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Hello, I'm Razia Iqbal, and I'm at Hay Festival for a special series of | :00:00. | :00:31. | |
Talking Books. Among many of the attractions here is the Chinese | :00:32. | :00:38. | |
writer Jung Chang. Her book, Wild Swans, catapulted her onto the | :00:39. | :00:40. | |
international stage, the harrowing story of her own family focusing on | :00:41. | :00:47. | |
three generations of women. She then tackled the task of thinking about | :00:48. | :00:50. | |
what we should think about Chairman Mao, and now a book on the Empress | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
Dowager who ruled to 1908, a woman she says went from concubine to | :00:55. | :00:56. | |
laying the modern foundations of China. | :00:57. | :01:10. | |
The Empress Dowager in the book written by Jung Chang is a book in | :01:11. | :01:15. | |
which she dismisses the predominantly Western view of her as | :01:16. | :01:18. | |
either tyrannical, or vicious, or even hopelessly incompetent. What | :01:19. | :01:26. | |
was it specifically that drew you to her as a subject you wanted to | :01:27. | :01:35. | |
research? I first got interested in the | :01:36. | :01:37. | |
Empress Dowager when I was researching Wild Swans. In that I | :01:38. | :01:43. | |
described my grandmother had bound feet, crushed and bound feet. This | :01:44. | :01:54. | |
was her shoe, she was my size. The foot binding was not only to put a | :01:55. | :01:58. | |
piece of cloth around the feet, only the big toe was allowed to grow, and | :01:59. | :02:02. | |
the other toes and the arch were crushed under a big stone, the | :02:03. | :02:05. | |
binding was there to stop the bones from recovering. This form of | :02:06. | :02:15. | |
torture tortured Chinese women for 1000 years. I grew up in Communist | :02:16. | :02:25. | |
China and thought that foot binding was banned by the communists. When | :02:26. | :02:32. | |
researching Wild Swans, I realised that foot binding was banned by the | :02:33. | :02:42. | |
Empress Dowager. That got me interested, because her image and | :02:43. | :02:44. | |
reputation was this archconservative who dragged China behind, who was | :02:45. | :02:47. | |
responsible for all of the horrible things that happened in China. And | :02:48. | :03:02. | |
that she was cruel. She was a despot. That was different from the | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
image that I got, from the banning of bound feet. That is how I became | :03:09. | :03:14. | |
first interested. The binding of the feet is an image that will stay with | :03:15. | :03:18. | |
anyone who has read Wild Swans, as a kind of potent image of what was so | :03:19. | :03:24. | |
oppressive for women in particular. Tell us a bit about her story. It | :03:25. | :03:27. | |
was an extraordinary entrance into the Imperial Court. This was a | :03:28. | :03:43. | |
daughter of a provincial official, who became the Emperor's concubine. | :03:44. | :03:45. | |
Although there was a fatalism to what her future might be, she made | :03:46. | :03:50. | |
her own destiny. She was born in 1835. When she was 16 years old she | :03:51. | :03:55. | |
went through one of those periodic, nationwide selections for imperial | :03:56. | :04:09. | |
consorts. She caught the eye of the Emperor. She became Imperial | :04:10. | :04:20. | |
concubine. In 1860, the British invaded China. They burned down the | :04:21. | :04:24. | |
Old Summer Palace. The emperor fled north with the court. And so she was | :04:25. | :04:29. | |
with him. The Emperor was so heartbroken at the burning down of | :04:30. | :04:41. | |
the Old Summer Palace. He refused to return to the capital. He died in | :04:42. | :04:47. | |
the northern wilderness. The Emperor and Empress had one son. The Emperor | :04:48. | :04:51. | |
had one son. That was by the Empress Dowager. That son became the next | :04:52. | :05:03. | |
Emperor. When the emperor died, he appointed eight grandees to | :05:04. | :05:06. | |
supervise his son, who was only five years old at the time. The Empress | :05:07. | :05:11. | |
seized the moment and launched a coup and ousted the eight grandees. | :05:12. | :05:18. | |
That was because she thought the eight grandees would go down the | :05:19. | :05:21. | |
same road of confrontation with the west. At that time, in 1861, China's | :05:22. | :05:33. | |
door had been closed for more than 100 years. The emperors had resisted | :05:34. | :05:42. | |
Western effort, particularly British, to open that door, which | :05:43. | :05:45. | |
led to the burning of the Old Summer Palace and the death of the Emperor. | :05:46. | :05:50. | |
The Empress thought, you know, why must we engage in this confrontation | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
