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Qin dynasty ijnfluences on china
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Response Paper 2: Hero
Upon watching the film Hero, that was set in Ancient China during the Warring States period, I was able to expand my knowledge of the Chinese culture. The film Hero discusses the life of an ancient warrior. The film explains the journey of a swordsman who is determined to kill the emperor of China. After watching the film, I learned new information about Emperor Qin, Daoism, and filial piety. In this essay, I will explain my findings and how the movie correlated to these findings.
The film Hero expanded my knowledge on Emperor Qin. It helped me better understand Emperor Qin (the first emperor of China from 221-207 B.C.) and what he did while being emperor. As the first emperor of China, Emperor Qin indeed had a strong
There are little to no direct accounts of how individuals’ lives were a couple thousand years ago in Ancient China. With a wealth of information on the rise, decline, and fall of empires, Michael Loewe, a sinologist who specializes in oriental studies and theology, writes an imaginary story about a hero named Bing set around 70 BCE. Bing: From Farmer’s Son to Magistrate in Han China is Loewe’s fictional portrait of life during the Han Empire. It is by no means a comprehensive historical account of Han times, in fact, it was written with those readers who are not familiar with Chinese in mind, however through the life of Bing we can gage how the lives of laborers, those involved in military service, merchants, and government officials might
“The Death of Woman Wang”, written by Chinese historian Jonathan Spence, is a book recounting the harsh realities facing citizens of Tancheng country, Shandong Province, Qing controlled China in the late 17th century. Using various primary sources, Spence describes some of the hardships and sorrow that the people of Tancheng faced. From natural disasters, poor leadership, banditry, and invasions, the citizens of Tancheng struggled to survive in a devastated and changing world around them. On its own, “Woman Wang” is an insightful snapshot of one of the worst-off counties in imperial Qing China, however when taking a step back and weaving in an understanding of long held Chinese traditions, there is a greater understanding what happened in
P’u shamelessly addresses the fact that despite preaching honor and virtue, the nobility were the most lawless, yet only an idealized account would be recorded in history, as has always been. The author mocks this relinquishment in his own stories, as the moral is driven to immorality as rebels receive little to no punishment for their flagrant abuse of others and adultery against virtue. He describes the turmoil as “the ways that misery spawned recklessness and sudden, unreasoning violence that were almost impossible to deal with” (Spence 79). Laws themselves proved to be as wicked and depraved as their creators. For example, a horrific clause even encouraged men to take advantage of widows for profit. While the peasant class resisted their struggled by simply trying to survive, the upper nobility fought their problems by making the existence of those below them harder to bear. Enforced laws were done so with no due process, yet were made flexible by their own creators. Therefore, Spence exhibited the lawlessness and the government and its constant effort to contain this disorder. By hand-selecting the sources and settling on rural China, Spence felt the format effectively depicted his purpose. He effectively detailed history in relation to the average person of 17th century China and created a personal perspective that imbued the historical events with meaning. He most fully and accurately captures the greed, vision of morals, unaltered by elite preference and ironically one can draw parallels to our modern times. His purpose results in a richness of detail seldom observed in Chinese history. The principles of the time are captured through the poverty within the peasant class as every moment of their lives was set forth
Chapter 1: The Wan-Li Emperor, begins by explaining the major premise of the work: The concept of looking at a single year in the history of the leadership of China and evaluating the implications for understanding other aspects of history, including the decline of the Ming Dynasty. In this initial chapter, Huang provides an anecdotal history of some of the events that occurred, and includes within it a discussion of the set up of the leadership, the repercussions that occurred in the event of certain actions, including the prospects of an audience with the emperor. Huang reviews these issues as he considers that actions taken by the Wan-li emperor, who was only twenty-four in 1587 and who had been a veteran of ceremonial proceedings, and considers his history as an element of understanding the progression of leadership.
Ever since the establishment of cinema in the early 1900s, Hollywood has continuously recreated elements of history to reenact for its future generations. In order to clearly broadcast a specific theme or message to relay to viewers around the world, Hollywood executives tend to embellish real life events, in order to provide a “fairytale” aspect to a seemingly not so “happily- ever-after” story from history. As part of this “fairytale” aspect, Hollywood tends to delegitimize as well as provide a more disrespectful and more comical version of societies and cultures in the specific time frame that the film is being set. Through the art of story telling, the movies Mulan and Kung Fu Panda, depict the two sides of Hollywood, the falsifying and mockery making of Chinese people, their society, beliefs and true events of history and that of an accurate portrayal.
