Believe it or not, I could have been a lord.
Well, that is, if a couple of things had been different: like my ancestors deciding to stay on in the land of origin instead of coming to Southeast Asia; or if Europeans hadn't colonized Asiatic lands and thereby removing the ruling aristocracies and putting in place their own governors and magistrates etc; or if the entire world had somehow been frozen in time in the 16th century.
I'm sure I'm not the only one with a family story like that: there must be dozens of Chinese, Malay, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese etc families that have had a former aristocratic past, with forefathers being former dukes, maharajahs, barons and governors before events in history changed all that.
My own great great great...grandfather, for instance, was a Manchurian bannerman and had been a duke or something like that during the Qing dynasty, and it was another of my great forefathers who decided to take up the office of an ambassador of sorts in Nanyang (S.E. Asia), and thereafter we all became localised Peranakans following inter-marriages generations after. Anyway, the deal is that had the family remained in China, I would still be using the original Manchurian surname (no, it isn't Aisin-Gioro, although it would be interesting if it was).
Of course, things were not to be, and certainly I wasn't destined to remain royalty, for we all knew what happened through the course of history, and really, in some moments of daydreaming, I really wonder how different life could have been if history took on a different turn: lavish palaces with servants waiting on me, not having to work a day in my life and live off the estates that we would have owned...
No, I didn't say life would necessarily be better that way. For one, I can't imagine people prostrating themselves before me, as how they would have to pay respects to the emperor or the aristocrats; and neither do I agree with some of the more brutal practices of my Manchu forefathers, like binding the feet of women, for instance.
But you have to admit there's something alluring about the idea that you could have been royalty and enjoyed the privileges of your status, however unfair or unjust the social system may have been.
Well, certainly daydreams are one thing, reality is another. Aristocrat or not, in today's terms, it all doesn't matter because even a lord is at the mercy of technological advances and the laws of economics.
It was a nice revelation of the family history anyway.
Well, that is, if a couple of things had been different: like my ancestors deciding to stay on in the land of origin instead of coming to Southeast Asia; or if Europeans hadn't colonized Asiatic lands and thereby removing the ruling aristocracies and putting in place their own governors and magistrates etc; or if the entire world had somehow been frozen in time in the 16th century.
I'm sure I'm not the only one with a family story like that: there must be dozens of Chinese, Malay, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese etc families that have had a former aristocratic past, with forefathers being former dukes, maharajahs, barons and governors before events in history changed all that.
My own great great great...grandfather, for instance, was a Manchurian bannerman and had been a duke or something like that during the Qing dynasty, and it was another of my great forefathers who decided to take up the office of an ambassador of sorts in Nanyang (S.E. Asia), and thereafter we all became localised Peranakans following inter-marriages generations after. Anyway, the deal is that had the family remained in China, I would still be using the original Manchurian surname (no, it isn't Aisin-Gioro, although it would be interesting if it was).
Of course, things were not to be, and certainly I wasn't destined to remain royalty, for we all knew what happened through the course of history, and really, in some moments of daydreaming, I really wonder how different life could have been if history took on a different turn: lavish palaces with servants waiting on me, not having to work a day in my life and live off the estates that we would have owned...
No, I didn't say life would necessarily be better that way. For one, I can't imagine people prostrating themselves before me, as how they would have to pay respects to the emperor or the aristocrats; and neither do I agree with some of the more brutal practices of my Manchu forefathers, like binding the feet of women, for instance.
But you have to admit there's something alluring about the idea that you could have been royalty and enjoyed the privileges of your status, however unfair or unjust the social system may have been.
Well, certainly daydreams are one thing, reality is another. Aristocrat or not, in today's terms, it all doesn't matter because even a lord is at the mercy of technological advances and the laws of economics.
It was a nice revelation of the family history anyway.
