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Why It Sucks to Be a Palace Maid (in Qing Dynasty) — Transcript

by Backstory Of History · 2,687 words · 492 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00You're 13 years old, standing in a line
0:02of girls at the Gate of Divine Prowess,
0:05the northern entrance to the Forbidden
0:06City.
0:07A woman you've never met kneels in front
0:10of you, tilts your chin up with cold
0:12fingers, and pulls your lower lip down
0:14to check your teeth.
0:16She turns your hands over, checks your
0:18nails, your wrists, your ears.
0:21The imperial incense is so thick it
0:23coats the back of your throat, and
0:25behind you, through the closing gate,
0:27you can hear the sound of your mother's
0:29mule cart pulling away on the
0:30cobblestones. She's not coming back.
0:33Your family held funeral rites for you
0:35yesterday,
0:36burned paper offerings, wept over your
0:38body,
0:39>> [snorts]
0:39>> because to them, you're dead.
0:41Girls who enter the Forbidden City, Qing
0:43Dynasty, don't come home. You just
0:46became a palace maid. Inside, you learn
0:49where you rank, somewhere between the
0:51furniture and the incense burner.
0:53Both get replaced when they stop being
0:55useful. Above you is everyone.
0:57Senior palace maids assign you the worst
1:00duties, emptying chamber pots before
1:02dawn, scrubbing stone floors on your
1:04knees,
1:05standing motionless during banquets you
1:07can smell, but cannot eat.
1:10Above them are the eunuchs who escort
1:12you between buildings, and decide when
1:14you eat, when you sleep, and whether
1:17you're reported for an infraction.
1:19And above the eunuchs is the consort you
1:22serve.
1:23Her mood is your weather. A bad morning
1:26means bamboo strikes.
1:27A jealous night means you don't sleep.
1:30You figure out the economics fast.
1:32Palace maids don't leave on their own
1:33terms. If your consort rises, you rise.
1:37If she falls, you fall with her. The
1:40only way out is through someone else's
1:42fortune. Your survival is a calculation
1:44you can't run for yourself, because
1:46you're not a variable in it. You're
1:48rounding error.
1:50But there's a number.
1:51If you can survive to 25, and the
1:53household you serve is still standing,
1:56some maids get released. Marriage
1:58arrangement.
2:00A name that still means something
2:01outside these walls.
2:03If the household falls before then, you
2:05disappear inside the palace and never
2:07come out.
2:08The first lesson comes fast.
2:11A girl 2 days ahead of you in training
2:12laughs at something, teeth showing.
2:15A senior maid slaps her so hard she hits
2:17the stone floor. Nobody helps her up.
2:20Nobody looks.
2:22Do not look back when walking.
2:24Do not show teeth when smiling.
2:26Your gaze stays 3 ft ahead.
2:28Always.
2:3012 years from now, you'll stand at that
2:32same gate waiting to leave.
2:34It won't open.
2:36But you don't know that yet.
2:38The first week is walking.
2:40Straight lines, fixed head angle, steady
2:43pace, eyes 3 ft ahead.
2:46A senior maid presses a bamboo rod
2:47against your spine to correct your
2:49posture. Hours of it. Your neck aches.
2:52Your calves cramp. You learn to ignore
2:55both.
2:56The first night, a girl your age named
2:58Lianhua rolls over and presses her
3:00blanket against yours without a word.
3:03The dormitory is freezing. 30 girls on
3:06thin mats on wooden platforms in a room
3:08where the heating pipes don't reach.
3:10Neither of you speaks. You don't need
3:12to. 3 months in and they teach you the
3:15three spoon principle. No more than
3:17three bites of any dish. Not because
3:19there isn't enough food, because
3:20protocol says a palace maid does not
3:22have preferences. You are always hungry
3:24after this. Not starving, just never
3:27full. A maid in the next dormitory gets
3:29caught eating a fourth bite of roast
3:31duck.
3:32They make her kneel on dried lentils for
3:346 hours. Her knees bleed through her
3:36robe. By year two, you can dress a
3:39consort in your sleep. Layers of silk
3:42robes in the correct order. Ornamental
3:44hairpins positioned by rank. One
3:46misplaced line of rouge means starting
3:48over.
3:49Three mistakes and you're kneeling on
3:51lentils. You learn to read your
3:53mistress's breathing before you learn
3:54her name.
3:55Short breaths through the nose mean
3:57anger is building.
