I
admire our custom and will not change it as long as I live. You see our
people are taught to be polite from their earliest childhood, and just
look back at the oldest teachings and compare them with the new. People
seem to like the latter the best. I mean that the new idea is to be
Christians, to chop up their Ancestral Tablets and burn them. I know
many families here who have broken up because of the missionaries, who
are always influencing the young people to believe their religion. Now
I tell you why I feel uneasy about this audience is because we are too
polite to refuse anyone who asks any favors in person. The foreigners
don't seem to understand that. I'll tell you what I will do. Whenever
they ask me anything, I'll simply tell them that I am not my own boss,
but have to consult with my Ministers; that although I am the Empress
Dowager of China, I must also obey the law. To tell the truth, I like
Madame Uchida (wife of the Japanese Minister to Peking) very much. She
is always very nice and doesn't ask any silly questions. Of course the
Japanese are very much like ourselves, not at all forward. Last year,
before you came to the Court, a missionary lady came with Mrs. Conger,
and suggested that I should establish a school for girls at the Palace.
I did not like to offend her, and said that I would take it into
consideration. Now, just imagine it for a moment. Wouldn't it be foolish
to have a school at the Palace; besides, where am I going to get so
many girls to study? I have enough to do as it is. I don't want all the
children of the Imperial family studying at my Palace."

Her Majesty laughed while she was telling us this, and everyone else
laughed, too. She said: "I am sure you will laugh. Mrs. Conger is a
very nice lady. America is always very friendly towards China, and I
appreciate their nice behavior at the Palace during the twenty-sixth
year of Kwang Hsu (1900), but I cannot say that I love the missionaries,
too. Li Lien Ying told me that these missionaries here give the Chinese
a certain medicine, and that after that they wish to become Christians,
and then they would pretend to tell the Chinese to think it over very
carefully, for they would never force anyone to believe their religion
against their own will. Missionaries also take the poor Chinese children
and gouge their eyes out, and use them as a kind of medicine." I told
her that that was not true; that I had met a great many missionaries,
and that