심심이

Long! Continued from October 14- November 9, 2010 @ Saturday, November 13, 2010

Tuesday October 26, 2010

Tang expands and revives the examination system. It doesn't want to be run by old aristocratic families.

Some of these families had a sense of entitlement to government positions.

They establish 2 major universities.

What is studied in those 2 universities was social sciences and humanities.
The government wanted the students to know the thoughts of Confucius.
Anybody In China was eligible to write the exams.

They were tested on 5 subjects:

Law
Arithmetic
calligraphy
History
literature

There are 2 types of degrees- a lower and a higher level.

The 1^st level was the xiucai- which means blossoming student.

Average age of students passing was late 20’s to early 30’s.

The 2^nd level was the jinshi- which means accomplished scholar.

Late 40’s and 50’s was the average age.
The Tang dynasty hoped that by having these 2 degrees, the aristocrats would never make it to the top of the government rank. Unfortunately, the majority of jinshi were aristocrats.

The appeal of being a government official was prestige and the position.

If you arrived at the position of being a government official, you become wealthy and your name is written down in history.

The Landowning system

Equal fields system (Often called the Zu, Yong, Dog System)- Equal because all men from 16-60 had a piece of land to call theirs.

Government owns all land, and peasants work the land for and on behalf of the government. Land was assigned to all males from 16-60, which they would farm.
No one could ever come and buy it out, but you could not sell it either.
Every farmer expected to pay 3 types of tax.

Zu- a payment of grain. North: Millet, South: Rice.
Yong- a tax in labor. Labor on government projects for about 1 month a year in the off season. Labor would be done on roads or bridges.
Dog- a tax in cloth. North: Hemp/ Cotton. South: Silk.

In order to keep this running properly, census’ had to be conducted. Census’ were conducted extensively and were expensive to do.
The equal fields system doesn’t always work. It fails during a rebellion and reverts to being privately owned.

Tang China and the Turks.

The Bipolar world is back again.

The Turks: Their ethnic homeland is north of China, called Mongolia today. The Turks are ethnically related to the mongols.
They moved into asia minor. They are the ethnic cousins of the Mongols. Their language is even similar to Japanese. They did not only originate in turkey, they have history in Asia.
Tumen comes into power and menaces Sui dynasty China.

The problem the Turkics have is a contradictory crises of succession.

One tradition says that the following brother should be leader, and another says that the sons should become the next leader. Horizontal and vertical succession.
Had there been one politically stable succession, they would have been much more powerful. The turks’ downfall was internal problems.
When Tang emerges, the Li family is part turkish and part Chinese. They found a dynasty and wait for the turks to collapse among themselves. In the 620’s when the younger man is emperor of China, the turks are grumbling and don’t know what to think of this young man. The turks decide to attack the Chinese but the young emperor is too quick. He faces both Khans and the emperor barks out his personal challenge and combat (in Turkish) to whichever Khan steps up to it. He wows the Turks and they back off for a time.

The Heavenly Khan

In 624, the young emperor launches a sneak attack on the Turks’ Khan encampment. He makes his way to the tent of the Khan and re-challenges him. The Turks submit to Tang China in the year 630.
With this, the first turkish empire ends.
The Tang emperor, Li Zhi Ming, becomes awesomely powerful. He is the Grand Khan to the turks and Son of Heaven to the Chinese.

For the turks, this is shameful.

The Second Turkic empire

The successor of the Tang dynasty is Gaozong and he doesn’t like the mongols and the mongols don’t like him. They have no respect for Gaozong at all.
In 670, the 2^nd turk empire is founded. It lasts until the early 700‘s. They (the turks) are almost obsessed with warnings to their people, to stay away from Chinese culture.
It is so adamant, that it is even written in stone. These warnings are the first written recordings of the turks. They are called the Orkhon inscriptions. Bilgha Khagan writes them.
Why is China dangerous to the Turks? Because they can produce what people want. They have silk and good food and could cause the turkic people to become assimilated to chinese culture.
The mongols were never assimilated culturally. Everyone else was.
The 2^nd turkish empire falls because of the Uigher.

The Uigher Empire.

