Chapter One: Off to a Good Start

Before delving into some of the details of early Chinese history, we should examine some preliminary matters of importance. First, we examine some aspects of the study of history as it relates to this course. Then we examine common "Orientalist" notions about China and East Asia and consider some ways to avoid them. Finally, we look at the basic physical and linguistic geography of China. Though one or more of these topics may seem tedious, some attention to them now is essential in understanding the subsequent chapters and the course as a whole.

Consider for a moment the many uses of the term "history" in ordinary speech. For example: "My boyfriend is history;" "I'm really into history, so I try to go to battle re-enactments whenever I can;" "Help preserve our history;" "China sure has a lot of history;" "What really irks me is all the distorting of history that goes on today;" "I never was much good at history. It was too hard to memorize all those names and dates;" "History teaches us that we should . . .;" and so forth. In these examples (in order), the term "history" serves as a rhetorical device to emphasize the decisive nature of a break with the past; as a justification for a hobby; as a rallying cry for the preservation of old buildings, sites, customs, etc.; as an odd-sounding quantitative measure of the length of time human civilization is known to have existed in a particular place with present-day significance; and as a grounds for criticizing a political agenda (but not in terms of "politics" but in terms of an allegedly objective truth about "what really happened"); as a tedious schoolroom practice; and as a moral imperative. What you are unlikely to hear in popular discourse when the term "history" pops up is any discussion or awareness of history as an academic discipline. It is a topic of little interest to most people. Furthermore, among professional historians there are sharp disagreements about just what history is, should, or could be.

Here are some examples of questions or issues about which historians often disagree. Indeed, some historians take offense even at mentioning these matters, while others love to mention them whenever they can:

What is "reality" and how can we know it? Is objectivity possible? What is historical "truth?" Is it relative or absolute? Is it independent of the language we use to speak of it? Do we discover history or create it? How should we deal with continuity and change, and which should we stress in writing and speaking about the past? Is narrative form the only way to think or write about history? Does narrative form correspond to "reality" in any significant way? Should we strive to make sense out of the past, or is doing so an act of over simplification? Or, should we instead strive to de-familiarize the past, or at least to problematize it? . . .

Don't worry. We will not be examining these issues in this course, at least not in a sustained, systematic way. However, most these questions do lurk, often uncomfortably, in the background of university history courses, and it is often helpful to be aware of them.

As one example, let us take the matter of continuity versus change. Pick a country about which you think you are familiar and imagine yourself writing a history of it. To what extent would you emphasize political, cultural, institutional, or other continuities, and to what extent would you emphasize change, growth, or development over time? And what would be some of the consequences of either choice? If you give this matter some serious thought, you might realize that there is no precise formula that results in the correct handling of continuity versus change. It is more like an aesthetic choice. A painter, for example, will have to make choices about media type, coloration, perspective, and more. Historians make similar choices when they write their narratives of the past. Some historians are conscious of these choices; others are not--but all must choose. Let us consider the matter further.

A strong emphasis on continuity may be very difficult for the writer of a piece of history, for s/he will have to come up with a convincing set of master metaphors and make the argument that despite superficial differences and variety, "the _______ (fill in the blank: Germans, Chinese, westerners, working class, etc.)" are, deep down, all the same, and have remained so for a long time. Aesthetically, what is a benefit of such an approach? It is usually neat, orderly, and easy for the reader or "consumer" of history to comprehend and remember. People must generalize to function in the world, and so theories and narratives that claim to explain a large group of people in terms of a timeless essence usually have great appeal to our minds. Appealing though they may be, grand, timeless theories ("'Fast-Food' Explanations in the words of Peter C. Perdue) often lead to a variety of problems. Let us continue thinking about this and related matters in concrete terms. Here's a true story.

My main indulgence is music. Not just any kind of music. If I won a lottery jackpot, I'd spend most of my time playing old-time Appalachian string band music. Not being so wealthy, however, I settle for attending a few festivals and camps during the summer months. During the summer of 1999, I spent a week at a music camp in the mountains of North Carolina, and on the last night, the diehards were out playing until about 4 am. I was one of them, as was a history teacher. This teacher has an impressive mind, is well read in a variety of areas, and is a friend of mine. I use the example of our conversation to illustrate an important point, not to criticize her.

Knowing that I was a professor of East Asian history, for some reason, she wanted to talk about Chinese history right then and there--which was about the last thing I wanted to talk about at 4 am after a week of playing music from morning till morning every day! But she explained to me her synopsis of Chinese history and its present-day didactic significance, and then pressed for my reaction.

And what was China's history all about in her view? It turns out that China's history is easy to explain because, for one thing, the essence of it never changed. In fact, it could all be explained by the 1950s-vintage "hydraulic thesis" of anthropologist Carl Wittfogel. Despite the fact that this hydraulic theory carries no weight among East Asian specialists today, it remains remarkably healthy among non-specialist academics and historians.