with the West? Why can we not open the door of China and do business | :05:55. | :06:08. | |
with the west? And to benefit China itself. That is common sense, change | :06:09. | :06:13. | |
China. She opened the door of China. The period you are talking about, | :06:14. | :06:16. | |
China was beset by revolt within the country and also the possible | :06:17. | :06:19. | |
incursion it had just seen with the British in the second Opium War. | :06:20. | :06:30. | |
Tell us about the traditional culture that meant that although she | :06:31. | :06:33. | |
may have engineered the coup, it was not possible for her to rule openly. | :06:34. | :06:48. | |
She was carried to a morning audience by eunuchs. She could not | :06:49. | :06:51. | |
see them face`to`face because she was a woman and they were men. She | :06:52. | :06:56. | |
had to sit behind a screen, not on the throne. Her five`year`old son | :06:57. | :07:03. | |
was on the throne and she was behind a screen. The officials would | :07:04. | :07:08. | |
prostrate themselves before the throne. She never set foot in that | :07:09. | :07:28. | |
front part of the Forbidden City. Even though she was the supreme | :07:29. | :07:32. | |
ruler of China for half a century. She was confined to the back, the | :07:33. | :07:36. | |
harem. The relationship between the Empress, who was a concubine, and | :07:37. | :07:44. | |
the Empress is an interesting one. Tell us how that relationship | :07:45. | :07:50. | |
worked. Although she had not given the Emperor the son she wanted, it | :07:51. | :07:55. | |
was Cixi who had the son. The Empress and her relationship with | :07:56. | :08:04. | |
Empress Zhen is interesting. I was astonished. My idea of the harem was | :08:05. | :08:20. | |
women stabbing each other in the back. I found that it was like that. | :08:21. | :08:23. | |
The Empress Zhen and Cixi, the concubine, became best friends. They | :08:24. | :08:29. | |
launched a coup together. Together, they faced death by 1000 cuts, that | :08:30. | :08:32. | |
was the punishment which was in practice in China. It was given for | :08:33. | :08:50. | |
treason and what they did was treason. After the coup, they ruled | :08:51. | :08:53. | |
together from behind the screen. They divided their work and | :08:54. | :08:55. | |
collaborated well until 1882, 20 years later, when Empress Zhen died | :08:56. | :09:01. | |
of a stroke. Cixi, she had always been accused of murdering her, but | :09:02. | :09:04. | |
documents and archives have proved that she died of a massive brain | :09:05. | :09:18. | |
haemorrhage. And they were actually best friends. The subtitle of your | :09:19. | :09:22. | |
book is "the concubine who launched modern China." Lay out for us what | :09:23. | :09:30. | |
the reforms are you attribute to her. What we have today, modern | :09:31. | :09:33. | |
things, which existed in the 19th century, were brought in by Cixi. | :09:34. | :09:56. | |
Electricity, the telegraph, telephones, railways, modern mining, | :09:57. | :09:58. | |
modern industry, a modern Navy, ironclad, which had just been | :09:59. | :10:00. | |
invented in Europe. A modern equipped army. And educational | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
system. A Chinese educational system, traditionally, was to | :10:06. | :10:07. | |
subject a four`year`old boy to this regime of spending every waking hour | :10:08. | :10:10. | |
memorising the classics of Confucius, which were dry and | :10:11. | :10:12. | |
incomprehensible, certainly for a four`year`old. Many people at the | :10:13. | :10:25. | |
time described it as intellectual infanticide. Cixi, herself, did not | :10:26. | :10:49. | |
go through the regime because she was a woman. She was described as | :10:50. | :10:52. | |
semi`illiterate. That may have worked to her advantage, because she | :10:53. | :10:56. | |
kept a supple mind, an open mind that was ready to absorb new ideas. | :10:57. | :11:04. | |
When she had power, she threw out that system and today the Chinese | :11:05. | :11:06. | |
educational systems are based on Western educational systems brought | :11:07. | :11:13. | |
in by her. Of course, as we mentioned, she banned foot binding, | :11:14. | :11:16. | |
she launched women's liberation and encourage them to have a public | :11:17. | :11:37. | |
life. She ousted death by 1000 cuts. She died in 1908. She brought in | :11:38. | :11:41. | |
Western legal systems. The passion with which you speak about her | :11:42. | :11:44. | |
suggests a closeness, an attachment, to your subject. Tell me a little | :11:45. | :12:03. | |
bit about how that developed. As you were researching, did you feel that | :12:04. | :12:06. | |
