WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.979 align:middle line:90% [SQUEAKING] 00:00:01.979 --> 00:00:03.458 align:middle line:90% [RUSTLING] 00:00:03.458 --> 00:00:05.430 align:middle line:90% [CLICKING] 00:00:05.430 --> 00:00:12.840 align:middle line:90% 00:00:12.840 --> 00:00:14.520 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: I want to begin today-- 00:00:14.520 --> 00:00:18.420 align:middle line:84% let me see if this works-- oh, it kind of does. 00:00:18.420 --> 00:00:20.607 align:middle line:84% Yeah, OK, no, but I have to do the full screen. 00:00:20.607 --> 00:00:21.940 align:middle line:90% Let me just not do it right now. 00:00:21.940 --> 00:00:24.800 align:middle line:84% But I want to show you just something really quick 00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:26.685 align:middle line:90% at the beginning of class today. 00:00:26.685 --> 00:00:28.560 align:middle line:84% When you were looking at your primary sources 00:00:28.560 --> 00:00:31.120 align:middle line:84% and you were looking at some of the oracle bones, 00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:35.560 align:middle line:84% did you notice something about dates? 00:00:35.560 --> 00:00:39.320 align:middle line:90% Tell me about the dates. 00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:40.120 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:00:40.120 --> 00:00:42.640 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I assumed it was like stuff with, the lunar 00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:47.860 align:middle line:84% calendar, these, like [INAUDIBLE] and whatever. 00:00:47.860 --> 00:00:51.160 align:middle line:90% They didn't really have a-- 00:00:51.160 --> 00:00:54.280 align:middle line:84% yeah, they just had like names for each day, but possibly 00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:55.380 align:middle line:90% the lunar cycles. 00:00:55.380 --> 00:00:58.060 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: OK, you're on the right track. 00:00:58.060 --> 00:00:58.680 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:58.680 --> 00:01:01.350 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I thought the reading mentioned, there was a 60 days. 00:01:01.350 --> 00:01:04.170 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: Yeah, so there's a 60-day cycle. 00:01:04.170 --> 00:01:08.070 align:middle line:84% And it's made up of the heavenly-- 00:01:08.070 --> 00:01:10.070 align:middle line:84% the earthly branches and the heavenly 00:01:10.070 --> 00:01:13.750 align:middle line:84% stems, [Chinese] tian gan di zhi, OK, 12 earthly branches, 00:01:13.750 --> 00:01:16.390 align:middle line:90% 10 heavenly stems, I believe. 00:01:16.390 --> 00:01:18.930 align:middle line:84% This is a really, really old system. 00:01:18.930 --> 00:01:20.690 align:middle line:90% And this-- let me see. 00:01:20.690 --> 00:01:22.670 align:middle line:90% Hopefully this plays. 00:01:22.670 --> 00:01:25.370 align:middle line:84% She's going to explain it for you. 00:01:25.370 --> 00:01:26.150 align:middle line:90% [VIDEO PLAYBACK] 00:01:26.150 --> 00:01:30.110 align:middle line:84% - The system matches one stem with one branch. 00:01:30.110 --> 00:01:35.370 align:middle line:84% And every stem and branch has an attribute of either yin or yang. 00:01:35.370 --> 00:01:37.590 align:middle line:90% And the odd characters are yang. 00:01:37.590 --> 00:01:40.430 align:middle line:84% And all the even characters are yin. 00:01:40.430 --> 00:01:43.410 align:middle line:84% A yang stem can only match with a yang branch. 00:01:43.410 --> 00:01:46.950 align:middle line:84% And a yin stem only match with a yin branch. 00:01:46.950 --> 00:01:49.990 align:middle line:84% So after jiazi, we go to the second stem, 00:01:49.990 --> 00:01:53.710 align:middle line:84% yichou, and then bingyin, and so on and so forth, 00:01:53.710 --> 00:01:56.110 align:middle line:90% until the last stem, guiyou. 00:01:56.110 --> 00:02:01.190 align:middle line:84% And we repeat the 10 stems, and we get jiaxu and yihai. 00:02:01.190 --> 00:02:03.550 align:middle line:84% And now, we repeat the 12 branches. 00:02:03.550 --> 00:02:05.790 align:middle line:90% So next is bingzi. 00:02:05.790 --> 00:02:08.030 align:middle line:90% And you get the idea. 00:02:08.030 --> 00:02:11.070 align:middle line:84% When the stems have been repeated five times, 00:02:11.070 --> 00:02:12.950 align:middle line:90% it goes back to jiazi. 00:02:12.950 --> 00:02:16.630 align:middle line:84% And that completes a cycle of a total of 60 character 00:02:16.630 --> 00:02:17.447 align:middle line:90% combinations. 00:02:17.447 --> 00:02:18.030 align:middle line:90% [END PLAYBACK] 00:02:18.030 --> 00:02:20.070 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: So basically, this 00:02:20.070 --> 00:02:24.250 align:middle line:84% is the foundation of time-telling in ancient China. 00:02:24.250 --> 00:02:25.810 align:middle line:84% And you can see that it goes really, 00:02:25.810 --> 00:02:29.830 align:middle line:84% really back to basically some of the earliest, the earliest 00:02:29.830 --> 00:02:31.950 align:middle line:90% written records we have. 00:02:31.950 --> 00:02:33.970 align:middle line:84% So when you look at the dates and they say, 00:02:33.970 --> 00:02:36.610 align:middle line:84% for instance, what did we have just right here, 00:02:36.610 --> 00:02:37.910 align:middle line:90% if we looked back here? 00:02:37.910 --> 00:02:42.136 align:middle line:84% The [Chinese] gui si day, for instance, or the [Chinese] ren 00:02:42.136 --> 00:02:47.890 align:middle line:84% yin day, that's going to be these branch/stem combinations. 00:02:47.890 --> 00:02:51.590 align:middle line:84% So you know there's the 12 earthly branches, 00:02:51.590 --> 00:02:52.810 align:middle line:90% 10 heavenly stems. 00:02:52.810 --> 00:02:54.450 align:middle line:90% And I think what is it called? 00:02:54.450 --> 00:02:57.180 align:middle line:84% The lowest common multiplier is 60. 00:02:57.180 --> 00:02:59.860 align:middle line:84% So you get 60 combinations right of that 00:02:59.860 --> 00:03:03.380 align:middle line:84% with the evens with the evens and the odds with the odds. 00:03:03.380 --> 00:03:06.680 align:middle line:84% I thought I would just show you this really briefly. 00:03:06.680 --> 00:03:10.335 align:middle line:84% Has anybody encountered a Chinese calendar? 00:03:10.335 --> 00:03:11.960 align:middle line:84% If you've gone to a Chinese restaurant, 00:03:11.960 --> 00:03:13.668 align:middle line:84% there's probably one hanging on the wall. 00:03:13.668 --> 00:03:16.120 align:middle line:84% You might have encountered it somewhere. 00:03:16.120 --> 00:03:18.060 align:middle line:90% This is from my phone. 00:03:18.060 --> 00:03:20.100 align:middle line:90% You can download one. 00:03:20.100 --> 00:03:24.900 align:middle line:84% So just realize, the Chinese calendar is a fascinating topic. 00:03:24.900 --> 00:03:27.140 align:middle line:84% We're going to encounter it again, and again, 00:03:27.140 --> 00:03:29.300 align:middle line:84% and again, because historical documents are not 00:03:29.300 --> 00:03:32.040 align:middle line:84% written on the basis of the birth of Christ. 00:03:32.040 --> 00:03:34.700 align:middle line:84% They're written in a different system. 00:03:34.700 --> 00:03:38.660 align:middle line:84% So if you have familiarity with the Jewish calendar, 00:03:38.660 --> 00:03:41.943 align:middle line:84% or the Islamic calendar, other alternative calendars, 00:03:41.943 --> 00:03:44.360 align:middle line:84% the Chinese calendar is kind of a little bit in that vein. 00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:47.960 align:middle line:90% It's a lunisolar calendar. 00:03:47.960 --> 00:03:50.640 align:middle line:84% It's often called the lunar calendar, 00:03:50.640 --> 00:03:52.480 align:middle line:90% but it is technically called-- 00:03:52.480 --> 00:03:56.330 align:middle line:84% I think, officially termed a lunisolar calendar 00:03:56.330 --> 00:03:59.570 align:middle line:84% because there are solar terms in it. 00:03:59.570 --> 00:04:01.250 align:middle line:90% Just so you know, this is today. 00:04:01.250 --> 00:04:03.570 align:middle line:84% So this is the 11th of September. 00:04:03.570 --> 00:04:07.570 align:middle line:84% So that's our ninth month in this-- what is it-- 00:04:07.570 --> 00:04:08.730 align:middle line:90% what's the name of our-- 00:04:08.730 --> 00:04:10.130 align:middle line:90% Justinian? 00:04:10.130 --> 00:04:10.830 align:middle line:90% Gregorian. 00:04:10.830 --> 00:04:11.910 align:middle line:90% We're using Gregorian. 00:04:11.910 --> 00:04:14.090 align:middle line:90% OK, thank you very much. 00:04:14.090 --> 00:04:16.630 align:middle line:84% So basically, it's the eighth month 00:04:16.630 --> 00:04:21.463 align:middle line:84% in the ninth day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar. 00:04:21.463 --> 00:04:22.630 align:middle line:90% So it's not the ninth month. 00:04:22.630 --> 00:04:24.430 align:middle line:84% So this is like, you got to convert it. 00:04:24.430 --> 00:04:27.902 align:middle line:84% All right, this stuff kind of matters. 00:04:27.902 --> 00:04:29.610 align:middle line:84% And what I was going to point out to you. 00:04:29.610 --> 00:04:32.770 align:middle line:84% Yesterday, by the way, was Teacher's Day, no pressure. 00:04:32.770 --> 00:04:34.190 align:middle line:90% OK, no pressure. 00:04:34.190 --> 00:04:37.397 align:middle line:84% All my colleagues in China got all these messages. 