fuck this Flashcards
Cherchen Man
Cherchen Man is the mummified remains of a man that date back more than 3000 years. Cherchen Man is important because the mummy stands at 6’6 and has caucasian features like brown hair, despite being excavated in the Taklamakan desert, a part of the modern day peoples republic of china. Cherchen Man represents the diversity of the area we now know as china, and also serves as a warning to historians not to project modern ideas of China’s boundaries into the past.
jian’ai 兼愛 (“impartial caring”)
Impartial Caring is a central tennant of Mohism, the religion of Mozi. Impartial caring is the belief that we should treat all people as if they are family because people are all essentially the same. It aimed to solve conflict, because if everyone loved every person equally, there would be no war. Sprung from the ultra-violent warring states period, during which free thought was encouraged.
King Hui and the Ox
King Hui and the Ox was a confucian narrative popularized by mencius. It was the story of a king who was about to sacrifice an ox but the oxes fear at the sacrifice convinced him to spare it. This is similar to another of Mencius’ stories in which he explains people feel sympathy when I child teeters over the edge of a well. This was a narrative mencius used to argue that human nature was good, and people need to nourish their goodness to transform into gentlemen.
Tian 天 (“Heaven”)
Tian or “Heaven” replaced Di as the supreme god during the Zhou dynasty. The existence of Tian served as propaganda to justify the Zhou takeover of the Shang dynasty. Zhou came up with the “Mandate of Heaven” that explained that the most virtuous rulers got the mandate to rule from heaven, and explained that degenerate behavior lost the mandate of heaven, and thats why they overthrew the Shang who performed grizzly human sacrifice. The Zhou king was the son of heaven, and ruled in line with Tian, this is different from the inscrutible Di.
fengjian 封建
The system of territorial bureaucracy under the Zhou dynasty was known as fengjian. This system relied on unbounded territorial states, these states were centered on large urban settlements which subsequently controlled smaller surrounding villages. These states did not have strict boundaries and rather had specific controlled settlements. The practice of the Zhou to define borders and establish states is the essence of fengjian.
wuwei 無為 (“non-action”)
Non-action or wuwei was a core tenant of philosophical Daoists, and is similar in many ways to the Confucian idea of yielding. Daoists believe that a sage who has perfected their mind can overcome all worldly obstacles, and because of this excessive action is discouraged. Wu-wei’s similarity to the ideas of transformation in Confucianism display how interconnected these two religious schools are.
Cloud Terrace (yuntai 雲臺)
Built during the Yuan empire under Mongol rule, the Mongols ruled far more land than any previous dynasty, and built the Cloud Terrace. The terrace was an archway that represented the dominance of the empire over both China’s farmland and the exposed north stepp. The arch contains six different languages and is an absolute declaration of strength as it shows that under Mongol rule they had no need for walls, and that walls were a sign of weakness rather than strength.
Lady Hao
Lady Hao was one of many consorts of one of the first Shang kings. She is important because her tomb was left unlooted in antiquity. We can get a sense of the riches and material culture during the Shang dynasty by looking at her tomb. Features of this tomb such as the expensive bronzes and jades are significant because they are culturally similar to later chinese artifacts. Potentially the most important aspect of her tomb is that it can be easily identified as hers, the Shang are the first East Asian people to leave written records that have survived to the present day.
Queen Mother of the West
A figure in early Chinese religion who resided on Mt. Kunlun, a mountain that was far away to the west. She was the main gate keeper of the Underworld, and once she let you pass you would enter an afterlife that resembled closely life on earth. This “carbon-copy” idea of the afterlife was the basis for wealthy elites to bring everything that they would need in the afterlife with them to the tomb. It also is an extremely class based vision of the afterlife, that favors the elites who are already happy in life and rich.
rites/rituals
Rituals and rites were essentially the correct proceedings for life events in Chinese culture. Confucians found rituals extremely important, to them being educated was synonymous with knowing ritual behavior. Their ministry of rites was the ministry in charge of education. Rituals and rites initially seem removed from our everyday lives, but even modern-day funerals and weddings can be considered rituals. These Confucian rituals form the basis for the culture of all the following dynasties.
heqin 和親
Heqin can also be defined as “peace through marriage”. Heqin was one approach to dealing with the Nomads utilized during the Han dynasty. They would offer up Chinese brides and riches to the Nomadic people while opening up greater trade to appease them. This achieved a brokered peace, but was a stop-gap measure and never truly solved the Nomad problem.
