Chapter 8

Question 1

What assertion was made in an article in the British newspaper the Guardian in June 2006?

Answer 1

“China will be the next superpower”

China’s huge population, its booming economy, its massive trade surplus with the US, its entry into world oil markets, its military potential, and growing presence of global affairs suggest China was headed for a major role in the 21st Century.

Question 2

Which people were considered “barbarians” to the Chinese?

Answer 2

Northern nomads, which frequently posed a military threat and on occasion even conquered and ruled parts of China.

Question 3

The collapse of the Han dynasty around 220 C.E. ushered in what?

Answer 3

Ushered in more than three centuries of political fragmentation in China and signaled the rise of powerful and locally entrenched aristocratic families.

Question 4

The fall of the Han dynasty also meant the incursion of what?

Answer 4

The incursion of northern nomads, many of whom learned Chinese, dressed like Chinese, married into Chinese families, and governed northern regions of the country in a Chinese fashion

Question 5

What discredited Confucianism and opened the door to a greater acceptance of Buddhism and Daoism among the elite?

Answer 5

The condition of disunity, unnatural in the eyes of many thoughtful Chinese during the collapse of the Han Dynasty and the influx of Northern Nomads.

Question 6

During the centuries of the collapse of the Han Dynasty which region witnessed substantial Chinese migration?

Answer 6

Migration southward toward the Yangzi River Valley, a movement of people that gave southern China some 60 percent of the country’s population by 1000.

Question 7

What accompanied the movement of the Chinese people towards the Yangzi River Valley?

Answer 7

their intensive agriculture, which set in motion a vast environmental transformation, which marked the destruction of the old-growth forests that once covered much of the country and the retreat of elephants

Question 8

Around 800 C.E. what Chinese official and writer lamented what was happening?

Answer 8

Liu Zongyuan, writing about the forests on fire and not even a shrub remaining from the destruction, where animals used to thrive but now nothing grows or lives.

Question 9

Under what dynasty did China regain unity in 589?

Answer 9

Under the Sui dynasty

Question 10

How did the Sui emperors solidify unity in China?

Answer 10

By a vast extension of the country’s canal system, stretching some 1,200 miles in length and described by one scholar as “an engineering feat without parallel in the world of its time.”

Question 11

What did the canals under the Sui dynasty link?

Answer 11

It linked northern and southern China economically and contributed much to the prosperity that followed.

Question 12

Which two dynasties followed the Sui?

Answer 12

the Tang and the Song dynasties which build on the Sui foundations of renewed unity.

Question 13

Under the Tang and Song dynasty, what did their patterns establish in Chinese life that endured into the 20th century?

Answer 13

Culturally, the era has long been regarded as a “golden age” of arts and literature, setting standards of excellence in poetry, landscape painting, and ceramics

Question 14

What is Neo-Confucianism?

Answer 14

An effort to revive Confucian thinking while incorporating into it some of the insights of Buddhism and Daoism which came around during the Song dynasty

Question 15

What were the six major ministries during the Tang and Song dynasties?

Answer 15

Personnel, finance, rites, army, justice, and public work

Question 16

What accompanied the six major ministries?

Answer 16

the Censorate, which was an agency that exercised surveillance over the rest of the government, checking on the character and competence of public officials

Question 17

How did they staff the Censorate?

Answer 17

the examination system was revived and made more elaborate, facilitated by the ability to print books for the first time in world history.

Question 18

How did selecting officials based on merit place a challenge?

Answer 18

Was a challenge to established aristocratic families’ hold on public office, Never the less, a good amount of official positions went to the sons of the privileged, even if they had not passed the exam.

Question 19

Who did the great families of large landowners continue to encroach upon?

Answer 19

They continued to encroach on peasant plots, which was a recurring pattern in rural China from ancient times to present despite the state’s periodic efforts to redistribute land in favor of the peasantry

Question 20

The political and cultural achievements of Song dynasty China was regarded as what?

Answer 20

an “economic revolution” that made the Song dynasty “by far the richest, most skilled, and most populous country on earth.”

Question 21

What did many Chinese cities have a population of?

