152 |

Coming in April No. 64, Issue 3/2009: The Green Edition

Hul

ton

Arc

hive

/Get

ty Im

ages

ICON

text FERINA NATASYA ABDUL AZIZ

Aisin-Gioro Puyi – The child emperor of China Aisin-Gioro Puyi was only three when he became emperor in December 1908. At an age where most children still need to be put to bed, Puyi had people kowtowing and lowering their heads in his presence. At the time of his birth, China fell under the control of foreign powers that led to a decline of the Qing Dynasty. The de facto ruler, Empress Dowager Cixi then appointed him emperor on her deathbed. Being appointed the Son of Heaven at such a young age, Puyi never enjoyed a normal childhood or upbringing. In 1911, a nationalist revolution overthrew the Manchu Qing government, forcing both Puyi and his regent father to step down. Puyi and his imperial court were allowed to remain in the northern half of the Forbidden City, but 12 years later, he was ejected from his prison palace by an ambitious warlord. Puyi fl ed to Tianjin, where he lived an exiled but extravagant life of a playboy. In 1934, Puyi was offi cially crowned by the Japanese as the emperor of Manchukuo, a puppet state of Imperial Japan. But when Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong came to power after the Second World War, Puyi was sent to a Fushun War Criminals Management Centre in Liaoning province, where he underwent ‘thought reform’ for an entire decade. In 1959, the 54-year-old Puyi fi nally received a special pardon from Mao Zedong, and re-entered society as a lowly private citizen. A forgotten icon of his faded dynasty, Puyi died in 1967 as a gardener assigned to the Beijing Botanical Gardens. AG

Icon KHL.indd 152Icon KHL.indd 152 2/13/09 2:02:44 PM2/13/09 2:02:44 PM