who later became Cíxī’s court dancer. In 1902, the family returned to China; in 1903, at age eighteen, Der Ling and her sister entered the court as ladies-in-waiting to Empress Dowager Cíxī, serving until March 1905. Der Ling married Thaddeus C. White, an American, in 1907 and departed for the United States, where she published Two Years in the Forbidden City in 1911 to considerable popular success.
The Chinese-language text in Kanripo (Cíxī Hòu Sīshēnghuó Shílù) represents a Chinese-language version of Der Ling’s memoirs. The relationship between the English and Chinese texts is complex: Der Ling published several memoirs in English (including Two Years in the Forbidden City, 1911; Imperial Incense, 1933; Old Buddha, 1928; Kowtow, 1929), and Chinese-language versions circulated in China during the Republican period, sometimes as translations of her English works and sometimes as independently adapted texts. The Kanripo text — with its 35-chapter structure, vivid scene-setting, and first-person narrator — closely parallels the narrative of Two Years in the Forbidden City while also incorporating episodes associated with her other memoirs, particularly those concerning the Rehe journey (which is a central feature of this text). The catalog assigns authorship to 德齡, confirming the Republican-era Chinese-language version.
Der Ling’s memoirs offer a uniquely intimate view of Cíxī’s private persona — as an aging woman with personal regrets, aesthetic tastes, and political shrewdness — in deliberate contrast to the hostile Western portraits of the empress as a monster. Historians have noted that Der Ling’s accounts, while valuable, require critical evaluation: some scholars have questioned the accuracy of specific dialogue and details, pointing to Der Ling’s tendency to romanticize. Nevertheless, her works remain among the most cited first-person sources on the late Qīng court. Her brother Xúnlíng 勳齡 (ca. 1880–1943), who studied photography in Paris, is credited with taking the only known photographs of Empress Dowager Cíxī.
Der Ling died in 1944 in Berkeley, California, following a traffic accident. At the time of her death she was teaching Chinese at the University of California, Berkeley.
Translations and research
- Der Ling, Princess. 1911. Two Years in the Forbidden City. Moffat, Yard & Co., New York. Available at Project Gutenberg. The foundational English-language memoir; the direct antecedent of the present Chinese text.
- Der Ling, Princess. 1928. Old Buddha. Dodd, Mead & Company, New York. A biographical account of Cíxī.
- Der Ling, Princess. 1929. Kowtow. Dodd, Mead & Company, New York.
- Der Ling, Princess. 1933. Imperial Incense. Dodd, Mead & Company, New York.
- Chang, Che-chia. 1998. The Therapeutic Tug of War: The Imperial Physician–Patient Relationship in the Era of Empress Dowager Cixi (1874–1908). PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. (Relevant context for the imperial court environment Der Ling describes.)
- MIT Visualizing Cultures project: Empress Dowager.
Other points of interest
Der Ling was the first Chinese woman to write a memoir of service to Empress Dowager Cíxī for Western audiences. Her portrait of Cíxī as a complex, regretful, and sympathetic figure was influential in moderating the extremely hostile Western press image of the empress. The account of the Rehe journey — the procession from the Summer Palace to the Chengde retreat — is particularly detailed and historically valuable. The final chapter’s title Yìzhào 異兆 (“Ominous Signs”) alludes to the imminent death of the Empress Dowager.