Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
permission. Up to 1900, the state provided all Bannermen families with clothing and free
food that was shipped up the Grand Canal and stored in grain warehouses.
Fashioning Běijīng Culture
It was the Manchu Bannermen who really created a Běijīng culture. They loved Peking
opera, and the city once had over 40 opera houses and many training schools. The sleeve-
less
qípáo
dress is really a Manchu dress. The Bannermen, who loved animals, raised
songbirds and pigeons and bred exotic-looking goldfish and miniature dogs such as the
Pekinese. And after the downfall of the Qing empire, they kept up traditional arts such as
painting and calligraphy.
Language, Politics & Religion
Through the centuries of Qing rule, the Manchus tried to keep themselves culturally sep-
arate from the Chinese, speaking a different language, wearing different clothes and fol-
lowing different customs. For instance, Manchu women did not bind their feet, wore
raised platform patens (shoes), and coiled their hair in distinctive and elaborate styles. All
court documents were composed in the Manchu script; Manchu, Chinese and Mongolian
script were used to write name signs in such places as the Forbidden City.
At the same time, the Qing copied the Ming's religious and bureaucratic institutions.
The eight key ministries (Board of Works, Board of Revenue, Board of State Ceremonies,
Board of War, Board of Rites, Board of Astronomy, Board of Medicines and Prefecture of
Imperial Clan Affairs) continued to operate from the same buildings in what is now
Tiān'ānmén Square. The Qing dynasty worshipped their ancestors at rites held in a
temple, which is now in the Workers Cultural Palace, south of the Forbidden City. They
also built a second ancestral temple devoted to the spirits of every Chinese emperor that
ever ruled. For some time it was a girls' school, but it has since been turned back into a
museum.
Eunuchs tended to be Buddhists (while mandarins honoured Confucius), as it gave them
hope that they would return as whole men in a future reincarnation.
Buddhist Ties
The study of Confucius was encouraged in order to strengthen the loyalty of the mandar-
ins employed by the state bureaucracy. The Manchus carried out the customary rituals at
the great state temples. By inclination, however, many of the Manchu emperors were