Answer 21

Over 100,000 people making China the most urbanized country in the world.

Question 22

What was the population of the Song dynasty capital of Hangzhou?

Answer 22

It was home to more than a million people.

Question 23

What did a Chinese observer in 1235 provide in his vivid description of Hangzhou?

Answer 23

They are Specialized markets abounded for meats, herbs vegetables, books, rice, and much more.
“Luxuriant inns,” marked by a red lantern, feature prostitutes, and wine chambers. Also, specialized agencies managed elaborate dinner parties for the wealthy, complete with a Perfume and Medicine Office to “help sober up the guests.

Question 24

What did the Italian visitor Marco Polo describe Hangzhou later in the thirteen century as?

Answer 24

as “beyond dispute the finest and noblest [city] in the world.”

Question 25

Under the influence of steppe nomads, whose women led less restricted lives, elite Chinese women of the Tang dynasty era, at least in the north, had participated in what?

Answer 25

had participated in social life with greater freedom than in earlier times.

Question 26

By the Song dynasty, however, a reviving Confucianism and rapid economic growth tightened what?

Answer 26

seemed to tighten patriarchal restrictions on women and to restore some of the earlier Han dynasty notions of female submission and passivity

Question 27

How did the Song dynasty historian and scholar Sima Guang sum up the subordination of women to men?

Answer 27

"The boy leads the girl, the girl follows the boy; the duty of husbands to be resolute and wives to be docile begins with this."

Question 28

For men, masculinity came to be defined less in terms of horseback riding, athleticism, and the warrior values of northern nomads and more in terms of what?

Answer 28

In terms of the refined pursuits of calligraphy, scholarship, painting, and poetry.

Question 29

The most compelling expression of a tightening patriarchy lay in foot binding, apparently beginning with whom?

Answer 29

Beginning among dancers and courtesans in the tenth or eleventh century C.E., this practice involved the tight wrapping of young girls' feet, usually breaking the bones of the foot and causing intense pain

Question 30

During and after the Song dynasty, foot binding found acceptance among elite families and later spread in Chinese society becoming associated with what?

Answer 30

Associated with new images of female beauty and eroticism that emphasized small size, frailty, and deference and served to keep women restricted to the "inner quarters," where Confucian tradition asserted that they belonged

Question 31

Foot binding also served to distinguish what?

Answer 31

Chinese women from their "barbarian" counterparts and elite women from commoners and peasants.

Question 32

A rapidly commercializing economy undermined the position of whom in the textile industry?

Answer 32

for Women, urban workshops and state factories, run by men, increasingly took over the skilled tasks of weaving textiles, especially silk, which had previously been the work of rural women in their homes. Becuase of this they had lost the more lucrative income-generating work of weaving silk fabrics.

Question 33

But as women's economic role in textile production declined, other opportunities beckoned in an increasingly prosperous Song China. In the cities ...

Answer 33

women operated restaurants, sold fish and vegetables, and worked as maids, cooks, and dressmakers.

Question 34

The growing prosperity of elite families funneled increasing numbers of women into roles like...

Answer 34

concubines, entertainers, courtesans, and prostitutes. Their ready availability surely reduced the ability of wives to negotiate as equals with their husbands, setting women against one another and creating endless household jealousies

Question 35

The Song dynasty witnessed positive trends in the lives of women like...

Answer 35

the property rights expanded, allowing women to control their own dowries and to inherit property from their families. Furthermore, lower-ranking but ambitious officials strongly urged the education of women, so that they might more effectively raise their sons and increase the family's fortune

Question 36

China's most enduring and intense interaction with foreigners came from the north, involving whom?

Answer 36

Many nomadic pastoral or semi-agricultural peoples of the steppes

Question 37

North Nomadic people lived in areas unable to sustain Chinese-style farming, the northern nomads had long focused their economies on what?

Answer 37

around the raising of livestock (sheep, cattle, goats) and the mastery of horse riding.

Question 38

What did pastoral societies need from China?

Answer 38

They needed grain and other agricultural products, also their leaders loved Chinese manufactured and luxury goods -wine and silk.

