Instalment 31 (1903/04)
Scene 1: On a ship
In the lobby of a ship, a well dressed man is sitting on his luggage. A ship servant tells the man that he has more luggage than his ticket permits. In this moment, Sun Yatsen boards and asks the man why he only purchased a ticket for the tween deck. The man complains that there were no tickets left other than the tween deck tickets. Then Sun offers him his own 2nd class ticket and accompanies him onto deck. To the business man’s surprise, Sun sells him the ticket for the original sales price. (This shows that Sun may be unable to deal with money, but at least he is very honest.) During the whole episode, the servants take Sun’s luggage away together with the business man’s luggage. But Sun only realises this after the man has left. (This, in turn, highlights Sun’s frequent absence of mind.)
Scene 2: At Kang Youwei’s home in California, USA
Kang has hung up the banner with the inscription “Appointed [by the emperor] and endowed with a [secret] edict” and now reveres it as if it were the emperor himself. He also tells Liang Qichao, who has just arrived, about this and explains that everyone who enters the room has to kneel down in front of that banner. Liang apologises for not knowing that he had to kneel down. When Kang asks Liang who is better, Sun or Kang himself, Liang diplomatically replies that they are both very different and that it is therefore impossible to compare them. Kang gets very angry and says that Sun cannot compare with himself, since Sun is only a charlatan (Sun is a doctor by profession) and not as educated as Kang himself is. Then Kang accuses Liang of having betrayed him and scolds him (because of the meeting of Liang and Sun). Moreover, Kang contends that they owe their life to the Guangxu emperor. Out of his anger, Kang has Liang bring the pallet (a moment dramatised in filmic rendering). Then the punishing teacher Kang brutally beats his pupil’s hand. (Liang, though, does not give in; he says nothing and formally accepts the punishment). While he is beating him, Kang tells Liang to remember that the Guangxu emperor is their only master and that Liang is only supposed to protect the emperor. He is not allowed to consider carrying out a revolution. (One can tell from Liang’s facial expression, however, that he disagrees with his teacher, but he does not utter a word yet. The scene forebodes their future rupture.)
Scene 3. At Yuan Shikai’s residence
A young female teacher is teaching Western art to the numerous wives and concubines of Yuan Shikai. The women are supposed to paint a portrait of a naked man. (The teacher teaches nude drawing, a typically Western form of drawing!) But the women do not pay attention to the teacher. Instead, they are occupied with other things: one woman feeds her child, another woman is cleaning her baby’s bottom. When the young teacher tries to get the attention of the group, Ms Shen (Yuan’s favoured consort) laughs at her and says that all the women present probably know more about the male body than the teacher does. Then Yuan enters and reprimands his women. Moreover, he tells them that the one who studies the most will earn 500 Liang silver, the next will get 400 Liang and the third 300 Liang silver. All others will not receive anything. Then he also gives each of his women a new name. All the new names incorporate the character for “learning” (xue). Subsequently, Yuan and the teacher leave the room, and Yuan asks her to work in the new school for women which has just been set up. But the teacher declines. She believes that women should not show themselves in public! (This is an odd and amusing juxtaposition: even though she teaches Western subjects such as act drawing, she is a very traditional person at the same time.) As a pragmatically thinking person, Yuan tells the teacher that she should also teach his women something more practical, such as calculus.
A group of scholars are discussing the forthcoming official examinations. They are sure that they will belong to the best. But one of them notes that there will also be students who have just returned from studying abroad (so-called „imitation Western men“). The traditional scholars purposely insult these men who are sitting on the neighbouring table. The scholars and the students soon start an argument, and ultimately, they even physically fight with each other.
Yuan Shikai’s wives and consorts are dressed very formally. They each wear a ribbon with their new “learning” names on it on their way to the new women’s school. They have their children with them who are driving in a carriage. One of the boys pees out of the carriage and besmirches a spectator who is standing at the road. (This is another instant in which the issue of body is highlighted in the context of Yuan Shikai).
The women’s school is trying to recruit personnel. But all those who have come to the interviews do not know anything about the subjects they want to teach. (This emphasises that the New Learning is not taken seriously.) When Yuan’s women arrive at the school, they are humiliated by some of the teacher applicants. A fight erupts. Meanwhile, Yan Fengshen (official in charge of salt transports), the uncle of the young female teacher in charge, Lü Bicheng, enters. He wants to take Lü home because she is showing herself in public and is therefore humiliating her family. At this moment, Yuan Shikai and some policemen enter. Yuan has the scholarly mockers subjected to caning. He thus humiliates them because they are actually not supposed to receive corporal punishment since they are the so-called “students of the emperor” (tianzi mensheng). Moreover, Yuan wants to have Yan Fengshan arrested. But the young female teacher asks Yuan to spare him. Yuan complies with her request but orders her uncle to assist her in taking care of the school for the next year. (This order is also a kind of punishment since the uncle is now subordinate to his niece.)
Yuan Shikai meets with Zhang Zhidong who has been summoned to an audience with Cixi in Beijing. Yuan welcomes him with an orchestra at the Tianjin train station and gives him two baskets filled with fruit. (Zhang is on a stopover in Tianjin because the train needs to refill water.) On the train, Yuan and Zhang talk about the abolition of the official examination system and about Western technologies. Yuan tries to convince Zhang to hand a memorandum to Cixi which advocates the definite abolition of the examination system. Yuan believes that the examinations only obstruct reforms. But Zhang evasively says that Yuan may hand him this memorandum and that he will forward it to Cixi in Yuan’s name. (Thus, it is shown that Zhang is hesitative and wants to keep out of this.) Now it is Yuan who reacts hesitative. (This, once again, underlines Yuan’s lack of formal education. He does not like to write, or he possible does not know how to write such a memorandum.) Bashfully, Yuan argues that it would not be “appropriate” if he wrote such a memorandum since he does not possess a higher scholarly title.
A eunuch is reading out an edict. The edict states that the new form of examinations is supposed to be divided into eight subjects, including foreign languages, astronomy, geography, chemistry et al. Meanwhile, Cixi and Zhang Zhidong are crying out of happiness since they have not seen each other for over twenty years. Li Lianying who is standing outside, is moved as well and keeps Qu Hongji, who wants to speak with Cixi, from entering the room. Cixi tells Zhang that she would love to be a normal old woman, but that she cannot. There is simply too much left to do. They also speak of the time when Cixi announced Zhang to be the third best in the palace examinations (tanhua). Cixi says that somehow she could not bear to abolish the official examinations.
Many scholars of the old style, who have not been admitted to the new-style examinations, are kneeling in front of the Imperial Academy in the blistering sun. They are in a hunger strike. One official (the same official who accepted Kang Youwei’s letter of “Ten thousand words” back in 1895) tries to convince the scholars that it would be better to end the strike. He begs them to have something to eat. (This again visually alludes to the Tian’anmen protests of 1989!).
Cixi is personally controlling the ongoing examination. When Qu Hongji informs Li Lianying of the scholars’ hunger strike in front of the Imperial Academy, Li promises to tell Cixi about it.
Yuan Shikai is on the train. He is looking out of the window and seems to be in low spirits. (Probably he is pondering the possible consequences that the abolition of the official examinations may bear.)
Some of the scholars who are in hunger strike fall over. They are carried away on stretches by Qing soldiers.
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