Talk:Empress Dowager Cixi

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Archives Talk:Empress Dowager Cixi/Archives 1

Contents 1 Hyphenation and splitting names 2 Clean-up 3 Final resting place section 4 Dowager Empress, Empress Dowager, Dowager Cixi 5 Quoting Sources 6 My Mar 30/07 Edits 7 Article Revert

[edit] Hyphenation and splitting names

Highshines, please stop splitting names and inserting hyphens. It is Cixi, not Ci Xi or Ci-xi. This is not fun any more.--Niohe 02:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

To continue on the above, do not change titles of emperors and other monarchs. Tongzhi Emperor is the conventional rendering, we should avoid Emperor Tong-zhi or other forms that Highshines and his/her socks have inserted in the text. For more information, see Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Names_of_emperors.--Niohe 17:51, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clean-up

I have added a clean-up tag to this article, which desperately needs some editing. This article is image-heavy, full of anecdotes and unnecessary minutiae regarding the empress dowager. I have deleted a number of almost identical images from the article. I hope that we can make this article readable again through concerted - and serious - efforts. Can I ask editors to add edit summaries to their edits, so we can keep track of changes.--Niohe 20:06, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree it needs a good going-though. I've got a few weeks available over the New Year, so I'm keen to give it a go. I'm not interested in changing the content of the article, though sometimes it does waffle on and it would be nice if it got more to the point. Feedback is more than welcome. If you disagree with anything I do, let me know and I'll undo it. Ka-ru 07:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Great!--Niohe 13:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I've started to tidy up sections, but the biggest change I've made was to move the sections on Names and on Historical Opinion to the end of the article. Having them in the middle seemed strange to me as they interrupted the flow of Cixi's biography. I have them now escentially as footnotes at the end of the article. I find the section on Names interesting, though at the moment it is quite long. User Ville1995 deleted the section on Historical Opinion, but I put it back, based on the fact that the article should mention briefly the alternate view, and its better to put it in a section at the end than have it continously pop up throughout the article. This way the main part of the article can remain as the current accepted view. Again, I'm keen to get some feedback to make sure what I'm doing is acceptable. (Its a lot more work than I realised it would be, and I haven't even started in the article proper yet!) - Oh, and there are no references throughout the entire article! I've added 2 to start it off, but I have a very limited library. It would be nice if we can get the details of the article fully referenced. Ka-ru 06:17, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it looks great thus far, thanks for doing this!--Niohe 14:31, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Small problem regarding one of the pictures. Highshines has labelled the image in "Historical Opinions" as a portrait by Katherine Carl. Highshines has uploaded the image as "public domain, artist's life plus 100 years". Katherine Carl died in New York in 1938, so it would appear this image is in violation of copyright and should be removed. I've left a note on Highshines talk page for an explaination. Ka-ru 12:01, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I would be very interested to hear how Highshines responds to that, if at all. He/she is not very communicative, as you may have noticed.--Niohe 14:31, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've got another question. I've just cleaned up the section called "Palace coup" and was looking at the next when I noticed an inconsitant name (there have been several). In one section, the palace coup is called "Xinyou" and in the next it is called "Yinyou". Which is correct? Ka-ru 00:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

That brings an end to my part of the clean-up. I hope it at least now reads more clearly and sounds more consistant. The next thing that would be worth doing is going back and referencing all the "facts". Ka-ru 00:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Final resting place section

The location of this section is to clearly set out the events of Cixi's life in a logical order. If follows her life, from entry into the Forbidden City until her death and burial. After that are 2 additional sections based on the names she was given (covering her whole life) and historical opinion, which is what has happened since her death. I see this as a logical way of setting out the article. If you disagree, we can discuss it here. Ka-ru 03:46, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dowager Empress, Empress Dowager, Dowager Cixi

OK, I went through this article a couple of times, changed "dowager empress" or "dowager" to the correct form "empress dowager" whenever appropriate and deleted unnecessary reiterations of "empress dowager". Now User:Highshines has started to resinsert different variants of the title again in a number of "minor" edits. I don't have time doing this all over again, please explain why you are doing this.--Niohe 00:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Cixi is an empress before she is a dowager. The word "dowager" is used to describe what kind of "empress" she is. Thus, "dowager" is an adjective-noun used before "empress" to form the phrase "Dowager Empress". How can you support your claim that "empress dowager" is the correct form? I have seen many articles about Cixi with the phrase "Dowager Empress":

• http://www.chinapage.com/biography/cixi.html
• http://www.jadedragon.com/archives/travel/china/folktales.html
• http://www.timelineindex.com/content/view/1855

etc... Highshines 01:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

None of these sources are scholarly resources, and at least one of them is written in questionable English. Is that the standard we should aim at?