OK, so just what is Wittfogel's thesis? Perdue explains it concisely: "The notorious 'Wittfogel thesis' argued that China was a 'oriental despotism' where the imperial state controlled crucial supplies of irrigation water. There could thus be no freedom in the East, unlike the West."¹

So it is all rather simple. In the "East" (China often gets extended to stand in for much larger entities, like "the Orient" or "the East"): 1) there was a political system in which the ruler exercised absolute power (i.e., despotism); 2) this system came about because of China's need to control water resources, and only despotic government could marshal the necessary resources; and 3) this system was not conducive to entrepreneurship and trade. Remember: these assertions are not supported by most [if any] historians of China today, and have been proven incorrect by a wide variety of research. In the "West," by contrast, concern with individual rights and property rights promoted democracy, freedom, and a free market. So, concluded the history teacher, we should learn from the vast mistake that is Chinese history and support free markets and all that go with them. (And, by the way, unlike many academics, I am a supporter of free markets--but not because of anything that happened or did not happen in China.)

Not only this particular theory, but the very way of thinking informing it is problematic. It essentially replicates the worst features of European thinking about China (or "the East," "the Orient," etc.) during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and this thinking was not benign in its consequences. European (and, later, U.S.) imperialists did not take over and control other lands in the name of, for example, "we want your raw materials and labor cheap, so we'll take them at gunpoint." That would hardly do for a reason! Try this instead: "We are here to liberate you from the despotic oppression under which you have labored for centuries." Ah, much better.

Returning to the very early-morning conversation about China, there are a variety of approaches to criticizing Wittfogel's hydraulic thesis. Here are some of the main points of such a critique:

1) Although it is true that water resources were a crucial factor in the economy of China, especially north China, Chinese institutions and government were concerned with and shaped by much more than simply this one issue. 2) Furthermore, Chinese government, institutions, and culture evolved and changed over the centuries, and 3) the claim that they did not is either intellectually lazy (i.e., we don't have to worry about detailed study since it was all the same) and/or a manifestation of a classic "Orientalist" stereotype (more on Orientalism later). 4) Chinese society was a complex network of power structures and interrelationships, some of which constrained personal freedom and some of which enhanced it. To simply call it "despotic" as if all Chinese slavishly bowed to the emperor's every whim and command is simply contrary to the way people in China--or anywhere--behaved. 5) Furthermore, the so-called "freedom" of the Western world was heavily constrained by religion, the institution of slavery, constant warfare, a variety of social prejudices, meddlesome governments, and more. 5½) Taking today's United States as an example, it would hardly be correct to call it a "free market" society without acknowledging the high degree of socialism and government involvement in economic and social engineering. In other words, not only "the East," but also "the West" cannot be so easily labeled as one thing or another. 6) In short, Human affairs are much too complex to allow either China or "the West" to be adequately explained by a quick list of opposing attributes.²

When I returned to Happy Valley, I sent this teacher a copy of the article by Perdue I have cited here. The article is aimed primarily at middle and high school history teachers, and part of its conclusion reads as follows:

Although this course is about East Asia and contains no sustained analysis comparing China with Europe, "the West" or any other part of the world, we would do well to keep Purdue's words in mind. Stated differently, excessive emphasis on continuity instead of change, while appealing in its simplicity, usually leads to inaccurate, unhelpful, and even positively harmful stereotypes. The sharp distinction between an allegedly "free West" and a "despotic East" is but one example.

What about the opposite approach, that is, a strong emphasis on change, randomness and contingency. In some sense, change, randomness, and contingency correspond to how most of us perceive our world (= reality?) on a moment-to-moment basis. Recall my earlier characterization of the historian's emphasis on continuity versus change as an aesthetic choice. Think of the analogy of a artist painting a picture. While sparse use of a certain technique might produce a pleasing effect, constant or excessive use might ruin the painting. In the case of a writer, the use of italics, exclamation points, and capital letters can add emphasis to key words, phrases or sentences, their overuse is worse than not using them at all (example: many web sites). Likewise, for the historian, too much emphasis on continuity leads to the danger of inaccurate stereotyping.

But the opposite extreme is equally problematic. Excessive focus on change and randomness leads to mental chaos. If history consists of discrete individual actions that have nothing in common, it literally makes no sense. A similar state of mental confusion can sometimes be seen in students with a learning disability that renders them unable to see the forest for the trees. Study become a nightmarish rush to memorize thousands of seemingly unrelated pieces of information, but the student is unable to put this information to any productive use because s/he is unable to see relationships between the pieces of information and the broader patterns these relationships form. Those who see the study of history as simply the memorization of names and dates often tend toward this chaotic mental state.

Writing history, or even just thinking about the past in a serious way from time-to-time (which, hopefully, you do or will do) always involves a tension between continuity and change, neat explanatory theories and randomness, generalization and specific facts. Now for a disclaimer of sorts. The organization of and practical requirements (exams, grading, limited time, etc.) of an undergraduate survey course tend to push the emphasis in the direction of continuity, neat explanatory theories, and generalization. This course is no exception, which is probably as it should be. Since we can only study a small part of Chinese and Japanese history, why not study those elements of culture, politics, religion, institutions, etc. that exerted a major, long-lasting influence? We should and we will. But doing so also brings with it the danger of seeing China as a place of little of no change over time. Ideally, you will keep this point in mind as we go through the course.