00:04:37.397 --> 00:04:38.230 align:middle line:90% Happy Teacher's Day. 00:04:38.230 --> 00:04:39.150 align:middle line:90% No, no, no, it's OK. 00:04:39.150 --> 00:04:39.890 align:middle line:90% It's OK. 00:04:39.890 --> 00:04:41.450 align:middle line:90% I understand. 00:04:41.450 --> 00:04:43.267 align:middle line:84% So of course, and they've kind of updated 00:04:43.267 --> 00:04:44.350 align:middle line:90% the calendar a little bit. 00:04:44.350 --> 00:04:47.630 align:middle line:84% So it also incorporates like Western Zodiac signs. 00:04:47.630 --> 00:04:50.650 align:middle line:84% So you have over here, we're in the Virgo season now. 00:04:50.650 --> 00:04:52.310 align:middle line:90% This is, again, not traditional. 00:04:52.310 --> 00:04:53.210 align:middle line:90% But they added in. 00:04:53.210 --> 00:04:54.730 align:middle line:90% They put in everything, right? 00:04:54.730 --> 00:04:57.425 align:middle line:84% Virgo, so you can see over here, the [Chinese] 00:04:57.425 --> 00:05:01.390 align:middle line:84% jia chen nian, that's exactly this stem, branch combination. 00:05:01.390 --> 00:05:02.450 align:middle line:90% So there's a year. 00:05:02.450 --> 00:05:04.630 align:middle line:90% There's a 60-year cycle. 00:05:04.630 --> 00:05:08.590 align:middle line:84% So you go through the 60 years, and then the cycle starts over. 00:05:08.590 --> 00:05:10.730 align:middle line:84% You've probably encountered this if you've 00:05:10.730 --> 00:05:14.150 align:middle line:84% taken Modern China with me, the Xinhai revolution. 00:05:14.150 --> 00:05:17.690 align:middle line:84% The Xinhai Revolution, what year was that? 00:05:17.690 --> 00:05:18.370 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: 1911. 00:05:18.370 --> 00:05:19.470 align:middle line:90% TRISTAN BROWN: 1911. 00:05:19.470 --> 00:05:22.490 align:middle line:84% And that's because 1911 was the Xinhai 00:05:22.490 --> 00:05:23.870 align:middle line:90% year in the Chinese calendar. 00:05:23.870 --> 00:05:26.130 align:middle line:84% That's an earth/branch combination. 00:05:26.130 --> 00:05:28.700 align:middle line:84% So you're going to see this again and again. 00:05:28.700 --> 00:05:29.950 align:middle line:90% It's a way to count the years. 00:05:29.950 --> 00:05:31.470 align:middle line:90% It's a way to count the months. 00:05:31.470 --> 00:05:32.950 align:middle line:90% It's a way to count the days. 00:05:32.950 --> 00:05:38.650 align:middle line:84% Every segment of time can be broken down in this 60 category. 00:05:38.650 --> 00:05:40.410 align:middle line:84% And I was going to basically tell you, 00:05:40.410 --> 00:05:42.850 align:middle line:84% the Chinese calendar is loaded with stuff. 00:05:42.850 --> 00:05:44.942 align:middle line:84% So it also is loaded with things that you 00:05:44.942 --> 00:05:46.650 align:middle line:84% should do on a certain day and things you 00:05:46.650 --> 00:05:48.170 align:middle line:90% shouldn't do on a certain day. 00:05:48.170 --> 00:05:49.570 align:middle line:90% It gives you advice. 00:05:49.570 --> 00:05:53.880 align:middle line:84% It's much, much more extensive than just our, oh, it's Tuesday, 00:05:53.880 --> 00:05:55.240 align:middle line:90% or whatever day it is. 00:05:55.240 --> 00:05:57.400 align:middle line:84% Or Wednesday, whatever-- today's Wednesday. 00:05:57.400 --> 00:06:01.840 align:middle line:84% So today, it's a good day to break some ground, 00:06:01.840 --> 00:06:06.340 align:middle line:84% to maybe start a construction project, or to have a burial. 00:06:06.340 --> 00:06:08.910 align:middle line:84% If you need to have a burial, you could do that today. 00:06:08.910 --> 00:06:10.660 align:middle line:84% Maybe do some cleaning, that's a good day. 00:06:10.660 --> 00:06:11.760 align:middle line:90% That's a good day. 00:06:11.760 --> 00:06:14.100 align:middle line:90% But don't get married today. 00:06:14.100 --> 00:06:17.400 align:middle line:84% So if you're planning on getting married today, just cancel it. 00:06:17.400 --> 00:06:19.760 align:middle line:90% So no, no, no marriages today. 00:06:19.760 --> 00:06:21.660 align:middle line:90% So this is the kind of thing. 00:06:21.660 --> 00:06:23.220 align:middle line:84% Calendar gives you all this advice. 00:06:23.220 --> 00:06:25.255 align:middle line:84% This goes back, you can think about, 00:06:25.255 --> 00:06:26.880 align:middle line:84% when we look at the oracle bones and we 00:06:26.880 --> 00:06:30.240 align:middle line:84% look at these divinatory inscriptions, 00:06:30.240 --> 00:06:33.480 align:middle line:84% and these day combinations, the way they tell the time, 00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:34.580 align:middle line:90% this is very old. 00:06:34.580 --> 00:06:36.340 align:middle line:90% But you see the remnants. 00:06:36.340 --> 00:06:38.740 align:middle line:84% You see the legacies of it in China today. 00:06:38.740 --> 00:06:40.820 align:middle line:84% And I was just going to show you over here, 00:06:40.820 --> 00:06:42.680 align:middle line:84% this is an example of one of these calendars 00:06:42.680 --> 00:06:46.100 align:middle line:84% from the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China. 00:06:46.100 --> 00:06:50.120 align:middle line:84% That's the second month of the lunar year. 00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:54.288 align:middle line:84% And then the month will have its 60-day identification. 00:06:54.288 --> 00:06:56.830 align:middle line:84% And this is a list of all the things you should and shouldn't 00:06:56.830 --> 00:06:58.250 align:middle line:90% do every day of that month. 00:06:58.250 --> 00:07:01.250 align:middle line:84% OK, so it's a really, really interesting topic. 00:07:01.250 --> 00:07:03.150 align:middle line:84% All right, so getting back to what we're 00:07:03.150 --> 00:07:04.253 align:middle line:90% going to talk about today. 00:07:04.253 --> 00:07:05.670 align:middle line:84% Today, we're of course we're going 00:07:05.670 --> 00:07:07.415 align:middle line:90% to talk about the Western Zhou. 00:07:07.415 --> 00:07:09.790 align:middle line:84% Very good, we're going to talk about the end of the Shang 00:07:09.790 --> 00:07:12.330 align:middle line:84% dynasty, the foundation of the Western Zhou. 00:07:12.330 --> 00:07:14.830 align:middle line:84% And it's going to set us up for a very interesting week 00:07:14.830 --> 00:07:17.550 align:middle line:84% next week, where we get into next week, we're 00:07:17.550 --> 00:07:20.310 align:middle line:84% going to get into basically the decline of the Zhou 00:07:20.310 --> 00:07:23.650 align:middle line:84% political order and the rise of the Warring States. 00:07:23.650 --> 00:07:26.272 align:middle line:84% And I think we end with Confucius next week. 00:07:26.272 --> 00:07:28.730 align:middle line:84% So this time next week, I think we're already at Confucius, 00:07:28.730 --> 00:07:29.790 align:middle line:90% so we're about there. 00:07:29.790 --> 00:07:32.230 align:middle line:84% But for now, today, we're going to do this. 00:07:32.230 --> 00:07:34.070 align:middle line:90% So here's the plan for today. 00:07:34.070 --> 00:07:35.050 align:middle line:90% Where's my plan? 00:07:35.050 --> 00:07:36.590 align:middle line:84% OK, we're going to finish writing. 00:07:36.590 --> 00:07:38.673 align:middle line:84% And don't worry, you don't have to write anything. 00:07:38.673 --> 00:07:39.970 align:middle line:90% I mean the study of writing. 00:07:39.970 --> 00:07:43.155 align:middle line:84% So we're going to continue looking at the writing systems. 00:07:43.155 --> 00:07:45.530 align:middle line:84% We'll look at the Western Zhou and the Mandate of Heaven. 00:07:45.530 --> 00:07:49.060 align:middle line:84% This is of course, a really famous concept. 00:07:49.060 --> 00:07:51.700 align:middle line:84% I'm sure you've heard about it when 00:07:51.700 --> 00:07:54.460 align:middle line:84% people talk about China and all this stuff like that. 00:07:54.460 --> 00:07:57.220 align:middle line:84% The Mandate of Heaven, quote unquote, Tianming, 00:07:57.220 --> 00:07:59.660 align:middle line:84% is this kind of ideology that is dated 00:07:59.660 --> 00:08:04.880 align:middle line:84% to the Zhou project of conquering the Shang dynasty. 00:08:04.880 --> 00:08:07.380 align:middle line:84% The structure, we'll look at the structure of the Zhou state 00:08:07.380 --> 00:08:09.600 align:middle line:90% and this question of feudalism. 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:11.380 align:middle line:90% What is feudalism? 00:08:11.380 --> 00:08:15.797 align:middle line:84% Is it an appropriate term to use to describe the Zhou polity? 00:08:15.797 --> 00:08:16.880 align:middle line:90% We'll take a look at that. 00:08:16.880 --> 00:08:18.260 align:middle line:84% And by the way, the answer is no. 00:08:18.260 --> 00:08:20.180 align:middle line:90% So just letting you know that. 00:08:20.180 --> 00:08:23.080 align:middle line:84% And then we'll look at a few classics. 00:08:23.080 --> 00:08:27.500 align:middle line:84% Of course, since we've already countered or started 00:08:27.500 --> 00:08:29.700 align:middle line:84% to look at the rise of writing, we're 00:08:29.700 --> 00:08:33.260 align:middle line:84% going to get some of the earliest important texts 00:08:33.260 --> 00:08:34.240 align:middle line:90% from early China. 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:35.960 align:middle line:84% And we'll take a look at those today. 