3:59You have 4 seconds between the short
4:00breath and the strike.
4:02Your hands have become two different
4:04things. Rough from scrubbing stone,
4:07delicate enough to handle silk without
4:08snagging a thread.
4:10You sleep curled on your side every
4:12night because the rules say you must.
4:14Your spine is starting to forget what
4:16straight feels like. You curl tighter
4:18each night. Not because the rules demand
4:20it, because the cold does. Your body is
4:23being reshaped into a tool.
4:25The way water reshapes stone. Someone
4:28whispers that palace maids get released
4:29at 25.
4:31Sent home.
4:32Given a marriage arrangement.
4:35You hold on to that number like a
4:36drowning person holds onto a plank.
4:3912 years.
4:40You can survive 12 years.
4:43But a senior maid who overhears you says
4:45it quieter than the whisper.
4:47Released.
4:49If your mistress permits it.
4:51If the head eunuch approves.
4:53If nobody decides you're more useful
4:55inside.
4:56She says if three times, which is the
4:59same as saying probably not.
5:01The same week someone whispers about the
5:03cold palace, where consorts go when they
5:06fall from favor, where their maids
5:08follow.
5:09No heating. No visitors.
5:11One bowl of gruel.
5:13Girls talk about it the way villagers
5:14talk about ghosts. You and Lianhua
5:17develop a system.
5:18Two taps on the dormitory wall means I'm
5:20still here. Three taps means bad day.
5:23Most nights you're both too tired.
5:26But on the worst nights, three taps from
5:28her side, three from yours. It helps.
5:31Not enough. But it helps.
5:33At 15, you're assigned to your first
5:35consort. Consort Ying, mid-ranking,
5:39young, still in favor with the emperor,
5:41which is the only currency inside these
5:43walls.
5:44Before the assignment, the head maid of
5:46consort Ying's household inspects you,
5:48files your nails, checks behind your
5:50ears,
5:51tilts your face in the light like the
5:53woman at the gate did 2 years ago.
5:55The inspections never stop. They just
5:57happen in different rooms.
5:59Small frame, good for carrying trays
6:02without blocking the mistress's
6:03sightline.
6:04They dress you in your assignment robe,
6:07coarser silk than your mistress will
6:08wear, muted colors, no embroidery.
6:12They style your hair in Manchu palace
6:14fashion.
6:15The pins pull at your scalp and give you
6:17headaches that never fully go away.
6:19You're presented to consort Ying in her
6:21receiving chamber.
6:22You kneel,
6:24cold marble against your kneecaps.
6:26She looks at you the way you'd look at a
6:28new piece of furniture,
6:29functional,
6:31adequate.
6:32You look like a properly assembled
6:34palace maid. You feel like a 15-year-old
6:36girl who hasn't seen her mother in 2
6:38years, trying not to tremble on a marble
6:40floor in a room that smells like jasmine
6:43oil and pearl cream, and something
6:45you're already learning to recognize as
6:46power.
6:472 years serving consort Ying and you've
6:49learned the rhythm.
6:50Wake before dawn, dress her, attend her,
6:54undress her, sleep 4 hours, repeat.
6:58At 17, an older maid named Suyin tells
7:01you about a maid named Fang Fei who
7:02served a consort who bore a prince.
7:05When the consort was promoted, Fang Fei
7:07got her own sleeping chamber,
7:09thicker robes, released at 25 with a
7:11marriage arrangement.
7:13"Attach yourself to a rising star,"
7:15Suyin says. "It's the only math that
7:17works in here."
7:19That's how the palace keeps you.
7:21Not with walls, with arithmetic.
7:24The system produces just enough Fang
7:26Feis, one or two per generation out of
7:28thousands, to keep every maid running
7:30the same calculation.
7:32The odds are terrible, but the odds
7:34aren't zero.
7:35And that gap between impossible and
7:37almost impossible is where obedience
7:39lives.
7:40You look at consort Ying. She's 20. The
7:43emperor still visits.
7:45The math starts running in your head and
7:47it doesn't stop.
7:49At 19, Consort Ying bears a daughter.
7:52Not a son.
7:53>> [crying]
7:54>> But the promotion still comes.
7:56Better quarters with heating beneath the
7:57floor.
7:58Real meat instead of scraps.
8:01A thicker blanket appears on your
8:02sleeping mat. A unique nods at you in
8:04the corridor and uses your name. Your
8:07name.
8:08First time in six years.
