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Notes on video lecture:
The Beginnings of Written Chinese History
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
cautious, shamanism, intuitive, myths, Giles, quirks, heads, state, rule, writing, aspiration, Mandarin, dynastic, academic, Agriculture, defense, fighting, Yellow, Yao, floods, evil, archeology, mainland, important, Erlitou, mythical, leaders, linguists, Latin, Nanjing, animal, Xia, Warring, exchanges, Sage, Yangshao, Shun, Yangtze, dominate, human, travel, Millet, Romanization, creation
when dealing with Chinese material, you have to deal with the                          problem
Wade-Giles
when you see "Dao" spelled "Tao", that's the Wade-           system
D sound = T
T sound = T'
                     is symbolized by the apostrophe
this makes sense to                    but is not immediately clear to others
given completed form with Herbert Giles's Chinese–English Dictionary of 1892
a romanization system for                  Chinese
replaced the               -based romanization systems that had been common until late in the 19th century
pinyin
used since the 80s
the official phonetic system for transcribing the Mandarin pronunciations of Chinese characters into the            alphabet
has become the standard in most places where Chinese is spoken
People's Republic of China
Taiwan (although with variations)
Singapore
more                    to non-linguists
there are three main              with pinyin romanization script
Q = [ch]
Qin [chin] Dynasty
qi [chee]
Zh = [j]
Zhou [joh] Dynasty
X = [sh]
Xia [shah] Dynasty
very early china
what is China?
currently
there are parts of non-                 China that many people think should be part of China
there are other parts of mainland China which many people think should not be part of China
Ancient China
mainly              River Valley
e.g. Qin dynasty 210 BC
also                River Valley
to lesser extent
three models to how Chinese culture developed
1. nuclear
more traditional
Chinese culture arose in the Yellow River valley and spread out to other parts of China
the Central Plain is the most                    part
multiple origins
more recent model
many different cultures that were trading, learning, and                  with one another
modified version, popular now
nuclear version but acknowledges that there were                   
the Central Plains culture was the dominant culture
ahead of the other regions
more complex
tended to innovate earlier than the other regions
tended to                  the other regions
5000-3000 BCE:                 
Central Plain area and further down Yellow River
1921: first village of this culture discovered
dry millet, villages forming
decent sized organized around clans
no writing
probably                   
focused on individuals who mediate between spirit and human worlds
shamans can communicate with spirits
           world is just one world
there is another world of spirits and mystical creatures
can control natures spirits, rivers
believed that shamans can              to these other realms
certain finds e.g. skeletons of people buried with representations of their              companions
no evidence that anyone else was buried in this rich a wealthy way
those buried with shamanistic symbolism seemed to be the most important graves
this suggests that the shamans were probably both the political and religious                of their society
3000-2000 BCE: complex, large-scale society emerges
large, walled towns
elaborate burials of leaders
specializations in terms of professions
artisans
farmers
how                      matches up with legend
in some cases there are legends of what happened in history or philosophy which diverges from our best                  knowledge that we have today
we alternate between traditional and archeological accounts
we want to know the tradition accounts because even if they are just           , it matters because everyone we are going to be reading in the                States period believed in these myths and you have to get inside their            and see the world from their point of view to understand their writing
traditional legend period starts 3000-2000 BCE
two main figures        and Shun
early cultural heroes
referred to as emperors or sage kings
their dates are completely made up
around 2200-2300 BCE
founded figures of civilization
passed down power from one to another
first Yao to Shun and then onward down the line
according to the legend
Yao became the ruler at 20 and died at 119 when he passed his throne to          the Great, to whom he had given his two daughters in marriage
Hou Ji ("Lord             ")
supposedly Minister of                        under Shun
credited with "inventing agriculture" or "inventing millet"
progenitor of what became the Zhou [joh] royal line
the Zhou dynasty looked back to Hou Ji as their distant ancestor
Xia [shah] Dynasty (2205-1555 BCE)
                 China begins
you have a king that is now passing down          to his sons
scholars in the West tend to view the Xia as                 
however there has been much research in the                culture
1950s archeologists started excavating on the Yellow River
found major sites earlier than the Shang dynasty
major city sites
lack of                mechanisms suggest they were part of a unified possible state of some kind
Chinese archeologists tend to believe they found the Xia dynasty of the legends
Western archeologists have been more                 
e.g. no                has been found
but we can be quite certain that there was a major           -level culture before the Shang Dynasty
Xia Legend
2205 - 1555 BCE
founded by the Sage-king Yu
        -King Yu (2205-2197 BCE)
dates have no archeological basis
supposed founder of       
credited with taming              of Yellow River with a series of dikes and irrigation channels thereby making "the World" (i.e. the Yellow River Valley) habitable for the Chinese people
Yellow river is very difficult: low banks, changes course, overflows
this was seen as the seminal act of                 
this metaphor of flooding as chaos and controlling water as civilization becomes a major theme in Chinese history and philosophy
arguably this has a lot to do why the contemporary Chinese government was so eager to tame the Yangtze River with the Three Gorges project which from an economic and scientific perspective looked a little crazy, but within Chinese thinking, there is something about controlling water that shows that you're controlling the world and making it safe for civilization.
King Jie (1600 BCE)
supposedly the          last king of the Xia dynasty
a tyrant
known to have lived a lavish lifestyle with slaves and treated his people with extreme cruelty
defeated by Tang of Shang

Vocabulary:

incontrovertible, adj. not able to be denied or disputed  "Scholars in the West tend to view the Xia dynasty as mythical, we don't have any incontrovertible evidence of the Xia dynasty."