00:08:35.960 --> 00:08:39.740 align:middle line:84% So first, let's look at characters, the evolution 00:08:39.740 --> 00:08:41.900 align:middle line:90% of the Chinese characters. 00:08:41.900 --> 00:08:45.020 align:middle line:84% I think I kind of left off on Monday with this. 00:08:45.020 --> 00:08:48.180 align:middle line:84% And you can basically see, the characters went through, 00:08:48.180 --> 00:08:52.020 align:middle line:84% from the time that they appeared on the oracle bone inscriptions, 00:08:52.020 --> 00:08:55.860 align:middle line:84% over the next 1,000 years, went through a series 00:08:55.860 --> 00:08:57.120 align:middle line:90% of developments. 00:08:57.120 --> 00:09:00.060 align:middle line:84% So there were competing, actually, ways 00:09:00.060 --> 00:09:01.620 align:middle line:84% of writing the characters that you 00:09:01.620 --> 00:09:04.000 align:middle line:84% will find on bronze inscriptions, 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:06.480 align:middle line:84% for instance, other kinds of texts. 00:09:06.480 --> 00:09:11.240 align:middle line:84% Remember, just a quick thing, paper has not been invented yet. 00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:14.060 align:middle line:90% So nothing is written on paper. 00:09:14.060 --> 00:09:17.800 align:middle line:84% We will get to the invention of paper, approximately, 00:09:17.800 --> 00:09:22.500 align:middle line:84% it's dated to the Han dynasty, so give or take around the year 00:09:22.500 --> 00:09:25.300 align:middle line:90% 0 in the Gregorian calendar. 00:09:25.300 --> 00:09:29.640 align:middle line:84% But for the pre-paper era, we're seeing writing on, of course, 00:09:29.640 --> 00:09:31.080 align:middle line:84% oracle bone type of inscriptions. 00:09:31.080 --> 00:09:33.500 align:middle line:84% We're seeing them especially on bronzes. 00:09:33.500 --> 00:09:35.720 align:middle line:84% And we're seeing them on bamboo strips. 00:09:35.720 --> 00:09:38.700 align:middle line:84% So you do see these excavated bamboo strips. 00:09:38.700 --> 00:09:41.200 align:middle line:84% Those are some of the earliest books and texts that we have. 00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:44.780 align:middle line:84% So you can see these various kinds of characters. 00:09:44.780 --> 00:09:47.730 align:middle line:84% Anybody who's studied Chinese or is learning Chinese? 00:09:47.730 --> 00:09:49.890 align:middle line:90% Do you recognize any of these? 00:09:49.890 --> 00:09:51.090 align:middle line:90% Look familiar? 00:09:51.090 --> 00:09:51.887 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Yeah. 00:09:51.887 --> 00:09:52.970 align:middle line:90% TRISTAN BROWN: They look-- 00:09:52.970 --> 00:09:54.550 align:middle line:90% you kind of see what's going on. 00:09:54.550 --> 00:09:55.730 align:middle line:90% So what do you notice? 00:09:55.730 --> 00:09:56.230 align:middle line:90% What is it? 00:09:56.230 --> 00:09:58.870 align:middle line:84% What do they look like in the earliest version of them 00:09:58.870 --> 00:10:00.668 align:middle line:84% and then in the later version of them? 00:10:00.668 --> 00:10:03.210 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: This version looks like they are just drawing lines 00:10:03.210 --> 00:10:05.935 align:middle line:84% to represent the actual objects they're referring to. 00:10:05.935 --> 00:10:08.310 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: Right, and then you think as time goes on, 00:10:08.310 --> 00:10:10.290 align:middle line:84% it kind of becomes more abstract. 00:10:10.290 --> 00:10:11.230 align:middle line:90% Yeah, a little bit. 00:10:11.230 --> 00:10:12.250 align:middle line:90% A little bit. 00:10:12.250 --> 00:10:14.850 align:middle line:84% It's interesting how when you think 00:10:14.850 --> 00:10:17.550 align:middle line:84% about you look at the history of those writing systems, 00:10:17.550 --> 00:10:20.010 align:middle line:84% it's like I was saying with cuneiform, the earliest 00:10:20.010 --> 00:10:23.370 align:middle line:84% kind of writing we have in that Near East-- in the Near East 00:10:23.370 --> 00:10:28.110 align:middle line:84% is probably words for nouns to describe what's in this jar. 00:10:28.110 --> 00:10:31.610 align:middle line:84% And then as it goes on, those nouns 00:10:31.610 --> 00:10:35.210 align:middle line:84% can be mobilized in a certain way as verbs. 00:10:35.210 --> 00:10:38.390 align:middle line:84% And the writing system can become more and more complex. 00:10:38.390 --> 00:10:40.950 align:middle line:84% I'll show you how that happened in China in just a second. 00:10:40.950 --> 00:10:43.110 align:middle line:84% But for those of you who are-- if you're learning Chinese, 00:10:43.110 --> 00:10:43.830 align:middle line:90% it's OK if you're not. 00:10:43.830 --> 00:10:45.372 align:middle line:84% But if you're learning Chinese, those 00:10:45.372 --> 00:10:48.720 align:middle line:84% are the contemporary equivalents of it. 00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:52.580 align:middle line:84% And this would be the traditional on this line. 00:10:52.580 --> 00:10:54.900 align:middle line:84% And on the bottom line would be the simplified. 00:10:54.900 --> 00:10:58.600 align:middle line:84% So it's kind of interesting to look 00:10:58.600 --> 00:11:01.520 align:middle line:84% when you encounter a character, to trace its history 00:11:01.520 --> 00:11:03.760 align:middle line:90% and look back in time. 00:11:03.760 --> 00:11:08.880 align:middle line:84% Now, you will probably say, let me go here for a second, 00:11:08.880 --> 00:11:12.880 align:middle line:84% take a look at an original oracle bone inscription-- 00:11:12.880 --> 00:11:15.360 align:middle line:84% inscribed oracle bone with some writing on it. 00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:17.840 align:middle line:84% You look at that and you say, do you 00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:19.580 align:middle line:84% recognize any of those characters? 00:11:19.580 --> 00:11:21.680 align:middle line:90% Is it easy to read? 00:11:21.680 --> 00:11:23.100 align:middle line:90% You recognize zhong? 00:11:23.100 --> 00:11:24.480 align:middle line:90% Yeah, that's the one. 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:25.480 align:middle line:90% That's pretty good. 00:11:25.480 --> 00:11:26.840 align:middle line:90% You got zhong. 00:11:26.840 --> 00:11:32.040 align:middle line:84% So zhong actually has a pretty interesting consistency 00:11:32.040 --> 00:11:32.980 align:middle line:90% across time. 00:11:32.980 --> 00:11:36.920 align:middle line:84% That's the history of the character zhong over about 3,000 00:11:36.920 --> 00:11:37.420 align:middle line:90% years. 00:11:37.420 --> 00:11:41.000 align:middle line:84% OK, so you can pretty much see, at the top left, 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:44.220 align:middle line:84% how it appears on the oracle bone inscription, approximately. 00:11:44.220 --> 00:11:47.600 align:middle line:84% It's that it looks like a rectangle with a straight line 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:48.500 align:middle line:90% going through it. 00:11:48.500 --> 00:11:51.380 align:middle line:90% And there were some variants. 00:11:51.380 --> 00:11:53.660 align:middle line:84% There were some variants in the early years. 00:11:53.660 --> 00:11:58.400 align:middle line:84% So you could basically see, that top line are all variants 00:11:58.400 --> 00:12:01.897 align:middle line:84% of the character zhong, which means "center." 00:12:01.897 --> 00:12:03.480 align:middle line:84% And literally, it looks like a center. 00:12:03.480 --> 00:12:06.320 align:middle line:84% You draw a rectangle and put a line in the middle, right? 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:10.240 align:middle line:84% And then it's by the time you get to this, 00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:13.220 align:middle line:84% let's say second line, it's pretty much standardized. 00:12:13.220 --> 00:12:16.440 align:middle line:84% And you can see, there's some various-- how it might appear 00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:20.320 align:middle line:84% in certain scripts, almost calligraphic scripts, and then 00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:21.940 align:middle line:84% all the way down to, for instance, 00:12:21.940 --> 00:12:24.140 align:middle line:84% these are zhongs from the late Empire. 00:12:24.140 --> 00:12:26.880 align:middle line:90% So it's pretty recognizable. 00:12:26.880 --> 00:12:30.340 align:middle line:84% It's pretty like, OK, I can see where that is. 00:12:30.340 --> 00:12:35.140 align:middle line:84% So you could imagine that in that turn of the 20th century, 00:12:35.140 --> 00:12:39.960 align:middle line:84% as people started to take oracle bones as academic subjects, 00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:42.570 align:middle line:84% they picked out a few characters and said, 00:12:42.570 --> 00:12:44.150 align:middle line:90% I think I know what that is. 00:12:44.150 --> 00:12:46.650 align:middle line:84% Some of them looked very, very different. 00:12:46.650 --> 00:12:48.450 align:middle line:84% But you start with the ones you knew, 00:12:48.450 --> 00:12:52.390 align:middle line:84% and then they could gradually reconstruct the other ones. 00:12:52.390 --> 00:12:55.190 align:middle line:84% So we'll take a look, let's just show you 00:12:55.190 --> 00:12:59.910 align:middle line:84% how characters came into being across time in China. 