Cao Xueqin’s Story of the Stone is a classic in Chinese literature, showcasing the life and exploits of the wealthy Jia clan during the feudal era. Through Cao’s depiction, the reader is afforded a glimpse into the customs and lifestyle of the time. Chinese mode of thought is depicted as it occurred in daily life, with the coexisting beliefs of Confucianism and Taoism. While the positive aspects of both ideologies are presented, Cao ultimately depicts Taoism as the paramount, essential system of belief that guides the character Bao-yu to his eventual enlightenment.
In conclusion, the belief, relevance, and importance of the repetition of Chinese history are all explained and propagated by concepts of the Good Life, Good Society and Good State presented within the teachings of Confucius, the Dynastic Cycle and the Han Synthesis. All three concepts evolved from the ideas of Confucius and all highlight that Chinese history repeats itself by focusing on the inevitable rise and fall of each new dynasty. This makes the state accountable to its people for its actions. Confucius’ ideas on filial piety and how a ruler should govern shaped the Han Synthesis. No matter how benevolent the individual is, time and history march inevitably onward. Benevolence gives way to corruption and the process of degeneration and creation are repeated.
The movie the story of Qui Ju depicts the difficult quest of an ordinary provincial woman, who was seeking justice in the little village in China. Despite of the fact that she was pregnant, she persistently and willfully was overcoming all the obstacles on her path. She went from one office to other with a desire of restoring justice. However, she was disappointed again and again: officials were not able to fulfill her demands, even though the only thing she wanted was a mere apology by the village chief, who had severely beaten up her husband, Qinglai. The compensation she was offered with was monetary. However, she did not need money; she wanted an apology, but she could not get it because the chief was so obstinate that he would not apologize. No monetary compensation could retrieve the lost dignity of her husband and of hers, only a simple apology – an explanation could. The chief, being a superior, did not act in accordance with the philosophy of Confucius; his actions and behavior did measure up to the Confucian standards of benevolence and governance. This all caused a lot of troubles and to her and her family. This paper will try to prove it, scrutinizing his behavior closely following the plot of the movie.
Hero is a word that is commonplace in our society. We seem to always be able to turn on the latest news story and find the newest local man who saved that beautiful kitten from that building that was burning down. When we say hero a vast array of different definitions come to people’s minds. Our definition of hero in our world is most definitely not a constant. In the Epic of Gilgamesh and the novel Monkey many would consider the main characters and their strongest companions nothing close to heroes but rather tyrants. I have to say that these people have defined hero too narrowly, and I must prove them of their folly. Monkey and Gilgamesh, despite the many sins they commit, highlight what it truly means to be a hero, reminding us to always aspire to greatness.
This differs from the characteristics of a hero in Chinese culture as many times hero’s are considered average in physical appearance and possess qualities of “morally, culturally or intellectually” (Chinese Heroism). These qualities are also used for helping the good of the family or China (Chinese Heroism). One category is a religious leader such as Confucius (Chinese Heroism). Even though some cultures do not consider a philosopher a hero in China their wisdom and teachings of being at peace has inspired many generations (Chinese Heroism). Another is a military strategist such as a warrior who uses strategies to conquer their enemy (Chinese Heroism). Furthermore a martyr and anti-heroes are also another hero in Chinese culture (Chinese Heroism). As a martyr will sacrifice themselves or an anti-hero as they did not follow the conventional route of western hero (Chinese
Filial piety is as closely associated with Confucius teaching as it is one of the virtues of Confucianism. Confucius once said, “Among human practices, none is greater than xiao” (Chan, Alan Kam-Leung; Tan, Sor-hoon). There is no doubt that filial piety remained the important aspect of Chinese society, where as the philosophers such as Confucius strongly pushed forward the idea of filial piety. A ...
Confucianism and Daoism are two influential schools of thoughts that have existed in ancient China around the 6th century BCE. The former, led by the politician and philosopher Confucius, proposed that humans live in society according to a set of predefined rules and that they transform society through political action. Whereas the latter, led by the philosopher Lao-Tzu, promoted the idea of inaction; people should go with the flow instead of taking action to control their lives and dominate their surroundings. Although, at first glance Daoism and Confucianism seem to be two opposing philosophies, a more in depth analysis of two of their key ideas –filial piety and education—reveals that they do share some similarities.
...entertainment but exceptional for teaching people about ancient China and the ways of thinking during that time period.
Yu, Jimmy. Sanctity and Self-Inflicted Violence in Chinese Religions, 1500-1700. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Web.
The Warring States is the subject and title of Griffith’s third chapter, which gives an enlightening look at the life and times in China after the defeat of the rule of Chin at Ching Yang in 453. (p. 20) The country was divided into eight individual warring sects (with the exception of Yen...