They are literate, have their own script and love to raid and plunder China.
Karabalgasun:

A storage city made to store all of the stolen Chinese goods.
Uighers present the head of the last Turkish Khan to the emperor to prove that they are in charge.
Becomes a target.
In the year 840, the Kirgiz come down, break down the walls of the city, burn down the city, and with that, the city falls.

They become very wealthy and are helped by the Sogdians who come from uzbekistan. They speak persian.
The city of Karabalgasun falls and is destroyed but the people are not.
Later on, the uighers convert to Islam and are one of the larger ethnic minorities found in China today.

JAPAN

Japanese civilization is a blend of several different elements.
Combines continental influences (east asia), culture from far away India (Southeast Asia [wet rice cultivation & tooth mutilation]), modern European culture, and indigenous Japanese. All of that = Japan today.
Samuel Huntington categorized Japan as a completely separate civilization on its own.
Japan, like Britain, contributes more than expected from its from small size.
Japan is 200,000 square miles. Roughly the size of Montana or half of Alberta.
Has a population of 120 million people.
Where did the japanese come from? It is still somewhat of a mystery. A large segment is composed of migration from the mainland.
The Ainu people originally inhabited all of the Japanese islands. They are hairy and had light hair and light eyes. Because of migration, the Ainu were pushed up North, into Hokkaido.
There are alot of mountains in Japan and in the North, it snows.
Japan is at an advantage where placed at sea. Close enough to be influenced by the mainland but far enough to be identified on its own.
Not defeated until 1945, at the end of WWII.

Jomon

They left behind mounds and mounds of seashells.

These seashells are evidence of early civilization in Japan. Suggests that the fishing was very good. There was also a presence of pottery without agriculture.
Fishing so good that the Jomon could stay in one place and store their food (which is why the pottery existed). The pottery was coiled and they wrapped roe around it to give it a texture that made lifting easy.

Thursday October 28, 2010

Jomon Culture.

Besides pottery, they also had figurines.
Tooth mutilation was also practiced. It occurred when boys and girls reached the age of maturity.
Evidence of tattoos is also present. Influenced from polynesian cultures.

The Yayoi Culture.

Replaced the Jomon culture.
Located from the island of Kyushu to the modern Kanto plane.

The difference was seen in the pots. Better pottery, more refined.
Does not have agriculture in the early period.
No evidence of tooth mutilation,

It was in this period that wet rice cultivation surfaces.

Taken from southeast asia. Laos, Thailand etc..
They are fisherman and the basis of the diet, fish and rice, is established.

Lots of carbohydrates and protein.

Required a large labor force, due to the fact that wet rice cultivation required a lot of work.
They are also technology saavy.
At this time however, no writing system is established.
Bracelets, jades, disks, mirrors etc.. Are quite prized in Japan.
Japan also begins to work metal, entering the iron age. Bronze is worked, and a korean styled bell is made at this time.
Dogs have also been domesticated @ this time.
Vilages with thatched roofs.

The Tomb Period

The tombs are distinct and are sometimes called keyhole. Why they are shaped that way is anybody’s guess. Maybe had a religious connotation associated to it.
Tomb building seems to be all the rage and then tapers off around the 600.
In the 600‘s, waves of cultural influence from the mainland are coming into Japan. Mostly comes through Korea.
The Japanese began to write in Chinese Characters. They are not members of the same language family, but Japan adapts their writing anyways.
Japan, for 2 or 3 centuries (600’s, 700’s, 800’s), borrows and copies much from China- from writing to some cultural aspects.
Chinese characters are used phonetically to string together Japanese words. This occurs much, much later.
One chinese contribution to Japan was the potter’s wheel.
Haniwa are statues placed outside of tombs, perhaps to guard the tombs.

Enjoying life, singing, drinking sake and many, are obviously Shamans.

What is a shaman? Often, but not always a woman. Has six fingers (means being favored) and acts as an intermediary between this world and the other world. Usually communicates in a trance or a spell. Also have magical healing powers.
All of this is archaeological.

The Japanese begin to read of Sima Qian and some Japanese scholars decide taht Japan needs a written history based on Chinese Models.