00:12:59.910 --> 00:13:03.950 align:middle line:84% This character is pronounced in contemporary Chinese, modern 00:13:03.950 --> 00:13:05.670 align:middle line:90% Mandarin, as dai. 00:13:05.670 --> 00:13:08.070 align:middle line:90% So it's typically a verb. 00:13:08.070 --> 00:13:09.750 align:middle line:90% It's used in a bunch of ways. 00:13:09.750 --> 00:13:12.670 align:middle line:84% But we can use this character to create a whole bunch 00:13:12.670 --> 00:13:14.950 align:middle line:90% of other characters. 00:13:14.950 --> 00:13:18.630 align:middle line:84% So if I take this character dai and I 00:13:18.630 --> 00:13:22.590 align:middle line:84% add another character for black on the bottom of it, 00:13:22.590 --> 00:13:24.410 align:middle line:90% I can create a new character. 00:13:24.410 --> 00:13:28.490 align:middle line:84% And it basically means this is some of black color. 00:13:28.490 --> 00:13:31.030 align:middle line:84% It might be some of makeup that was used right 00:13:31.030 --> 00:13:32.130 align:middle line:90% over the centuries. 00:13:32.130 --> 00:13:35.290 align:middle line:84% Sometimes it's glossed as coal under the eyes, 00:13:35.290 --> 00:13:38.030 align:middle line:84% if you know what I'm talking about. 00:13:38.030 --> 00:13:41.100 align:middle line:84% If I take the same character, dai, 00:13:41.100 --> 00:13:46.900 align:middle line:84% and I put cowrie shell underneath, what do we get? 00:13:46.900 --> 00:13:49.000 align:middle line:90% Like alone, like alone. 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:52.380 align:middle line:84% So one of the things that you're seeing here, 00:13:52.380 --> 00:13:55.740 align:middle line:84% this is really fascinating for the development 00:13:55.740 --> 00:13:59.820 align:middle line:84% of the Chinese writing system, is a combination 00:13:59.820 --> 00:14:05.300 align:middle line:84% of semantic meaning and phonetic meaning, these two things 00:14:05.300 --> 00:14:06.680 align:middle line:90% kind of coming together. 00:14:06.680 --> 00:14:12.020 align:middle line:84% So you have a character that means replace or substitute. 00:14:12.020 --> 00:14:14.180 align:middle line:90% And it's pronounced dai. 00:14:14.180 --> 00:14:16.860 align:middle line:84% Now this character up here that means something 00:14:16.860 --> 00:14:20.260 align:middle line:84% like a black color, what does it have 00:14:20.260 --> 00:14:22.380 align:middle line:84% to do with replace or substitute? 00:14:22.380 --> 00:14:23.400 align:middle line:90% It doesn't. 00:14:23.400 --> 00:14:27.420 align:middle line:84% But it's pronounced-- it was pronounced, in the very early 00:14:27.420 --> 00:14:29.760 align:middle line:90% period, like this character. 00:14:29.760 --> 00:14:33.500 align:middle line:84% So they said, let's use this character as a pronunciation. 00:14:33.500 --> 00:14:36.040 align:middle line:84% But then we add, the hei, the black, 00:14:36.040 --> 00:14:37.900 align:middle line:90% that's what it actually means. 00:14:37.900 --> 00:14:39.640 align:middle line:90% You get what I'm saying here? 00:14:39.640 --> 00:14:40.760 align:middle line:90% It's this combination. 00:14:40.760 --> 00:14:43.360 align:middle line:84% The reason why I'm pointing this out to you is that actually, 00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:45.500 align:middle line:90% while this kind of looks like-- 00:14:45.500 --> 00:14:48.060 align:middle line:84% when you first start looking at the Chinese writing system, 00:14:48.060 --> 00:14:51.340 align:middle line:84% and you're like oh, it's pictographic. 00:14:51.340 --> 00:14:53.935 align:middle line:84% That's what people said about hieroglyphs in Egypt. 00:14:53.935 --> 00:14:55.560 align:middle line:84% They said, oh, look, it's pictographic. 00:14:55.560 --> 00:14:57.180 align:middle line:84% Look, there are crocodiles everywhere. 00:14:57.180 --> 00:15:00.380 align:middle line:84% But no, they were not just writing about crocodiles. 00:15:00.380 --> 00:15:01.920 align:middle line:84% They're not just writing about that. 00:15:01.920 --> 00:15:08.020 align:middle line:84% It's that the character, let's say, for crocodile, 00:15:08.020 --> 00:15:09.660 align:middle line:90% had a pronunciation. 00:15:09.660 --> 00:15:12.120 align:middle line:84% And it was shared that pronunciation with other things. 00:15:12.120 --> 00:15:15.600 align:middle line:84% So you would bring it in sometimes for phonetic purposes. 00:15:15.600 --> 00:15:17.340 align:middle line:90% Chinese worked the same. 00:15:17.340 --> 00:15:20.000 align:middle line:84% OK, Mayan actually worked the same. 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:22.583 align:middle line:84% So this is actually something that is shared. 00:15:22.583 --> 00:15:24.500 align:middle line:84% This gets into this question, it's kind of you 00:15:24.500 --> 00:15:28.840 align:middle line:84% could think about of is this an ex nihilo creation? 00:15:28.840 --> 00:15:32.740 align:middle line:84% Or was writing as a technology known and then brought 00:15:32.740 --> 00:15:33.260 align:middle line:90% into China? 00:15:33.260 --> 00:15:34.320 align:middle line:90% Something to think about. 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:38.850 align:middle line:84% And similarly with here, to loan something to someone, right? 00:15:38.850 --> 00:15:41.590 align:middle line:84% So just looking at some examples here. 00:15:41.590 --> 00:15:43.850 align:middle line:84% All right, let's look at two more. 00:15:43.850 --> 00:15:46.130 align:middle line:84% We have this-- this is, of course, a very famous 00:15:46.130 --> 00:15:46.892 align:middle line:90% combination. 00:15:46.892 --> 00:15:48.350 align:middle line:84% I just thought I'd put it out here. 00:15:48.350 --> 00:15:51.090 align:middle line:84% So this character up at the top appears 00:15:51.090 --> 00:15:52.670 align:middle line:90% on oracle bone inscriptions. 00:15:52.670 --> 00:15:56.010 align:middle line:84% Doesn't look like something you recognize a lot. 00:15:56.010 --> 00:15:58.930 align:middle line:84% But it's composed-- it's a composite 00:15:58.930 --> 00:16:00.310 align:middle line:90% of two separate characters. 00:16:00.310 --> 00:16:01.838 align:middle line:90% Did anybody recognize it? 00:16:01.838 --> 00:16:02.630 align:middle line:90% [Chinese] It's hao. 00:16:02.630 --> 00:16:04.610 align:middle line:90% Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, it is. 00:16:04.610 --> 00:16:05.970 align:middle line:90% [Chinese] It's hao. 00:16:05.970 --> 00:16:09.196 align:middle line:84% So this is it's composed of two separate characters, [Chinese] 00:16:09.196 --> 00:16:11.210 align:middle line:84% it's hao(3), or [Chinese] it's hao(4). 00:16:11.210 --> 00:16:13.490 align:middle line:84% It's two pronunciations possible. 00:16:13.490 --> 00:16:16.590 align:middle line:84% And so you could basically see how they combined it. 00:16:16.590 --> 00:16:20.770 align:middle line:84% This, on your right, is the character for "woman." 00:16:20.770 --> 00:16:23.390 align:middle line:84% This on your left is the character for "child." 00:16:23.390 --> 00:16:24.930 align:middle line:84% You put woman and child together, 00:16:24.930 --> 00:16:29.410 align:middle line:84% and initially, it means to like or to love. 00:16:29.410 --> 00:16:32.370 align:middle line:84% So these are two nouns you put together and you get a verb. 00:16:32.370 --> 00:16:35.400 align:middle line:84% And that's how they express this verb. 00:16:35.400 --> 00:16:39.720 align:middle line:84% Now, it also, over time, came to mean something like good. 00:16:39.720 --> 00:16:41.840 align:middle line:84% It's just like a good person, a good idea, 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:43.340 align:middle line:84% all of that type of stuff like that. 00:16:43.340 --> 00:16:48.860 align:middle line:84% So you can see, this is how you go from the original 700, 00:16:48.860 --> 00:16:53.560 align:middle line:84% 800 original characters that were created 00:16:53.560 --> 00:16:56.720 align:middle line:84% during the reign of King Wu Ding to getting thousands 00:16:56.720 --> 00:17:00.640 align:middle line:84% of characters that can express any thoughts, that complete 00:17:00.640 --> 00:17:02.000 align:middle line:90% writing system. 00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:04.140 align:middle line:90% OK, all right, so there you go. 00:17:04.140 --> 00:17:06.500 align:middle line:84% That's it's historical development. 00:17:06.500 --> 00:17:11.060 align:middle line:84% All right, so we're going to go to discussion in just a second, 00:17:11.060 --> 00:17:14.880 align:middle line:84% but I wanted to just give some thoughts here. 00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:18.740 align:middle line:84% What do these oracle bones tell us about Shang society, 00:17:18.740 --> 00:17:20.339 align:middle line:84% for those of you who read them, right? 00:17:20.339 --> 00:17:23.720 align:middle line:84% The royal house engaged in ancestor worship. 00:17:23.720 --> 00:17:26.780 align:middle line:84% But why did it engage in ancestor worship? 00:17:26.780 --> 00:17:29.160 align:middle line:84% Why do you think it was so important that they did that? 00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:32.300 align:middle line:84% OK, I think the basic answer, of course, 00:17:32.300 --> 00:17:36.630 align:middle line:84% is the legitimation of the royal line, the King of the Shang 00:17:36.630 --> 00:17:39.470 align:middle line:84% has ancestors, and he talks to them. 00:17:39.470 --> 00:17:41.150 align:middle line:90% They were the king. 00:17:41.150 --> 00:17:43.410 align:middle line:84% And because he talks to them, he's the king. 00:17:43.410 --> 00:17:45.153 align:middle line:90% That's a big part of it. 00:17:45.153 --> 00:17:47.570 align:middle line:84% Divination, the king could access information from heaven. 