"Shangqi and the Legend of the Ten Rings", this popcorn movie is really lackluster in the eyes of many audiences, in addition to the huge controversy caused at the beginning of the casting, the most criticized point may be a large number of oriental elements: antique Chinese decoration, far away from the world's paradise, the character's clothing style, how to see how awkward, and even the Chinese said in the film, there is a "machine flip" flavor.
Another film, Mulan, encountered the same problem, forcibly piling up Chinese elements, such as the appearance of tulou in the Song and Yuan dynasties in the story that took place during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
If filmmakers had read treatises on China, they might have stopped at superficial imagination.
There is no shortage of excellent sinologists in the West, such as Fairbank and Shi Jingqian. Another famous American sinologist, Charles O. Hucker (1919-1994), received receptions from Herrlee G. Creel, who was known for his study of ancient cultures, and E. K. Creel, who was known for his study of Song Dynasty society. A. Kracke) et al. professors of Sinology training.
Kai He was an important historian of the Chinese Empire in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s and an important promoter of academic programs in the field of Asian studies. In 1975, he wrote a general history of China, published by Stanford University Press in the United States, which was written specifically for ordinary readers interested in Chinese history and culture, vividly showing the long course of Chinese civilization from prehistory to 1850.
This work covering the entire history of China is not very large, but it is uniquely selected and well narrated, which is very much in line with the characteristics of excellent general history textbooks in American universities. Since its publication, it has been widely adopted by American universities as a basic textbook for Chinese history.
The author divides Chinese history into three main periods: the formative period, from the ancient period to the 3rd century BC; the early imperial era, from the 3rd century BC to the 10th century; and the late imperial era, from the 10th century to the middle of the 19th century. These three periods of antiquity are analysed in several chapters, dealing with general or political history, modes of domination, socio-economic organization, religious and cultural development, and literary and artistic achievements.
Some basic continuity in Chinese life
This article is an excerpt from the introduction to the book "China in the Age of Imperialism"
Translated by Zhao Jing
01
Basic socio-economic models
The family is the core unit of traditional Chinese society. Thousands of years ago, Chinese had a family name. Family names are passed on to the next generation according to paternal blood, as is the property. Property is usually divided equally among the male heirs of the family, so the family is regularly broken down into smaller branches. But the idealized Chinese tradition is to bind multi-generational members into one family, one big family. Traditional societies are a vast interconnected network of large families in which each person plays a clear, fixed, and satisfactory role. Individual achievements benefit the entire family, and individual deviance and failure can also harm the entire family. When facing the outside world, the individual is never a person, he is both the representative of the family and the need to assume family responsibilities and maintain the glory of the family. The tenacious individualism of the American ideal is not admired here.
The idealized extended family is bound together by the belief constraints of ancestor worship, so it becomes an infinitely continuous community in which members are responsible to their elders and descendants. At the same time, the extended family is cohesive by socio-economic constraints, and the head of the family (or patriarch) controls the socio-economic power of the family (or family) and is also responsible for the activities of all its members. The extended family consists of a head of family (or patriarch), a family of heads, and a family of all his male descendants.
Ideally, these people live together in a mutually supportive family. After the death of his parent, his property was divided and his sons became the new heads (heads) of their respective families. Ideally, the nuclear family, consisting of a couple and their children, is part of a larger unit of life and work, i.e. a larger family. Closely related families consider themselves to belong to the same clan or lineage, are linked in a cooperative relationship, and are headed by an elderly patriarch. These clans consider themselves associated and obligated with other clans of the same surname, thus forming a common lineage group.
The principle of unaccompanied marriage applies only to patrilineal clans: a man can marry cousins of his mother's family because they are different from his surname. But this man cannot marry a woman with the same surname, even if he is not related to the other party or far away from each other. Polygamy ("polygamy" to be precise) is accepted, but at all times, the husband has only one primary or legal wife. All children born in wedlock are legal and are sorted by the eldest and youngest, but there is a difference between concubines. Family titles are widely used in society, and people use words such as uncle, uncle, aunt, table, hall, and cong to address their neighbors and friends, "parent official" to refer to local officials, and "parent of the people" to refer to rulers.
