Memoirs Of A Palace Maid

Moving Around

She said: "There are details to pay attention to in the palace. Palace maids must 'walk without turning their heads, smile without showing the teeth'. You must walk properly. No swinging of the head to look around. No turning of the head back and forth to look back. If you smile, you are not allowed to make a sound. No showing of teeth. No matter how happy a piece of news is, you can only smile. Your face must always be smiling with joy. No matter how painful a matter is, you should not show a weeping face. If you get hit, you must not make a sound.

You cannot not ask what shouldn't be asked. You cannot speak of what shouldn't be spoken. If you work in the palace, you cannot speak privately with anybody. To use an analogy, it is as if everybody has a layer of wax covering their skin. Nobody can show their true heart.

This is my experience in the palace after six to seven years. When I was in the palace for the first one to two years, I was young and I still had tears left. After a few years, there were no more tears left. I suffered my entire life, living a life that wasn't worth living (referring to marriage to an eunuch.) Crying your eyes blind is useless! So I have no tears left. The palace is like an ice cellar. Everybody has to be shrink away."

I was shocked. She had actually revealed her inner feelings to a young person like me.

"All these years I was in the palace, I never left the Palace Of Gathered Elegance alone. On the first day on entering the palace, the aunts declared that nobody was allowed to leave the palace doors. 'Leave through the palace doors, get beaten to death without discussion.' This was their mantra. If anybody creates disorder, 'left leg out, right leg kill'. A step into the doors of other palaces, 'a beheading or exile to the frontiers'.

You can only go out of the palace if you are following the Empress Dowager or carrying out the Empress Dowager's orders to deliver something. We rarely go to the eastern palaces. Frequently, we go to the Palace Of Eternal Spring. The is where Master Longyu* lives. On the south and west sides of the Palace Of Gathered Elegance are the western palaces. Palace maids are not allowed to walk alone in the palace. They always go in pairs to deliver or to retrieve things. So nobody had ever left the Palace Of Gathered Elegance alone before. If a family member is visiting, she is always led by an old eunuch, so that is not considered moving around alone." 

Translator's Notes:

* Referring to Empress Longyu.