Song Dynasty (960- 1279)

Social: 

• Filial Piety- following Confucian ideals 

  • Respect for one’s parents

  • Ancestor rituals

  • Marriage importance

• Patriarchy Foot Binding (lotus flower foot - a symbol of beauty for elite women)

• Emphasizes restrictions and dependence on men

• Masculinity was heavy on scholarship, philosophy, painting and poetry

• A lot of art and architecture 

Political:

Confucian philosophy

• Rulers give benevolence to those lower than his rank in turn for obedience from subjects

• (Parent → Child relationship) 

• Filial Piety also worked in government standpoints

Economy:

• Grand Canal – helped transport goods easier

• Great Wall – created a safe place for merchants to travel across, also established clear borders of China

• Paper money, credit letters, promissory notes easier to carry than coins 

• Paying taxes in cash rather than produce

Chinese Economic Revolution

Vietnamese Champa Rice 

• Helps crops grow faster and resists drought 

• Farmers do less work on the farms, which leads to new jobs opening

• Currency changing to money and not product 

• Produce of more goods 

Coal

• Industrial production in metallurgy

Technology:

• Book printing - woodblock and movable

• Navigational + Shipbuilding → easier trade process to transport goods

• Gunpowder

Significant Continuities:

Bureaucracy

• Hierarchical system of governing 

• Officials, bureaucrats are non elected 

• Officials make decisions, no vote

• Departments carry out business

  • Helped collect taxes, plan important projects that were invested by the state

Civil Service Exam

• Scholar’s official requirement

• Provided political stability/ social mobility (anyone is capable of entering) 

• Sponsorships helped support the non wealthy and wealthy students 

Confucianism dominates the Bureaucracy/ Cultural tradition

• Filial Piety

Interactions with Environment:

Cultural Influence it Had on Other Places

Korea

• Had a tributary relationship with China

• Wanted to get wealthy like China 

Things Kept:

• Cultural influence for the working class, no social mobility (no civil service exam)

• Hangul phonetic alphabet became more popular in Korea than writing with Chinese letters

• Political independence (there was a few threats)

Things Influenced by China: 

• Confucianism altering women’s rights negatively 

  • Women do not choose who they marry

  • Exceeded China’s terrible women’s rights

• China was giving bestowals in turn for Korean missions 

• Buddhism

Vietnam

• Had a tributary relationship with China

Things Kept:

• Language “Chu Nom” – Southern script

  • Educated/ independent women used this for national literature

• Cockfighting

• Chewing betel nuts

• Women’s Rights stayed socially and economically

  • Female deities/ Buddha

  • Free marriage rights 

Things Influenced by China: 

• Vietnamese missions

• Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism administrative techniques

  • Civil service exam

  • Art and literature

• Culture 

  • In Red River Valley – it was fully Chinese

  • Believed it was an extension of China

  • Elite participated in Chinese culture 

• Political 

  • Mandate of heaven, rulers = emperors, court rituals 

Japan 

• Since they were on an island, influence was voluntary

• They wanted to discover how China was wealthy

Things Kept:

• Diminished aristocracy in later years

• Own military force as political power decentralized- Samurai 

  • Bushido - way of the Samurai 

• Kami - spirits/ religion as human ancestors and nature

• Shinto → Little conflict with Buddhism

  • Indigenous faith of Japan

• Aesthetic court culture

• Art

• Women’s rights

Things Influenced by China: 

• Political

• 7th - 9th century aristocratic chiefdoms

• Buddhism amongst the elite

  • Kami + Buddhism = Japanese Buddhism

  • Art, architecture, education, medicine, views of afterlife and suffering 

• Chinese Calligraphy amongst elite 

• Court Romance