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when dealing with Chinese material, you have to deal with the Romanization problem

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Wade-Giles

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when you see "Dao" spelled "Tao", that's the Wade-Giles system

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D sound = T

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T sound = T'

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aspiration is symbolized by the apostrophe

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this makes sense to linguists but is not immediately clear to others

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given completed form with Herbert Giles's Chinese–English Dictionary of 1892

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a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese

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replaced the Nanjing-based romanization systems that had been common until late in the 19th century

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pinyin

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used since the 80s

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the official phonetic system for transcribing the Mandarin pronunciations of Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet

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has become the standard in most places where Chinese is spoken

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People's Republic of China

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Taiwan (although with variations)

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Singapore

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more intuitive to non-linguists

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there are three main quirks with pinyin romanization script

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Q = [ch]

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Qin [chin] Dynasty

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qi [chee]

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Zh = [j]

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Zhou [joh] Dynasty

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X = [sh]

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Xia [shah] Dynasty

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very early china

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what is China?

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currently

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there are parts of non-mainland China that many people think should be part of China

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there are other parts of mainland China which many people think should not be part of China

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Ancient China

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mainly Yellow River Valley

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e.g. Qin dynasty 210 BC

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also Yangtze River Valley

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to lesser extent

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three models to how Chinese culture developed

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1. nuclear

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more traditional

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Chinese culture arose in the Yellow River valley and spread out to other parts of China

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the Central Plain is the most important part

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multiple origins

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more recent model

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many different cultures that were trading, learning, and fighting with one another

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modified version, popular now

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nuclear version but acknowledges that there were exchanges

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the Central Plains culture was the dominant culture

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ahead of the other regions

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more complex

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tended to innovate earlier than the other regions

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tended to dominate the other regions

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5000-3000 BCE: Yangshao

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Central Plain area and further down Yellow River

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1921: first village of this culture discovered

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dry millet, villages forming

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decent sized organized around clans

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no writing

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probably shamanism

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focused on individuals who mediate between spirit and human worlds

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shamans can communicate with spirits

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human world is just one world

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there is another world of spirits and mystical creatures

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can control natures spirits, rivers

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believed that shamans can travel to these other realms

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certain finds e.g. skeletons of people buried with representations of their animal companions

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no evidence that anyone else was buried in this rich a wealthy way

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those buried with shamanistic symbolism seemed to be the most important graves

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this suggests that the shamans were probably both the political and religious leaders of their society

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3000-2000 BCE: complex, large-scale society emerges

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large, walled towns

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elaborate burials of leaders

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specializations in terms of professions

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artisans

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farmers

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how archeology matches up with legend

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in some cases there are legends of what happened in history or philosophy which diverges from our best academic knowledge that we have today

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we alternate between traditional and archeological accounts

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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 and see the world from their point of view to understand their writing

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traditional legend period starts 3000-2000 BCE

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two main figures Yao and Shun

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early cultural heroes

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referred to as emperors or sage kings

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their dates are completely made up

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around 2200-2300 BCE

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founded figures of civilization

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passed down power from one to another

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first Yao to Shun and then onward down the line

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according to the legend

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Yao became the ruler at 20 and died at 119 when he passed his throne to Shun the Great, to whom he had given his two daughters in marriage

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Hou Ji ("Lord Millet")

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supposedly Minister of Agriculture under Shun

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credited with "inventing agriculture" or "inventing millet"

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progenitor of what became the Zhou [joh] royal line

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the Zhou dynasty looked back to Hou Ji as their distant ancestor

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Xia [shah] Dynasty (2205-1555 BCE)

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dynastic China begins

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you have a king that is now passing down rule to his sons

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scholars in the West tend to view the Xia as mythical

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however there has been much research in the Erlitou culture

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1950s archeologists started excavating on the Yellow River

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found major sites earlier than the Shang dynasty

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major city sites

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lack of defense mechanisms suggest they were part of a unified possible state of some kind

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Chinese archeologists tend to believe they found the Xia dynasty of the legends

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Western archeologists have been more cautious

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e.g. no writing has been found

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but we can be quite certain that there was a major state-level culture before the Shang Dynasty

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Xia Legend

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2205 - 1555 BCE

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founded by the Sage-king Yu

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Sage-King Yu (2205-2197 BCE)

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dates have no archeological basis

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supposed founder of Xia

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credited with taming floods 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

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Yellow river is very difficult: low banks, changes course, overflows

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this was seen as the seminal act of creation

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this metaphor of flooding as chaos and controlling water as civilization becomes a major theme in Chinese history and philosophy

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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.

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King Jie (1600 BCE)

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supposedly the evil last king of the Xia dynasty

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a tyrant

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known to have lived a lavish lifestyle with slaves and treated his people with extreme cruelty

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defeated by Tang of Shang