Girl throwing embroidered ball down for her suitors.
When I was little I often watched tv shows with settings in ancient China. I really dislike ancient China. There were extreme class structures, men had all the power, men can marry more than one women, and people don’t get to choose who they want to marry. Those who have power were mainly the relatives of the emperors or people in the government. They often arranged marriage to what is most beneficial to their status and it’s hugely political. However, in a few of the tv shows I watched, they had some interesting way to determine the suitor for their daughter. One of them is based completely on luck. The girl will be standing on a balcony, one floor up. She’ll throw a embroidered ball down and whoever catches the ball is her future husband. Another way is making the suitors fight each other and whoever wins gets to marry the girl. Lastly, is the battle of wisdom. Like Turandot, there are riddles they have to solve and if they answer the riddles correctly they may marry the girl. There are other forms of this such as making the best poem. It is quite interesting to see how they can determine who someone marries for the rest of their lives on such arbitrary things.
One of the most well known Chinese TV show is Return of the Pearl Princess (还珠格格). I grew up watching this show. The main character of this show often got into trouble and there were an abundance of scenes where she was punished or tortured. Therefore the scene when Liu was getting tortured reminded me a couple techniques that were used. One of the most common 
way to torture female prisoner is to use a finger-squeezing board. The board would squeeze the fingers between sticks and cause excruciating pain. Another technique would be sticking needles in your fingertips repeated. Also using big thick wooden sticks to hit the gluts for hundreds of times till the prisoner is bleeding. With all these painful and agonizing torture techniques, Liu is so brave and loyal to remain silent. It shows the depth of her love and loyalty to the Unknown Prince.
The ending of Turandot is quite surprising. After reading many plays that ends tragically, I also assumed that Turandot will not end well. However it concluded with a happy ending. Which makes me wonder why the Chinese government would censor this opera. It doesn’t really portray China in a negative light. I guess it’s just because it is not actually based on historical facts.
I too, was also really surprised by the ending of Turnadot. It seems as if the whole play is leading up to an ultimately tragic ending; however, there never really seems to be one. The play ends on a positive note, and there is no discomfort at all after. I wonder if Giacomo Puccini had in mind to have some dramatic, disastrous ending. It is really a shame that he never got to finish one of his most prominent works. But at the same time, without his own authentic ending, this may leave the viewer with an even greater freedom for interpretation.
I believe the chinese government censored this opera because it portrayed the emperors and his child in such negative light: they were merciless and killed off essentially anyone. Indeed, I was shocked to see there was such a contrast in the beginning of the story and the end of the story. The opera script seems to be quite aligned with the cruelty throughout the dynasty eras. I don’t believe it to be too fictional, unlike what professor Tenneriello believes.
Prior to reading this blog, I was not aware that men fought to the death for the possession of women. I did know, from watching many ancient Chinese dramas that women were treated like property.
I never thought about the true consequences of Liu’s sacrifice until I read your post. I didn’t think about what she must have felt, truly, whilst she was being tortured because in the text they didn’t specify exactly what they did to her. And when you put the scene under this context, her love for the prince must have been so… unfathomable. To suffer under such dire consequences, for the sake of someone she loves, even though she’s completely aware of the fact that he will not love her back. So after reading your post, I feel like the torture of Liu is more vivid. I also never knew that such practices for engagement occurred in ancient china. I thought that part of what made the story so unique was the fact that Turnadot chose to guard herself with riddles, almost like some sort of parable. Under this context, I feel as though the opera is a lot less mystical that I thought it was.
You make some interesting points about how strong liu was in not giving up Calaf’s name. Liu is truly an honorable woman to give her life out of her love for Calaf. I was also surprised by the ending of the opera, it was not nearly as tragic as I had expected. I believe the opera was censored due to the portrayal of the ruling family as bloodthirsty and what I believe to be racist cues like the names of Ping, Pang, and Pong.