According to folklore, Cixi asked the chef to prepare more than 100 dishes for every meal, and the dishes should be placed on four long tables. There are dozens of maids and eunuchs who serve Cixi. However, so many dishes can't be eaten at all, and the rest are given to the maid-in-waiting eunuch. What you can't eat at last can only be dumped.
Cixi likes listening to Peking Opera and invites famous Peking Opera actors from all over the country to perform for her in Beijing all the year round. The palace where Cixi lived sang and danced every night. Only when China failed to fight Eight-Nation Alliance, Cixi ordered the whole country to impose a curfew and stop all entertainment activities every night.
Cixi's most extravagant consumption is her annual birthday activities. Among them, her 60th birthday cost12 million yuan, which is the most extravagant birthday celebration in the history of China.