The Kojiki (Record of old things) and the Nihon Shoki (chronicle of Japan)

Japan also has an emperor but there is a difference.

For the Japanese, it is unthinkable that an emperor could be overthrown and his lineage disposed of.
Japan has no mandate of Heaven.
The Japanese made it seem that the emperor had a lineage that began at the creation of the world.
Japan was seen as the origin of the sun and they have a creation account. Japan was created first. With the creation of the world, there is already and emperor and his family line is forever to remain untouched.
If the emperor is a nitwit and not capable, then he would live pampered and lavishly and have others run the country for him.
In Japan, people don't suffer long because of the nitwit emperor. Someone picks up the slack pretty quick.
The Japanese observe the distinction between reigning and ruling.

Much like our constitutional monarchy.

The Chinese don’t like the idea of reigning and ruling.

Tuesday November 2, 2010

Song China -

970-960- The 5 dynasties, China puts itself together again in 960.
Liao dynasty

The 16 prefectures

Never get conquered by Song China

Song never accepts barbarian rule but they leave it alone.
The treaty of Shan Yuen.
Liao, int eh North gets treated as an equal and not inferior. The emperor was Huang Di.
China loses the Northern half of its territory to the Jin. The ruling group were the Jerchens.
Jin must also be treated as an equal.
China has a fairly good chunk called Northern Song and there was also a Southern Song.
In 1279, the mongols, Yuan dynasty, conquered every last inch of China.

1250

Song after the sunset.
First time china had a coastal capital.
Hang Zhou was the largest city in the world at the time.
Not multicultural and China was scared of the outside world.
Threatened in the world and is very aware of that.
Hang Zhou was the place where all the foreign ships docked but, Hang Zhou was not like Chang an.
Recognized other rulers as emperors. Distasteful but it happened.
Family prominence did not exist.
Trade was 80% internal.
All trade is private trade and it is not supervised by the government. However, it is taxed.
Had about a 6% tax on business.
Getting more tax revenue from business than it is from farming.
In the late 10 hundreds we see a massive increase in commercial trade.

Don’t tax peasants, tax business!

In song by the 10 hundreds, the annual average mint of the government is 6 million strings of copper coins.
By the mid ten hundreds, there is not enough copper in China to make up for all of the trade going on.
Someone made up the certificate system, where the certificate was given a monetary value. It was easier than carrying around all of those copper coins.
The song are the world’s first users of paper money.
Counterfeiter's were beheaded.
They think using paper money, is no big deal.
Marco Polo writes about this and the Europeans disbelieve it.
China’s economy is highly monetarized.
By 1100, it was already 100 million.
By 1250, Southern song alone had 120 million people.
Over one dozen cities that have populations over a million people.

These cities are eager to trade one with another.
They were connected by roads and very connected canals. Think venice.

City culture emerges in Song China.
Develop special tastes for different local regions.
Hang Zhou itself, had a population of maybe 2 million people. He called Hang Zhou the “temporary abode” [xin zai].
Talks about how people wear silk like cotton. Europe didn’t believe him. Silk was a luxury in Europe.
Marco Polo also talked alot about how good the prostitutes were.
400 000 students.
Women, educated women, “did not know their place”, and they were viewed as unfeminine and uppity. Very unappealing.
Song men found women who remarried, after being widowed, horrifying and repulsive.

A man cannot serve two lords, which means a woman could not have two husbands.

Women who were small, frail, and weak were ideal.
The women were to be dumb, and stay at home.

Good women stayed at home and sent out their servants to fetch what they needed.

Large feet were repulsive and disgusting. The song men had a foot fetish.
Foot binding started in Song times. It was done a few years after the young girl learned to walk. Until the girl was 15 or 16, the girls foot was deformed and the toes touched the heel.
Once this was done, you could not walk very far, and you were basically immobile. Foot binding is not illegal until the 20^th century.