It has been pointed out that ancient China was a matriarchal clan society, but throughout the written history, women played a subordinate role in both society and the family. Their status has declined significantly since the beginning of the writing, and most families see their daughters as a superfluous burden. Arranging a marriage for her daughter requires a dowry, but after the daughter gets married, she only contributes to the husband's family and adds welfare. Poor families are often forced to sell their daughters as maids, prostitutes or concubines. In extremely difficult times, female infanticide is pervasive. No matter how humble and humiliated, Chinese women have cultivated a spiritual strength that surpasses their husbands. Chinese literature and outside observation agree that Chinese husbands are most feared in the world, and Chinese mothers-in-law often oppress their daughters-in-law.
The typical Chinese family is usually an agricultural family that sits in a village and has close contact with more than ten families. Their fields are small, and their gardens are large and small, scattered around the village. In recent centuries, a family's field has typically not exceeded three or four hectares. Men are responsible for cultivating these fields, and women are also working in the fields, but most of the time they are responsible for looking after the house, feeding the chickens, raising silkworms and weaving cloth, that is, "male and female weaving". There is almost no idle land, and the crops produced on the land are not wasted, and even the straw after the harvest is used as firewood for cooking and heating.
Usually, in the plains and valleys of sight sit one or two similar villages, and a few kilometres away there will be a market town full of shops and the residences of the slightly wealthier. Farmers sell surplus grain from the harvest in market towns, buy the tools and seeds they need, and exchange greetings and news with acquaintances. For at least the past few thousand years, market towns have been regular places for temple fairs and festivals. Temple fairs and festivals are presided over by the surrounding towns in turn, and the chambers of commerce bring foreign goods to the temple fairs for sale. Over the past few centuries, the farthest radiation range of a market town could affect farmers thirty or forty kilometers away. As a result, some of the market towns with good conditions were expanded into cities, becoming bulk cargo distribution centers in the nearby areas, and also becoming the location of the lowest administrative unit of all legal governments.
Unlike the typical peasants in the Western tradition, Chinese farmers are not self-sufficient and independent. From very early on, at least for nearly a thousand years, China's agricultural production was highly specialized and commercialized, with farmers accustomed to buying and selling at markets. If a farmer has a high-yielding rice field and lives in a densely populated area with high demand for food and high food prices, he is likely to devote all his family's efforts to growing all his arable land for rice and selling it all to the market. He and his family may buy some cheap food, or even buy food imported from other places. Thus, if market conditions can provide differentiation, even if an area is suitable for two crops a year, farmers here may still plant only one season, or invest productivity in cottage industries, such as textiles. In short, China's agricultural economy is not a simple and rigid model, it changes with the market and currency conditions, and the situation varies from region to region and at different times.
In ancient China, more than 80% of the population was peasants, and the proportion is also heavy in modern times. These people work hard and exhaust all means to make ends meet, but they can only make ends meet. They are not properly educated, and can only rely on the land under their feet and the impermanent God on their heads, "relying on the sky to eat." Historically, it is difficult to know what these people think and feel. However, there are still regional "small traditions", such as folk superstitions and historical legends, that have been handed down orally, and are full of eagerness for survival. Moreover, the history of such a region is not unrelated to the high culture of the city.
The remaining about 20% of the population participates in and contributes to the "grand tradition", that is, the homogeneous writing culture. Since the Chinese had reached 60 million people in the first year of the Common Era, and there were about 100 million people around 1100, this group of educated intellectuals from the city was undoubtedly a huge group. Over the past two millennia, at any point in time, the number and influence of this group has surpassed many modern countries. Moreover, the mode of operation of society weakens the duality between urban and rural areas. The single criterion for judging the quality of government and the single value system dominate the entire society and social economy from the top down. The masses at the bottom were not expelled, but were included in the system. It would therefore be a mistake to think of the "grand tradition" as a thin finish that obscures, suppressed, and resentful masses. The ancient Chinese excelled in many ways, but none of them could stand up to harmonious self-discipline.