Notice from the above discussion that history is not an exact science. How we view the past is a complex process mediated by such factors as our personalities, our biases, our interests, our aesthetic preferences, current social and political issues, the questions we choose to ask, intellectual energy (or its lack), available sources/materials, and much more. Notice that present-day concerns and issues are of the utmost importance in the way most people understand history. The past has meaning for most of us only insofar as it sheds light on our present situations or on the big questions in human affairs in general. One benefit of studying a place far removed from our own (both in terms of geography and time) is that we can see examples of how people have dealt with such basic issues as the distribution of wealth, social control, the function and structure of families, relations between men and women, or attempting to understand how the universe works. Because these examples are often quite different from what we regard as normal, they afford us the opportunity to examine alternatives--often radically different alternatives--to our contemporary world. By exposure to these different approaches, we can gain insights into major human issues as they exist for us here and now, thereby broadening our understanding of the complexity of most social/political/intellectual issues and enlarging our understanding of the possible choices that we might make. This potential for broadening and enlarging our minds, it seems to me, is the most compelling reason to study history.

(For an analysis of Orientalism in the context of studying Japan, #click here.#)

For many inhabitants of the United States, a way of thinking that is now commonly called "Orientalism" often takes over when the topic of East Asia comes up. It is the purpose of this section to bring Orientalism out into the open so that we might recognize Orientalist modes of thought when they arise.

Literary critic #Edward Said# coined the term "Orientalism" in his 1979 book, #Orientalism.# In terms of geographical coverage, Said was concerned only with the Middle East. Soon after the publication of Orientalism, however, scholars began to apply Said's ideas to other parts of the world, especially South Asia, East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Since its publication, Orientalism has come under a variety of criticism, but it remains influential to this day. The main significance of the book is that it focused attention on the deep roots of certain stereotyped ways of thinking about "the Orient" in the Western world. For a summary of Said's basic ideas and terminology, #click here.#

The term Orientalism obviously comes from the word Orient, which is a vague geographical term now out of fashion in academic discourse except in discussing Orientalism. What/where exactly was or is "the Orient?" There is no simple answer. In European literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both "Orient" and "Asia" typically brought forth associations with the general part of the world today commonly called the "Middle East"--places such as present-day Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. An archaic definition of the word Orient was any place east of a specified point. So, for example, in the sixteenth century, there was a general awareness among educated Europeans of peoples living in lands "far to the east." In the minds of many Europeans, these "eastern" or "Oriental" lands corresponded to parts of the world where Islam was the predominant religion.

As places farther "east" became more readily known in Europe, the scope of "the Orient" gradually expanded in people's minds, reaching all the way to Japan by the nineteenth century. Sometimes Europeans called East Asia "the Far East" to distinguish it from the "near" or "middle" east. Significantly, stereotypes formed through European interaction with the Middle East were often extended and applied to East Asia.

Notice the phrase "in people's minds" in the above paragraph. This phrase suggests what may be the most important point about "the Orient:" the term refers not so much to a specific geographical boundary as it does to an *imaginary space* in the minds of educated Westerners of centuries past. In other words, for most Europeans, "the Orient" was not a real place in the sense that these Europeans were informed about the cultures of the people living in lands to the East. Instead, most Europeans imagined what such places might be like, often projecting onto these far-away lands their fears and fantasies. The frequent literary device of setting tales in "the Orient" (much like one might now set a tale in another planet or galaxy as a device for literary fantasizing) resulted in a rough set of general images and stereotypes that most educated Europeans held in common. And, for better or worse, many of these images and stereotypes have persisted to this day. The very fact that a term like "the Orient" can have any coherence at all is because of its imaginary character. The actual peoples inhabiting the world between Turkey and Japan are so diverse in every respect as to have nothing at all in common other than what all humans may have in common.

Not all of the classic Orientalist images play a major role in informing present-day American ways of viewing China, Japan, and East Asia in general. Nevertheless, the legacy of Orientalism does contribute certain key elements, and we examine a few of them here, first in general and then with specific reference to images of China.

The first Orientalist image is exotic--and thus--erotic sensuality. A major function of "the Orient" in "Western" literature was as a place onto which male readers could project *sexual fantasies.* Typical textual and visual images in this connection included the harem or other types of secluded women's quarters, baths, plush bedrooms, and slave and marriage markets. Because sexuality and eroticism is largely a social construct, making it more exotic or unusual can greatly enhance its allure. European men typically imagined the Orient as a place in which compliant women lived to serve men--or at least wealthy and powerful men.

Closely connected with this image of compliant women was an image of *torpor or languidness.* Scenes of the women's quarters, and of the lifestyles of wealthy men, suggest a lack of vigor and energy. Such scenes were often contrasted with those of the backbreaking labor of the poor masses. The overall effect was to reinforce what was perhaps the most common of all the images of the Orient: an ancient land of no change; a land in which the vital energy that propels change is somehow lacking; a land where people are content to do things the way they always have for countless generations. Again I stress that these images were and are European projections onto the Middle East, not the actual facts of life in the Middle East or any part of "Asia," broadly defined. Accurate or not, however, they played an important role in the way many Europeans viewed peoples of other parts of the globe and interacted with them.