Question 39

From the nomads' point of view, the threat often came from whom?

Answer 39

Often come from the Chinese, who periodically directed their own military forces deep into the steppes, build the Great Wall to keep the nomads out, and often proved unwilling to allow pastoral peoples easy access to trading opportunities within China.

Question 40

What did the Chinese need from the nomads?

Answer 40

Their lands were the source of horses, which were essential for the Chinese military. Other products of the steppes and the forests beyond, such as skins, furs, hides, and amber, also valued in China

Question 41

How were Chinese viewed?

Answer 41

China became the "middle kingdom," the center of the world, infinitely superior to the "barbarian" peoples beyond its borders. With its long history, great cities, refined tastes, sophisticated intellectual and artistic achievements, bureaucratic state, literate elite, and prosperous economy. China represented "civilization".

Question 42

China was a "_____ _______," graciously shedding its light most fully to nearby barbarians and with diminished intensity to those farther away.

Answer 42

"radiating civilization"

Question 43

What would Foreigners have to do who were seeking access to China?

Answer 43

They had to send a delegation to the Chinese court, where they would perform the kowtow, a series of ritual bowings and prostrations, and present their tribute - products of value from their countries - to the Chine emperor.

Question 44

What would the Chinse emperor give in return for the foreigner's submission?

Answer 44

He would grant permission for foreigners to trade in China's rich markets and would provide them with gifts or "bestowals," often worth far more than the tribute they had offered.

Question 45

What would foreign rulers gain from trying to gain access to China?

Answer 45

They could gain prestige as they basked in the reflected glory of even this subordinate association with the great Chinese civilization. The official titles, seals of office, and ceremonial robes they received from China proved useful in their local struggle for power

Question 46

What was the name of an early nomadic confederacy established about the same time as the Han dynasty and eventually reaching from Manchuria to Central Asia?

Answer 46

Xiongnu, devastating Xiongnu raids into northern China persuaded the Chinese emperor to negotiate an arrangement that recognized the nomadic stater as a political equal, promised its leader a princess in marriage and agreed to supply him with quantities of grain, wine, and silk.

Question 47

The realities of the situation between Xiongnu were summed up in this warning to the Han dynasty in the first century B.C.E.:

Answer 47

Just make sure that the silks and grain stuff you bring the Xiongnu are the right measure and quality, that's all...If the goods you deliver are up to measure and good quality, all right. But if there is any deficiency or the quality is not good, then when the autumn harvest comes, we will take our horses and trample all over your crops

Question 48

The Uighurs who during the Tang dynasty as a series of Turkic empires arose in Mongolia extorted large"gifts," from Chinese, actually rescued the Tang dynasty from a serious internal revolt in the 750s what did they get in return?

Answer 48

The Uighur leader gained one of the Chinese emperor's daughters as a wife and arranged a highly favorable exchange of poor-quality horses for high-quality silk, which brought half a million rolls of the precious fabric annually into the Uighur lands

Question 49

What were the Steppe nomads interested in?

Answer 49

They were generally not much interested in actually conquering and ruling China. It was easier and more profitable to extort goods from a functioning Chinese state.

Question 50

When China broke down, and various nomadic groups moved in to "pick up the pieces" which peoples conquered and governed part of China?

Answer 50

After the collapse of the Tang dynasty, the Khitan and then the Jin, or Jurchen, peoples established states that encompassed parts of northern China as well as major areas of the steppes to the north.

Question 51

The practice of "bestowing gifts on barbarians," long a part of the tribute system, allowed the proud Chinese to imagine that they were still in control of the situation even though what?

Answer 51

Even as they were paying heavily paying for protection from nomadic incursion.

Question 52

Korea, Vietnam, and Japan which were newly emerging states were also involved in tributary relationships with China, unlike the northern nomads, these societies...

Answer 52

These societies were thoroughly agricultural and sedentary.

Question 53

What did early Korean states, which emerged in the fourth through seventh centuries C.E. refer to their rulers as?

Answer 53

with the Chinese term wang meaning king.

Question 54

Because of the succession of dynasties -the Silla, Koryo, and Joseon - what did Korea maintain?

