Book Cover of My New Historical Epic "The Green Phoenix"

Earnshaw Books will be releasing my new historical epic titled "The Green Phoenix" on September 1, 2017. It is a novelized account of the life of Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, born a Mongolian princess who became a consort of the Manchu court, and then the Qing Dynasty's first matriarch. She lived through harrowing threats, endless political crises, personal heartaches and painful losses to lead a shaky Empire out of a dead end to peace and stability. The story is set against a turbulent canvas as the Chinese Ming Dynasty is replaced by the Qing. Xiaozhuang guides her husband, her lover, her son and her grandson - all emperors and supreme leaders of the Qing Empire - to success against the odds.

Advance Praises:

So much of imperial Chinese history is an enigma; a world we, as outsiders, are shut out off. Alice Poon’s novelised life of the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang fictionally pulls back the curtain on Manchu court life and lets us step into a forbidden world.

Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking

Alice Poon has written a masterpiece of Chinese history little known in the West. It's a story of love, betrayal and loyalty, and shows how one woman inspired the reunification of China. For so long the West has fixated on the end of the Qing dynasty, but as Poon beautifully recreates in her book, the real heroine of the Qing is the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang. Never before has this story been told in English, and it's arguably the most important historical novel of early Qing Dynasty China.   

Susan Blumberg-Kason, author of Good Chinese Wife:

 A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong

History and Historical Fiction

Historians have attributed the demise of the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) to various reasons, the most prominent being: emperors indulging in extravagance and/or self-glory or being pathetically paranoid and/or incompetent, factional feuds between eunuchs and officials in court, endemic corruption in all levels of administration, and the court overtaxing the already desperate underclass of peasants. It took a long period of time (stretching over the reigns of the last three or four emperors) for these factors to foment and become a deadly tumor that set the nation’s body and spirit on an irreversible trend of decay. This internal cancerous growth, in convergence with fateful external factors like the emergence of an ogling neighbor state and the rise of rebellious commoner leaders, ultimately put the Dynasty to rest. Indeed, those internal causes of death sound almost banal, given that they can probably be applied, with adjustments here and there, to any previous dynastic era in China’s long history.

In the case of the Ming Dynasty, one external factor - the “ogling neighbor state” - turned out to be the Manchu Empire, a newly united tribe of cavalry Jurchens under Nurhaci of the Aisin Gioro clan. The origins of the Jurchens could be traced back to the Great Jin Dynasty (1115 to 1234), which had persisted in nettling the Southern Song Dynasty after defeating the Liao in Northern China. It was Hong Taiji, one of Nurhaci’s sons, who established the Qing Dynasty in Mukden, just outside the borders of Ming China. But his dream of conquering China proper was not to be realized in his lifetime. Just one year after his death, though, his half-brother Dorgon, Regent to the child Shunzhi Emperor, fulfilled that dream with the uncanny help of a Ming General, Wu Sangui. Yet the fledgling years of Qing were far from stable, and it took the wits and tenacity of one Mongolian woman – Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang - to keep the multi-ethnic Empire from crumbling.

Those are just some basic facts of history at the crucial crossroads where Ming’s end met with Qing’s rise. The study of history can turn people off if it involves only chewing on dry hard facts. But we ought to sing the praises of historians who take great pains to attempt an unbiased and accurate recording of historical facts, if only because our collective future depends on drawing valuable lessons from and avoiding disastrous mistakes of our past, all races included. That said, we must remember that history is often written by the victors, or those who dominate or suppress others (no distinction is made between Western and Eastern history here), and thus we should keep a questioning mind. As well, there is always the element of historians’ own subjective interpretation of facts, so that three different historians may well present three accounts of the same event with quite different slants. All of them valid.

Yet, history is intrinsically made by people and it is always the “actors” of history that make the study interesting or even worthwhile. It should not be surprising then, that some of us love reading historical fiction for the very reason that such fiction focuses on telling the personal stories of those “actors” of history.

The task of weaving historical facts with fictional narratives (in some cases with fictional characters) falls to historical novelists, whose mission is to work creatively with the gaps left by historians, while animating the actors of history with feelings, emotions and thoughts. In general, historical novels are invariably more enticing and less intimidating than dry, non-fiction history, thus more likely to reach a wider audience. If such novels can pique readers’ interest and curiosity and make them want to learn more, then they will have served one great purpose.