During the middle of the nineteenth century, the modern notion of "race"⁵ began to play a large role in European and American thought. The idea of "race" has a complex history; it is not an obvious or given thing or fact. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the now largely discredited view that human races are clearly definable biological categories combined with ideas of cultural evolution to produce notions of superior and inferior "races," which, as the thinking went, must not commingle. The "Orient" had long been a place in which people exhibited a wide range of physical features, which was an aspect of its exotic character. The sensuality of the Orient, therefore, carried with it the possibility of a sexual mixing of the "races," the ultimate taboo in European and American society during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This taboo contributed an additional element of fascination to the topic of inter-racial sex and the Orient. Two movie posters convey two related but different Orientalist images of inter-racial sex. First is *"the great sin"* of consensual love or lust, set in India, which, of course, emphasizes the sense of fundamental transgression. During the late 1950s, however, this inter-racial dimension of the Orient started to be portrayed more favorably while retaining a sense of the exotic. The *poster* for the 1957 film, Sayonara (set in Japan), an early Hollywood attempt to criticize war and racial intolerance, is an early example of this tendency. Notice that the poster relies heavily on the exotic "otherness" of Japan to pique the viewer's curiosity.

Of course, Oriental exoticness need not be connected with sex. Whether sexual or not, the Orient was a land of mystery and strangeness in most "Western" accounts. Examine this *travel ad,* which appeared in a U.S. magazine in 1921. Notice especially the first paragraph, which reads:

Now, consider the following excerpt from a 1990s ad from an American travel agency, the title of which is "Cruise to the FAR EAST:"

How little some things change! Indeed, this ad might as well have been written in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries in terms of its dominant imagery. Orientalist thinking remains alive and well in the present.

The view of "the Orient" as a once-great land that has not changed for centuries became well entrenched in the minds of many Europeans and Americans. Even today, the idea lives on ("The Chinese have not changed for 3,000 years," a student in the 1990s wrote as part of an exam essay in a survey course in East Asian history). As you probably know, Japan has long been a world leader high-tech manufacturing and information technologies. It is an overwhelmingly urban society. So, too, are Taiwan and Hong Kong. Mainland China and South Korea are rapidly industrializing countries. Yet nearly every TV documentary about any part of East Asia seems obsessed with the idea of some sort of mysterious, timeless, cultural essence. Viewers are invited to ponder the alleged "paradox" of the existence of high-tech and heavy industry in Asiatic lands. Orientalism remains alive and well.

Another common Orientalist image is that of cruelty. A closely related image is that of people so inured to hardship and deprivation that they lack the same feelings and emotions that "we" have. This image has endowed the Orient with a sense of danger and adventure. It has also made it a terrifying place in certain contexts, especially warfare (the Pacific War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War, especially with respect to China). Late in the nineteenth century, the term "Yellow Peril" came into widespread use in Europe and the United States. It referred to a variety of scenarios in which one or more Asian countries take over the world and destroy "Christian civilization." In the early twentieth century, Sax Rhomer, a British novelist, created the character Fu Manchu. Fu Manchu was a terrifying diabolical genius who combined "Western" science and technology with "mysterious Oriental powers," which, presumably, he innately possessed. This combination of "eastern" and "Western" characteristics nearly enabled Fu Manchu to take over the world in each of Rhomer's best-selling novels. Hollywood cast Boris Karloff as Fu Manchu in the 1930s, declaring that the character conveyed "menace in every twitch of his finger . . . terror in each split second of his slanted eyes."⁶

Interestingly, during most of the 1940s, China enjoyed a change of image in the United States, becoming a valiant and glorious partner in the fight against fascism. Orientalist images of cruel, inscrutable hordes were, of course, projected onto Japan at this time. But during the 1950s, Yellow Peril imagery suddenly shifted back to China, particularly after its entry into the Korean War. Today, the image of China as a threat is less sharp than it was during the Cold War years, but Yellow Peril imagery could quickly return any time U.S.-Chinese relations seriously deteriorate.

There are, of course, significant cultural differences between different parts of the world, some of which we will examine in this course. From the standpoint of someone raised in the United States, for example, it is only to be expected that places China or Japan would seem exotic. And this exoticness is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, that which is different or unusual tends to pique our curiosity and thus motivate us to investigate the world in which we live. So do not feel any need to set aside your curiosity about what is different. But at the same time, try to be aware of the pernicious influence of certain Orientailist stereotypes, especially those mentioned in previous paragraphs. Speaking more concretely, here are some points to consider as you go through the course:

First, take a look at *China in the larger Context of Asia.* Then, take some time to study *this map.* Take note especially of the general locations of the following major cities: Beijing 北京, Nanjing 南京, Shanghai上海, Guangzhou 廣州 (near Hong Kong), and Taibei 臺北 (often spelled Taipei, but pronounced "Taibei"). They can serve as useful reference points. Perhaps even more useful as reference points are the two major rivers of China, the Yellow River ("Huang He" 黃河 on some maps) and the Yangzi River 揚子江 ("Chang Jiang" 長江 on some maps, which is the more common Chinese name; "Yangze" is Wade-Giles spelling). The Yellow River is so named because the northwest regions of China through which it flows contains a fine, powdery soil called loess (from the German löss, meaning "loose"), which is blown into the river by the wind. Because this soil is so fine, it takes a long time for it to settle to the bottom. Thus, the river's water usually contains much loess soil suspended in it, and its color is a muddy shade of yellow. Because most of the loess soil eventually does settle on the bottom of the river, the bottom continually rises. This situation promotes flooding in times of unusual rainfall.