00:17:47.570 --> 00:17:49.670 align:middle line:90% He's also responsible for that. 00:17:49.670 --> 00:17:51.510 align:middle line:84% There's also, you might have encountered 00:17:51.510 --> 00:17:55.510 align:middle line:84% this in the oracle bone inscriptions, this kind of deity 00:17:55.510 --> 00:17:56.830 align:middle line:90% called Di. 00:17:56.830 --> 00:18:00.550 align:middle line:84% This is a really, really fascinating character 00:18:00.550 --> 00:18:02.570 align:middle line:84% because we're going to encounter it again. 00:18:02.570 --> 00:18:07.070 align:middle line:84% It's the Huangdi, the Di, the second character in the word 00:18:07.070 --> 00:18:08.750 align:middle line:90% that becomes emperor. 00:18:08.750 --> 00:18:10.790 align:middle line:84% And the earliest appearance of it, it 00:18:10.790 --> 00:18:15.670 align:middle line:84% was a very, very high God in the Shang pantheon. 00:18:15.670 --> 00:18:17.290 align:middle line:90% He was not an ancestor. 00:18:17.290 --> 00:18:18.670 align:middle line:90% He was something else. 00:18:18.670 --> 00:18:21.390 align:middle line:90% But he was very, very powerful. 00:18:21.390 --> 00:18:23.550 align:middle line:90% So you could see this. 00:18:23.550 --> 00:18:26.790 align:middle line:84% Wu Ding and after, these kind of questions, 00:18:26.790 --> 00:18:28.290 align:middle line:84% let me just pause here for a second. 00:18:28.290 --> 00:18:30.230 align:middle line:84% I just want to raise one thing to you. 00:18:30.230 --> 00:18:34.070 align:middle line:84% If you look, there's the line of the 30 Shang Kings. 00:18:34.070 --> 00:18:36.170 align:middle line:84% You know that during the reign of Wu Ding, 00:18:36.170 --> 00:18:40.050 align:middle line:84% OK, K21 right there, that's when the writing suddenly appears. 00:18:40.050 --> 00:18:42.230 align:middle line:84% So we don't have anything from before then. 00:18:42.230 --> 00:18:44.070 align:middle line:84% It suddenly appears at that time. 00:18:44.070 --> 00:18:46.090 align:middle line:84% Then we have writing for the rest of it. 00:18:46.090 --> 00:18:49.950 align:middle line:84% If you look at the two final kings, 00:18:49.950 --> 00:18:55.790 align:middle line:84% their posthumous names have this character Di in it. 00:18:55.790 --> 00:18:57.570 align:middle line:90% That's very, very intriguing. 00:18:57.570 --> 00:19:00.750 align:middle line:84% Why did they take this character for the high God 00:19:00.750 --> 00:19:04.330 align:middle line:84% in their actual posthumous royal name? 00:19:04.330 --> 00:19:06.710 align:middle line:84% That's something that people debate about. 00:19:06.710 --> 00:19:08.890 align:middle line:84% One really quick point before moving on, 00:19:08.890 --> 00:19:12.030 align:middle line:84% just realize on this writing thing, 00:19:12.030 --> 00:19:16.390 align:middle line:84% there were other cultures around the Shang state 00:19:16.390 --> 00:19:21.010 align:middle line:84% that were sophisticated, that had organization, that made, 00:19:21.010 --> 00:19:25.070 align:middle line:84% for instance, huge bronze vessels and objects, 00:19:25.070 --> 00:19:27.150 align:middle line:90% but did not have writing. 00:19:27.150 --> 00:19:30.980 align:middle line:84% So Sanxingdui, for instance, is probably the most famous example 00:19:30.980 --> 00:19:31.740 align:middle line:90% of this. 00:19:31.740 --> 00:19:34.420 align:middle line:90% It was found in Sichuan. 00:19:34.420 --> 00:19:37.380 align:middle line:84% This is a culture and a society, certainly 00:19:37.380 --> 00:19:41.440 align:middle line:84% there was a kind of state here located in Sichuan. 00:19:41.440 --> 00:19:43.380 align:middle line:84% You can see it's kind of far away 00:19:43.380 --> 00:19:47.660 align:middle line:84% from the center of the Shang dynasty, the Shang royal lands. 00:19:47.660 --> 00:19:51.020 align:middle line:90% But they did make bronzes. 00:19:51.020 --> 00:19:54.060 align:middle line:84% So they had the bronze technology. 00:19:54.060 --> 00:19:56.460 align:middle line:84% But they didn't have the writing technology. 00:19:56.460 --> 00:20:00.720 align:middle line:84% That's really intriguing, because you might think, 00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:03.040 align:middle line:90% isn't writing easy to transmit? 00:20:03.040 --> 00:20:05.680 align:middle line:84% Wouldn't that be transmitted rather than the bronze? 00:20:05.680 --> 00:20:08.900 align:middle line:84% Just realize, bronzes started to be made centuries actually 00:20:08.900 --> 00:20:11.060 align:middle line:84% before the appearance of writing in China. 00:20:11.060 --> 00:20:14.080 align:middle line:84% So this is kind of intriguing for what you have about that. 00:20:14.080 --> 00:20:15.960 align:middle line:90% All right, let's take a look-- 00:20:15.960 --> 00:20:16.580 align:middle line:90% I want to do-- 00:20:16.580 --> 00:20:20.300 align:middle line:84% I want to take a look at some of your discussion posts. 00:20:20.300 --> 00:20:21.280 align:middle line:90% Should I do a summary? 00:20:21.280 --> 00:20:22.740 align:middle line:90% Do you want a summary? 00:20:22.740 --> 00:20:24.340 align:middle line:90% Maybe a summary up to now? 00:20:24.340 --> 00:20:25.840 align:middle line:84% Let me do a quick summary up to now. 00:20:25.840 --> 00:20:26.800 align:middle line:90% Then we're all on the same page. 00:20:26.800 --> 00:20:27.883 align:middle line:90% And then we talk about it. 00:20:27.883 --> 00:20:31.530 align:middle line:84% Key takeaways so far, OK, look, agricultural communities 00:20:31.530 --> 00:20:35.230 align:middle line:84% in China can trace back to about 6,000, 7,000 BCE. 00:20:35.230 --> 00:20:35.950 align:middle line:90% There's a debate. 00:20:35.950 --> 00:20:39.890 align:middle line:84% Some would even put it at 8,000 BCE, before the Common Era. 00:20:39.890 --> 00:20:43.070 align:middle line:84% A number of cultures evolved during the Neolithic. 00:20:43.070 --> 00:20:46.090 align:middle line:84% We looked at, for instance, the various kinds 00:20:46.090 --> 00:20:49.410 align:middle line:84% of pottery, the black polished pottery, the Longshan culture, 00:20:49.410 --> 00:20:50.390 align:middle line:90% and all of that. 00:20:50.390 --> 00:20:54.330 align:middle line:84% They might have competed against each other. 00:20:54.330 --> 00:20:56.970 align:middle line:84% There was certainly a diversity there. 00:20:56.970 --> 00:20:59.410 align:middle line:84% Systematic writing was invented in the late Shang, 00:20:59.410 --> 00:21:03.750 align:middle line:84% around 1,200 BCE, which not only had bronze technology, 00:21:03.750 --> 00:21:06.890 align:middle line:84% but also walled cities and complex state structure. 00:21:06.890 --> 00:21:09.050 align:middle line:84% And then the point that I was kind 00:21:09.050 --> 00:21:11.630 align:middle line:84% of raising at the beginning of class on Monday, 00:21:11.630 --> 00:21:13.730 align:middle line:84% although classical understandings of early history 00:21:13.730 --> 00:21:15.810 align:middle line:84% were often mythical, archeologists 00:21:15.810 --> 00:21:19.350 align:middle line:84% have shown that some elements were, indeed, rooted in truth. 00:21:19.350 --> 00:21:21.970 align:middle line:84% So this kind of, again, I think the story of early China 00:21:21.970 --> 00:21:24.398 align:middle line:90% is a lot like biblical history. 00:21:24.398 --> 00:21:26.690 align:middle line:84% During the 20th century, there was this kind of fashion 00:21:26.690 --> 00:21:29.330 align:middle line:90% of saying, oh, it's all a myth. 00:21:29.330 --> 00:21:31.550 align:middle line:84% All that stuff, whatever, is all a myth. 00:21:31.550 --> 00:21:34.092 align:middle line:84% Similar in China, there was a reaction against the tradition, 00:21:34.092 --> 00:21:35.300 align:middle line:90% and they say it's all a myth. 00:21:35.300 --> 00:21:37.090 align:middle line:84% Now, we go back and we say no, some things 00:21:37.090 --> 00:21:38.810 align:middle line:90% seem to actually be real. 00:21:38.810 --> 00:21:41.330 align:middle line:84% We saw that the Erlitou state, maybe 00:21:41.330 --> 00:21:43.690 align:middle line:84% it's the Xia, that kind of thing. 00:21:43.690 --> 00:21:50.110 align:middle line:84% Also, Yu the Great, another thing, 00:21:50.110 --> 00:21:53.130 align:middle line:84% the guy who controls the floods, his story 00:21:53.130 --> 00:21:54.830 align:middle line:90% can be dated quite early. 00:21:54.830 --> 00:21:57.330 align:middle line:84% All right, the writing system that evolved in the late Shang 00:21:57.330 --> 00:22:00.390 align:middle line:84% is, with some changes, the ones still in use today. 00:22:00.390 --> 00:22:01.830 align:middle line:90% That's kind of remarkable. 00:22:01.830 --> 00:22:06.150 align:middle line:84% OK, I think now I have-- let's talk about the discussion. 00:22:06.150 --> 00:22:09.110 align:middle line:84% Finally, we get to your posts this week. 00:22:09.110 --> 00:22:10.170 align:middle line:90% What did you think? 00:22:10.170 --> 00:22:11.030 align:middle line:90% What did you think? 00:22:11.030 --> 00:22:11.908 align:middle line:90% What did you think? 