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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: ladies, to make uncomplimentary remarks about the food, which was
Chinese, and often not very palatable to the foreigner. These
remarks, of course, were not supposed to be understood, though
the Empress Dowager always had her own interpreter at table. One
often felt that some of these ladies, in their efforts to see all
and get all, forgot what was due their own country as well as
their imperial hostess.
"One can understand the enormity of such an offense in a court
the etiquette of which is so exacting that none of her own
subjects ever dared appear in her presence until they had been
properly instructed in court etiquette in the 'Board of Rites,' a
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