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Jasper Becker

The Aisin Gioro Manchu imperial family tree is an immense metre-thick tome that still lies wrapped in yellow silk inside a windowless vault in the Forbidden City.

Blowing the dust off the top, Chen Yiyun, a librarian at the First Historical Archives, said more Manchus were coming in to look up their relatives.

'They want to know who they are,' she said while walking a visitor around the shelves stacked with documents printed in Chinese and Manchu on special imperial paper.

The Manchu imperial family tree is just one leaf in the forest of 14 million documents left behind by the race of nomadic herdsmen and hunters who crossed the Great Wall in 1644 to create one of history's greatest empires.

With the collapse of that empire, the Manchus largely blended into the background. Their presence is now mainly seen in official statistics, and their language is forgotten among all but a select few.

The flowing script used in every document of importance is now as dead a language as ancient Egyptian. At the height of the Qing empire, scholars had to pass imperial examinations in Manchu if they wished to be officials. Everything the emperor did or said was recorded and stored religiously in gold-plated dragon-embossed trunks.

Now the world probably has more scholars who can read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics than the Manchu alphabet.

'Only about 10 archivists can read Manchu, and as far as I know only a few elderly Manchus left in San Jiazhi village in Heihe town, on the border with Russia, can still speak it,' said Wang Zhonghan, a retired history professor who has mastered the language. He was one of 20 students commissioned to study the language by late premier Zhou Enlai, by which time he said China was down to three Manchu-language speakers.

Another expert, Professor Dai Yi, said several institutes now had departments to study Manchu, still important because all military documents including treaties used to be solely composed in the language. Key documents such as border treaties with Russia were only recorded in Manchu, he said.

'Even [last emperor] Pu Yi himself could neither speak nor read Manchu,' Professor Wang said.

When Pu Yi dissolved the Qing dynasty in the 1911 revolution, the Manchu population was officially recorded at 2.1 million, of whom about 400,000 lived in Beijing, making it largely a Manchu city.

'The Beijing dialect derives from Manchu and many things and many towns in China still carry Manchu names,' Professor Wang said.

Modern interest in ancient Chinese arts and crafts is partly a revival of traditional Manchu tastes. Many traditional Chinese styles are actually Manchu - such as the qipao  dress, the courtyard house with its grey walls and heavy carved wooden chairs.

Few Han Chinese were permitted to live in the capital then. The Forbidden City, reserved for the emperor, was surrounded by the Imperial City and enclosed by the Inner City, which was dominated by the Manchu conquerors and their Mongol and Chinese adherents.

Even by the time Westerners arrived, Manchus and Mongols were so numerous that the Inner City was still referred to as the 'Tartar City'. By the end of the 19th century, Beijing probably had a population within its walls of a million and at least 600,000 were Manchu or Mongol. Professor Dai believes that at the peak there were 800,000.

Professor Wang said: 'After the [1911] revolution, Manchus were afraid of being registered. Only about 100,000 recorded themselves as Manchus in the household registration book.'

Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek described the overthrow of the Qing dynasty as 'avenging a national humiliation'. Manchus found it hard to obtain any official posts under the new regime.

'The Nationalists treated us badly, but the new government treated us well after 1949,' recalled Pu Ren, the last surviving brother of Pu Yi. 'The new government offered privileges to the Manchu nationality.'

The communists divided the population into national minorities, offering them special access to jobs and university places. Anyone who could show one of their parents or grandparents was a Manchu could register.

The recorded Manchu population fell again during the Cultural Revolution when Manchus were targeted as members of the former ruling class. Since the 1980s it has shot up and reached 10 million, only slightly less than the Tibetans. There are supposedly five million in Liaoning province alone.

'Many Han people, even if their ancestors had just worked for the Manchus, have registered,' said Professor Wang. Many want to register as Manchus to obtain reserved university places or to have more than one child.

The only identifiable group of true Manchus remains the many branches of the original Aisin Gioro clan.

'There's a new pride in our history. That's why many are changing back our name from Jin to Aisin Gioro,' said Jin Shisheng, one of the younger members, now a junior Communist Party official dealing with Taiwan.

Jin Shisheng uses two name cards, one with the Chinese version of his name and another with his Manchu name sounded out using Chinese characters. Like some others, Mr Jin eventually admits he is not actually a real descendant but was honoured by the family and given its name to use.

Aisin Gioro member Zhao Rui, a retired cadre, admits that the family has not yet recovered from humiliations inflicted during the Cultural Revolution.

'Many of my family have been laid off. Most of the younger generation work as drivers, workers or teachers,' he said. 'I don't see much of a bright future for them.'

He makes a living now from calligraphy, as does Pu Ziwei, the daughter of Pu Zong, now 85, who is a direct descendant of the Emperor Daoguang, who lost the Opium Wars and ceded Hong Kong to Britain. Pu Ziwei is well regarded as a painter and runs a gallery in Beijing, but she also explains how the family's fortunes have yet to improve as so many missed out on an education.

When she was 10 she was sent to the countryside with her father to be re-educated by peasants. 'My father [Pu Zong] was sent to work cleaning toilets. I studied in primary school but all I knew was how to play,' she said. Unlike many, her father refused to change their family name to hide their origins.

Persecuted as a class enemy, Pu Ziwei never finished her education. When reforms started and her family was allowed to return to Tianjin, she was unemployable. While the older members were given honorary posts in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the younger generation had to find jobs.

Her calligraphy is sought after by souvenir hunters. By developing her skills as a traditional painter, she has staged exhibitions all over the world and achieved a certain eminence.

Pu Ziwei now lives modestly in a standard apartment block with her father.

'It is true I would be a princess if we still lived in the Qing dynasty, but I don't care much about money or fame,' she said.



Manchus emerging from shadow of obscurity