Land And The Ruling Class In Hong Kong by Alice Poon

The young girl was clad in a purple felt tunic with same color leggings, topped by a luxuriously brocaded black-and-purple fur-trimmed deel, and shod in a pair of knee-high soft leather boots. The decorative prose and attention to detail work well when describing clothes. Dreamy silence lingered as though not a wisp of air had disturbed it. Echoes of the laughter, as soft as snowflakes, fell weightless on the sleepy marshland and melted away. The lake within sight was a dormant sheet of cobalt ice, reflecting a pale blue sky decorated with wisps of cottony clouds.

Coming from a distance, a burst of laughter like jingling silver bells rang through the snow-carpeted lakeside marshland. On the rolling steppe south of the Gobi, burly grey winter had just stepped over the threshold, all set to stay well past his welcome as always. Here’s an early passage with Bumbutai riding through the expansive Mongolian landscape. Personal tastes will determine whether you like the Turkish delight richness or think it’s overheated. Conversely, strict accuracy can be too complicated and dull, and the cause and effect of actions too indirect. Some authors tend to give historical female characters too much agency and therefore making them overly modern and relegating the historical element to an exotic backdrop little more than costume and décor. She treats the historical story with great but not slavish respect, striking a reasonable balance between accuracy and narrative punch. She fended off scheming rivals and greatly influenced the young emperors, encouraging a greater tolerance between Machu, Mongols, and Han.Īuthor Alice Poon obviously loves her characters and Chinese history.

Her son, Fulin, would become the Shunzhi Emperor, and her grandson Xuanye would ascend the throne as the Kangxi Emperor at the age of thirteen, going on to become one of China’s greatest ever rulers.īumbutai – as Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang and Grand Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang during the reigns of her son and grandson respectively – was no passive bystander. While there’s sadness in true love being only partially fulfilled, the sacrifice is worthwhile considering Bumbutai’s positive stamp on history. However, in a theme running throughout the novel, it’s duty over love, the greater good of one’s people over personal happiness – well, most of the time. The marriage is a forced one for she loves Prince Dorgon, the half-brother of Hong Taiji. In 1625 twelve-year-old Mongol Princess Bumbutai becomes a consort of Hong Taiji, soon to be the second emperor of the Manchu Qing dynasty.

Taking us from the Mongolian steppes to China’s imperial court, The Green Phoenix is an epic historical novel chronicling the life of a remarkable woman who shaped the founding decades of the Qing dynasty.

Land And The Ruling Class In Hong Kong by Alice Poon