Watching the Tree: A Chinese Daughter Reflects on Happiness, Spiritual Beliefs and Universal Wisdom. Adeline Mah Yen

and chaos.

      Perhaps because of the influence of Confucius, history has been taken very seriously in China for the last 2000 years. Great men and events of the past have provided endless fascination and founts of material for the scholars, story-tellers, novelists, dramatists, poets and painters who came later. Since the time of the great historian Si Ma Qian

(145–90 BC), who wrote his seminal book Shi Ji

(Historical Record) while incarcerated in a prison cell, emperors have employed salaried bureaucrats to record the daily happenings of their reign. These writers were paid to fulfil a function and their writing reflected this. They often concealed evil deeds and whitewashed defeats.

      These records were then edited into two versions: a national history of the current dynasty, which of necessity was a list of citations joined by platitudes and cliche-ridden flattery; and a standard history of the previous dynasty, which was more objective and accurate. The Chinese emperors believed that the history of a dynasty should be compiled in its entirety and made public only by the dynasty following it. Lu Qi, a third-century writer and critic, described such historical records as ‘the enclosure of boundless space in a square foot of paper’.

      During the Song dynasty the prominent scholar-philosopher Zhu Xi (1130–1200) selected four books from the Confucian Classics to form the basic texts for the imperial civil service examinations. These four books (si shu

) exerted enormous influence in China until the examinations were abolished in 1905.

      Under this examination system the process of book-learning acquired astronomical prestige. Every scrap of paper with written words on it was treated with respect.

      My grandfather told me that in his youth, large boxes, painted red, were placed at street corners as receptacles for scraps of waste paper covered with writing of any sort. Four gilded characters (jing xi zi zhi

– ‘respect and cherish words’) were painted on the boxes. Men with bamboo rods and baskets patrolled the streets to pick up any stray pieces of paper with writing. The contents of the receptacles were gathered together by successful examination candidates at regular intervals and burnt at a special shrine in the Temple of Confucius. Music was played during the ceremony while the scholars prostrated themselves in worship.

      Confucian ideals and the emphasis on education became ingrained in the consciousness of the populace. Only through scholarship could a man gain access to power and wealth. Even today, a century after the abrogation of the imperial examinations, their legacy and prestige survive in the imaginations of people influenced by Confucianism (Chinese, Japanese, Korean or otherwise), no matter where they may be in the world. In many Chinese minds, an educated person, no matter how poor, still commands more respect than one who is rich and ignorant.