Historically, the flooding of the Yellow River would be a short-term disaster, especially because most of the river runs through relatively flat terrain. In the longer term, however, the floods served a valuable purpose. They renewed the fertility of the arid lands of north China. During the twentieth century, the Chinese government has dealt with the Yellow River by building up its banks with walls. So far, the river has not flooded, but it is now well above the level of the surrounding countryside. If it does flood, therefore, the damage will likely be worse than in any previous flood. To the south, the Yangzi river is less prone to flooding. Like the Yellow river, it serves as a major transportation route and a source of irrigation.

China's land area is about the size of the continental United States, but while the U.S. has a population of about 250 million, China's is about five times larger. To get a rough sense of the greater human density, therefore, imagine the United States with 500% more inhabitants. Examine *this map* to get a sense of the relative population density within China. Included within the boundaries of present-day China are a wide variety of climate zones and geographical features. The major geographical divide is north-south. Imagine an east-west line half way between the Yellow and Yangzi rivers to divide China in to a northern and southern half. The north of China is relatively dry and arid. Summers are very hot; winters are very cold. Rainfall is unpredictable, usually sparse, but sometimes very heavy. The southern half of China has a wetter, more moderate climate. A common image of the Chinese countryside is that of vast networks of wet rice fields, but this image is applicable only to the south. In the north, dry field grains such as wheat and millet are the agricultural mainstays (*click here*).

Cultural differences accompany the climatic division between north and south. The northern climate promoted extensive movement of peoples over the centuries. One result is a relatively high degree of ethnic and linguistic uniformity. What we usually call "Chinese," for example, is the speech of northerners, especially around the present-day capital of Beijing. This language is often called Mandarin Chinese to distinguish it from other Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in and around present-day China. The south, by contrast, is home to a variety of ethnic groups and languages. In terms of language, Cantonese (also called Yue) is spoken in Hong Kong and the area around Guangzhou. Several different languages (often called dialects) such as Fujianese (also called Min), Hakka (also called Kejia), Xiang, Gan, and Wu are spoken along the coast, and in southern inland areas. The island of Taiwan is home to speakers of Taiwanese and several languages of the native (non Chinese) population. Briefly examine these *linguistic maps of China* for a sense of the overall situation. Note: by no means is it the case that all the residents of China speak Chinese, if "Chinese" is defined as the standard speech of the Beijing area (i.e., Mandarin Chinese or putonghua).

China's government, however, would very much like all Chinese to speak Chinese from the standpoint of economic and administrative efficiency. It has privileged the language of the north as "the common tongue" (putonghua 普通話) and promotes it in every part of China via schools and official mass media. This situation is roughly like that of the former Soviet Union, where Russian became the official language even of the many non-Russian parts of the union. Government pressure has resulted in a large increase in the number of Chinese who can speak, and, especially, passively understand Mandarin over the past several decades. Local languages remain vigorous in daily life, however, and many observers of today's China say that regionalism is gaining in strength.

For convenience, unless otherwise stated "Chinese" in this course refers to Mandarin Chinese, that is, the officially-recognized "common tongue" of today's China. Let us take a brief look a few features of this language that are of some relevance to the course. First, personal names are normally arranged with the family name first and the given name last (and this order is true of all East Asian languages, Chinese or otherwise). The family name is usually, but not always, one syllable. For example in a name like Lin Liping, Lin is the family name and Liping is the given name. Sometimes the family name is two syllables as in Sima Qian. In such cases, the given name may be one or two syllables. Given names are usually two syllables, but they are occasionally one syllable, even if the family name is only one syllable (Example: Ban Zhao). For more on this topic read at least *"the brief story"* at this site. Note that all names of Chinese people in this book follow the standard Chinese convention of putting the family name first. Following native Chinese name order is also standard practice in academic books and articles.

Another feature of Chinese and the other Sino-Tibetan languages is that changes in tone are an integral part of the meaning of words. English has nothing like this feature. Mandarin Chinese has four tones; most other Sino-Tibetan languages have more (as many as nine). The four tones of Mandarin are shown here. Let us take the most common example to illustrate them: the word(s) ma. In Roman letters, ma is spelled the same way, but it is four different words, each distinguished by a different tone. Ma₁媽 is pronounced with a high, steady tone and means "mother." Ma₂ 麻 is pronounced with at rising tone and means "hemp." Ma₃ 馬 is pronounced with a tone that starts in the midrange, goes low, and then rises. It means "Horse." Ma₄ 罵 is pronounced with a tone that starts high and falls. It is a verb meaning "to scold" or "to curse." So, how do we deal with tones in the course? We don't. In other words, Chinese terms are written and pronounced without references to their tones. This paragraph is simply for your information. If you plan to study Chinese seriously, of course, you will need to pay close attention to tones.

