Imperial Masquerade: The Legend of Princess Der Ling

31 “. . . she means to educate Americans . . .”

31 “...she means to educate Americans ...” No doubt the parlous state of political affairs in late 1920s China, in which a nation already fragmented by impending civil war had to also watch the back door lest the Japanese stream suddenly in (something the battles between Communists and Nationalists eventually allowed to happen), a well as her burgeoning career as writer and public speaker, had a certain bearing on Der Ling’s decision to explore the comparative security of the United States. Mid-decade, the Kuomintang Nationalists in southern China, led by Chiang Kai-shek, began to make their move on the northern warlords, assisted by planners from the Soviet Union.The latter were allowed to get comfortable in their new Chinese bed, only to be turned out of it again when, in 1926 and 1927, Chiang brought down thirty-four warlords and then pulled the rug out from under the Communists, Russian and Chinese, charging them with plotting against him and arresting those organizers and leaders who were unable to flee into the countryside. Capturing provinces and cities like Wuhan, Shanghai and Nanjing, Chiang set up Nationalist headquarters in the latter city and himself was set up as Nationalist Chairman, an office he held, in various strengths 296 Imperial Masquerade and permutations, until his death in Taipei, Republic of China, in 1975, having ultimately lost China to the Communists in 1949. After leaving China in 1928, Der Ling would only return for brief visits, to gather materials for her writing and to gather up her belongings to ship out of the country when it became clear that Chiang’s obsession with Mao Zedong and the Communists was leaving the door open to a Japanese takeover. New York would be the initial stop for Der Ling, T.C. and their son (who had already been there, at age four, in 1917, and told his mother that he liked the city very much “because it had such nice big holes [subway entrances] in the ground”). But one of the first times Der Ling appeared in the American press was in a February 9, 1928 Los Angeles Times article, describing a “delayed Chinese New Year’s” banquet given in her and T.C.’s honor in Los Angeles; and it was T.C. who was quoted, not his wife. “For many years,” he announced to the party, consisting of guests both Asian and American (including Julius Mittwer, credited with having introduced the films of Charlie Chaplin to the young emperor of Japan; Der Ling was seen conversing with Mittwer in Japanese), “Americans and Europeans have been presuming to educate China. Now the Princess intends to turn the tables — she means to educate Americans.”1 Part of this education process, according to the article, would take the form of a grandiose architectural project, designed by the Chinese architect S. S. Kwan: building a reproduction of the Forbidden City, on land outside Los Angeles (property that may have formed part of T.C.’s mining claims on the outskirts of the city), which would “contain art exhibits, a theater and other attractions.” This replica of the Chinese Winter Palace, the original of which had now been a museum for several years, would serve as a kind of Chinese cultural center. While this stands as the first and last mention of the proposed center — presumably quashed by the Great Depression a year and a half later — Der Ling’s idea was an intriguing concept, several years before the official formation of L.A.’s Chinatown and very much before the idea of a center celebrating Chinese culture seemed plausible anywhere in California, where there were still laws on the books preventing Chinese ownership of land.2 America’s early history vis-à-vis the Chinese was one fraught with racist abuse. A century before Der Ling’s Forbidden City idea, the first 297 “. . . she means to educate Americans . . .” recorded Chinese woman in America, Afong Moy, was displayed like a circus freak in New York City museums, as spectators oohed and aahed over her wielding of chopsticks and her tottering about on bound feet, against the backdrop of an “authentic” Chinese diorama.3 But nowhere did the maltreatment and racism take so virulent a form as in California; and to no other state, known to the native Chinese as “Gold Mountain,” did so many Chinese risk everything to go to seek their fortunes, starting with, for...