Zhangjiashan Legal Texts
The Zhangjiashan Legal Texts were Qin-Han era texts reflecting the values of legalism. These texts reflect the growing size of China, as legalism as a system starts to exist to not only keep the people of China in check, but the laws also ensured that a bad Emperor could not bring ruin to China. There was also evidence of the Han trying to standardize measurements.
Di 帝
Di was the supreme god during the Shang dynasty. He was the highest authority, and held ultimate power over the harvest and general fortunes. Importantly Di does not receive sacrifices, which implies that you cannot control or please Di, and that Di is beyond mortal influence. Di is replaced by Tian, but remains an important name in Chinese culture, eventually Huang Di becomes the word for emperor
classical Chinese
Classical Chinese was a highly elite written language, that functioned as the lingua-franca of east asia. No one spoke classical chinese and only the well educated could write in it. It is a manufactured language used as a liaison between many people speaking mutually unintelligible languages. This language was essential in the communication between the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese, and beyond that, simply between Chinese people who spoke different unintelligible dialects.
huaxia 華夏
Huaxia can be translated as fluorescent and grand and is representative of being culturally Chinese. To be Huaxia means to live in accordance with the set of rituals, practices and behavior that is deemed correct in Chinese culture. Notably Huaxia is not an ethnic determination, and is based solely on cultural practices. This is important because it is used as the word for the Chinese people, but to be Chinese or Huaxia, had little to do with ethnicity and rather was a cultural determination.
hangul
Hangul is the alphabetic system of characters used by Koreans. Because the Korean language has a different grammatical structure than Chinese, Koreans had to develop a new set of characters that fit their language’s demands. This is one of the reasons why Korean can be a uniquely challenging language to learn, because you need to learn the alphabetic system along with a substantial number of Chinese logograms to express the entirety of the spoken language.
Zhongguo
Zhongguo is the most common moniker for China today. This phrase was first used during the warring states period and had a different connotation, simply referring to the “central states”. These were political entities that followed the cultural traditions of the Zhou dynasty. This is important because it lends credence to the fact that much of the cultural identity of China today began with the Zhou dynasty.
ba 霸 (“hegemon”)
The Zhou continued to be the ruling dynasty far after they held the most power in China, by 700-500 B.C. the Zhou ruled in name only. Ba was the title of the protector of the Zhou, but in reality they served as the central ruler of China. The Zhou were so culturally important, that people didn’t want to face the backlash of overthrowing their dynasty, and the Ba would use the Zhou king as a puppet for their own devices.
- Identify two (2) continuities and two (2) discontinuities evident in the materials unearthed at the Ruins of Yin (i.e., the Shang dynasty) with later Chinese history. Be sure to illustrate each one with a clear example.
The Ruins of Yin contained evidence of a civilization that in some ways resembled later Chinese civilizations. The material culture of the Shang Dynasty was continuous with later chinese dynasties in that the riches represented in the Ruins included intricate bronzes and jades, as well as impressive pottery. The Shang is also the first evidence we have of the Chinese script, and despite it evolving over the years, the writing of the Shang are the Logograms that have evolved over time into the modern-day Chinese script.
Despite these surface level similarities, the Shang are radically different than every later chinese civilization in atleast two distinct ways. They participated in large-scale human sacrifices that would be seen as extreme in later dynasties, which actually one of the stated for the Zhou takeover of the Shang. With the Zhou takeover of the Shang they also displaced Di as the supreme god replacing him with Heaven. While Di still exists after the Shang fall, Heaven is the Supreme god of the following dynasties, and the worship of Di as an inscrutable all powerful god is unique to the Shang.
