Qing Dynasty princess impresses in English
“Princess” (Yu) Der Ling was a woman ahead of her time, and now she is enjoying a bit of modern popularity through an internet video.
Der Ling, who worked as a translator for Empress Dowager Cixi, can be seen in the 1930 video posted on YouTube. It was filmed in the United States when Der Ling was 44.
She is wearing a silk gown and elaborate headdress. Her English is clear and high-pitched: “The world today is passing through the most tremendous period of readjustment that mankind has seen. And a real desire to do away with war is being manifested. Peace on earth and goodwill toward men can only be accomplished by the mutual respect and understanding of one nation toward another.”
Der Ling also was attuned to women’s issues and the modernization of travel: “The Chinese flapper is not far behind her American sister in her desire to become emancipated. … Rapid transportation has brought China and the United States to each other’s doorways.”
Der Ling was born in Wuhan, Hubei province, in 1885. Her diplomat father, Yu Keng, stationed in Japan and then France, was known for his desire to have his daughters educated in Western schools.
Der Ling’s mother was Louisa Pearson, daughter of John Pearson, a Boston merchant working in Shanghai, and his Chinese wife.
Der Ling studied French, English and dance and was an acquaintance of the French actress Sarah Bernhardt.
She returned to China at age 17 to work for Empress Cixi. Der Ling, who was not a member of the Qing royal (Manchu) family, was appointed a “lady in waiting”. In her 1911 book, Two Years in the Forbidden City, Der Ling says that the princess title, given to her by the empress, was valid only within the palace.
The book has been called the first eyewitness account of the Imperial Court written by a Chinese aristocrat for the West.
Der Ling sympathetically portrays the empress as an aging woman who loved beautiful things and had many regrets about the way she dealt with crises in her long reign, which ended in 1908. The dynasty was overthrown in 1911.
Der Ling left the palace and married a US diplomat, Thaddeus C. White. They settled in Los Angeles in the 1920s, where she raised funds for humanitarian relief and championed Chinese culture. She wrote eight books and advocated for the Dowager Empress and her role in history.
Der Ling was described by her biographer as “a raconteur and a European-educated, multilingual Asian woman who gleefully crossed all the lines of cultural expectations” in East and West.
When China was at war with Japan, it didn’t send an exhibit to San Francisco’s Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939. Chinese living overseas sponsored a Chinese Village cultural exhibit. Der Ling loaned jade and court costumes, displayed in the “Princess Der Ling Pavilion”.
In 1944, Der Ling met an untimely death when she was hit by a grocery delivery truck walking in Berkeley, California, where she had been teaching Chinese at the University of California.