00:22:11.908 --> 00:22:13.450 align:middle line:84% I think one of the questions that you 00:22:13.450 --> 00:22:16.450 align:middle line:84% engaged with this week was the writing 00:22:16.450 --> 00:22:18.190 align:middle line:90% system of Chinese characters. 00:22:18.190 --> 00:22:22.130 align:middle line:84% What do you think the pros and cons of this technology are? 00:22:22.130 --> 00:22:24.390 align:middle line:84% Anybody want to take a stab at it? 00:22:24.390 --> 00:22:25.490 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:22:25.490 --> 00:22:26.900 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: It's a very-- 00:22:26.900 --> 00:22:30.880 align:middle line:84% it's a very memorization heavy system in order to learn. 00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:32.980 align:middle line:84% I think a lot of Chinese teaching 00:22:32.980 --> 00:22:33.980 align:middle line:90% emphasizes memorization. 00:22:33.980 --> 00:22:36.660 align:middle line:84% I think comes from the fact that this language is memorization 00:22:36.660 --> 00:22:41.320 align:middle line:84% is necessary in a way that alphabets do not necessarily 00:22:41.320 --> 00:22:44.640 align:middle line:84% need as much in order to reach a certain level of literacy. 00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:48.660 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: So the learning curve is higher. 00:22:48.660 --> 00:22:49.780 align:middle line:90% It takes longer to do it. 00:22:49.780 --> 00:22:52.440 align:middle line:90% Yeah, no, I get it. 00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:55.560 align:middle line:84% So is that a good thing or a bad thing? 00:22:55.560 --> 00:22:57.500 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I think there may be some-- 00:22:57.500 --> 00:23:00.180 align:middle line:90% I definitely think-- 00:23:00.180 --> 00:23:02.880 align:middle line:84% I know throughout various histories, the Chinese language 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:05.480 align:middle line:84% being this way has actually affected certain things, where 00:23:05.480 --> 00:23:09.800 align:middle line:84% you can make knowledge exclusive to the nobility, 00:23:09.800 --> 00:23:13.160 align:middle line:84% and learning and language exclusive to a certain group 00:23:13.160 --> 00:23:14.700 align:middle line:90% of people, and inaccessible. 00:23:14.700 --> 00:23:16.540 align:middle line:84% And it depends, I think, on the time period, 00:23:16.540 --> 00:23:18.080 align:middle line:84% whether you wanted literacy to be 00:23:18.080 --> 00:23:19.978 align:middle line:90% accessible to the common people. 00:23:19.978 --> 00:23:22.020 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: It's an interesting question here. 00:23:22.020 --> 00:23:24.810 align:middle line:84% I mean, well, in order to interrogate that question, 00:23:24.810 --> 00:23:27.030 align:middle line:84% though, we'd have to ask, what were the literacy 00:23:27.030 --> 00:23:29.910 align:middle line:90% rates in Shakespeare's England? 00:23:29.910 --> 00:23:33.090 align:middle line:84% And I'm not sure they were very high, I mean, to be honest. 00:23:33.090 --> 00:23:38.310 align:middle line:84% And although it is true, alphabets are relatively easier 00:23:38.310 --> 00:23:44.030 align:middle line:84% to learn, to be honest with you, the Latin alphabet, 00:23:44.030 --> 00:23:46.870 align:middle line:90% I struggled with it. 00:23:46.870 --> 00:23:50.410 align:middle line:84% The way that we write, think about how we use-- 00:23:50.410 --> 00:23:52.710 align:middle line:84% first of all, we didn't create our own alphabet, 00:23:52.710 --> 00:23:54.470 align:middle line:90% English speakers. 00:23:54.470 --> 00:23:58.750 align:middle line:84% Korean speakers, Koreans invented a writing system 00:23:58.750 --> 00:23:59.770 align:middle line:90% for their language. 00:23:59.770 --> 00:24:01.970 align:middle line:90% So it's perfect. 00:24:01.970 --> 00:24:05.590 align:middle line:84% Our writing system, this Latin alphabet, 00:24:05.590 --> 00:24:08.430 align:middle line:84% was created for a language we don't speak. 00:24:08.430 --> 00:24:11.330 align:middle line:84% We're not even that closely related to that language, 00:24:11.330 --> 00:24:11.890 align:middle line:90% frankly. 00:24:11.890 --> 00:24:17.050 align:middle line:84% That's why, for instance, we have "through," 00:24:17.050 --> 00:24:18.670 align:middle line:90% you walk through something. 00:24:18.670 --> 00:24:21.470 align:middle line:90% And then I threw the ball. 00:24:21.470 --> 00:24:23.510 align:middle line:90% Those are pronounced the same. 00:24:23.510 --> 00:24:25.310 align:middle line:90% But they're written differently. 00:24:25.310 --> 00:24:27.910 align:middle line:90% That doesn't make any sense. 00:24:27.910 --> 00:24:29.990 align:middle line:84% That actually, when you're reading, 00:24:29.990 --> 00:24:32.750 align:middle line:84% when you're learning English, you actually 00:24:32.750 --> 00:24:34.790 align:middle line:84% have to tell the learner, no, there's 00:24:34.790 --> 00:24:36.870 align:middle line:84% all these strange exceptions, sorry. 00:24:36.870 --> 00:24:38.050 align:middle line:90% It doesn't make any sense. 00:24:38.050 --> 00:24:40.710 align:middle line:84% This technology wasn't made for the software, sorry. 00:24:40.710 --> 00:24:42.170 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:24:42.170 --> 00:24:44.938 align:middle line:90% Like, it's actually true. 00:24:44.938 --> 00:24:46.730 align:middle line:84% Can you think of other examples in English? 00:24:46.730 --> 00:24:47.550 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Hiccup? 00:24:47.550 --> 00:24:48.750 align:middle line:90% TRISTAN BROWN: Hiccup? 00:24:48.750 --> 00:24:50.590 align:middle line:90% So tell me about hiccup? 00:24:50.590 --> 00:24:53.790 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Or that thing where it's like words that end 00:24:53.790 --> 00:24:54.528 align:middle line:90% in O-U-G-H. 00:24:54.528 --> 00:24:56.570 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: You're right, yeah, it's a killer. 00:24:56.570 --> 00:24:57.230 align:middle line:90% It's a killer. 00:24:57.230 --> 00:24:59.850 align:middle line:90% O-U-G-H is a killer. 00:24:59.850 --> 00:25:01.830 align:middle line:84% And we have a bunch because English 00:25:01.830 --> 00:25:05.050 align:middle line:84% is such an interesting language because it's Germanic. 00:25:05.050 --> 00:25:07.110 align:middle line:84% But it has all this French influence 00:25:07.110 --> 00:25:10.730 align:middle line:84% from the Norman conquest of the British-- of England. 00:25:10.730 --> 00:25:15.190 align:middle line:84% So it's got all these different words in it, 00:25:15.190 --> 00:25:17.490 align:middle line:84% deriving from originally different languages. 00:25:17.490 --> 00:25:19.710 align:middle line:84% And they have different spellings, of course. 00:25:19.710 --> 00:25:21.600 align:middle line:84% But I think it's just important to remember, 00:25:21.600 --> 00:25:24.380 align:middle line:90% it's not that easy to learn. 00:25:24.380 --> 00:25:25.840 align:middle line:84% Now, characters are hard to learn. 00:25:25.840 --> 00:25:28.320 align:middle line:90% I'm not going to deny that. 00:25:28.320 --> 00:25:30.820 align:middle line:84% But for other people who wrote about the discussion posts 00:25:30.820 --> 00:25:33.140 align:middle line:90% this week, what did you think? 00:25:33.140 --> 00:25:35.420 align:middle line:90% What are some of the pros? 00:25:35.420 --> 00:25:36.500 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:25:36.500 --> 00:25:39.740 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] mentioned was that given that there's many 00:25:39.740 --> 00:25:43.260 align:middle line:84% dialects in China, it's like the same-- 00:25:43.260 --> 00:25:45.900 align:middle line:84% you can read it, you can communicate 00:25:45.900 --> 00:25:47.382 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] language. 00:25:47.382 --> 00:25:48.340 align:middle line:90% TRISTAN BROWN: Exactly. 00:25:48.340 --> 00:25:52.660 align:middle line:84% No, you're absolutely right, that Chinese, in a way, 00:25:52.660 --> 00:25:56.400 align:middle line:84% how you pronounce the character was kind of yo, 00:25:56.400 --> 00:25:58.683 align:middle line:84% Cantonese pronounced it one way, northerners 00:25:58.683 --> 00:26:00.100 align:middle line:84% pronounce it another way, but they 00:26:00.100 --> 00:26:02.120 align:middle line:90% can both read the same text. 00:26:02.120 --> 00:26:05.300 align:middle line:90% So that works in certain ways. 00:26:05.300 --> 00:26:09.860 align:middle line:84% In a way, you can think about it of Latin, 00:26:09.860 --> 00:26:13.580 align:middle line:84% in much of Europe prior to the 20th century, 00:26:13.580 --> 00:26:17.060 align:middle line:84% kind of posed a similar type of system. 00:26:17.060 --> 00:26:19.380 align:middle line:84% It's like, well, I speak French, and you speak Italian, 00:26:19.380 --> 00:26:22.690 align:middle line:84% and you speak German, but we all know Latin. 00:26:22.690 --> 00:26:24.500 align:middle line:84% So when they're picking a new Pope, 00:26:24.500 --> 00:26:26.250 align:middle line:84% they'll just talk in Latin, because that's 00:26:26.250 --> 00:26:28.250 align:middle line:90% what they all know. 00:26:28.250 --> 00:26:31.490 align:middle line:84% So that's kind of like what Chinese characters, yes, 00:26:31.490 --> 00:26:32.530 align:middle line:90% they can-- 00:26:32.530 --> 00:26:34.918 align:middle line:90% it's less on the pronunciation. 