Scholars often contend that civil examinations were what made imperial China a political meritocracy. They point to the examination system to show that the selection process served more as a common training program fo...Scholars often contend that civil examinations were what made imperial China a political meritocracy. They point to the examination system to show that the selection process served more as a common training program for literati than as a gate-keeper to keep non-elites out. Despite the symbiotic relations between the court and its literati, the emperor played the final card in the selection process. The asymmetrical relations between the throne and its elites nevertheless empowered elites to seek upward mobility as scholar-officials through the system. But true social mobility, peasants becoming officials, was never the goal of state policy in late imperial China; a modest level of social circulation was an unexpected consequence of the meritocratic civil service. Moreover, the meri^t-based bureaucracy never broke free of its dependence on an authoritarian imperial system. A modem political system might be more compatible with meritocracy, however. One of the unintended consequences of the civil examinations was creation of classically literate men （and women）, who used their linguistic talents for a variety of non-official purposes, from literati physicians to local pettifoggers, from fiction-writers to examination essay teachers, from Buddhist and Daoist monks to mothers and daughters. If there was much social mobility, i.e., the opportunity for members of the lower classes to rise in the social hierarchy, it was likely here. Rather than ＂social mobility,＂ this phenomenon might be better described as a healthy ＂circulation＂ of lower and upper elites when compared to aristocratic Europe and Japan.展开更多
The Successful Foreign Candidates in the Highest Imperial Examinations” ,as a system in the Imperial Examinations in the Tang Dynasty,had the purpose of distinguishing the candidates coming from the neighbouring stat...The Successful Foreign Candidates in the Highest Imperial Examinations” ,as a system in the Imperial Examinations in the Tang Dynasty,had the purpose of distinguishing the candidates coming from the neighbouring states from the native ones and meanwhile giving the formers some privilege. The Imperial Examinations for Foreign Candidates, which were not the parellel examination subjects as the “Jinshi,Mingjin”,refered to the special origin of the candidates as well as the special ways of the examinations and the enrollment.“special examinations for different people” system ,emerging in the Song Dynasty, could not provide enough evidence to prove that the imperial examinations system for foreigners was not existing and /or that the examination candidates from the neighboring states were equally treated as the native ones in the examinations in the Tang Dynasty.展开更多
文摘Scholars often contend that civil examinations were what made imperial China a political meritocracy. They point to the examination system to show that the selection process served more as a common training program for literati than as a gate-keeper to keep non-elites out. Despite the symbiotic relations between the court and its literati, the emperor played the final card in the selection process. The asymmetrical relations between the throne and its elites nevertheless empowered elites to seek upward mobility as scholar-officials through the system. But true social mobility, peasants becoming officials, was never the goal of state policy in late imperial China; a modest level of social circulation was an unexpected consequence of the meritocratic civil service. Moreover, the meri^t-based bureaucracy never broke free of its dependence on an authoritarian imperial system. A modem political system might be more compatible with meritocracy, however. One of the unintended consequences of the civil examinations was creation of classically literate men （and women）, who used their linguistic talents for a variety of non-official purposes, from literati physicians to local pettifoggers, from fiction-writers to examination essay teachers, from Buddhist and Daoist monks to mothers and daughters. If there was much social mobility, i.e., the opportunity for members of the lower classes to rise in the social hierarchy, it was likely here. Rather than ＂social mobility,＂ this phenomenon might be better described as a healthy ＂circulation＂ of lower and upper elites when compared to aristocratic Europe and Japan.
文摘The Successful Foreign Candidates in the Highest Imperial Examinations” ,as a system in the Imperial Examinations in the Tang Dynasty,had the purpose of distinguishing the candidates coming from the neighbouring states from the native ones and meanwhile giving the formers some privilege. The Imperial Examinations for Foreign Candidates, which were not the parellel examination subjects as the “Jinshi,Mingjin”,refered to the special origin of the candidates as well as the special ways of the examinations and the enrollment.“special examinations for different people” system ,emerging in the Song Dynasty, could not provide enough evidence to prove that the imperial examinations system for foreigners was not existing and /or that the examination candidates from the neighboring states were equally treated as the native ones in the examinations in the Tang Dynasty.