Moreover, "dowager" is not an adjective, but a noun, which "empress" qualifies. I'm not even sure if "dowager empress" is correct English, but regardless of that, if you read scholarly works on Chinese history you will find that Cixi is referred to as "empress dowager" and nothing else. For instance, have a look at Immanuel Hsü's The Rise of Modern China, Jonathan Spence's The Search for Modern China or John K. Fairbank's China: A new history. Even Sue Fawn Chung, whom you quote, calls her empress dowager.--Niohe 01:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

But a question rises: should she be regarded as an empress or a dowager? Highshines 04:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your question means. Before the demise of the Xianfeng Emperor, she was of course one of his consorts. Following his death, she was elevated to one of the empresses dowager. But surely you knew that? I see no point in using the term "dowager" by itself, since that term is almost never used to refer to Cixi.

I hope this doesn't sound sarcastic, but I think you need to sit down and read some academic histories in English like the ones I quoted above, keeping a good English dictionary (like the OED) at hand. We have to stick to what is common English usage and not invent new terms all the time.--Niohe 05:07, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, you cannot call a box which contains pencils a "box-pencil". In the same way, you cannot call an empress whose husband has deceased an "empress-dowager". Instead, a box which contains pencils should be called a "pencil-box", and an empress whose husband has deceased should be called a "Dowager-Empress". Although you have mentions a lot of sources which named her "Empress Dowager", but it does not automatically deny that "Dowager Empress" is incorrect. It is still possible that both ways of naming her are correct. Please be aware of the fact that your way of naming her is not even grammatically correct. The examples I have provided were just hastily searched on the internet, but I still remember reading a lot of scholarly, native English-speaking writers who referred to her as "Dowager Empress" both in texts and photo captions, such as the book "The Last Emperor". Look at the Wikipedia article about the term Queen Dowager, and you will see that it says A Queen Dowager or Dowager Queen is a title or status generally held by the widow of a deceased king. That demonstrates that both ways of naming Cixi ("Empress Dowager" and "Dowager Empress") would be acceptable. And since the title "Dowager Empress" makes more grammatical sense, I still prefer to use the term "Dowager Empress" to name Cixi. Highshines 00:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Just my two cents here, and keep in mind I'm not a student of Chinese culture. However, Empress Dowager (aside from being the convention apparently uniformly adopted on Wikipedia, q.v. Empress Dowager and its related links - which might be a better place for this discussion, since Cixi wouldn't be the only one affected) would seem to be the correct form. To my admittedly Anglo-centric ears, it seems to follow the same pattern as most titles: the main title, and a qualifier of some sort. Examples being president pro tempore, queen consort, queen mother, minister plenipotentiary, heir presumptive, and perhaps most importantly due to its similarity, queen dowager. Now, the reverse order can sometimes be seen in some of those, but far and away, the standard English convention (and current Wikipedia standard) seems to favor the use of "Dowager Empress". --Xanzzibar 00:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

And a quick Google comparison: Empress Dowager gets 241,000 hits, while Dowager Empress gets only 74,900. I'll also add that both forms make grammatical sense - so arguments either way are somewhat futile. The heart of the issue here is usage and propriety. --Xanzzibar 01:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

"Dowager Empress Cixi" is a correct title. Can you deny it? Although it is somewhat less common, can you say it is wrong? There is no need to spend so much time reversing every single "Dowager Empress" into "Empress Dowager" like User:Niohe did. If "Empress Dowager" is grammatically correct, why don't we call a pencil-box a "box-pencil"? Also, this is an article about a Chinese empress. According to the Chinese language, the widow of a deceased emperor is named "太后", which matches the English translation of "Dowager Empress". Since both ways ("Empress Dowager" and "Dowager Empress") are acceptable according to English usage, why shouldn't we name Cixi a "Dowager Empress" since she is a Chinese empress? I'll name Cixi as "Dowager Empress" is no one presents a valid reason why it is unacceptable. Highshines 05:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Specious analogies aside, I didn't say it was right or wrong, or which form should be used. I was giving some thoughts on the matter, noting that the more common usage (something Wikipedia tries to use as a guideline for naming conventions) seems to support Empress Dowager, and that Empress Dowager seems more natural to me (just an observation - correctness not being a factor there). As far as translating "太后" - I have very little knowledge of Chinese transliteration, and can offer no meaningful comments in that regard.