Answer 54

generally maintained its political independence while participating in China's tribute system. Its leaders actively embraced the connection with China and especially during the Silla dynasty, sought to turn their small state into a miniature version of Tang China

Question 55

But Chinese efforts to set up _____ ____ and to assimilate Koreans to Chinese culture provoked sharp military resistance, persuading the Chinese to withdraw their military forces in 688 and to establish a tributary relationship with a largely independent Korea.

Answer 55

puppet regimes

Question 56

What did the tribute missions to China provide for Korean rulers?

Answer 56

It provided them with knowledge of Chinese court life and administrative techniques, which they sought to replicate back home

Question 57

What was the new capital in Korea modeled directly on the Chinese capital of Chang'an?

Answer 57

Kumsong

Question 58

How were different religions brought back to Korea from China?

Answer 58

Thousands of Korean students were sent to China, where they studied primarily Confucianism but also natural sciences and the arts. Buddhist monks visited centers of learning and pilgrimage in China and brought back popular forms of Chinese Buddhism, which quickly took root in Korea.

Question 59

What did tribute missions enable trade on both official and private?

Answer 59

Mostly in luxury goods such as ceremonial clothing, silks, fancy teas, Confucian and Buddhist texts, and artwork - all of which enriched the lives of a Korean aristocracy that was becoming increasingly Chinese in culture

Question 60

The efforts to plant Confucian values and Chinese culture in Korea left a scholar to see what?

Answer 60

the 'overwhelmingly negative" impact on Korean women, particularly after 1300.

Question 61

What did Early Chinese observers notice and strongly disapprove of in Korea/

Answer 61

"free choice" marriages in Korea as well as the practice of women singing and dancing together late at night. Korean patterns too flexible.

Question 62

Earlier, a Korean woman had generally given birth and raised her young children in her parents' home, where she was often joined by her husband, what do others believe?

Answer 62

They strongly discouraged it, for it was deeply offensive to those who espoused Confucian orthodoxy, which held that a married woman belonged to her husband's family

Question 63

Chinese cultural influence, except Buddhism, had little impact beyond the aristocracy and certainly did not penetrate the lives of Korea's serf-like peasants. Nor did it register among Koreas many what?

Answer 63

slaves, amounting to about one-third of the country's population by 1100.

Question 64

And in the 1400s, Korea moved toward greater cultural independence by developing what?

Answer 64

A phonetic alphabet, known as Hangul, for writing the Korean language. Resisted by conservative male elites, who were long accustomed to Chinese character to that of Korean, this new form of writing gradually too hold, especially in private correspondence, in popular fiction, and among women.

Question 65

Where was the cultural heartland of Vietnam located?

Answer 65

In the Red River Valley which was fully incorporated into the Chinese state for more than a thousand years.

Question 66

Like the Koreans, what did Vietnam borrow heavily from?

Answer 66

from China, they borrowed Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, administrative techniques, the exam system, artistic and literary styles- even as its popular culture remained distinct

Question 67

What were the Vietnamese regarded as by the Chinese?

Answer 67

"southern barbarians" which were ruled by Chinese officials who expected to fully assimilate this rich rice-growing region into China culturally as well as politically

Question 68

What was brought to Vietnam from the Chinese?

Answer 68

Chinese-style irrigated agriculture was introduced.

Question 69

What did the Chinese replace in Vietnam in official business?

Answer 69

local language

Question 70

What Chinese-based thing in Vietnam, functioned to undermine an established aristocracy, to provide some measure of social mobility for commoners, and to create a merit-based scholar-gentry class to staff the bureaucracy, more so in Korea than in Vietnam?

Answer 70

Chinese-based examination system in Vietnam

Question 71

Beyond the elite what remained unique to Vietnamese?

Answer 71

a distinctive language, a fondness for cockfighting, and the habit of chewing betel nuts. More importantly, Vietnam long retained a greater role for women in social and economic life, despite heavy Chinese influence.

Question 72

What became part of Vietnamese popular religion, even as Confucian-based ideas took root among the elite?

