K'ang-hsi

I really didn't expect to find Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K'ang-hsi all that intriguing. Really I am shocked this same way quite often. Books that I have to read for school are really not supposed to be interesting. They are for the most part though and I can't figure out why. It's like I am dreading reading and I start reading and I am dreading reading more then all of a sudden it is interesting. I think if I read it in any other context, say I bought the book in a one of those mini Borders that they have in airport and I read it on my flight to Anchorage I would find it quite dull. hm.

OK, I had to read it for the intro to Asian studies class I am taking (bad that I have to take two more gen-ed classes to graduate after summer session, good that I can take classes I am actually interested in). I knew that this would be the kind of class in which there is more reading assigned than there are hours in the day. If professors really wanted students to read then they would not assign so much reading. The way I see it is that profs assign more reading then there are hours in a day. That's problematic for two reasons 1) It is impossible to read it all and 2) sense it is impossible to read it all I feel that if I attempt to read then I am bound to fail because it’s impossible right? Being that I don't want to fail then I won't ever start, thus avoiding failure. I seriously think this way without even noticing it. I would read if there was a manageable amount to read but sense the amount is impossible then I won't read at all.

Before summer session even began I was well aware of the fact that there would be a significant amount of reading to be done. In order get ahead start I went a head and started to read one of the books entitled First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung. I guess I chose the wrong book to start. The prof told me to have this other book, Emperor of China, read by Friday. At first I was disappointed, being that I was enthralled by Ung’s book and being that the first bit of Emperor of China starts fairly bland. But as I read the book I found K’ang-hsi to be the King Solomon I always wanted, or somewhat that way. Being that it is K’ang-hsi words and that is has been translated it has that Proverbs/Song of Solomon feel but better. It’s not like I am going to be able to describe it very well here but let me share my favorite part.

So Kang-hsi gets a visit from de Tournon, a kind of ambassador sent by the Pope. I really start to like the conversation that’s going on between them when K’ang-hsi gets flustered with de Tournon’s ramblings and presumably his avoidance of the heart of the matter, what K’ang-hsi is getting at so K’ang-hsi says to him out right, “Exactly why have you come here?” Just out of no where and then he goes on, “I have asked you several times already through intermediaries, and have not forgotten your replies. But now that you are here in person, you may have something in your heart to say that goes beyond these replies. Don’t worry about your eloquence – speak and act freely, keep nothing back.” I love that “Don’t worry about eloquence.” He is an emperor for crying out loud and this poor guy, from western civilization is thinking, “Hmmm, I don’t know that I am quite able to do that.”

De Tournon does end up telling the emperor that the pope would like to have contacts with China set up in form of someone who is in the popes confidence, someone who has the proper “inside” knowledge of the Papal Court, while K’ang-hsi tells him that there are plenty of Westerners who have been involved in the courts of china for forty years. He says, “and they are still lacking in knowledge of imperial affairs, how could someone just transplanted from the West do better?” The way I see it, they both have the same problem. Later K’ang-hsi dismisses de Tournon and the matter but there is a very humorous, underlying banter going on all the while. I guess I admire K’ang-hsi in that he was able to recreate that banter in his documentation of the manner. Even if it didn’t happen exactly like that it is an amusing and also thought provoking interchange. More on the thought provoking part in a later blog.