she was someone that you changed your view? Did you actually begin to | :12:07. | :12:10. | |
become fond of her? The thing is, I did not have a view about her, but I | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
heard a lot about her when I grew up. She was big in China. But she | :12:15. | :12:17. | |
was always the villain, always condemned for all the wrongs of | :12:18. | :12:21. | |
China. I grew up with an earful of how awful she was. I was first | :12:22. | :12:24. | |
surprised, as I said, more than 20 years ago, by this foot binding | :12:25. | :12:31. | |
thing I discovered. Then when I was researching the biography of Mao, I | :12:32. | :12:34. | |
was astonished by the opportunities and the freedom, the freedom the | :12:35. | :12:37. | |
young Mao enjoyed growing up under her, and in her legacy. He was born | :12:38. | :12:49. | |
in 1893. The thing is, Mao was a peasant lad, but he could easily get | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
scholarships to go to college, to go abroad, he could travel with his | :12:54. | :12:55. | |
girlfriends, check into hotels, and he could write for an incredibly | :12:56. | :12:57. | |
free press. By the way, Cixi also introduced the | :12:58. | :13:10. | |
press into China, which was much more free than the press we have | :13:11. | :13:12. | |
today in China. That also astonished me, because all | :13:13. | :13:26. | |
of these things, Mao could do 100 years ago. It was something I could | :13:27. | :13:31. | |
not dream of doing when I was growing up under Mao. So I feel | :13:32. | :13:39. | |
there is a degree of astonishment, when I was researching the Empress | :13:40. | :13:48. | |
Dowager. And also, then, if you Google her today, you will probably | :13:49. | :13:51. | |
still see her as being described as this conservative diehard despot. | :13:52. | :13:58. | |
You know, so on, and all these untrue things attributed to her. I | :13:59. | :14:04. | |
just feel it was very unjust. Certainly some historians have | :14:05. | :14:06. | |
argued that the reforms that you attributed to Cixi, they were more | :14:07. | :14:10. | |
to do with the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion and the Taiping | :14:11. | :14:12. | |
Rebellion in 1864, which was a complete turning point for that | :14:13. | :14:19. | |
dynasty. There was an element of devolved power to the provincial | :14:20. | :14:22. | |
governors, and they had sufficient power, which actually meant that she | :14:23. | :14:25. | |
may not have been the originator of all the reforms you attribute to | :14:26. | :14:36. | |
her. You see, I don't think that is true. Yes, the provincial chiefs had | :14:37. | :14:40. | |
tremendous power, but Cixi gave them the power. In that dynasty, the | :14:41. | :14:49. | |
Emperor made the decision. There was not even a prime minister to help | :14:50. | :14:52. | |
make the decision. There was certainly no cabinet. When Cixi's | :14:53. | :14:57. | |
son was five years old, when her son took over but died in a couple of | :14:58. | :15:01. | |
years time, Cixi then adopted a three`year`old. Her nephew. She put | :15:02. | :15:11. | |
the three`year old on the throne and she continued to rule from behind | :15:12. | :15:19. | |
the screen. Through all these years, she was exercising the Emperor's | :15:20. | :15:29. | |
power. She issued the edict. It is not true that the provincial bigshot | :15:30. | :15:32. | |
called the shots. They all had to obey the imperial edicts. No`one | :15:33. | :15:37. | |
could issue those imperial edicts apart from Cixi. When her adopted | :15:38. | :15:48. | |
son was young. So you do not accept at all that she was in some way | :15:49. | :15:51. | |
dependent on those provincial governors? Like a good leader, she | :15:52. | :15:59. | |
asked people to debate. She took good opinions. Let's talk about how | :16:00. | :16:02. | |
it worked inside the Imperial Palace. We have heard a little about | :16:03. | :16:07. | |
how she had to do all of her business behind the screen, but the | :16:08. | :16:10. | |
powerplay inside the imperial court, that is something that you talk | :16:11. | :16:13. | |
about in the book, the backstabbing that goes on, she was a part of that | :16:14. | :16:16. | |
as well, however reforming she was in her mindset, there was a | :16:17. | :16:19. | |
ruthlessness, she would not have triumphed in the way that she had | :16:20. | :16:23. | |
done if she was not informed by a ruthlessness in her character. Yes, | :16:24. | :16:39. | |
yes, she was not a shrinking violet. She had a steely iron wrist. She was | :16:40. | :16:49. | |
capable of immense ruthlessness. As you said, the court had lots of | :16:50. | :16:53. | |
battles, but it all boils down to reform or not to reform, to open up | :16:54. | :16:56. | |