I am not a historian, at best only an amateur in Chinese history. But I am passionate about writing historical fiction set in China’s distant past, in which is embedded a colossal untapped reservoir of juicy materials to write good fiction from. The historical fiction genre has long been skewed towards Western history and badly needs diversification into Oriental history. I, for one, would certainly love to see more historical fiction writers jump on this Old China bandwagon.

The above is my humble view.

My Upcoming Historical Epic about Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang

After two-and-a- half years of solitary hard work, I am thrilled to say that I recently put my pen on a publishing contract for my historical epic set in 17^th century China. The novel is presently undergoing editing and proofing.

Before reaching this stage, my publisher Graham Earnshaw of Earnshaw Books had also offered me a role as the curator of a new series of historical novels set in Old China, a role I gladly accepted because I felt he and I share a vision of extending and enhancing interest in and knowledge of Chinese history to a global audience through fictional works. The project is progressing well.

Over the last few years, I have read several books and many articles on the craft of writing. The essay that impressed me most is Milan Kundera’s The Art of the Novel. The key lesson I drew from the essay is this:

“I’ve always constructed them on two levels: on the first, I compose the novel’s story; over that, I develop the themes. The themes are worked out steadily within and by the story. Whenever a novel abandons its themes and settles for just telling the story, it goes flat.”

My upcoming novel is based on the life story of the Manchu Qing Dynasty's influential first matriarch, who was born a Mongolian princess. She was the beloved grandmother of Kangxi Emperor. Set against a background of war, racial hatred and great turmoil, when the failing Ming Empire was dealt the final blow by the invading Manchus, the novel encompasses such themes as conflicts caused by cultural gaps, duty versus love, self-interest versus the greater good, how power corrodes humanity and the burdens of hatred and forgiveness. In the course of writing, I made sure that I followed Mr. Kundera’s advice closely.

The latest I’ve heard from my publisher is that my novel has been tentatively scheduled for release on July 1, 2017.

How Did Johann Adam Schall von Bell Relate to the Qing Dynasty?

It may be common knowledge for current and former students of The Chinese University of Hong Kong that the earliest student hostel ever built on campus is called the Adam Schall Residence. But perhaps the person Johann Adam Schall von Bell, in honor of whom the hostel was named, is not too familiar a figure for many, students or otherwise.

Johann Adam Schall von Bell was a German Jesuit missionary born in Cologne. In 1619, at the age of 28, he arrived Macau with a few other Jesuit missionaries, planning to enter China to spread Christianity, only to find themselves stranded in the Portuguese Settlement, as it was the Chinese policy then to curb foreigners’ entry. So Schall von Bell decided to settle down in Macau and learn Chinese and continue with his mathematics studies.

A few years later, in 1622, he unexpectedly got embroiled in Portuguese Macau’s military defense against an attack by the Dutch Calvinists, which attack was instigated by trade disputes. The Dutch (i.e. the Dutch East India Company) had for a long time been jealous of Macau’s lucrative intermediary position on the China-Japan trade route (silk in exchange for silver) and wanted to capture the Settlement. Schall von Bell and his fellow Jesuits went up to the citadel to man cannons that fired on the invading Dutch soldiers, and a shot accidentally hit an explosive dump near their camp. The defense was victorious and the Dutch were chased out.

When news of this reached the Ming Emperor’s ears, he invited Schall von Bell to Court and asked him to produce cannons for use against the invading Manchus. But the Jesuit’s skill at weaponry was clearly eclipsed by his knowledge in astronomy and his work in the calendar reform.

After the Ming Empire transitioned into the Qing Dynasty, Schall von Bell rose to prominence as a key adviser in Shunzhi Emperor’s reign. His influence on Shunzhi and Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang was profound. After Shunzhi died, Schall von Bell’s envious Chinese colleagues initiated a depraved false accusation against him, which led to a death sentence. Although ultimately exonerated, his prison ordeal took a toll on his already frail health and he died shortly after regaining freedom. This roller-coaster phase of his presence in China was nothing short of dramatic and is one of the sub-plots in my upcoming novel.