At the heart of her investigation is a nearly forgotten garden on the campus of Peking University (Beida), once the personal sanctuary of a Manchu prince during the Qing dynasty. In 1860, a punitive expedition of British forces under the command of Lord Elgin looted the Summer Palace and incinerated the grounds, including the Singing Crane Garden. The owner of the garden, Prince Yihuan, chose to leave it in ruins. Thereafter, he wrote dark poems of grief centered on the ravaged landscape. One century later, during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), the Singing Crane Garden became the site of trauma again, when it was used as the staging ground for denouncing university professors as counter-revolutionaries. Recently, this same piece of land underwent another makeover, becoming the site of the Arthur Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology. The place itself bears little trace of its turbulent history. Schwarcz draws on personal interviews and literary sources to restore an authentic past to a place where memories have been effaced. |