However, consistency is important. If every other Wikipedia article uses "Empress Dowager", and this one inexpicably uses "Dowager Empress", it breaks uniformity. Although it's not always realized in every article, that sort of consistency is something that we're supposed to strive for, and is why I suggested the Empress Dowager article or another venue might be the better place for this discussion.

Some guidelines that might be helpful in hammering this out would be the general Chinese Manual of Style, and the Chinese history standards. Remember, before any changes of this sort are made (specifically, changes that will cause this article to use a different naming convention than any other Empress Dowager article), you should strive to build a Consensus --Xanzzibar 06:23, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

As a side note, please try to think out your thoughts ahead of time. It can be difficult to make a cogent reply when you keep rapidly updating your response in bits and pieces, and it leads to edit conflicts (which have caused me twice now to accidentally truncate your responses). There's no rush, so just take the time to get all your thoughts together. --Xanzzibar 06:27, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Can you show me which articles use "Empress Dowager"? We could just establish a consistency among Chinese royalty. Highshines 06:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The Empress Dowager and Grand Empress Dowager articles link to many, but a site-specific Google search would probably be more useful to you. If you're interested in effecting any large changes, the Chinese Manual of Style links from my previous post would be good places to discuss them and build a consensus. --Xanzzibar 06:51, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Whether both "dowager empress" and "empress dowager" are correct is in many respects not relevant to this discussion. What we have, within the article, is inconsistancy in the name. One should be chosen and we should stick to it. It serves no purpose to have both, other than to confuse the reader. The 3 books I have handy all use the term "empress dowager" (Keith Laidler, Bamber Gascoigne and Sterling Seagrave), and none of them use "dowager empress". This article is titled "Empress Dowager Cixi", and there is an article on Empress Dowager which in no place mentions an alternate title of "Dowager Empress". All other Empress Dowagers featured in Wikipedia are given the title "Empress Dowager", none are given the title "dowager empress".

So while "dowager empress" may be grammatically correct, and a valid form of the translation from Chinese, it is NOT the English literature standard, nor the Wikipedia standard. The whole point of having standards is to allow readers to get a consistant message from the articles. If you believe we should completely remove "Empress Dowager" and replace it with "Dowager Empress", you will need a better argument than "since both ways are acceptable according to English usage, why shouldn't we name Cixi a "Dowager Empress" since she is a Chinese empress". She is not a Chinese empress, she is the "Empress Dowager Cixi" according to ENGLISH literature and Wikipedia standards. If you want to change the standard, perhaps you should raise the topic with the Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_China. Until then, I'll continue to revert the article to the standard naming convention. Ka-ru 13:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Added a request to the Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_China page for discussion on the naming standards. We should arrive at a standard and stick to it. The request I added to the Project China page is as follows:

Would like a little help resolving an issue on the naming standards for "Empress Dowager". One particular editor insists that the term "Dowager Empress" is just as valid as "Empress Dowager", and regularly changes any reference to the name of Empress Dowager Cixi to "Dowager Empress Cixi". It would be good to get some feedback on whether we should: a) leave the references as "Empress Dowager" as seems to be the standard both in English literature and in Wikipedia, b) decide to change to "Dowager Empress" and change all the relevant Wikipedia articles and names, or c) allow this one article on "Cixi" to have a mix of different terms, while other related articles continue to use "Empress Dowager". Ka-ru 14:15, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Not only did I say that the term "Dowager Empress" is just as valid as "Empress Dowager", in the grammatical sense, "Dowager Empress" is even more valid than "Empress Dowager". Highshines 16:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I cannot either refute or confirm your claim, as I simply do not know enough about it. You may very well be correct, but the fact still remains that "Dowager Empress", even if it is "more correct", is not the common usage in English texts nor is it in Wikipedia. What we need to do is get a common agreement on what should be the common usage on Wikipedia. If we switch to "Dowager Empress", we will have to go through all of the other articles and change them as well. I'm assuming they were originally written as "Empress Dowager" for a good reason, and the fact that the books I have on the topic all use "Empress Dowager" seem to confirm this. What I want to do is get several opinions from people who do know more about it, then we can make an informed decision, rather than just change ahead on what might be the wrong path. Let's leave the article as is until we get some sort of agreement. Ka-ru 17:02, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

There is absolutely no doubt that empress dowager is the most common term. I just searched JSTOR for the exact phrases "empress dowager" and "dowager empress," and located 691 scholarly articles using the former and 269 for the latter. Furthermore, whereas most of the articles using "empress dowager" almost all are about Cixi, the articles using the term "dowager empress" covered a wide range of other topics, such as Russian czars and Greek aristocrats. I hope this can end the discussion which term is the most common one.--Niohe 18:35, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