Answer 72

Female nature deities and a "female Buddha"

Question 73

Following independence from China, and as Vietnam expanded south, northern officials tried in vain to impose more orthodox Confucian gender practices such as what?

Answer 73

to impose gender practices in place of local customs that allowed women to choose their own husbands and married men to live in the households of their wives

Question 74

Like the Koreans, the Vietnamese developed a variation of Chinese writing called what?

Answer 74

chu nom ("southern script"), which provided the basis for an independent national literature and a vehicle for the writing of most educated women

Question 75

How were the Japanese islands sperate from China, unlike Korea and Vietnam?

Answer 75

separated by 100 miles or more of the ocean and were never successfully invaded or conquered by their giant mainland neighbor

Question 76

The state found much that was useful from whom and set out deliberately and systematically, to transform Japan into a centralized bureaucratic state on the Chinese model?

Answer 76

Tang dynasty China

Question 77

Who was Shotoku Taishi?

Answer 77

A prominent aristocrat from one of the major clans who was the initial leader of the effort to transform Japan into a centralized bureaucratic state on the Chinese model

Question 78

In 604 C.E. Shotoku Taishi issued what, which proclaimed the Japanese ruler as a Chinese-style emperor and encouraging both Buddhism and Confucianism?

Answer 78

Seventeen Article Constitution He launched a series of large-scale missions to China, which took hundreds of Japnese monks, scholars, artists, and student to the mainland, to put into practice what they learned.

Question 79

Which two capital cities arose, and each model on the Chinese capital of Chang'an?

Answer 79

first Nara and then Heian-kyo (Kyoto)

Question 80

What proved attractive among the elites in Japan?

Answer 80

The Chinese writing system and with it an interest in historical writing, calligraphy, and poetry.

Question 81

What did the various schools of Chinese Buddhism teach that took root in Japan?

Answer 81

Art, architecture, education, medicine, views of the afterlife, attitudes toward suffering and the impermanence of life - all of this and more reflected the influence of Buddhist culture in Japan

Question 82

As political power became increasingly decentralized, local authorities developed their own military forces, called what?

Answer 82

the famous samurai warrior class of Japanese society. Bearing their exquisite curved swords, the samurai developed a distinctive set of values featuring, loyalty, endurance, honor, great skill in martial arts, and a preference for death over surrender

Question 83

What does bushido mean?

Answer 83

The way of the warrior

Question 84

What did a Chinese minister in the eleventh century write?

Answer 84

"The educated men of the land, regard the carrying of arms as a disgrace." The Japanese clearly did not agree. Japan's celebration of the samurai and of military virtues contrasted sharply with China's emphasis on intellectual achievements and political office holding, which were accorded higher prestige than bearing arms.

Question 85

What does kami mean?

Answer 85

They were sacred spirits associated with human ancestors and various natural phenomena. Much later referred to as Shinto, this tradition provided legitimacy to the imperial family, based on claims of descent from the sun goddess. Because veneration of the kami lacked philosophy or ritual, it conflicted very little with Buddhism.

Question 86

What is tanka?

Answer 86

A highly stylized Japanese poetic form which was developed early and has remained a favored means of expression ever since.

Question 87

Where does much of our knowledge of this courtly culture come from?

Answer 87

Comes from the work of women writers, who composed their diaries and novels in the vernacular Japanese script, rather than in the classical Chinese used by elite men.

Question 88

What book was written by the woman author Murasaki Shikibu around 1000 and provides an intimate picture of the intrigues and romances of court life?

Answer 88

The Tale of Genji

Question 89

Why did Japanese women begin to lose status in the twelfth century and later?

Answer 89

It had less to do with Confucian pressures than with the rise of a warrior culture. As the personal relationships of samurai warriors to their lords replaced marriage alliances as a political strategy, the influence of women in political life was reduced, but this was an internal Japanese phenomenon, not a reflection of Chinese influence

Question 90

What provided a model for Japan's encounter with the West in the nineteenth century(the 1800s)?

Answer 90

Japan's ability to borrow extensively from China while developing its own distinctive civilization. Japan borrowed selectively from a foreign culture without losing either its political independence or its cultural uniqueness.