Last week, I went to a museum called the Imperial Exam museum. This is quite an interesting museum that tells the story of the imperial examination in China. This is a very old exam that started during the Sui dynasty around 581 and lasted for hundreds of years until it was abolished around 1911 in the Qing dynasty. This exam was given every three years and had a total of four parts to it. Passing this exam was a requirement to becoming a state official in ancient China and the reason for exam was to ensure that all state officials shared a common knowledge of writing, the classics, and literary style.
I thought I had it hard trying to learn Chinese and its thousands of characters, but this is nothing compared to what students had to endure then. The students back then had to memorize ten entire books! And these weren’t just ordinary books, they were very thick literary books that taught the classics and the students had to know all the contents of each book by heart with no hesitation. Not only that, their penmanship also had to be exquisite and absolutely perfect. One of our teachers mentioned that many famous people in the China’s long history never managed to pass this exam failing not once but many times over many years. Examples include the author of the famous story, “Journey to the West” Wu Cheng-en, the author of China’s definitive text on traditional Chinese medicine, Li Shizhen as well as the revolutionary leader Sun Zhongshan.
It was hard to imagine taking such an important exam in such an uncomfortable environment. The tests were given in what seemed to be very small cubicles with a small thick slab of wood that was the desk and also served a double purpose as the place where the examinees slept. Our teacher mentioned that the test was so strict that every single person desiring to take the exam had to go through an extensive body search before being allowed to enter the testing area. This included a cavity search as well to not only ensure there no cheating but also to ensure that only men took the test since women would try dress as males to try their hand at the test. If someone was caught cheating, the punishment was very harsh. One example our teacher gave us was an official rigging the system to favor candidates from his hometown. The large imbalance regarding province representation gave him away and he was ultimately banished to the frontier but the punishment for the lower individuals that helped him cheat was to be dismembered. The Chinese have a saying, “Knowledge changes your fate” and after visiting this museum I totally understand why education is so important here.
Besides this, Christmas is almost here in Nanjing and it is strange not being at home for the holidays, but there is some holiday cheer here in China. I assumed that no-one would celebrate this holiday but I have seen Christmas decorations at a number of places throughout my day such as my apartment complex, a few restaurants, and my school. I warmly welcome this, since this makes it a bit easier to get through the holidays away from home.
Tony in China 