02
Border relations
At the time of the origin of history, the Han people did not own the entire Han Dynasty, but through gradual development, they expanded from the original homeland of the North China Plain to the entire Han Dynasty. Because of this, China at different times had different geographical entities, and Chinese culture as a whole was constantly changing with the times. The development of the Yangtze River region began as early as the BC Han Dynasty, but it was not completed until around the 8th century. It was not until the 12th century that the southern coastal areas were officially incorporated into the central government of the Central Plains. From the 15th century onwards, the Han Chinese began to vigorously develop Yunnan and Guizhou provinces located in the southwest plateau region. Although the north has been the economic and cultural center of China for a long time, the center of gravity began to shift south after the 12th century. To this day, the South is still economically and culturally ahead.
Southern China was not an uninhabited wasteland in the early days. In the process of expanding southward, China did not expel irrelevant "barbarians" as the United States did. When Chinese civilization rose in the northern plains, the southern lands were also inhabited by a group of people belonging to the Mongol race of the Sino-Tibetan language family, who were close relatives of the Han Chinese. And at least at the time, the degree of civilization development of this group of people was not far behind that of the Han People. Han Chinese and Chinese culture gradually became the mainstream of these southerners and their cultures, partly through militarization operations, but more through peaceful integration, absorbing these non-Han Chinese into China. Either way, newly conquered or assimilated southerners do not automatically become northerners, nor do their beliefs, customs, or lifestyles. However, as newcomers integrated their non-Han Chinese way of life into Chinese civilization, the meaning of China changed with each new expansion.
Thus, the southward expansion of China's territory can be seen as a gradual enrichment of the Chinese people and culture, and also explains the diversity of culture, temperament, form, and language that is widely present in contemporary Chinese.
Chinese called themselves Han Chinese, taking their names from earlier dynastic names. The Han Chinese are familiar with many tribal names, the most common collection is called barbarian Rongdi. Not all tribes and ethnic groups were assimilated or integrated by China, and those tribes that were extremely reluctant to become Han Chinese gradually drifted away from the relatively advanced Chinese civilization. They choose to persistently develop their civilization and make it relatively independent. In the historical history of China, there are conflicts between the Han Chinese and these tribes and ethnic groups. In most cases, the Han Chinese will try to ease relations with them.
By the 20th century, the tribal peoples of the south and southwest were still an important part of China. To this day, they still live as ethnic minorities or ethnic groups, and are known as Miao, Yao, Zhuang, Yi and Mosuo. In recent centuries, the Chinese government has acquiesced to the existence of these peoples and tribes, classifying them as autonomous areas of the country. In the 20th century, the government also repeatedly tried to protect and encourage the indigenous culture of the tribe. An interesting ethnic group called the Hakka, spread across the southern and southeastern coastal regions of China. The Hakka are believed to have migrated from northern China to today in the 12th century, isolated from their surrounding populations and strictly protecting the "pure" northern way of life.
China had a great influence on northern Vietnam long ago, but the southward expansion of China's territory stopped at the southern boundary of present-day Han China. The Chinese government sent naval expeditions first in the 13th century and then in the 15th century. That expedition in the 15th century controlled the Indian Ocean region, with fleets reaching the east coast of Africa. However, China has not tried to include these overseas regions in its territory. A large number of coastal residents of South China began to migrate to the South China Sea, and by the 20th century, these overseas Chinese had spread all over Southeast Asian countries, and some had become local economic predators.