We all know that "Empress Dowager" is more common than "Dowager Empress". There's no need to keep saying that. My discussion is not which term is more common. My argument is that the term Dowager Empress possesses a more correct grammar and a greater relevance to the materials introduced. If it is decided that all "Empress Dowager" be changed to "Dowager Empress" to achieve uniformity and consistency, I can perform this work all by myself. You don't have to worry about performing this tedious work. Highshines 19:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't Wikipedia place correctness above commonness? If it places commonness above correctness, what kind of encyclopedia is it? Highshines 19:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

"Empress dowager" is a discrete phrase. It has no grammar of its own, so it cannot be grammatically correct or incorrect.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 20:28, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

To build on the above, the online dictionary, dictionary.com, states "dowager" as meaning "a woman who holds some title or property from her deceased husband, esp. the widow of a king, duke, etc. (often used as an additional title to differentiate her from the wife of the present king, duke, etc.): a queen dowager; an empress dowager." This dictonary cites several grammatical sources, and clearly states the phrase "Empress Dowager". So the term "Dowager" is added to the end of the term "Queen" or "Emperess" to differentiate the Dowager from the current Queen or Empress. So I think we can dispense with this whole "more grammatically correct" argument, as it is clearly not a correct argument.

So, in view of the fact that:

a) the more common usage is "Empress Dowager",

b) this is a noun phrase and therefore has no grammar of its own,

c) dictionary sources use the phrase "Empress Dowager",

d) academic study in this area uses the term "Empress Dowager"

...then there really is no argument left. the correct term to use, and the one that has already been established by Wikipedia (and therefore conforming with other academic writings) is "Empress Dowager". Ka-ru 20:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quoting Sources

From what I understand, Wikipedia standards require the quoting of sources (no original research allowed). Apart from the 3 or so references I added recently, this article has none at all. Technically speaking, the whole article could be legitimately removed, but that, of course, would be a bit silly. It would be nice if we could get some more references to actual documents so this article can become more stable and have a good NPOV. Any help in marking parts of the article requiring reference, or adding of references, would be appreciated. Ka-ru 16:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Besides lacking verified sources, it often reads like a poorly written high school text book, occupying itself often with minute and irreleveant personal gaffes, often seeming to take a "Let them eat cake!" attitude towards the Empress, and ignoring the larger systemic forces that allowed for the Empress to despose the Emperor, and attempt (poorly might I add) to buffer China from invasion with neo-confucian ideals, as opposed to concrete military and technological might. SiberioS 09:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My Mar 30/07 Edits

• I removed the statement "Empress Dowager Cixi now feared that Prince Gong, having become very powerful himself as a result of the coup, would become a "Second Sushun" since it was not referenced and there is no evidence in Edward Behr's book of this - she easily had him removed from power through manipulation when she wanted to.
• Ci'an did not spend any time ruling according to Behr, and deferred entirely to Cixi, so I changed the "Co-Regency" section.
• Behr describes the Palace Coup somewhat differently so I changed it as such, since the previous entry had no references. P. Moore 03:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Good work adding references. Thanks. If you see something that is unreferenced and you have referenced information, be bold!. The only thing to keep in mind with this particular topic is that there are a lot of varying resources that often contradict each other. Some sources claim she was nothing short of a living monster, and others that she was the victim of a rumour and smear campaign to paint her as a monster as a result of confuscion distrust of women in power and as a part of the whole general era of attempted reform and the fall of the emperial system. Its worth, if you can, trying to check more than one source. Just because one book doesn't mention something, it doesn't mean its not mentioned in another. This, of course, brings us back to the whole referencing thing. If you see something that contradicts your book and its unreferenced, change it and add your reference. If you see something that looks odd to you based on your book, add a "citation required" tag. I might try and dig up my books again and get back to referencing this article as well. There's still a lot of work to be done to bring it up to scratch. Ka-ru 04:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article Revert

I've reverted the updates by Heseri based on 2 reasons, firstly they completely reversed the previous updates by P. Moore, including the removal of sourced information to be replaced with the previous unsourced information, and secondly it appears that Heseri is a sock-puppet of the now permanently banned Highshines, as a quick look at Heseri's Wiki contribution shows vandalism to certain user-pages who enacted his ban, and a continuation of continually changing image sizes that was a hallmark of Highsines. Any further replacement of sourced quotes for unsource, or endless messing around with image sizes for no appartent reason will be reverted. Ka-ru 01:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)