Tang China at its height.
Tang has no real enemies or outward threats.
Chang An was very multicultural.
China knows and is quite confident that it is the most powerful state in the world.
Foreigners were exotica.
Had never dreamed of any other ruler being equal to the emperor.
Families and prominence could last many centuries.
Business occurs in one city- Chang an. Commerce occurred with caravans coming through the city, because of the silk road.
Commerce was regulated by the government. They wanted to control trade in Luxury items.
Annual government mint of copper coins. It was approx. 100 000- 300 000 strings of coins, made up of 100 coins each.
Population was approx. 60 million.
Chan an. Population? Give or take 1 million.
60 000 students.
From 750- 1250, the position of women worsened. However, the rich people left behind the records. So we are talking about the elite women.
In 750, women are not allowed to write the govenment exams but are allowed to pursue and education. In tang times this is good and appeals to men. Women were drinkers and the men played drinking games. Tang men are fascinated with women who could hold her liquor and keep place among the men. Men would pay to have her sitting at their table.
Women in Tang were not dainty or coquettish. They liked deliciously plump, even, fat women.
Elite women were not equals but were the companions of men.
If a women widowed, she was allowed to remarry, especially a younger woman.
The men were very fond of Shiraz, Persian, wine. The chinese did not have grape wine.

First among equals.

That is what the emperor is in the Tang.
Bureaucracy was mostly among old wealthy aristocratic families.
These bureaucrats were allowed to criticize the emperor tastefully and talk to him directly.

In song, internally, the emperor is much more powerful during the Song dynasty.

Government emperors do not sit down for tea with the emperor. They were standing in front of the emperor and discussion was among themselves. Not with him.
Song emperor listens to debate and makes a decision BY HIMSELF.

In song you get your position because of what you know, not WHO you know.

This trend continued with other dynasties. Ming made the ministers kneel.
In the Qing, the ministers had to (kow tow)?
The emperor became even more powerful towards the end of the monarchal time.

Zu Yong Yang - paid taxes in land, silk and labor. (ASK MARTINA FOR THIS)
The population was growing and moving around. Population concentration moves from North to South.
By Ming the population is mostly in the South.
Today, because of industrialization of the North, there has been a huge movement back North.
There is a transition from a rural based economy to a city based economy. \

In song, government universities do exist but, among the wealthiest of he Chinese, a kind of snobbery emerged. “Don’t study to get a job. Study for the sake of studying!”
Private learning flourished during song China.
The government worries that the best and the brightest aren’t working for the government anymore because they are busy hiding.

Japan- Buddhism and Nara/ Hayan (modern day Kyoto).

Makes a deliberate attempt to copy the Tang.
The emperor always rules in a single uninterrupted line. The emperor was untouched.
Failed to institute the examination system.

Elitism survives in Japan, more than it does in China.

Emperor’s family wants to try the equal fields system but the wealthy families opposed the Emperor’s initiative.
Japan is not a carbon copy of CHina.
Even their buddhism is different and unique.

Buddhism and Nara Art.

The japanese learn to speak Chinese.
To them, Chinese is the language of culture and learning. They import buddhism and see that in China, there are monasteries. Therefore, the Japanese also have monasteries.
Nara temples.. The oldest Is the Horyuji. Built in the 600’s?. It is both a monastery and a temple. To build these, chinese and korean architects were brought in to Japan. The best place to study Tang architecture is in Japan. Tatami mats and kimono’s were also Chinese.
The Japanese are fond of using sculpture.
The Toshodaiji was founded by Ganjin, a chinese man, and he brought a variety of buddhism over to Japan. He failed 5 times and made it the 6^th time. However, he lost his eyesight in the process.
There is another temple, finished in 752. It is called the Todaiji. This was Japan trying to outdo China.
In 741, there was a law made that stated there had to be a buddhist temple in every province. However, there were also shinto temples in every province. Would the shinto Kami gods accept these new buddhist gods?
In order to do things properly, there was a department of deities set up so that Buddhist deities could be introduced to Shinto Kami gods.

Tuesday November 9, 2010

Primitive Shinto

The Japanese are aware that much of their culture comes from the mainland, but they ask themselves periodically and today… what does it mean to be Japanese?
Japanese people and Shrek are like onions… they have layers!
Japanese uses chinese characters and they have their own syllabic alphabet.
What is at the core of innate Japanese-ness?

This inner core, was believed to be Shinto.