to the west, and accept Western missionaries, and Western contacts, | :16:57. | :16:59. | |
send people abroad and so on, or to close up China. Cixi really dragged | :17:00. | :17:23. | |
China into modernity. How she dealt with the conservatives was most | :17:24. | :17:26. | |
interesting, because she never killed anyone, because they were | :17:27. | :17:28. | |
conservatives or they did not agree with her. Later, she killed a few | :17:29. | :17:36. | |
people because they tried to kill her. But for the conservatives, she | :17:37. | :17:43. | |
preferred to take them along and to reach a consensus, and to reform | :17:44. | :17:53. | |
China together. That meant that Chinese reforms in those years, they | :17:54. | :18:01. | |
were earthshattering. But they did not seem to be drastic, because no | :18:02. | :18:07. | |
blood was shed. This book was many years in the making, not as long as | :18:08. | :18:11. | |
the research for the Mao book, but I wonder if you can say something | :18:12. | :18:13. | |
about the process of researching this particular book? The wonderful | :18:14. | :18:20. | |
thing about writing the Empress Dowager was the archives about her | :18:21. | :18:29. | |
and her dynasties, they are open. In fact, they have been open from the | :18:30. | :18:38. | |
late 1970s, after Mao had died. The scholars, Chinese scholars, have | :18:39. | :18:41. | |
been working on these archives in the Forbidden City. In the Forbidden | :18:42. | :18:49. | |
City alone there are over ten million documents. Most of the | :18:50. | :18:54. | |
imperial decrees are digitised. My research was often sitting in the | :18:55. | :18:58. | |
comfort of my London study, bringing up these imperial decrees on the | :18:59. | :19:02. | |
screen. Contemporaries, diaries, they were published, the memoirs of | :19:03. | :19:08. | |
the time. Not to mention the vast archive materials in the | :19:09. | :19:08. | |
Archives at Kew, and the Royal Archives at Windsor, where I had | :19:09. | :19:20. | |
riveting times finding all these documents. That is very different | :19:21. | :19:22. | |
from my previous biography, the biography of Mao, because Mao, his | :19:23. | :19:25. | |
portrait is in Tiananmen. His corpse is | :19:26. | :19:33. | |
Chinese capital. His face is on every Chinese banknote. | :19:34. | :19:40. | |
heirs. Mao is still very covered up. My husband and I had to work like | :19:41. | :19:54. | |
two detectives to get to the bottom of things and it took us 12 years. | :19:55. | :20:00. | |
In some respects, you could argue that in terms of the big picture and | :20:01. | :20:03. | |
China today, many of the issues that faced the dynasty in Cixi's time, | :20:04. | :20:06. | |
they could be compared to the challenges for the president now. I | :20:07. | :20:16. | |
never write my books with a current hook, or thinking about the current | :20:17. | :20:17. | |
relevance. with the evidence, so I wrote Cixi | :20:18. | :20:29. | |
purely about Cixi. everything. Now where do we go from | :20:30. | :20:47. | |
here? Cixi's answer was go for a parliamentary monarchy. The | :20:48. | :20:54. | |
legitimacy of the regime came into question for Cixi as | :20:55. | :21:13. | |
rigid court etiquette. She introduced everything, | :21:14. | :21:23. | |
and so on, but she never got into a car. This was because in front of | :21:24. | :21:24. | |
her, permission, they could stand up, but | :21:25. | :21:32. | |
in the chauffeur, became an insurmountable | :21:33. | :21:36. | |
problem, because he could not dry kneeling down, and he could not dry | :21:37. | :21:52. | |
standing up. `` drive. But she also of course realised that the dynasty | :21:53. | :21:54. | |
could not survive on people kowtowing, going down on their | :21:55. | :22:01. | |
knees. It needs fundamental changes. She wanted to introduce that | :22:02. | :22:04. | |
legitimacy by building a British style constitutional monarchy. And | :22:05. | :22:11. | |
she launched this project in 1905 and made all sorts of preparations, | :22:12. | :22:12. | |
including making a nine`year plan from 1908. So, in nine years' time, | :22:13. | :22:25. | |
China would have finished these preparations, and there would have | :22:26. | :22:35. | |
been a vote. But that is not the road that today's regime is prepared | :22:36. | :22:40. | |
to go down. Please join me to thank Jung Chang for a fascinating talk. | :22:41. | :22:42. | |
Thank you. Over the past few days, some of us | :22:43. | :23:18. | |
have been relentlessly grey, others humid, with thunderstorms. Today, | :23:19. | :23:21. | |
most of us in the same boat. A welcome change for many. Some | :23:22. | :23:24. | |
sunshine, fresh, a good day to be out | :23:25. | :23:25. |