Growing and Organizing Lotus in Qing Imperial Spaces

The chapter explores the growing of lotus in water spaces under the control of the Imperial Household Department in and around Beijing. This seemingly minor organizational task with meagre financial returns was nevertheless regulated to the detail and established dependencies of tenants and officials, of working tools and paper trails, as well as between the flows of money and an unpredictable nature. Together they built a functional sub-part of the court’s ideological project of presenting itself as economically efficient. The chapter argues that the undertaking was an ideologically efficacious spectacle visible in the bureaucratic process and in the lakes and moats around the Forbidden City which were beautifully covered with lotus plants.