"Two Aisin-gioro Beis" 

Manchu princess

By Shen Weihuang

Friends call her "Ai Bei," but with strangers, she sometimes prefers "Miss Jin".

"Like my mother, we don't want to draw extra attention to our family name from people, so we chose 'Jin' as in Manchu the name means 'gold'," she says.

Television reporter Photo: Courtesy of Aisin-gioro Bei

Her full family name is Aisin-gioro and it takes a little explaining.

By Manchu custom, families are identified first by their hala family or clan name and then by their mukun, the more detailed classification, typically referring to the individual family.

In the case of Aisin-gioro Bei, Aisin is the mukun, gioro the hala and Bei the first name.

It's no coincidence her family name is exactly the same as the last emperor in Chinese history.

"Ai Bei" would literally be a princess if the Qing Dynasty persisted today.

"The name always reminds me of where I come from. It's a courage, a faith," Aisin-gioro says. "My mom always says to me because of the name we carry, I have to be modest and work harder than others.

"More important to me is not the surname I carry, but the first name. That's where the real me lies."

A glance at the glamorous 29-year-old English-language TV anchor in Shanghai and the viewer would never guess hers is a life story of surprising bitterness.

Aisin-gioro grew up in Beijing, her parents are both military doctors. By the time she was 13, she moved from Beijing to Hangzhou alone where she studied for two years at a local middle school. Then she went directly to the Nanjing International Relations College for another two years.

"I wanted to see whether I was fit for a diplomatic career, but found it didn't really suit me," Aisin-gioro says.

"So when I turned 17 I moved to the United States to familiarize myself with the family business there," she says, "and carried many of my family's hopes when I chose to be a finance major at Weber State University of Utah.

"But I was always keen on journalism. I made a pretty big decision when I was in junior grade at college: I applied for a transfer to Syracuse University to study journalism.

"To tell the truth, for many of my life choices my mom has given me many suggestions and I always believed her, but on this occasion I alone had this very strong feeling that I wanted to learn journalism."

After finishing the transfer, Aisin-gioro told her mother, fearing disapproval. Instead she received her mother's full support.

The Journalism School at Syracuse University rarely recruits international students and Aisin-gioro was the only one that year.

"I believe my experiences and the strong appeal to let them accept more international students convinced them," Aisin-gioro says. 

CNN came fishing for interns in 2004.

"I am Bei from Beijing and I want to work for CNN International," Aisin-gioro says she told the interviewer. "It was the simplest way to introduce myself in an effort to let them know my goal was clear and straight."

One of her professors wrote CNN a reference letter, saying "You're going to hire her sooner or later so why not sooner and train her to be the one you want."

In that year CNN selected two interns: Aisin-gioro was one.

After graduation, Aisin-gioro successfully landed her plum job at CNN headquarters in Atlanta.

"The exciting thing about journalism," Aisin-gioro says, "you are always the first group of people to know what just happened in the world and history is just like a scroll unfolding in front of you."

She worked as an assignment desk editor, in charge of newsgathering and editorial. Since then she has worked at CNN bureaus in London, Beijing, Hong Kong and the United Nations in New York. Aisin-gioro's career was taking off when she went back to Beijing in 2005 for surgery on her feet.

"I was born with some problems with my feet," she says. "Sometimes they felt painful, but I was told I should not do the surgery until I was 18."

After the surgery, horrible news: The operation had made her feet worse, not better. She was now suffering from acute thrypsis, a complex collection of multiple bone fractures.

"The bones of my big toes were broken, which are the key part to support the body weight.

My emotions hit rock bottom at the time. I was scared and refused to received further treatment  and I went back to the States in a wheelchair," she says.

"Before then I had been carrying a camera to do interviews all over the place. I also liked to dance, but now I suddenly had lost basic living ability."

Aisin-gioro lived with an old couple in the US that she regarded as grandparents.

"My grandma decided she couldn't let me get so down on myself. She tried her best to find two doctors in the US who might save me from this disaster," she says.

Aisin-gioro tried surgery again, but failed again.

"I immediately cried loudly in the doctor's office, very loud," she says. "And the doctor cried too. He wanted me to try it again.

"He said to me that it was fine that I can stop trusting him, but I should not stop trusting God because God had put me through all these hard times as He believed I could get through it."

The surgery succeeded at the third attempt.

From Christmas 2005, Aisin-gioro needed six months' medical treatment to learn to stand again.

"During the recovery period, I learnt patience," she says. "I had enough time to calm down to think and write.

"And looking back now to that period of time, I think it's the most precious time I have ever had in my life."

After living and working in the US for 10 years, Aisin-gioro decided to come home to China.

"For personal reason, I wanted to spend more time with my parents," she says. "I could feel they were getting old when they came to the US to participate in my graduation ceremony.

"I thought it was time for me to come back and share my joy and pain together with them."

She sees her adult life in two phases: the US phase and since last year, the China phase.

"It's totally two Aisin-gioro Beis," she says, "and the 'I am Bei from China' is also embedded in me but with different feelings.

"I think my blood makes me yearn for more independence, to be remembered for my own efforts. I think this idea gives me great power to make my life unforgettable."