Confucianism In A Daughter Of Han

When something large and complex is being examined different groups will often interpret it in different ways because of their perspective. This is displayed in the story of the four blind men who all are asked to describe an elephant and each touch a different part of the elephant and try to describe the whole animal based on the perspective they have. The history of China has fallen victim to this. The Communist Party in China sets up the idea that china was divided into different classes based on economics. While scholars suggest that it was impossible to draw clear class lines in China at the turn of the century. After reading A Daughter of Han, and examining the perspectives of Chinese people at the turn of the century it seems that the …show more content…
This narrative comes from a Western context. In the West people engage in the free market and social mobility is tied to how a person uses their capital to increase their wealth. In this setting prestige becomes attached to economics. In that environment class lines are drawn based off of how much money a person has. However, China has historically been different. Confucianism played a big role in how the Chinese approached social standing, for centuries. Neo- Confucianism had the Chinese focus on moral self-cultivation, and this lead to the creation of a civil service exam, that tested this this moral self-cultivation (Lecture 8/22). The civil service exam over time became a way of issuing empirical degrees that determined the jobs an individual was eligible for. The empirical degrees became marks of social prestige. In this way education became the means through which improving social standing was possible. In China class was drawn based on occupation which was always tied to …show more content…
On example Ning talks about is the scholar finding the Master of the Wind and Water in his house (Pruitt 16). In this story the scholar finds the Master of the Wind and Water stealing form him, but instead of punishing the Master of the Wind and Water the scholar has dinner with him. The Master of the Wind and Water tries many times to repay the scholar, but scholar refuses. Then the Master of the Wind and Water as if he can at least pick a place that the scholar could be barrowed that would give good fortune to his family, and the scholar agrees. However, the grave is not dug in the way that the Mater of the Wind and Water prescribes and so the family ends up having less good fortune then what they could have had. In this example the family’s success was tied to how their father was buried. Ning also believed that a person’s destiny was controlled by the heavens and they had to accept that. This meant that it was predetermined who would be successful and who wouldn’t be and so it is not a person’s fault if they have to resort to working for another person. This along with the fact that prestige was achieved without taking from other, made the class divide in China at the turn of the century not as wide as it was in the traditional communist narrative. This can be shown through the fact that one of Ning’s masters