Spelling Corrections:

archealogyarcheology
intuativeintuitive
referedreferred

Ideas and Concepts:

Three quirks of pinyin pronunciation, via tonight's Ancient Chinese Thought course:

"If you've ever wondered why the word "Dao" is sometimes spelled "Dao" and sometimes "Tao", it's because the Wade-Giles romanization system, which was developed in the 19th century and used until the second half 20th century, spells a [d] sound with a T and a [t] sound with a T', the apostrophe mark indicating an aspiration sound, the only difference between these two sounds, and hence this old spelling of Dao is "Tao". But for many reasons including the fact that the aspiration sound difference between consonant pairs is not readily understood by non-linguists, the Wade-Giles system was replaced by the pinyin system in the late 20th century, which made spelling much more straight-forward, e.g. a [d] sound is spelled with a "d", and a [t] sound is spelled with a "t", hence in pinyin the word is spelled "Dao", the most common spelling today. The ISO adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for modern Chinese in 1982 and the United Nations adopted it in 1986. So if you are learning or reading Chinese in a romanized script today, you will probably be using the pinyin system. However, although most sounds are straight-forward in pinyin, there are three main exceptions you need to learn from the beginning:

1. "q" is pronounced [ch] as in the "Qin Dynasty" [chin]

2. "zh" is pronounced [j] as in the "Zhou Dynasty" [joh]

3. "x" is pronounced [sh] as in the "Xia Dynasty" [shya]"
On the importance of myths when studying history, via tonight's Ancient Chinese Thought course: "In some cases there are Chinese legends of what happened in their ancient history or in their record of philosophical though which diverges from our best academic knowledge that we have today. Nevertheless, in this course, we are going to be alternating between traditional and archeological accounts. We want to know the tradition accounts because even if they are just myths, it matters because everyone we are going to be reading in the Warring States period believed in these myths and you have to get inside their heads to see the world from their point of view in order to properly understand their writing."
On the power of myth throughout the ages, via tonight's Ancient Chinese Thought course: "According to legend, the first Chinese dynasty, the Xia Dynasty, was founded by the Sage-king Yu, purportedly living from 2205-2197 BCE. Although these dates have no archeological basis, Yu was credited with taming floods of Yellow River, a river notoriously difficult with its low banks, changing course, and frequent floods and overflows. The legend tells that King-Yu was able to build a series of dikes and irrigation channels thereby making the Yellow River Valley (or "The World") habitable for the Chinese people. Within Chinese thought and philosophy, this was thought of as the seminal act of creation for Chinese civilization, and with this, the metaphor of (1) flooding as chaos and (2) controlling of water as an act of building a civilization, become major themes in Chinese thought for millennia therefore, even up to the present day. Arguably this has a lot to do why the contemporary Chinese government was so eager to tame the Yangtze River with the Three Gorges project, which, from an economic and scientific perspective looked a little crazy, but within Chinese cultural thought, there is something powerfully symbolic about controlling water that shows you are controlling the world and making it safe for civilization."
The Definition of Religion
Mind/Body Dualism and Cognitive Control
Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics
Wu-Wei, Dao, Tien and De
The Shang Dynasty (1554-1045 BC)
The Beginnings of Written Chinese History
Eastern Holistic Thinking and the Paradox of Virtue
The Golden Age of the Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE)
Philosophical and Conceptual Innovations in Zhou Thought
Confucius and the Analects
Confucius: I Transmit, I Do Not Innovate
Confucius' Use of Ritual as a Tool
Confucius' View on Learning vs. The Enlightenment
Confucius and Holistic Education
Confucius and the Art of Self-Cultivation
At Home in Virtue
Non-Coercive Comportment, Virtue, and Charisma of the Zhou
The Transition to Becoming Sincere
The Primitivists in the Analects
Laozi and the Daodejing
Laozi: Stop the Journey and Return Home
Laozi and The Desires of the Eye
Laozi: He Who Speaks Does Not Know
The Concept of Reversion
Laozi on Shutting Down the Prefrontal Cortex
The Guodian Laozi
Mozi and Materialist State Consequentialism
Mozi's Idea of Ideological Unity
Mozi's Doctrine of Impartial Caring
Mozi's Anti-Confucian Chapters
Mozi's Religious Fundamentalism and Organized Activism
The Language Crisis in the Warring States Period
Yang Zhu and Mid-Warring States' Focus on the Body
The Guodian School of Confucianism
Qi and Self-Cultivation