What about other matters of pronunciation? First, we need to look at Romanization. Romanization is the process of transcribing non-Roman alphabets into Roman alphabets. Russian words appearing in English-language publications are romanized, since Russian is normally written in the Cyrillic alphabet. The same goes for Arabic, Korean, and other languages not normally written in Roman letters. Chinese, as you surely know, is normally written with Chinese characters. These characters are transcribed into Roman letters based on their pronunciation (sometimes with diacritical marks added to indicate tones, e.g., má for "hemp"). Examine *this page* on romanizaiton.

Here is a Chinese sentence written in Roman letters: Wo hui shuo zhongguo hua (I can speak Chinese). Is it Chinese? Yes, obviously--what else would it be? Here is the same sentence in Chinese characters: 我會說中國話.⁷ Are these two sentences different languages? No. They are both Mandarin Chinese and are--or should be--pronounced the same way. The difference is in the method of visually representing the sentence in a durable medium (pixels on a computer screen in this case). One method employs Roman letters; the other employs Chinese characters. Language is a series of meaningful spoken sounds. Writing, or script, is a method for representing language in a lasting, visible medium. While obviously related, language and script are not the same thing (more details to follow in later paragraphs).

So it should all be rather simple, right? When Chinese words come up in the context of a language that uses Roman letters (e.g., English, German, French, Hawaiian, Vietnamese, etc.) as script, the Chinese words are transcribed into Roman letters and thereby made easier to pronounce. Yes, but it is not quite so simple. There are three complicating factors: 1) there is more than one system of Romanization for Chinese; and 2) regardless of which system is used, the proper pronunciation is not always obvious to non-specialist readers; 3) (in the case of English) because Chinese contains some sounds or combinations of sounds not found in English, reasonably accurate pronunciation may be impossible without at least some practice. Let us consider these three items a little further.

There are four different Romanization systems for Chinese, but the two of them are so obscure that you are unlikely to encounter them except in old spellings of some place names (e.g., Peking, Nanking, Chunking, with the "king" part pronounced "jing"). The two more common systems are Wade-Giles (created by two British linguists, Wade and Giles) and Pinyin. Of these two, Pinyin is the official Romanization of the Chinese government and the official Romanization of most media throughout the world. The Wade-Giles system, often with modification, is generally used in Taiwan,⁸ though Pinyin has started to appear here and there some recent Taiwanese publications. As you may know, technically, the government of Taiwan has long claimed that it is the legitimate government of all of China. And the government in Beijing claims that Taiwan is part of China and thus under Beijing's jurisdiction. In fact, these stances are diplomatic fictions. In other words, China and Taiwan function as separate countries for all practical purposes. The different Romanization systems in use in each place is one of several external symbols of their competing claims to legitimacy. The table here shows examples of different Romanizations for common Chinese place names:

Characters	Old Postal Spelling	Wade-Giles	Pinyin
北京	Peking	Peiching	Beijing
南京	Nanking	Nanching	Nanjing
廣州	Canton	Kuangchou	Guangzhou
臺北	Taipei	Taipei	Taibei

Note that, for example, Peking, Peiching, and Beijing are the same place, and, in theory at least, should be pronounced the same way. The difference in spelling simply reflects three different systems of Romanization. Although Pinyin is the official system today, popular media often mix in some words Romanized as Wade-Giles or the old postal spelling among other words Romanized in Pinyin--all in the same article--especially when the subject matter deals with Taiwan. Typically the writers of such articles are just as confused about the Romanization of Chinese names as are most readers. A lack of consistency in Romanizing Chinese terms is one rather easy way to spot an author falsely posturing as an expert on China.

In academic publishing, Pinyin has recently become more common than Wade-Giles, but Wade-Giles is still frequently used. Because most readers of academic material are familiar with both systems, however, which one the author selects is not usually a problem. The realm of textbooks, however, is a mess. Not only do some books still use the Wade-Giles system (which is of little use to the average student), even worse, sometimes they switch Romanizations from chapter to chapter owing to sloppy editing or laziness in making revisions. World history textbooks are especially problematic in this respect. Be aware that this book uses Pinyin for all Romanization of Chinese words except in unusual circumstances such as the illustration of other systems in this chapter or in the case of certain modern personal names.

Notice in the examples above that, except for Guangzhou, the Pinyin spelling seems to do a better job of corresponding to the pronunciation, at least for native speakers of English. On the whole, however, Wade-Giles and Pinyin are about equal in this respect. Why would the Pinyin system spell the name Zhou, the way it does, for example, and not as "JOE," which is how it sounds (ditto for the Wade-Giles spelling, which is Chou)? The main reason is that these systems of Romanization were not designed specifically for English-language environments. They function as spellings for all languages that employ Roman letter alphabets as script. The pronunciation, therefore, is rarely obvious, and this rule applies to all Romanization systems for Chinese. All systems are consistent, however, so once you learn how one set of letters is pronounced, it will always be pronounced that way (e.g., Zhou is always pronounced like the name Joe--no exceptions).

