Flow of gifts

In this presentation, a close reading of face-to-face interactions and material exchanges between the Kangxi emperor and his officials during the southern tours offers evidence of the court's ongoing efforts to balance gestures of cultural accommodation with assertions of ethnic domination and difference

The Give and Take of Qing Rule: Local Tribute and Imperial Gifts on Kangxi's Southern Tours

In this paper, I examine representations of local tribute and imperial gift-giving during Kangxi's well-known southern tours (1684-1707). Using a wide variety of sources—including secret memorials and edicts, imperial diaries and poetry, and court paintings, as well as literati "jottings", diaries, and biographies—I detail how the Kangxi emperor and Han local elites represented their personal interactions with each other. I argue that imperial rights/rites of refusing local tribute along with frequent bestowals of favor/grace (especially edibles) allowed the Kangxi emperor not only to present himself as a generous and benevolent ruler, but also to euphemize his court's domination of both the empire's material resources and the regular administrative apparatus. Through a careful reading of visual and textual sources, I also suggest how the articulation and assertion of such "officialized" or "euphemized" meanings was often a vexing and risky enterprise, open to various interpretations. Finally, this paper demonstrates how the Kangxi emperor's frequent bestowals of edible exotics from the imperial table and pantry obliged his highest ranking civil and military officials in the provinces to participate in conspicuous acts of consumption and to thereby recognize and assume their places within a multi-ethnic patrimonial network dominated by a Manchu and Mongol minority.