The fiction, Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K’ang-Hsi, is written by Jonathan D. Spence in 1974. Based on various historical records and the letters written by K’ang Hsi Emperor, Spence creates a fictional memoir to describe K’ang Hsi’s later years. This book is divided into six chapters plus two appendixes. The first chapter, “In Motion”, illustrates his talents in hunting skills and his extensive knowledge on how to survive by taking the natural advantages during wars. The second chapter, “Ruling”, expresses K’ang Hsi’s opinions on how to rule the country. The third chapter, “Thinking”, compares the cultures and ideologies between the Western countries and China. The fourth chapter, “Growing Old”, shows his medical knowledge and how to apply in real life and medical clinic in the palace. The last chapter, “Son”, shows his father’s love toward his sons and the process and conflicts on the succession. The additional translated appendixes display K’ang Hsi’s seventeen letters and his final valedictory edict that hidden from the palace. Those original documents clearly the audience a clear idea of K’ang Hsi’s inner self. This book report will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of reading this book and how this book affects the reader. Jonathan D. Spence creates a memoir to show K’ang Hsi from the first person narration. This technique immediately brings the reader into this remarkable emperor’s world. K’ang Hsi (1654-1722) was the third emperor in Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and he ruled China for 61 years (start from 1661 and end at 1722), which was the longest period throughout Chinese history. Han Chinese was the majority ethnicity in China and they ruled over China since the start of Chinese history. However, until Yuan D... ... middle of paper ... ...r in the family, Spence should also include some information about his wives and female. The only one female story in the book is his sick grandmother and how to take care her as an act of filial piety. Spence does not add K’ang Hsi’s family point of view. I am interested in K’ang Hsi’s daily family stories, because K’ang Hsi was a successful emperor from the historian’s opinion, however, I personally would be more interested in his private family life. Those family stories may make K’ang Hsi as fully as a man and an emperor. From the political figure to a father of 56 sons and daughters in the family, Spence organizes all the information into this fictional memoir in order for the reader to understand K’ang Hsi’s talents and personal point of views. It provides a significant platform for reader to explore the heart from a Qing Emperor who ruled China for 61 years.
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
On the other hand, Ssu-ma Ch’ien was another major figure in the Chinese historians. He carried on the work that his father Ssu-ma Tan left to record the contemporary history and developed it into a history masterpiece called “Records of The Historian” that encompassed the history of China and the world seen from China from the founding of the state down to his own time. He sets a standard for objective history...
In Pa Chin's Family, he portrays a traditional Confucian family battling to keep their traditions and their way of life in tact, amidst the deep upheaval and civil disorder gripping China. Pa Chin clearly portrays a family of which the Venerable Master Kao rules supreme at the expense of his family. The Kao family runs into several set backs such as suicide, death, depression, unhappy marriages, family conflict, and lack of respect for elders that undoubtedly lead to the unraveling of the Kao family. One significant reason the Kao family fails to maintain its integrity and way of life is because of the clash between Confusion traditionalism and Chinese cultural modernization. One of the main driving forces in disruption in Kao family tradition would have to be the rebellious youth, Chueh-min, Chueh-hui, and Chin in particular.
Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...
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.
Love marriages often collapse, that is a fact. Similarly, even the best-planned arranged marriages can also falter, turning into abysmal failures. Consequently, it is difficult not to conclude that Yu-i and Hsii Chih-mo were incompatible from the start. While the author portrays Hsii as passionate, she shows Yu-i as the contrary: a dutiful and practical Chinese wife, taught and trained under the Confucian precepts of obedience she chooses to forgo and live a life she could call her own. Similarly, being Chinese-American, Pang-Mei, the author and Yu-i’s grandniece, lives between two waters. She feels torn, just like her great-aunt, between the ideals she was raised on, and the modern western values. Under that perspective Bound Feet and Western Dress presents a juxtaposition between the figures of the two women where their apparent differences are in, in fact, likenesses that depict the lives of modern Chinese women, struggling to get rid of their, real and
Before her father’s death, Hong had lived a comfortable life, as her father held a position of power. However, “After her father died of bone cancer, life was hard for the Chens. [...] By now, both the mother and daughter had experienced the difficulty and humiliation caused by lacking power in their own hands. (Jin 560)” Along with the hardships after her father’s death came the realization of Hong’s purpose in life―to elevate her family’s place and prestige in society. Blinded by her pursuit for power, Hong would eventually find herself at a standpoint, suddenly having to choose a husband and marry for power. Facing a deadline for her choice, Hong picked her husband through lots, as she did have love for any of her suitors. As did Hong, Hulga would also fail to properly set out her life due to the restraint of
Pu Yi, Henry, and Paul Kramer. The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China. 4th ed. New York: Skyhorse, 2010. Amazon.com. Amazon.com. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
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...
There is no better way to learn about China's communist revolution than to live it through the eyes of an innocent child whose experiences were based on the author's first-hand experience. Readers learn how every aspect of an individual's life was changed, mostly for the worst during this time. You will also learn why and how Chairman Mao launched the revolution initially, to maintain the communist system he worked hard to create in the 1950's. As the story of Ling unfolded, I realized how it boiled down to people's struggle for existence and survival during Mao's reign, and how lucky we are to have freedom and justice in the United States; values no one should ever take for
Kublai Khan had a strong attraction to contemporary Chinese culture since early on in his life, and he studied the culture quite a bit. This became one of the more prominent and influential components of Kublai Khan’s life. When his el...
Known mainly as a cultured emperor, Kangxi was also known as a scholar, administrator, and a conqueror (Wills 153). Kangxi was the first in the Golden Age of Emperors: Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong (Zhang 61). Aixin-Jueluo Xuanye, was the emperor’s full name; Kangxi lived between 1654-1722 and reigned between 1661-1722 (Zhang 61). Kangxi, which is his reign name, is named by many names: Jen Huang-ti, K’ang-hsi, Kangxi, Sheng-tsu, and Hsuan-yeh (EWB). Emperor Kangxi resided in the Qing dynasty and brought stability, tranquility, and prosperity to a foreign land. Xuanye did not live an easy life as he had trouble in government, strife in wars, and the hardest part of all, trying to find himself.
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.
This story takes you deep into the life of a family. There are many different generations of women within the family that you begin to learn about through reading the story. The matriarch of the family was named Yu-fang, throughout her lifetime she experienced the struggle of communism in China. As a woman, it was a very trying time. In that era, young girls could be given away as concubines and they would be forced to have no control of their lives. The next generation of women in the reading is about De-hong. De-hong was the mother. She was an official within the communist party. She also married a man who became an official as well. The last generation of women that we read about is the life of Jung Chang. Throughout reading about the women,
The purpose of this paper is to tell the history of the Ming Dynasty’s impact on the Chinese Empire, and to explain why the Chinese Empire was in fact an empire.