Runqi Gobulo - China's Last Royal

The Odyssey of a Chinese Imperial Favourite [Link]

BEIJING— People come from all over to Runqi Gobulo's small clinic in a spartan concrete apartment block here. The poorly lighted stairwell, gloomy and forbidding, does nothing to dampen their hope that he can help them.

"What takes years and surgery to cure, I can cure in one month," boasted the 88-year-old, who uses traditional Chinese medicine to treat gynecological diseases and nervous disorders. "But I don't dare advertise. I have so many patients already."

Although he is a respected physician, Runqi's path to medicine was circuitous. He was 10 years old when his only sister, Wan Rong, was betrothed to the last Qing emperor, Pu Yi.

Six months before the wedding, the 17-year-old monarch sent an entourage of eunuchs and ladies-in-waiting to the palatial courtyard of the Gobulo clan's house on Maoer Lane to prepare his fiancée for her new position. "They taught her how to bow and behave with the emperor," Runqi said. "She rebelled. She was fed up with the lessons, unhappy about marrying someone she had never met before."

But she went ahead with the marriage, and in December 1922 was taken behind the high crenellated walls of the Forbidden City. It was the last court ceremony at the imperial residence.

Sitting in his small, simply furnished apartment eight decades later, the former duke is worlds away from his aristocratic upbringing. He was raised with the tradition that his family would always be linked to the imperial Aisingioro family. His great-grandfather was a border guard of Inner Mongolia's Daur minority, who had won battles for the Qing emperors. As a reward he was given land and titles. Four generations of Gobulos had married sisters of the Manchu emperor. Runqi himself would later marry Pu Yi's younger sister, Yunying.

Through his sister's marriage, Runqi was introduced early on to the mysterious and cloistered life of Chinese emperors. He was often taken out of school to keep the newlyweds company. His affable personality won the heart of the boy-emperor. "Pu Yi would often phone to ask my mother if I could come to visit. She was angry that I was missing school, because for each visit I would stay one or two months in the Forbidden City. But he would phone so often she couldn't refuse," he said with a chuckle.

The carefree lifestyle would not last long. The country was being torn apart. As Chinese society went through tumultuous change, Pu Yi realized his days in the Imperial City were numbered. He had abdicated during the 1911 Nationalist revolution but was allowed to stay in the palace and be educated in modern-day subjects. But the former emperor longed to escape his sheltered life, Runqi said. He wanted to study in Britain, the only foreign country he knew well, thanks to the teachings of his private tutor, the Scotsman Reginald Johnston.

Pu Yi's premonitions came true in 1924. He was expelled from the Forbidden City his ancestors had triumphantly entered nearly 300 years before. He took refuge in a mansion in the Japanese concession in the neighboring city of Tianjin.

Runqi and the court followed. For a few more years they continued a life of luxury and recreation as private citizens. The emperor became known in the international community as Mr. Henry Pu Yi and Runqi as Jack Gobulo. But they became restless. By 1928 they felt they had to do something to change China. They began to dream of the restoration of the Qing dynasty. "We were thinking very simply when we spoke of bringing back the Qing. But we realized we needed an army to do so," Runqi said.

They decided they would have to go overseas for military training. Again they thought of Britain, but were discouraged by their families from going so far away. Pu Yi decided his younger brother, Pu Jie, and Runqi would instead go to Japan to be educated. "It ends up we took the wrong road," said Runqi, grimacing at the cost of that mistake.

He would spend the next 16 years in Japan studying law and military tactics. It was not an unpleasant stay. They were treated as royal guests. And the sojourn would have a lasting effect. His Japanese is still as good as his Chinese.

When he returned in 1944, Runqi joined Pu Yi's "Manchukuo," the puppet government set up by the Japanese in northeastern China. Japan's defeat a year later ended that "restoration" and Pu Yi and other members of the Manchu court, including Runqi, were arrested by Soviet troops.

They were taken to a camp in the northeastern city of Khabarovsk where they would stay for the next five years. While the former monarch was treated more leniently, Runqi was later sent to a Soviet labor camp where many inmates died of starvation. When he was finally repatriated, Runqi found China had vastly changed.

The Communists under Mao had come to power a year earlier and Wan Rong, already on the verge of a nervous breakdown when they were arrested, had died. Runqi's father had also died, while in detention. The Gobulos' 100-room courtyard home, which had been confiscated under the previous Kuomintang government, was returned. But Runqi would have to wait another seven years in a "war-criminal detention center" before being reunited with his family.

In 1957 Runqi was finally released. He was 45. His mother had died a year earlier and much of the home on Maoer Lane had been sold off. Runqi was assigned a job at menial labor. But his imperial background insured that he was among the first to be attacked as a counter-revolutionary when the Cultural Revolution began in 1966. Pu Yi died a year later of cancer. What remained of the Gobulo clan's residence was again taken away, and would never be returned. Today it houses a retired official of the Air Ministry.

Runqi toiled in the countryside for nearly a decade, but he was determined to survive. He began to work at perfecting the acupuncture skills he had learned in Japan and became a traveling medic. He eventually earned his release.

After the Cultural Revolution, Runqi was assigned to work in the Institute of Legal Research in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Since retiring in 1987 he has devoted himself completely to his medical practice.

Now he yearns for the day when his monthly income of 2,000 yuan ($250) will allow him to set up a clinic outside his home. And he rarely returns to the Forbidden City, today China's largest museum. "I have no nostalgia for that period," he said. "Maybe it's because I feel like I am now an ordinary citizen. But my thinking also changed. For a while I wanted to reinstate the Qing dynasty, but now I know it was wrong to think like that. It was the thinking of kids."

By Mia Turner ( Published: February 8, 2000 )

Last Aristocrat

An Interview with Runqi Gobulo [Link]

Q : Did you ever get into trouble when you were playing in the Forbidden City?

RG : Not really. Due to my position I felt very powerful; many people had to listen to me so my actions were usually unreported. For instance, I liked climbing onto the roofs. I would tie one end of the rope to myself and the other end to a eunuch, and then I would climb on one side of the roof and the eunuch would be on the other side.

For a leader in the 21st century who still hacks back to aristocracy just so to justify and cement his position and authority is epic !

For everything else there is still room for discussion but NO aristocracy !