China’s Examination Hell: The Civil
Service
Examinations of Imperial China
“In traditional China, government service was by far the most honorable
and, in every sense, the most worthwhile occupation; and the
examinations played a large part in determining the composition of the
elite, by molding as well as selecting the men who operated the system
and dominated society.” trans. Conrad Schirokauer by Intro. p. 7
“The examination system further strengthened the ideological principles
of both state and society by selecting officials ostensibly on the
basis of ability and intellectual achievement rather than of
birth. For this reason alone the system was a genuinely pivotal
institution.” trans. Conrad Schirokauer by Intro. p. 8
“Competition for a chance to take the civil service examinations began,
if we may be allowed to exaggerate only a little, even before
birth. On the back of may a woman’s copper mirror the five
character formula “Five Sons Pass the Examinations” expressed her
heart’s desire to be five successful sons. Girls, since they
could not take the examinations and become officials but merely ran up
dowry expenses, were not asset to the family; a man who had no sons was
considered to be childless. People said that thieves warned each
other not to enter a household with five or more girls because there
would be nothing to steal in it. The luckless parents of girls
hoped to make up for such misfortune in the generation of their
grandchildren by sending their daughters into marriage equipped with
those auspicious mirrors.” p. 13
“Prenatal care began as soon as a woman was known to be pregnant.
She had to be very careful then, because her conduct was thought to
have an influence on the unborn child, and everything she did had to be
right. She had to sit erect, with her seat and pillows arranged
in exactly the proper way, to sleep without carelessly pillowing her
head on an arm, to abstain from strange foods, and so on. She had
to be careful to avoid unpleasant colors, and she spent her leisure
listening to poetry and the classics being read aloud. These
preparations were thought to lead to the birth of an unusually gifted
boy.” p. 13
“If, indeed, a boy was born the whole family rejoiced, but if a girl
arrived, everyone was dejected. On the third day of her birth it
was the custom to place a girls on the floor beneath her bed and to
make her grasp a tile and a pebble so that even then she would begin to
form a lifelong habit of submission and an acquaintance with hardship.”
p. 13
Government schools system, Ch’ing officials continuted Ming system,
consisted of a national university in the capital, and prefectorial
(fu), departmental (chou) and district (hsien) schools in the provinces.
Youth Exams: 1. district (hsien -shih), 2 prefectorial (fu-shih) 3
qualifying (yuan shih) originally intended for boys under tha age of 15
Older candidates were discriminated against with harder questions.
Restrictions: for the past three generations a candidate’s family had
not engaged in a base occupation. - a guarantor was need to certify
that in this respect his family was unsullied. Otherwise no class
restrictions. Three years of mourning for a parent or grandparent
excluded a man for the exams. p. 19
Other exams: hui-shih - metropolitan, chin-shih - palace exam
Results were publically posted in a grand manner.
Sheng-lun Kuang-hsun Imperial Rescript onf Eduction, issued by
the fifth emperor of the Ch’ing dyn. Yung-chen (r. 1723-36) this kind
of pronouncement on education began with Emperor T’ai-tsu of the Ming
(r. 1368-99) :
Do your duty to:
Be at peace with your neighbors
Instruct sons and grandsons.
Be content in your occupation.
Do not commit offenses.
This was later expanded to 16 lines and finally 10,000 words. p. 23
Hauntings: “Licentiousness” was the most dangerous vice for a
scholar - the ruination of respectable women. Stories are told of
men who received retribution from the ghosts of ruined women in the
examination compound. The female ghosts come to exact revenge,
often the death of the young man. p. 46-49
China’s Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial
China, Miyazaki, Ichisada, 1976, trans. Conrad Schirokauer, New York:
Weatherhill.
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