HIST 270: History of China · Richland Community College
Primary source: “The Examination System,” in Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, trans. Clara Yu
Step one: the reading. Read “The Examination System” in Chinese Civilization. The selection opens with a short editor’s introduction, then gives eight anecdotes separated by asterisks. Read all eight. As you read, keep one thing in mind: these are not government records. They come from an anthology of gossip and vignettes compiled late in the Tang dynasty, and they are supposedly based on true incidents. Someone chose to collect these particular stories and to leave others out. Keep the text in front of you for the rest of this assignment — the work is not designed to be done from memory.
Step two: the ledger. You will chart four of the eight — the 1st, the 2nd, the 6th, and the 8th — which together run from the opening of the selection to its last paragraph. The ledger names each one and tells you where to find it. Work on your own: do not confer with anyone and do not split the anecdotes among friends. I want your reading, not someone else’s. Once you have finished the selection, the table should take about fifteen minutes. Fill in four columns for each anecdote:
One rule that matters: work from the text, not from memory. Every cell should be something you could point to on the page. If a cell is genuinely thin — if the story simply does not tell you much — say so in four or five words rather than inventing a detail. Precision counts for more than a full box.
Step three: the questions. When the table is done, answer the three questions underneath it in complete sentences. Those questions ask about the whole selection, not only the four you charted, so draw on everything you read.
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Four anecdotes, spanning the selection from beginning to end. Every cell should be traceable to a specific place in the text.
| Anecdote | Starts high | Starts low | What causes the flip | Who is humiliated, and how |
|---|
Answer in complete sentences, drawing on the whole selection. Two or three sentences each is enough.
1. What behavior gets punished in this collection? Look down your humiliation column, then think about the four anecdotes you did not chart. What do the humiliated men have in common?
2. What behavior gets rewarded? Same method, from the other direction.
3. The editor’s introduction says that most men who sat the examinations still came from well-connected families. Almost every story in this selection says the opposite: the poor man beats the rich man, the clerk beats the twenty-year candidate, the arrogant jinshi dies a minor official. If the system mostly kept powerful families in power, why would anyone collect and circulate stories insisting that it did not? Who benefits from stories that teach these particular lessons?