Weeping for Parents (ku qin)

Abstract

The psychology of Lou Tseng-Tsiang (1871–1949) – the famous Chinese diplomat and Beiyang Government politician who became a Benedictine monk in Belgium in 1927 – is not always easy to grasp. This article focuses on the family mausoleum and its garden that Lou built in 1920 for his parents in Beijing, opposite the Catholic cemetery of Zhalan. Not only a remnant of the material culture of the Christianised elite during the early Republic, it is also the most tangible expression of the Confucian principle of filial piety that guided Lou throughout his life. The chapel has an explicit Catholic orientation and is European in style, but contains several dozen epitaphs by then high-ranking politicians, both revealing Lou’s networks and expressing his status at a key time in his life. This in-depth study is based on archival research, fieldwork and Lou’s writings, from a multidisciplinary and transcultural perspective that includes history, religion, architecture and literature. Despite its poor state of conservation and urbanised environment, the mausoleum sums up Lou’s destiny and legacy, at the crossroads of traditional Chinese culture and European modernity, Empire and Republic, Confucian moral thought and universal Catholic faith.