8:10One morning you walk from Consort Ying's
8:12chambers to the Imperial kitchen through
8:14the heated corridor.
8:16No unique escort. Nobody stops you.
8:19It's a two-minute walk. It feels like
8:21flight. Something shifts.
8:24Not just in your circumstances.
8:26In your chest.
8:27You catch yourself standing straighter.
8:30A daughter isn't a son, but it's proof
8:32the math works.
8:33Consort Ying rose.
8:35And you rose with her.
8:37The plank you've been gripping since
8:38training, released at 25. It doesn't
8:41feel like a plank anymore. It feels like
8:43a plan.
8:44By 21, the emperor's visits slow.
8:47Consort Ying hasn't conceived again.
8:50The bamboo strikes come back.
8:52Not because you've done anything wrong.
8:54Because she's afraid and you're the
8:55nearest surface to hit.
8:57But she's only 24. Other consorts have
9:00gone years between pregnancies and still
9:02produce sons.
9:03You recalculate. The math still works.
9:06Barely.
9:07At 22, you become a senior maid. New
9:10girls arrive and you train them. You
9:12press the bamboo rod against a girl's
9:14spine to correct her posture. The same
9:16rod. The same angle.
9:18She flinches the way you used to.
9:21You don't remove it until her back is
9:22straight.
9:23They look at you with the same fear you
9:25carried at 13.
9:26You're not sure when yours turned into
9:28something else.
9:29One night Consort Ying can't sleep.
9:32The emperor hasn't visited in three
9:33weeks.
9:35You bring her tea and for a moment she
9:37looks at you like a trapped girl.
9:39Not a consort.
9:41Just a girl.
9:42Then the mask goes back on.
9:44Yours was never off.
9:46That night you curl into the mandated
9:48sleeping position without thinking about
9:50it. You haven't thought about it in
9:52years.
9:53It's not a rule anymore.
9:55It's just how your body fits together
9:57now.
9:58Lian Hua was reassigned to a different
10:00consort's household at 19, but she's
10:02still in the same wing.
10:04Some nights you still hear two taps
10:06through the wall.
10:07Fainter now, but still there.
10:10You're 23. Two more years and you're
10:13eligible for release. Consort Ying is
10:1626.
10:17Still fertile.
10:18The emperor visited last month. Suyin
10:21mentions that a household steward asked
10:23whether your teeth are good and whether
10:24you limp.
10:25"That's how they ask when someone's
10:27being considered for arrangement," she
10:28says.
10:30You spend the next week walking more
10:31carefully than you have in 10 years. The
10:34math still works if you don't look at it
10:36too closely.
10:37So you don't. You're folding silk robes
10:40in Consort Ying's wardrobe chamber when
10:42a unique you've never seen appears in
10:44the doorway.
10:45He doesn't knock. He reads from a
10:47scroll. His voice is flat.
10:50Administrative. The corridor outside
10:52goes quiet.
10:54Not empty quiet.
10:56Held breath quiet.
10:58Consort Ying has been accused of a
11:00protocol violation. Speaking out of turn
11:02during a formal audience. She is
11:04stripped of rank and relocated to the
11:06cold palace immediately. All personal
11:08maids reassigned. Within hours it's
11:11done. Your quarters, your blankets, your
11:14proximity to warmth and food gone in the
11:17time it takes to read a scroll. The
11:19reassignment scatters you and Lian Hua
11:21to different sections entirely. The wall
11:24tapping system dies today. The future
11:26you'd been running numbers on for six
11:28years. Consort Ying and a son. Gets
11:31promoted. You get released at 25. It was
11:34never your future.
11:36It was hers.
11:37>> [laughter]
11:37>> And she just lost it.
11:39Which means you never had it.
11:42The blanket, the heated corridor, the
11:44steward asking about your teeth,
11:46none of it was yours.
11:48You were borrowing someone else's luck
11:49the entire time.
11:51You report to the head eunuch of the
11:52East Wing for reallocation. He doesn't
11:55ask your name.
11:56A eunuch walks you to your new
11:57assignment. The route passes through the
12:00heated corridor between Consort Ying's
12:02chambers and the Imperial Kitchen.
12:04The same corridor you walked through at
12:0519 without an escort.
12:07It felt like flight then.
12:09Now there's a eunuch two steps behind
12:11you and the heating has been shut off.
12:13Same stones, same walls,
12:16just cold now. They reassign you to a
12:18minor concubine's household in the far
12:20western wing.
