Chapter 27: Tradition and change in East Asia

Vocabulary

• Neo-Confucianism: A new version of Confucianism that was created by Zhu Xi, which was a combination of the moral, ethical, and political values of Confucius with the logical rigor and speculative power of Buddhism. Neo-Confucianism was central to Chinese formal education. 

• Qing Dynasty: The Qing Dynasty succeeded the Ming Dynasty, which lasted from 1644-1911. A large majority of the new peoples were Manchus, and they were mostly pastoral nomads. 

• Matteo Ricci: Matteo Ricci was the founder of the Jesuits mission to China. The goal of this organization/group was to convert a large population of Chinese people to Christianity. They had to start from scratch, however, because when the Yuan Dynasty fell, the entire population of Christians in China went with it. 

• Kangxi: Kangxi was a Chinese emperor that ruled during the Qing Dynasty from 1661-1722. He was an extremely powerful and efficient leader who was trained in Confucian teachings. 

• Scholar-gentry: Scholar-gentry’s were well-educated and highly literate men who governed the empire on the day-to-day basis. These were always appointed by the emperor. They earned these roles by passing civil service examinations, and played large and important roles in China’s political and social life. 

• Mean People: Mean people included slaves, indentured servants, entertainers, prostitutes, and other marginal groups. Two of these other marginal groups were the “Beggars of Jiangsu” and the “boat people of Guangdong”. 

• Tokugawa Shogunate: This was an empire that brought about the unification of a Japan at war among itself. Tokugawa Ieyasu was the last in the line of many chieftains, or shoguns (military rulers), and was the founder of this dynasty. The Tokugawa Dynasty lasted from 1600 until its decline in 1867. 

• Daimyo: A daimyo was a powerful, territorial lord in Japan. They posed as the greatest threat to the Tokugawa Dynasty and therefore were carefully monitored by the government. They were basically absolute rulers in their domains, and they kept them in check by making them spend every other year in Edo and their family to keep a permanent residence there. 

• Bushido: Bushido was the traditional code/standards of a Japanese Samurais life. This code emphasized living a simple life, courage, self-discipline, and loyalty. 

• Edo: Edo was a town in Japan, and is now modern-day Tokyo. This was the location where from the shogun operated his control over the entire nation of Japan. It was primarily a castle town. 

• Native Learning: A type of learning in which Japanese peoples scorned neo-Confucianism and even Buddhism because they did not originate from Japan. These people believed that Japanese people were superior to all others and that foreign influences, whether they are cultural, social, political, and/or religious, were considered perverse. 

• Dutch Learning: A learning that was started after contact with the Dutch. Many Japanese peoples learned Dutch so they could communicate with these foreigners and this brought a considerable amount of knowledge of the outside world to the Japanese peoples. 

Focus Question #1

            To what extent did neo-Confucian principles affect life in China and Japan?

            In China, neo-Confucian principles became the backbone of their formal education and similarly, in Japan, neo-Confucianism played the same role in. However, neo-Confucianism did not dominate in Japan as it did in China; Japanese native learning went against its principles and, for that matter, all other foreign influences.

            The education systems in both states were centered around neo-Confucius principles. In China this was shown through the support of educational programs at several levels, such as; the Hanlin Academy, which was a Confucian research center in Beijing, and the maintaining of provincial schools all throughout China. These provincial schools were where promising students could be educated in the goal of them eventually taking the civil service examinations. Even the civil service exams were based primarily on Confucian trains of thought and principles and neo-Confucianism commentaries.

            In Japan, Confucianism was the most influential philosophical system. Whereas, the common people practiced Buddhism, the upper class and a majority of the middle class practiced Confucianism. This was ideal to the Tokugawa Dynasty because of neo-Confucianism’s stress on filial piety and loyalty to superiors. The shoguns even went as far as offering direct support those who advocated neo-Confucian views. All those who went through a Japanese formal educational system also received constant exposure to the values of neo-Confucianism.

            However, unlike China, Japan did have somewhat of a resistance to neo-Confucianism – native learning. Native learning views went against all foreign influences, including Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and all other foreign ideals and ideologies.

Focus Question #2

            Compare and contrast the role of the merchant in Chinese and Japanese society.

            In both Chinese and Japanese societies, merchants rank near or at the bottom of their social classes. However, just because of their low positions in the view of their respective societies, it doesn’t take away from the important roles they played for these two states, such as Dutch Learning in Japan and in both they eventually became richer than the elite ruling classes in both dynasties.

            Japanese merchants, although being considered among the lower classes in society, were some of the wealthiest people in their time. These merchants made the majority of their money as the Daimyo and the level of Daimyo wealth began to decline. This was because the Daimyo looked for ways to express their wealth and impress others, and thus merchants were able to play off that and rip them off. Rice dealers, pawnbrokers, and sake merchants were some of the wealthiest types of merchants in Japan during this time period. Many of the wealthier merchants bought higher ranks in society, or married up the Confucian social order. Others did not do this, but still won respect because they were wealthy.

            Merchants in China were considered to be even worse by their government and their society then those in Japanese. Unlike in Europe, bonds between the government and the merchant class were never formed in China, which may have limited economical development throughout China. However, merchants did from bonds, whether through bribery or by other means, with some gentry families. By merchants giving their sons the education to prepare them for the civil service examinations, it further blurred the distinction between merchant and upper class. And that would eventually lead to the merchant and their family being promoted to a gentry family.

Focus Question #3

            Both China and Japan were isolated societies. Compare them and evaluate the contacts between them and other societies.

            Whereas both China and Japan were mostly isolated from European and African contact, Japan went out of their way by passing edicts and laws prohibiting or limiting contact with Europeans, or any foreigners for that matter, for a period of time. China, on the other hand, was mostly isolated because of their location in Eastern Asia and the lack of their desire to expand and/or explore.

            China, historically, was an isolated society that was very involved in global trade. This global trade declined for a small period of time during the Qing Dynasty. This was due to the tight regulation of foreign trade in China. Many European merchants could only deal at a specific port, such as; the Portuguese were only allowed at the port of Macau and the British were only permitted to trade at the official merchant guild in Guangzhou. At the end of the Ming Dynasty and through the majority of the Qing Dynasty, the Chinese government also tried to prevent China from participating in maritime trade, which did take a sharp decline.

            Contact with outside societies was rare during the Tokugawa Dynasty in Japan. They controlled this contact so tightly because they did not want Japan destabilized, like it had been before the takeover of the Tokugawa. The Tokugawa government feared that Europeans would supply Daimyos with firearms and other weapons which would then pose as a serious threat to their empire. During the 1630s, the shoguns released a series of edicts prohibiting/limiting contact with foreigners. These edicts also banished all foreigners that were already in Japan, and thus they had to leave. Another example of one prohibited the production of large ships or going abroad on penalty of death.