So how are the sets of letters pronounced in Pinyin? Here is a simple chart.⁹ Do not worry about remembering it. Instead, use it for reference:

As you can see, Chinese contains sounds that are not found in English. It is not necessary for you to pronounce them accurately, but, it is very important while reading actually to pronounce all Chinese terms in your mind--regardless of the accuracy of that pronunciation. Giving in to laziness and glossing over Chinese words without mentally pronouncing them will make remembering them much more difficult.

There are two more language-related matters that need attention here because they are commonly misunderstood. First, as you may have gathered from the previous discussion, language and script (writing systems) are two different things. What is their relationship? According to any introductory linguistics textbook, language is a set of meaningful speech sounds. The key word here is sounds. Language is the spoken word. There is a practical problem with speech sounds, however: they die out almost instantly (i.e., the vibrations produced by the vocal apparatus are only briefly audible). Obviously, it is often desirable to preserve the sounds of language in a more durable medium. Today, of course, we can do so by recording the sound on tape or disk. The classic solution was to convert the audio to video by making marks or etchings on such substrates as bamboo, papyrus, stone, and, later, paper. These marks and etchings represent (symbolize) the sounds of language. So script derives from language, but not vice versa. In other words script is not language. It represents language. Indeed, throughout human history, most people on earth were (and are) illiterate. But they had no trouble employing language.

There is no necessary relationship between a particular language and a particular script. English, for example, need not be written in Roman letters. We could, for example, use a numeric code or even Chinese characters--or any other set of symbols. Chinese, as we have seen, need not be written in Chinese characters. English, Hawaiian, and Vietnamese all use Roman letters as their scripts. Does this common type of script mean that these three languages have any necessary relationship to each other? No. It is simply the case that people use approximately the same set of symbols to record these three very different and unrelated languages. In the case of Vietnamese, the use of Roman letters is a relatively recent change in script. Formerly, Vietnamese was commonly written in a script derived from Chinese characters. Writing systems can be changed relatively easily by government decree, but language could never be so easily changed. In short, script and language are independent entities.

You may have heard the claim that Chinese characters are fundamentally different from alphabetic scripts because Chinese characters allegedly represent ideas, not sounds. Thus, some people call them "ideograms." Without going into all the technical details, it is not accurate to single out Chinese characters and call them ideograms. All known scripts are mainly phonetic (i.e., they represent sounds), though they also all possess a small degree of purely semantic (e.g., pictographic) content. Chinese-character script has slightly more purely semantic content than other writing systems, but it is still overwhelmingly phonetic. Specifically, approximately 3% of all Chinese characters are purely semantic in content, and so, properly speaking, only these few characters should be called "ideographs." The other 97% of Chinese characters all include a mix of semantic and phonetic elements. Does this paragraph make sense to you? If so, fine, and if not, don't worry about it. (If you want to examine this matter further, read the following academic panel abstract on the #"Ideographic Myth"# and then look up the publications of its members. Also read the relevant chapters in John DeFrancis, #The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy.#)¹⁰

The confusing and conflating of language and script contributes to another incorrect notion, namely, that Chinese and Japanese are related languages. The reasoning behind this error is simple: Chinese is written with Chinese characters and Japanese script also employs Chinese characters. Thus, the two languages must be related. Wrong. Chinese and Japanese are not related languages. The two scripts are related, but the Chinese and Japanese languages are not related, even distantly. OK, then what does it mean for two languages to be "related?" When linguists say two languages are related, they mean that at one time in the past--often the very remote past--the two languages in question were the same. Thus, English and German are related because they were once the same language. English and French are also related, but more distantly. English and Sanskrit (a language of India) are also related, albeit much more distantly. All of these languages are members of the Indo-European family. Chinese and Japanese, however, were never the same language. They are members of unrelated language families, Sino-Tibetan for Chinese and Ural-Altaic for Japanese. Ancient forms of Japanese language existed for centuries prior to the time when a small number of elites in the Japanese islands decided to use Chinese script to represent the sounds of the Japanese they spoke. Japanese could just as well be written in Roman letters, but, by historical accident, the nearest example of writing was to be found in China. (For more on language families #click here.#)