00:26:34.918 --> 00:26:37.210 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I think another benefit of Chinese characters 00:26:37.210 --> 00:26:38.930 align:middle line:84% is that I think they're more information 00:26:38.930 --> 00:26:41.590 align:middle line:90% dense than the Latin alphabet. 00:26:41.590 --> 00:26:43.810 align:middle line:84% So you can pack more information onto the page. 00:26:43.810 --> 00:26:47.810 align:middle line:84% And if you look at Latin manuscripts, for example, 00:26:47.810 --> 00:26:50.110 align:middle line:84% oftentimes, you'll see-- or in Greek manuscripts, 00:26:50.110 --> 00:26:53.050 align:middle line:84% they'll use these abbreviations that are basically functioning 00:26:53.050 --> 00:26:55.008 align:middle line:84% the same way as Chinese characters because they 00:26:55.008 --> 00:26:56.790 align:middle line:84% don't want to write out the whole word, 00:26:56.790 --> 00:27:01.718 align:middle line:84% like for common words like "and," trying to simulate that. 00:27:01.718 --> 00:27:03.510 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: No, you're absolutely right. 00:27:03.510 --> 00:27:04.070 align:middle line:90% It's true. 00:27:04.070 --> 00:27:07.050 align:middle line:84% And I know this because my book is 00:27:07.050 --> 00:27:09.170 align:middle line:90% being translated into Chinese. 00:27:09.170 --> 00:27:12.330 align:middle line:84% And so when you see the Chinese version, you're like, 00:27:12.330 --> 00:27:13.690 align:middle line:90% it looks shorter. 00:27:13.690 --> 00:27:15.570 align:middle line:90% And I'm like-- 00:27:15.570 --> 00:27:17.310 align:middle line:90% I wrote a 400 page book. 00:27:17.310 --> 00:27:19.570 align:middle line:90% I want a 400 page book. 00:27:19.570 --> 00:27:22.730 align:middle line:84% And it's like, this looks 200 pages. 00:27:22.730 --> 00:27:24.550 align:middle line:90% But it's information dense. 00:27:24.550 --> 00:27:29.010 align:middle line:84% So you actually, it requires fewer characters to say, 00:27:29.010 --> 00:27:32.450 align:middle line:84% think about it, you have to spell out "that," T-H-A-T, 00:27:32.450 --> 00:27:34.010 align:middle line:90% four characters. 00:27:34.010 --> 00:27:37.010 align:middle line:84% But in Chinese, it's one character. 00:27:37.010 --> 00:27:38.090 align:middle line:90% What else? 00:27:38.090 --> 00:27:38.850 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:27:38.850 --> 00:27:42.010 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I guess like I think what's 00:27:42.010 --> 00:27:44.610 align:middle line:84% annoyed me, when you're trying to do like science stuff, 00:27:44.610 --> 00:27:48.130 align:middle line:84% is eventually if you use Latin and Greek, eventually, you 00:27:48.130 --> 00:27:51.010 align:middle line:90% run out of characters to use. 00:27:51.010 --> 00:27:55.090 align:middle line:84% In Chinese, you can invent one and then just say, 00:27:55.090 --> 00:27:56.128 align:middle line:90% this means that. 00:27:56.128 --> 00:27:57.170 align:middle line:90% TRISTAN BROWN: It's true. 00:27:57.170 --> 00:27:58.878 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: You don't really have you don't 00:27:58.878 --> 00:28:00.850 align:middle line:90% have the issue of running out. 00:28:00.850 --> 00:28:03.410 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: That's true, that's true, that's true. 00:28:03.410 --> 00:28:05.430 align:middle line:90% Yeah, you're absolutely right. 00:28:05.430 --> 00:28:07.830 align:middle line:84% You never run out of characters in Chinese. 00:28:07.830 --> 00:28:09.430 align:middle line:90% Or at least I've never run out. 00:28:09.430 --> 00:28:11.950 align:middle line:90% And yes, it's true. 00:28:11.950 --> 00:28:13.890 align:middle line:84% And the other point that you raise 00:28:13.890 --> 00:28:16.600 align:middle line:84% is new characters coming into existence over the centuries. 00:28:16.600 --> 00:28:20.520 align:middle line:84% That's a fascinating topic, even now in the internet age, 00:28:20.520 --> 00:28:23.280 align:middle line:84% the creation of new kind of fun characters 00:28:23.280 --> 00:28:24.920 align:middle line:90% is kind of an ongoing thing. 00:28:24.920 --> 00:28:26.620 align:middle line:90% That's like that emoji question. 00:28:26.620 --> 00:28:28.400 align:middle line:90% We'll get to it in a second. 00:28:28.400 --> 00:28:29.680 align:middle line:90% Anybody else? 00:28:29.680 --> 00:28:30.440 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:28:30.440 --> 00:28:33.120 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I also think like with a new character 00:28:33.120 --> 00:28:36.200 align:middle line:84% that you don't know, usually you can both guess the meaning 00:28:36.200 --> 00:28:38.680 align:middle line:90% and the pronunciation. 00:28:38.680 --> 00:28:41.560 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: So this is kind of getting back to that 00:28:41.560 --> 00:28:44.780 align:middle line:90% the black color example I gave. 00:28:44.780 --> 00:28:48.000 align:middle line:84% It's also getting back to the lone example I gave. 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:52.960 align:middle line:84% When you're reading a text and I see a character I don't know, 00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:55.080 align:middle line:90% you basically-- 00:28:55.080 --> 00:28:57.600 align:middle line:90% you fake it till you make it. 00:28:57.600 --> 00:28:59.440 align:middle line:84% So the way you fake it till you make 00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:03.800 align:middle line:84% it is you look at the character and say, within this character, 00:29:03.800 --> 00:29:07.040 align:middle line:84% are there any characters I know how to pronounce? 00:29:07.040 --> 00:29:12.260 align:middle line:84% And you're like, maybe that's pronounced dai, 00:29:12.260 --> 00:29:13.660 align:middle line:90% but I'm not sure. 00:29:13.660 --> 00:29:18.410 align:middle line:84% But it's like it's like, and in, let's say, 60% of the time, 00:29:18.410 --> 00:29:19.295 align:middle line:90% you'll be right. 00:29:19.295 --> 00:29:20.170 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:29:20.170 --> 00:29:22.470 align:middle line:90% It kind of works. 00:29:22.470 --> 00:29:23.990 align:middle line:90% But it doesn't always work. 00:29:23.990 --> 00:29:24.930 align:middle line:90% That's the thing. 00:29:24.930 --> 00:29:26.590 align:middle line:90% It doesn't always work. 00:29:26.590 --> 00:29:27.950 align:middle line:90% But yeah, it's true. 00:29:27.950 --> 00:29:31.170 align:middle line:84% The characters, because they're information dense, 00:29:31.170 --> 00:29:33.110 align:middle line:84% they give you a lot of information. 00:29:33.110 --> 00:29:35.745 align:middle line:84% Once you learn them, they give-- you look at a text, 00:29:35.745 --> 00:29:37.870 align:middle line:84% and you get a lot of information from them in a way 00:29:37.870 --> 00:29:40.857 align:middle line:84% that you don't get from the alphabet. 00:29:40.857 --> 00:29:42.190 align:middle line:90% Were you going to say something? 00:29:42.190 --> 00:29:45.510 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Yeah, I think previously we 00:29:45.510 --> 00:29:50.430 align:middle line:84% discussed for example, with dialects, even also even 00:29:50.430 --> 00:29:52.490 align:middle line:84% with Japanese people who know a lot of kanji, 00:29:52.490 --> 00:29:55.290 align:middle line:84% you can communicate through writing, 00:29:55.290 --> 00:29:57.890 align:middle line:84% but also you can communicate through time, 00:29:57.890 --> 00:30:02.110 align:middle line:84% we can read Han dynasty text, and essentially it's 00:30:02.110 --> 00:30:02.810 align:middle line:90% the same thing. 00:30:02.810 --> 00:30:06.910 align:middle line:84% People who study calligraphy imitate Yan Zhenqing, who 00:30:06.910 --> 00:30:09.030 align:middle line:90% lived during the Tang dynasty. 00:30:09.030 --> 00:30:11.470 align:middle line:84% And so there's a cultural continuity that 00:30:11.470 --> 00:30:14.020 align:middle line:84% exists, where you can look at this 00:30:14.020 --> 00:30:17.540 align:middle line:84% and say, maybe if I like-- if you dropped 00:30:17.540 --> 00:30:20.860 align:middle line:84% a Chinese person from modern China into the Tang dynasty, 00:30:20.860 --> 00:30:23.000 align:middle line:84% maybe they wouldn't be able to understand anyone. 00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:26.300 align:middle line:84% Well, maybe if they were in a region whose dialect is more 00:30:26.300 --> 00:30:29.640 align:middle line:84% similar to the official dialect, they could communicate verbally. 00:30:29.640 --> 00:30:31.883 align:middle line:84% But if you were like, I don't know, northerner, 00:30:31.883 --> 00:30:33.800 align:middle line:84% you probably couldn't communicate with anyone. 00:30:33.800 --> 00:30:36.540 align:middle line:84% But you could communicate with them through writing. 00:30:36.540 --> 00:30:39.520 align:middle line:84% And you would know the famous poets and whatnot. 00:30:39.520 --> 00:30:41.380 align:middle line:84% So there's a sense of cultural continuity 00:30:41.380 --> 00:30:44.260 align:middle line:90% that I think you get less so-- 00:30:44.260 --> 00:30:47.740 align:middle line:84% I don't think that a lot of people in like England 00:30:47.740 --> 00:30:54.190 align:middle line:84% have a really strong connection to [INAUDIBLE]. 