China's northern border faces a completely different situation. Although ethnically similar to the Han Chinese, the northern peoples belong to a completely different Altaic language family and do not speak the language of the Han chinese. In addition, the northern ethnic groups are nomadic peoples, while the Han people live an agricultural life, which is different. Much of the history chronicles the struggle for victory between the northern nomads, the western steppe peoples, and the settled Han Chinese. Nomads are mobile superior, meaning they can gather overwhelmingly superior forces anywhere on the Chinese border in a short period of time. Han Chinese farmers were not good at raising horses and riding, so they needed strong supply convoys in their battles with nomads. However, after a long time of engagement, the staying power of the Han army can gradually consume the explosive power of the nomadic people. As a result, the initiative in warfare often flows between the two sides. It was not until the 18th century that the advent of modern cannons upset the balance of power on both sides of the border, and the central government has since secured its victory and strengthened its direct administration of regions such as Xinjiang and Mongolia.
Initially, the peoples of the north were not nomadic, and the earliest Han Chinese were not settled farming peoples, both of which were migratory tribes that lived on animal husbandry, gathering and primitive agriculture. The Han Chinese who rose up in the Central Plains gradually relied on farming, while the tribes in the north did not develop agriculture. Perhaps because of the extreme arid climate, the northern tribes have become more committed to developing a more favorable nomadic life. Horseback riding nomadism appeared in the 9th or 8th century BC and did not fully develop until the 5th or 4th century BC. At this point, two very different ways of life have parted ways. It was also since then that the northern nomads have become a threat to the survival of the Central Plains regime. The problem of defense in the north has also become an ongoing major problem in Chinese history.
Part of the reason for China's continued southward expansion is actually to cope with pressure from the constant alliance of nomadic tribes in the north. For a khan of a nomadic tribe, the plundering of cities and even political occupation was a natural manifestation of his ambitions. Inevitably, some of the nomadic people will stay and become Han Chinese. As a result, each invasion of nomadic peoples brought new blood and cultural elements to northern China, just as China's southern expansion would absorb the blood and culture of the south. On the other hand, some nomadic peoples failed to occupy China, and at the same time they were oppressed by tribes farther north, so they migrated westward, across Central Asia, and became the Huns and Turks in European history. Similarly, a portion of the indigenous peoples of southern China migrated south to become the Vietnamese, Thais, and Burmese of Southeast Asian history.
03
National unity and dynastic change
If viewed internally, Chinese history is a long process of struggle to repeatedly achieve and reproduce political unity. China's native complex topography, diverse cultures and languages, and ever-changing Han Chinese ethnic groups make maintaining national unity not a simple and natural thing. In China's history, local warlord forces have flourished periodically.
The classic pattern of dynastic succession is that a military strongman rules all of China by force and then passes the throne to the eldest son. The dynamism of the founding emperor often cemented the rule of his descendants, who established a system of dynastic institutions as a means of consolidating power and maintaining peace and prosperity for future generations. But generations later, the emperor was born within the palace walls, flattered by the wives and eunuchs of the palace, and far away from the real world outside the palace. Once on the throne, they became unrealistic and irresponsible monarchs. At the same time, government agencies and policies are unable to adapt in a timely manner to rapidly changing standards of living. The state apparatus was unable to respond in a timely manner to new national needs, so local tyrants or warlords—native rebels or invaders from the north—took the opportunity to split the country and suddenly start a civil war. Eventually, a warlord will suppress the rest, establish a new dynasty, and then begin the same cycle, namely unification, consolidation, stagnation, and finally fragmentation into chaos, and then repeat the cycle.
Admittedly, the above model does not explain all dynastic changes; similarly, not all dynastic changes are closely related to major changes in Chinese civilization. This cycle—from strong to weak, from centralization to decentralization, from order to chaos, from one family to one world to fragmentation—although difficult to explain, does not prevent it from becoming an important link in traditional Chinese history. It was because Chinese succeeded in establishing a stable social and governmental system that some dynasties lasted for more than three hundred years.
Excerpt from the choreography version of Bear Mur
Pictured: "Shangqi and the Legend of the Ten Rings", "Mulan"
"Assassin Nie Yinniang", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
"Dragon Gate Flying Armor", "Emperor Wu of Han"
China in the Age of Empire