China’s Emperor is Tanned, Rested and Ready

Posted on 07. Apr, 2010 by Paul Sochaczewski in Articles, Personal essays

Wannabe Chinese Emperor Elmer claims to be a direct descendant of the Ming Emperors. Shown is Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian, the 17th and last emperor of the Ming dynasty (r. 1627-1644) as well as the last ethnic Han to rule over China before the Manchu Qing (Ching) conquest. Emperor Elmer did not allow me to take his photograph, so it is impossible to ascertain whether he bears a family likeness with Emperor Zhu Youjian.

China’s Emperor is Tanned, Rested and Ready
Homeless Hawaiian heir to the throne seeks financial support to restore Ming Dynasty greatness.

HONOLULU, Hawai’i

I had naively thought that China’s 2,000 year old imperial system ended when 12-year-old Aisin-Gioro “Henry” Puyi, the last emperor, was overthrown in 1912.

“Not so,” declared Elmer. “I’m the last emperor.”

I met the man I’ll call Elmer by chance. He stood next to me in front of the visitors’ board at the East-West Center in Honolulu. “There are some Chinese visiting,” he observed sotto vocce, as if he was speaking in Spy vs Spy code.

It was the early 1990s and I was teaching creative writing at the University of Hawai’i, spending my free time exploring the states’ impressive cultural and biological diversity. We began to talk. Elmer was suspicious at first. He is Chinese and royal. I am Anglo and common.

Elmer is obviously an emperor of the people. Plain gray T-shirt. Dirty jeans. Flip-flops. Black hair, speckled gray, pulled into a pony-tail. His briefcase was a folded piece of cardboard, from which he extracted a complicated genealogy, which links him directly and definitively, he explained, to the 17th-century Chou dynasty as well as to Zhou Enlai, Sun Yat-sen, and Chiang Kai-shek.

But what about Prince Aisin Gioro Puyi? I asked, referring to the younger brother of Henry Puyi, the last emperor whose life was featured in Bertolucci’s film.

“Puyi was Ching dynasty. Manchurians. Invaders. My family are true Han Chinese,” Emperor Elmer said.

His genealogy, printed on the back of his CV, told a contorted tale of usurped emperors and invaders, and of exiled royalty who emigrated to Hawai’i. Shaky about Chinese family trees, I asked around and found that Elmer has been a bit, er, creative, with his historical narrative. One University of Hawai’i professor thought that the emperor “learned his history from a fortune cookie.”

But hey, call me a dreamer. What if… I invited Elmer for lunch, figuring that, just in case he was who he said he was, it couldn’t hurt to be pals with the Big Guy.

Lunch stuck to cultural stereotypes. Over chop suey (Elmer) and a hamburger (me), I learned Elmer wasn’t too clear about his strategy for gaining the throne. He wants to visit China, for the first time, to see his people. “Can you find funding for me?” he asks. He wants to bring Western ideas to the Middle Kingdom, particularly the religion of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Chinese are Semites,” he explains obliquely. “Direct descendants of Noah.”

I suggest it might be useful for American-born Elmer to learn a few phrases of Mandarin. “Uh?,” the emperor-to-be grunts, as if a new idea is like a strange food he has to ingest.

He bridles at the suggestion that he also might brush up a bit on Chinese politics and customs. He gets edgy. I’ve overstepped his royal space.

I ask him, respectfully, I hope, what qualifications he has to lead 1.4 billion people.

Elmer waves the genealogy. He went to college for four years but left before getting a degree, muttering “It was a fake sexual harassment case.” He adds: “I’m stable, level headed. Have good common sense. I hope it’s tough for someone to take advantage of me.”

He doesn’t think that China is ready for a democratic movement. What about the current generation of Chinese leaders? “They’re doing the best they can.”

“President [George H.W.] Bush had about the right kind of China policy,” he adds. But he’s down on Henry Kissinger. Elmer points out that he once handed a letter to Kissinger, who was visiting Honolulu, asking for support. To Elmer’s surprise, Kissinger spent all his time in Hawai’i without seeking the emperor’s counsel about how Sino-American relations would improve once Elmer took over the throne. So much for Kissinger’s renowned geopolitical acumen.

* * *

Obviously chutzpah is a useful quality in a wannabe emperor. While speaking with Elmer I was reminded of Joshua Abraham Norton, a 19th-century English Jew who sold supplies to San Francisco gold rushers and then declared himself Emperor of America.

In 1859 Norton walked into the offices of the San Francisco Bulletin and presented them with this single sentence, which they ran on the next edition’s front page:

“At the preemptory request of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton…declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these U.S., and in virtue of the authority thereby in me vested do hereby order and direct the representatives of the different States of the Union to assemble in the Musical Hall of this city, on the 1st day of February next, then and there to make such alterations in the existing laws of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under which the country is laboring, and thereby cause confidence to exist, both at home and abroad, in our stability and integrity.”

It was signed “Norton I. Emperor of the United States.”

Like Elmer, Norton I had a common touch: he rejected luxury and attended every public function by foot or bicycle. If he noticed someone performing some kind act he might spontaneously ennoble the individual, from which practice the expression “Queen for a day” was coined.

In return for his noble generosity restaurants offered the emperor free dinners, he was given three seats at every theatrical performance (one for himself and one each for his famously well-behaved dogs, Bummer and Lazarus). The city itself paid for his uniforms, Bay Area newspapers published his proclamations and he had his own currency printed, which was accepted widely. He had a habit of levying taxes by walking into the offices of an old business friend and announcing an imperial assessment of ten million dollars or so, but could quickly be talked down to a cigar and small change. When he was arrested by an overzealous policeman “to be confined for treatment of a mental disorder” virtually every newspaper published editorials denouncing the action and Norton was released with a lengthy public apology from the chief of police.

Norton sent frequent cables to fellow rulers offering surprisingly well-informed advice. King Kamehameha of Hawai’i (then the Sandwich Islands) was so taken with the Emperor’s insight and understanding that towards the end of his life Kamehameha refused to recognize the U.S. State Department, saying he would deal only with representatives of Norton’s Empire.

When Norton I died in 1890 ten thousand people lined up to view his mortal remains; his funeral cortege was three kilometers long. At 2.39 pm, during his funeral, San Francisco experienced a total eclipse of the sun.

* * *

Elmer could use some heavenly miracles since his claim to the throne is in danger of disintegrating unless he gets some support.

Elmer explained that he has high-placed relatives in the Hawaiian political and social world. “But they won’t help me,” he said. “They’re jealous. Afraid of my power. And the CIA wants to assassinate me.” I agreed not to use his real name.

We met a couple of other times but since Elmer has no phone and no fixed domicile it was difficult to set up appointments. We lost contact.

I read about China’s political travails with renewed interest. Could it happen? I can’t recall a communist state turning democratic and then deciding to re-establish a monarchy. But, what if… Emperor Elmer. He’s tanned, rested and ready. Emperor Elmer. I like the sound.

This article is excerpted from:
Quests: Searching for Heroes, Scoundrels, Star-Gazers, and a Mermaid Queen