Why did the Boxers rebel in the first place, was it because of something Cixi did and what policies did Cixi employ to address these concerns? The book also felt one-sided - Cixi and the Western influence in China are good, people who want to keep the West out are bad - which made me feel that the story was not given the complexity it deserved.
The narration at times felt workmanlike, and some major historical events (the Boxer Rebellion) are barely glossed over. The biography focused on Cixi as a political figure, and apart from one alleged relationship with a eunuch, didn’t give much insight to Cixi beyond her political role. The ROM exhibit left me wanting more, and so I approached Jung Chang’s book eager to immerse myself even more deeply into the world I felt the museum exhibition barely grazed.Ĭhang’s book was an entertaining glimpse into some pivotal moments in Chinese history. I got the sense of a rather trapped existence, the emperor’s movements restricted within the city and potential spies everywhere. There was even a digital interactive map of the Forbidden City, which had a spot marked with an intriguing tale of a concubine being thrown into a well by the Empress Dowager Cixi.
A visit to the Royal Ontario Museum’s Forbidden City exhibition (on view till September 1, 2014) reminded me of a book I had been meaning to read for months, but have somehow never gotten around to: Jung Chang’s biography Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China. The ROM exhibit was fascinating, and gave me an idea of how complex the social structure was within the Chinese imperial court.
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