- What is the difference between popular and philosophical Daoism? Describe how each version of Daoism operates in practice, what segments of society engage it, and for what purposes.
Philosophical Daoism is one of the four main schools of thought in Chinese culture. Philosophical Doaists disliked all three other schools because of their use of logic and arguments. The Daoists believed that the ability to form a logical argument was simply the other schools of thought tricking you into believing what they believe. Philosophical daoism would largely be for the educated. This school of thought was all about cultivating virtue through non-action, meaning that they recognize the absurdity of the world, but remain responsible actors within it.
Popular Daoism refers to the Daoism practiced by priests, and a lot of the time served as a way to make money. Daoist priests would perform rituals and communicate with gods for the Wealthy. Self cultivation, and ideas of generating power are also largely popular Daoism.
- Why did the Yellow River play such a destructive role throughout Chinese history? What sort of countermeasures did both the state and neighboring communities adopt to try and prevent disastrous floods?
The Yellow River is the cradle of Chinese civilization, but it simultaneously often brought disaster to their culture. The Yellow River is extremely destructive to the surrounding lands because of its flooding. The Yellow river picks up huge amounts of Silt from the erosion it causes, and when it gets to the North China Plain it deposits this silt making the riverbed rise significantly each year. Because it is so far above the riverbed the yellow river often spills over.
Throughout history, many methods of controlling the Yellow River have been attempted. Early Chinese cultures would make sacrifices to the Yellow River to appease it, because it was supposedly the most powerful landscape spirit. Outside of religious worship of the river, another measure put into place was the construction of Dikes to try and control the flooding of the river. These dikes only work as a stop gap measure however and they still burst quite often.
Xunzi spent a great deal of time talking about the virtues of funerals. According to Xunzi, why are funerals so important, what are the most important features of a funeral, and to what purpose are all these details directed?
Funerals are important to Xunzi, and one of the most important practices to him is to treat the dead as if they are alive. This means that they must be displayed within a certain time frame of their death, before they stop looking like themselves and decay. This is because funerals to Xunzi are dedicated to the living in attendance of the funeral and largely function to give people closure. Peoples intense emotions at the death of a loved one are dangerous, Xunzi believes because people are inherently evil we must give people ways to free themselves of these emotions or they will lead to strife.
He also expresses that people must be given proper adornment. He saw death as the completion of life, and a ritual for death must bring unity. These rituals are ways to bring out peoples unexpressed desires, and seeing the people in their entire glory, adorned in nice clothing can help to give people what they want.
- Consider the linguistic journey of an imperial official who grew up in Guangdong, took the exams in Beijing, and was later sent to the Shanghai region to serve as a magistrate. What languages would he speak or encounter in each one of these regions? In what written language would he have taken the exams and how would he have learned it?
Because of the incredible linguistic diversity of China, this imperial official would encounter several languages. Growing up in Guangdong the official would likely speak Cantonese from birth, and it would be his mother tongue. When he goes to Beijing he would speak Mandarin, and when he finally ends up in Shanghai he would have to learn Shanghai’s dialect of chinese as well.
The written language that he would use to take the imperial exams would be classical chinese, the language that the confucian classics were written in, and a distinct language from the written language used in everyday life. This is a language that is not spoken, and it would only be learned as a script.
- Discuss three major imperial innovations undertaken by the short-lived Qin Empire and later adapted and institutionalized by the subsequent Han Empire.
The Qin Empire are the first empire to implement legalism as its central system of power. All following Empires will in some way use the laws of legalism. Legalism gave strict rules with punishments to all people in society to keep China’s bureaucracy running like a well oiled machine. It is an adaptation as a response to a constantly growing China, and a world in which the emperor no longer can know every official.
The Qin Empire unified China, it brought together the warring states and founded the first empire. With this unification, the Empire also standardized currency, measurement, and writing in their unification. This is an important part of China building a greater national identity.
Finally, the Qin Empire coincided with the construction of the first frontier walls. They are often miscredited with the construction of the Ming walls, but despite this being a myth the Qin emperor played an important role in the construction and expansion of tamped earth frontier walls against the initial nomadic threat after 500 bc.