12:22Minimal heating,
12:23thin blankets.
12:25You're back to where you started at 13.
12:27Except your body isn't 13 anymore.
12:30Your knees ache constantly.
12:32Years of kneeling on marble and lentils.
12:35Your spine permanently curved from
12:37mandated side sleeping.
12:39Your hands swell in the cold.
12:41Your body kept a ledger.
12:43It's calling the debts in now.
12:45You're 25 when the release date arrives.
12:48You've scratched marks into the
12:50underside of your sleeping platform
12:51since the detonation.
12:53You've imagined the Gate of Divine
12:55Prowess from the other side so many
12:57times you can feel the cobblestones.
12:59You've rehearsed what you'd say to your
13:01mother.
13:02The senior maid was right.
13:04If your mistress permits it,
13:06if the head eunuch approves,
13:08if nobody decides you're more useful
13:10inside,
13:11your head eunuch checks a box on a form
13:13and requests that you stay.
13:15The plank you'd been gripping since 13
13:18was never a door. It was a trap door.
13:21And it just closed from above.
13:23The next morning you wake up and for the
13:25first time in 12 years, there's no
13:27number to count toward.
13:29No if consort Ying conceives.
13:33No two more years.
13:35The calculation that organized every day
13:37since you were 13 is just gone.
13:40You lie on your mat and realize you
13:42don't know what holds a day together
13:44when there's nothing at the end of it.
13:46New girls arrive from the latest
13:48selection. 13 years old, straight
13:50spines, eyes that haven't learned to
13:53flinch yet. You train them.
13:55One smiles with her teeth during a
13:57lesson. You slap her before anyone else
14:00sees.
14:01Not to protect her.
14:02To protect yourself.
14:04Your hand stings for an hour.
14:06The shame lasts longer.
14:09By 27, you ask a eunuch about Lian Hua.
14:11He checks a registry.
14:13She was reassigned to the cold palace
14:15with a consort who fell from favor.
14:17In 1782, 14 women froze to death in the
14:21cold palace in a single night. You don't
14:23ask again. You hear about Su Yin
14:25secondhand. Released at 30, 5 years past
14:29eligibility.
14:30No marriage arrangement, no family
14:32waiting.
14:33She died outside the walls within a
14:35year.
14:36The woman who taught you the math
14:37couldn't solve it for herself. By 30,
14:40you've served four different households
14:41as consorts fell from favor, got
14:43reassigned, died. Each move drops you
14:46further from the center, further from
14:48warmth.
14:49General maintenance now. Sweeping
14:52courtyards, carrying water.
14:54You entered at 13 to serve empresses.
14:57At 30, you sweep the courtyards they
14:59walk through without seeing you.
15:01Your knees won't let you kneel properly
15:03anymore.
15:04You're not assigned to anyone. You're
15:06palace infrastructure, like a broom.
15:09And even if they released you tomorrow,
15:11your family held your funeral 17 years
15:13ago.
15:14You die at 43. Chronic illness,
15:17malnutrition, untreated joint
15:19deterioration. No physician is assigned
15:21to maintenance staff.
15:23You die in an unheated dormitory during
15:25a February cold snap on a thin mat in
15:27the mandated curled position your body
15:29learned at 13 and never unlearned.
15:32They remove you from the palace in a
15:34plain wooden cart. No marker, no
15:36ceremony.
15:38Your name is struck from the palace
15:39registry, which was the only record that
15:42you existed at all.
15:44You were 13 when they selected you at
15:46the Gate of Divine Prowess.
15:48Your mother's cart pulled away on the
15:50cobblestones and you never heard from
15:51her again.
15:53You spent 30 years inside the Forbidden
15:55City.
15:56You served consorts who rose and
15:58consorts who fell and you fell with
16:00every one of them.
16:01You learned to walk without sound, smile
16:04without teeth, and want without hope.
16:07And when you died, they replaced you the
16:09same way they replaced the broom.
16:11Still think being invisible was the
16:13worst part? Some palace maids got
16:15noticed. The emperor's eye landed on
16:17them. They were stripped naked, wrapped
16:20in silk, and carried to his chambers.
16:22They thought it was their way out.
16:24It wasn't. Check out your life as a
16:26breeding slave in the Qing Dynasty right
16:28here. Because the only thing worse than
16:30the palace ignoring you was the palace
16:32finding a use for your body.

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