Even Shinto is a continental import and is not indigenous to Japan.
Shinto is close to the shamanism and the fertility worship of other cultures (Including the mongols and the Koreans).
Animism: the belief that natural objects, phenomena and the world itself, has a soul.
Shinto Is diverse in its origin and fails to be established as a religion with strict guidelines, outlines and books. Shinto, is simply there.
Any that has kami is venerable and worthy of worship and respect.
Kami, = God. Anything that wows or inspires you can be kami.
Motoori Norinaga wrote that Kami… there are human beings who are kami and because of this, there was a period of kami, or period of the gods.
Even thunder can have kami. Kami is more like a label.
When buddhism comes in from the mainland, even this mixes with Kami and shinto.
Shinto worship, LOVES shrines.
The oldest shrine is the Izumo Shrine. Another shrine, the Ise shrine, is simple and made of of wood. These shrines are hundreds, if not thousands of years old. The Ise shrine has the 3 symbols- the symbols of the japanese emperor. It is often referred to as the 3 jewels (a mirror, a sword and a jewel).

The hope is that the kami may come and visit the shrine.

Marking the contours upon which a shinto shrine rests, is called a Torii. It separates between profane, dirty ground and the entering of a sacred place.
Harai: Shinto purification ceremonies
Misogi: Similar to harai, using water to cleanse the individual so that they may approach the deity.

You have to wash before entering the shrine.

What goes on historically at these shrines?

Fishermen would go there and offer the the first catch of the sea. Farmers- their first harvest, hunters- their first gain, warriors- the heads of their enemies.

Someone who know and performs the ritual well is the epitome of japanese ritual and ceremony.
You can pray at these shrines and can also purify- get rid of demons. Similar to an exorcism.

Shinto Legend and Creation Myth.

The Yamato clan is the family, or lineage that emerged as the emperor clan.

The japanese claim that this clan was established when the world was created.

The kojiki and nihonshoki.
660 B.C- Emperor Jimmu.

Who is he descended from? Who are his ancestors?

In the creation myth, there are divine brothers and sisters, Izanagi and Izanami. They descended down on the earth and they made Japan. Their most important child is Amaterasu, the sun goddess, and from her, the imperial lineage came forth. They have Susa no-o, the storm goddess and the deities have to attract the storm goddess to come out of hiding after fighting with the sun goddess. Ninigi’s grandson founded he imperial line.

All of this, from our modern day P.O.V looks silly, but in Japan, this is truth. Even in WWII, there were soldiers who claimed to be fighting for the lineage of the sun goddess. All of this was created so that the Emperor’s lineage wouldn’t be disputed. It wasn’t, but this doesn’t meant that the emperors were alway listened to.
The imperial line, is in fact, unbroken. And this is probably the only truth.
What was the function of the department of deities? To be ritually proper, and to introduce the buddhist boddhisatvas to the Shinto Kami’s.
Shinto is not as deep or profound as confucianism or buddhism.

Daoism never takes off in Japan. This happens because of the fact that shinto is already a religion of “nature”. It plays the part of nature religion in Japan.
The Japanese see little reason as to why they should replace shinto with chinese daoism.

Accounts form the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki.

Is shinto the core? Is kojiki and Nihon Shoki the ore?
IN early times, many believed that the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki were the essence of being Japanese.
Japan takes these elements from the mainland, but after 9 or 10 hundred, they are through with borrowing from the Mainland and begin to stand on their own.
Not even the Yamato clan, with its prestigious claim, can convince aristocrats to give up their land claims to give them to the government.
Japanese aristocrats restrict the writing of state exams to aristocrats only.
Chinese is the language of culture and prestige. The earliest specimens of japanese literature is written in chinese.
Chinese proves to be too difficult to normal japanese people.

A woman, at the emperor’s court in Heiyan, Japan, is the one who uses chinese phonetics to write japanese words.
The characters are simplified because they are too complicated, and then, a japanese writing system emerges.
There is one spelling system [alphabet] for japanese words (hiragana), another one, chinese characters for chinese (kanji), and another alphabet for words that came from the west (katakana).
Can the japanese read straight chinese? Sometimes.