A family's ties with the Last Emperor

THE burglars may not have realised it when they broke into the flat in Yau Ma Tei last week, but they were raiding the home of royalty. The thieves took two scrolls of Qing Dynasty Imperial Decrees and other valuables worth a total of $340,000, belonging to Aixinjueluo Yue-hung, a grand niece of Pu Yi, the last emperor of China. She is not the only surviving Aixinjueluo descendant living in Hongkong. Painter Aixinjueluo Yu-an, professionally known as Oi San Man-ka, is now a contract artist with Chinese Arts and Crafts in Tsim Sha Tsui where she demonstrates her work in the department store's gallery every afternoon. Their links with emperor Pu Yi can be traced back along the enormous Aixinjueluo family tree which stretches out to at least five different branches. Neither woman talked to the emperor himself, although both met him. It was considered improper and rude to speak to older members of the family. But to Yu-an he was ''a very pleasant and kind '' man. Yue-hung was too young to remember what he looked like. Aixinjueluo is the Manchurian surname designated to descendants of all Qing Dynasty Emperors including Pu Yi (1906-1967), who succeeded to the throne at the age of three, when his uncle, the Kuang-hsu emperor, died in 1908. He reigned under a regency for three years and in 1912, in response to the Republican Revolution of the previous year, he was forced to abdicate, ending the 267-year Qing rule in China and the 2,000-year-old imperial system. He story was told in The Last Emperor starring John Lone and Peter O'Toole. Yu-an's father, Pu Song-chuang, is a cousin of Pu Yi, who died childless, as was Yue-hung's grandfather, Pu Wei. Both women are therefore related to the emperor's 86-year-old younger brother, Pu Jie, who is now Beijing's last imperial survivor. It was the Cultural Revolution in 1966 which finally destroyed the Aixinjueluo family and forced many of its members to change their names and flee from China for fear of persecution. Today, no one is sure exactly how many Aixinjueluos have survived, not even among descendants themselves. Both Yu-an and Yue-hung are now living in the territory but they scarcely knew of each other's existence. Born in 1943, Yu-an came to Hongkong six months ago with her husband simply because she wanted a change in her life. Brought up and educated in Beijing, the modest and well spoken artist first became a nurse after graduating from university and later became a matron and eventually a doctor. But owing to her poor health, Yu-an retired from her career at the hospital five years ago and has since devoted her time to painting. She said being a royal descendent has never affected her life. She was greatly influenced by her father who was a modern thinker. ''I have always looked at myself as an artist rather than a royal descendant,'' Yu-an said. ''My father was a university professor and had always supported himself and his family by his own means. He never regarded himself as a royal member.'' The history of the family was seldom discussed when she was young. ''I grew up in the new China, so my family seldom talked about the past, '' Yu-an said. ''Pu Yi was still being held in prison in northeast China when I was young, so our family background was never discussed. He was not released until 1959.'' However, she admitted that their family name does entitle them to certain privileges. ''The government department in charge of the welfare of ethnic groups in China has always sent us small gifts during festivals.'' And Zhou Enlai had helped some of their family members, during his premiership, to obtain posts in the government, she said. Her brother Yu-ting became chief secretary of the Chinese Painting Research Institute in Beijing. Yu-an chose Hongkong because the city is inherently Chinese and it will be part of China soon. She found it easy to communicate with people here. ''Besides,'' said the mother of two grown-up daughters, ''if I don't like the place, I could always go back to Beijing.'' Yue-hung, on the other hand, is less impressed with the territory, especially after the burglary at her friend's flat where she was staying. ''A burglary like that can only happen in Hongkong,'' she said. It was hard to believe the 30-year-old businesswoman, who wears jeans, jacket and a trendy rucksack, is the great great grand daughter of Prince Kung. She is now living in Hongkong and commutes to Shanghai frequently where she runs a boutique. The only thing which would give her away would be her facial features, which are typically Northern, and her fair complexion. ''I think there is some resemblance in my features [to the Aixinjueluos],'' she said. Yue-hung fled to Canada when she was only three with her mother during the Culture Revolution. ''If I stayed, I probably would be dead now. Our family was a target for the Red Army during the revolution,'' she said. ''My father died very young, he did not even reach 30, and my brother died during the revolution too. My father died of a broken heart.'' A reminder of her father, a Rolex antique watch he gave to her, was stolen in the burglary. Yue-hung has little of the typical Chinese reserve. She talks about her life with great frankness, a characteristic which she attributed to her western upbringing, which also explains her fluent English. But she added that her great great grandfather, Prince Kung, was also regarded as a ''westernised'' liberal in his time. Prince Kung (1833-1898) was a leading official in the closing years of the Qing Dynasty, who tried to restore government moral and effect a rapprochement with the West. ''Prince Kung was very westernised. It was he who brought in the idea of the railway and telephone to China,'' she said. ''He drank whisky and brandy out of crystal glass and he spoke English. He was also very intrigued by astrology.'' But despite her western outlook, deep down Yue-hung is Chinese and that is why she came to Hongkong in 1982 after she graduated from university in Canada. ''I didn't like working in Canada because China is my root,'' she said. Since her return, Yue-hung has not used her royal name to promote either herself or her business. It was only the recent news coverage which disclosed her identity. ''I don't need to use my name for my business. I don't want any advertising, I don't need that. But I'll keep my last name because I inherited it,'' she said. ''And one thing for sure, I am not selling Qing Dynasty royal garments,'' she joked. ''But you never know.''