Another reason that some people incorrectly say that Chinese and Japanese are related is that Japanese has borrowed a large number of words from Chinese over the years. Linguistic borrowing, however, has no connection with linguistic relatedness. Any language can borrow words from any other. For example, the English word Tycoon comes from the Japanese taikun 大君 (no longer used in modern Japanese). Does the presence of this and other Japanese-derived words in English mean that Japanese and English are related, that is, that they were once the same language? No. Instead, it reflects historical circumstances and contact between speakers of different, unrelated languages at different times. Geographic proximity is the main contributor to linguistic borrowing. The vocabulary of modern English, for example, is nearly half comprised of words borrowed from French. Just as England lies across a relatively narrow channel of water from the European continent, so too does Japan lie across a relatively narrow body of water from the Asian continent. It is physically close to China and, by chance, China developed an advanced civilization much earlier than did the people living in the Japanese islands. When ancient Japanese went to China by choice or by accident, they saw such things as, for example, libraries, which did not exist in Japan. Naturally, they borrowed not only the idea of a library, but the Chinese word for it as well (modified to fit Japanese pronunciation). That is why today the word for library in Chinese is tushuguan 圖書館 and the word for library in Japanese is toshokan 図書館 (The first character is the same in both words; the current Japanese form is simplified.) And there are thousands of other similar examples. Indeed, approximately 45% of Japanese vocabulary is Chinese derived. The reason is that Japan and China have conducted trade and other contact for many centuries, and, as one would expect, Japanese borrowed numerous terms from Chinese to describe things and ideas in realms such as literature, religion, science, government, and so forth. But the two languages are not related, and, by random chance, they happen to be radically different from each other in terms of grammar and pronunciation. Incidentally, Chinese grammar, especially word order, resembles English in many ways--also a random accident.

Finally, there is the very important matter of time periods. The size and shape of "China" changed many times throughout history, but it almost always included a core area of territory around the Yellow River, including the present-day cities of Beijing, Taiyuan, Qingdao, Xi'an, and Nanjing. During most of Chinese history, this territory was under the control of a central government, and this central government was headed by a hereditary emperor. The lineages of emperors (typically, but not always, father to son transmission of the throne) are called dynasties. Chinese historians past and present have used these dynasties as markers of time to punctuate China's past. This periodization according to dynasties works rather well and is not particularly difficult, so we will use it here. The box on the next page lists the major dynasties and there terminal dates. It is very important that you memorize them and that you do so right away, early in the course. The reason is that we will use these dynasties temporal reference points thought the course. You will hear, for example, sentences like "The Tang dynasty was a time when literature and the arts flourished. It is especially noted for excellent poets"--or--"Socially acceptable roles for elite women underwent a major change from the Ming to the Qing dynasty as the new Manchu rulers sought to impose their 'Puritanical' morality on China as a whole." Our study of Chinese history will not make sense unless you the order of the dynasties and their approximate dates (rounding off to the nearest century in your mind is fine). Remember that the study of history is largely a study of change over time. I would suggest first memorizing the names of the dynasties and their order, then memorizing either their exact dates or approximate dates, whichever you find easier. Start now!

As for the legendary Xia dynasty, just be aware that some Chinese in former times as well as today claim that it existed--but we have no real proof to verify this claim. Also please note that the dates for the Shang dynasty and the start of the Zhou dynasty are rough estimates. Some books may list dates differing by as much as a century or more on either side. Periods in between dynasties (e.g., Han to Sui) are times when China was broken up into several competing kingdoms of dynasties. We need not worry about the details. The Sui dynasty gave rise to the Tang, and the Tang was a direct extension of the Sui, the only change being a different family on the throne. So some books speak of a "Sui-Tang" dynasty, which is reasonable. The Qin dynasty, although short-lived, is extremely important and distinctive. It should be thought of as distinct from the Han.

(To delve into Chinese historical chronology in more detail, #click here# or #click here.# Don't worry about differing dates for the earliest periods, because they are estimates. Nationalistic and political considerations often influence these estimates, typically pushing them further back in time.)

1. Peter C. Perdue, "China in the Early Modern World: Short Cuts, Myths, and Realities," Education About Asia, 4:1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 21-26.

5. The word "race" appears here and elsewhere in this text in quotation marks to emphasize the vague, elusive character of the term, and the ideas for which it stands. Although there are some species of animals that can be divided into races (sub-species) according to the criteria of present-day biologists--dogs, for example--humans are not among them. Human "races," therefore, are best regarded as social and political constructs, and cannot be defined with precision.

6. Quoted in John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), p. 158.

7. Some of you may know that there are two styles of characters. This book uses the orthodox or "complex" style, mainly because it deals with premodern history. The new or "simplified" style came into use in the early 1950s in mainland China, but not Taiwan, which still uses the complex characters.

8. The formal name of Taiwan is the Republic of China, often abbreviated as ROC.

9. Simplified and adapted from John DeFrancis, Beginning Chinese (New Have: Yale University Press, 1976), pp. xxiv-xxx.

10. Want to read all the gory details about Chinese characters as script? See John DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984. The very idea of an ideograph is a European invention influenced in part by Orientalist ways of thinking (i.e., these mysterious people have a radically different form of writing, not just in its appearance, but in its very function). For the history of how the idea of the ideogram came into being, see J. Marshall Unger, "The Very Idea: The Notion of Ideogram in China and Japan," Monumenta Nipponica 45:4 (1990): 391-411.

Name	Start	End
Xia 夏	Legendary
Shang 商	1766 BCE	1127 BCE
Zhou 周	1127 BCE	256 BCE
Qin 秦	221 BCE	206 BCE
Han 漢	206 BCE	220 CE
Sui 隋	581	617
Tang 唐	617	907
Song 宋	960	1279
Yuan 元	1279	1368
Ming 明	1368	1644
Qing 清	1644	1912