With the Empress Dowager of China by Katharine A. Carl

Author:Katharine A. Carl
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Empresses -- China -- Biography, China -- Court and courtiers, Empress dowager of China, Cixi, 1835-1908
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2026-04-08T20:38:11+00:00

XVIII

The Fes­ti­val of the Har­vest Moon—Work on the Por­trait

We think the Chi­nese so un­emo­tion­al, so lit­tle giv­en to plea­sure or amuse­ment; but there are more pop­u­lar fes­ti­vals in Chi­na, in­dulged in by all class­es of peo­ple, than in any coun­try in the world, ex­cept per­haps Japan. The peo­ple, from the high­est to the low­est, en­ter in­to these cel­e­bra­tions with whole-souled earnest­ness and re­al en­joy­ment, and all the pop­u­lar fes­ti­vals, as well as the re­li­gious cer­e­monies, are cel­e­brat­ed in the Palace with ap­par­ent­ly the same zest as among the peo­ple.

The Mid-Au­tumn Fes­ti­val, pop­u­lar­ly known as the Fes­ti­val of the Har­vest Moon, which is at its full at the time of the cel­e­bra­tion, was, of course, ob­served with due cer­e­mo­ny at the Palace. For these fes­ti­vals there are al­ways rep­re­sen­ta­tions at the Palace The­ater, and one of the plays on such days is the drama­ti­za­tion of the Leg­end of the Fes­ti­val. The leg­end of the Har­vest Moon is this: One day an Em­per­or re­ceived the vis­it of a fairy. When she left she gave the Em­per­or an herb, say­ing, should he eat it, he would be en­dowed with Im­mor­tal­i­ty. The Em­per­or was called out, soon af­ter the fairy’s vis­it, and for­got the gift for a time, and the herb lay up­on his ta­ble. Dur­ing his ab­sence from the Throne-room, a young hand­maid­en en­tered and, see­ing the root on the ta­ble, with child­ish cu­rios­i­ty, tast­ed it, and, find­ing it good, ate the whole of it. When the Em­per­or again thought of his pre­cious gift from the fairy, he has­tened back to the Throne-room, to re­move it from the ta­ble where he had left it. What was his hor­ror to find it gone! Learn­ing that the lit­tle hand­maid was the on­ly per­son who had been in the Throne-room, he called her up to find out what she had done with it. When he found she had eat­en it, he or­dered her killed, that he might thus again ob­tain the herb. Be­fore the eu­nuchs could ac­com­plish their task, the charm be­gan to work, and she felt the wings of Im­mor­tal­i­ty; and borne up by them, she flew to the skies and took refuge in the Moon, where she still lives with the pet white rab­bit she had in her arms at the time she flew away from the earth. She is now an Im­mor­tal, and in the Moon she com­pounds the Elixir of Im­mor­tal­i­ty. The rab­bit, al­so, shares her im­mor­tal­i­ty, and ev­er watch­es at the lu­nar thresh­old.

The dra­ma, with this lit­tle maid­en as hero­ine, was played by Her Majesty’s ac­tors on the day of the Moon Fes­ti­val, and the fi­nale of the plays that day was one of the most beau­ti­ful spec­tac­u­lar tableaux I have ev­er seen. The Chi­nese ob­tain most artis­tic ef­fects in their il­lu­mi­na­tions, and by the most sim­ple means. The stage rep­re­sent­ed a lake cov­ered with lu­mi­nous lo­tus, with the full moon float­ing above. Throned on a gi­gan­tic lo­tus flow­er in the cen­ter of the lake sat an im­mense, gold­en Bud­dha, im­pas­si­ble

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