00:30:54.190 --> 00:30:55.600 align:middle line:90% That's part of the problem. 00:30:55.600 --> 00:30:58.200 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: Yeah, OK, Interesting point. 00:30:58.200 --> 00:30:59.320 align:middle line:90% I like the point. 00:30:59.320 --> 00:31:02.700 align:middle line:84% The perception of cultural continuity through the writing 00:31:02.700 --> 00:31:04.360 align:middle line:90% system certainly is powerful. 00:31:04.360 --> 00:31:05.020 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:31:05.020 --> 00:31:06.400 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Building off of that a little bit, 00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:07.820 align:middle line:84% correct me if I'm mistaken, but I 00:31:07.820 --> 00:31:11.300 align:middle line:84% believe that there was some form of literary diplomacy in East 00:31:11.300 --> 00:31:15.060 align:middle line:84% Asia pre the modern period, where you had a lot of countries 00:31:15.060 --> 00:31:18.260 align:middle line:84% or a lot of groups of people who existed in the Sinosphere 00:31:18.260 --> 00:31:20.915 align:middle line:84% paying tribute to whatever Chinese dynasty was in power. 00:31:20.915 --> 00:31:22.540 align:middle line:84% And their diplomats would get together. 00:31:22.540 --> 00:31:24.440 align:middle line:84% And they would not speak the same language, 00:31:24.440 --> 00:31:26.928 align:middle line:90% but they would be [INAUDIBLE]. 00:31:26.928 --> 00:31:28.720 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: No, you're absolutely right. 00:31:28.720 --> 00:31:33.800 align:middle line:84% So that's certainly the case with Korea, Japan, Vietnam, 00:31:33.800 --> 00:31:36.800 align:middle line:84% the big places that use the Chinese characters. 00:31:36.800 --> 00:31:39.700 align:middle line:84% And also to a certain extent, for instance, borrowed 00:31:39.700 --> 00:31:42.420 align:middle line:84% from the calendar that we just talked about, 00:31:42.420 --> 00:31:44.800 align:middle line:84% Japan is kind of a unique case there a little bit. 00:31:44.800 --> 00:31:50.960 align:middle line:84% But certainly absolutely in the East Asia, it's not Sinophone, 00:31:50.960 --> 00:31:52.140 align:middle line:90% but what do they call? 00:31:52.140 --> 00:31:58.880 align:middle line:84% Sinographic sphere, it does give that communication. 00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:02.340 align:middle line:84% It also poses to us, I think it's an important thing, 00:32:02.340 --> 00:32:05.940 align:middle line:84% for instance, in Korea, there was a move away from Chinese 00:32:05.940 --> 00:32:09.340 align:middle line:84% characters in the early 20th century, in the 20th century. 00:32:09.340 --> 00:32:10.870 align:middle line:90% And what do you gain from that? 00:32:10.870 --> 00:32:12.190 align:middle line:90% And what do you lose from that? 00:32:12.190 --> 00:32:15.490 align:middle line:84% That's actually a really interesting question 00:32:15.490 --> 00:32:18.490 align:middle line:84% about memory, about identity, and all of that. 00:32:18.490 --> 00:32:20.850 align:middle line:90% So yeah? 00:32:20.850 --> 00:32:21.930 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: I'm just like-- 00:32:21.930 --> 00:32:24.810 align:middle line:84% I'm not sure if what people were discussing 00:32:24.810 --> 00:32:26.970 align:middle line:84% is actually [INAUDIBLE] to the inherent structure 00:32:26.970 --> 00:32:30.890 align:middle line:84% of the language, or is a result of the cultural and historical 00:32:30.890 --> 00:32:32.830 align:middle line:90% situations surrounding it. 00:32:32.830 --> 00:32:35.890 align:middle line:84% Because China could have essentially become like Europe 00:32:35.890 --> 00:32:37.930 align:middle line:84% did after the fall of Rome and stayed almost 00:32:37.930 --> 00:32:40.633 align:middle line:84% as separate entities and stayed broken up. 00:32:40.633 --> 00:32:42.550 align:middle line:84% And I think if China does something like that, 00:32:42.550 --> 00:32:44.690 align:middle line:84% wouldn't the language divergence be 00:32:44.690 --> 00:32:47.350 align:middle line:84% so wide that, like you mentioned, 00:32:47.350 --> 00:32:49.650 align:middle line:84% the characters do evolve through time. 00:32:49.650 --> 00:32:51.370 align:middle line:84% And it's not like the consistency 00:32:51.370 --> 00:32:56.007 align:middle line:84% is as miraculous as like an alphabetic language. 00:32:56.007 --> 00:32:58.090 align:middle line:84% It's like a question, is it the inherent structure 00:32:58.090 --> 00:32:59.710 align:middle line:84% of the language has facilitated this, 00:32:59.710 --> 00:33:02.570 align:middle line:84% or is it just weird circumstances prescribing that 00:33:02.570 --> 00:33:05.170 align:middle line:84% to a culture that hasn't been able to maintain 00:33:05.170 --> 00:33:07.330 align:middle line:90% some of cohesion through time? 00:33:07.330 --> 00:33:09.760 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: Yeah well, it's a great, great question. 00:33:09.760 --> 00:33:13.780 align:middle line:84% We're going to get to-- over the next few weeks, 00:33:13.780 --> 00:33:16.240 align:middle line:84% so we're going to look at those centuries of like why, 00:33:16.240 --> 00:33:19.140 align:middle line:84% of course, does the Empire of China keep coming back together? 00:33:19.140 --> 00:33:21.780 align:middle line:84% It's a great, great question to think about. 00:33:21.780 --> 00:33:24.130 align:middle line:84% Was there one hand in the back maybe before moving on? 00:33:24.130 --> 00:33:25.380 align:middle line:90% Does somebody want to jump in? 00:33:25.380 --> 00:33:26.380 align:middle line:90% Was there anybody back there? 00:33:26.380 --> 00:33:26.740 align:middle line:90% You good? 00:33:26.740 --> 00:33:27.240 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:33:27.240 --> 00:33:30.320 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I just wanted to add to-- 00:33:30.320 --> 00:33:34.120 align:middle line:84% it does seem to me that having an alphabetical system, which 00:33:34.120 --> 00:33:37.080 align:middle line:84% is like, OK, 26 characters, you just use that over 00:33:37.080 --> 00:33:41.740 align:middle line:84% and over again, that should change less than tiny characters 00:33:41.740 --> 00:33:42.240 align:middle line:90% with-- 00:33:42.240 --> 00:33:44.540 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: The letters themselves or words? 00:33:44.540 --> 00:33:45.380 align:middle line:90% Yeah, OK. 00:33:45.380 --> 00:33:48.920 align:middle line:84% Well, I mean, if you look, if you go 00:33:48.920 --> 00:33:51.480 align:middle line:84% and you look at the Pantheon in Central Rome, 00:33:51.480 --> 00:33:52.760 align:middle line:90% and you see, what's that guy? 00:33:52.760 --> 00:33:58.120 align:middle line:84% Agrippa on the-- his name is written on the top of it, 00:33:58.120 --> 00:34:00.920 align:middle line:90% you recognize all those letters. 00:34:00.920 --> 00:34:02.460 align:middle line:84% It's just like, what does it mean? 00:34:02.460 --> 00:34:03.340 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:34:03.340 --> 00:34:04.520 align:middle line:90% That's the thing. 00:34:04.520 --> 00:34:05.640 align:middle line:90% Yeah, OK? 00:34:05.640 --> 00:34:09.040 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I mean, I guess that's one of the things like languages 00:34:09.040 --> 00:34:12.780 align:middle line:84% that are like English that are based on phonetics, 00:34:12.780 --> 00:34:15.060 align:middle line:84% where everyone interprets the phonetics differently. 00:34:15.060 --> 00:34:18.728 align:middle line:84% So if the words were pronounced differently, 00:34:18.728 --> 00:34:20.020 align:middle line:90% then the spelling is different. 00:34:20.020 --> 00:34:23.199 align:middle line:84% And so even within English itself, it's 00:34:23.199 --> 00:34:24.340 align:middle line:90% not that consistent. 00:34:24.340 --> 00:34:26.120 align:middle line:84% If you go back 300 years, it's kind of 00:34:26.120 --> 00:34:29.960 align:middle line:84% difficult to do [INAUDIBLE] same alphabet, because they 00:34:29.960 --> 00:34:31.159 align:middle line:90% spelled things differently. 00:34:31.159 --> 00:34:33.076 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: Because they spoke differently. 00:34:33.076 --> 00:34:35.480 align:middle line:84% This is the thing of like what really changes. 00:34:35.480 --> 00:34:39.040 align:middle line:84% The way we speak changes really, really quickly. 00:34:39.040 --> 00:34:40.143 align:middle line:90% And that's true in China. 00:34:40.143 --> 00:34:42.560 align:middle line:84% That's true-- I mean, I was saying this in the other class 00:34:42.560 --> 00:34:43.620 align:middle line:90% yesterday. 00:34:43.620 --> 00:34:46.239 align:middle line:84% If you pick up Shakespeare in the original, 00:34:46.239 --> 00:34:49.540 align:middle line:84% you might be able to get through like a page. 00:34:49.540 --> 00:34:51.840 align:middle line:90% But it's not beach reading. 00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:54.820 align:middle line:84% There's a lot of jokes, there's a lot of words. 00:34:54.820 --> 00:34:57.200 align:middle line:84% There's a lot of vocabulary stuff 00:34:57.200 --> 00:35:01.260 align:middle line:84% that you totally need glossed, even as an educated person. 00:35:01.260 --> 00:35:03.640 align:middle line:84% You got to be like, what is he saying there? 00:35:03.640 --> 00:35:07.150 align:middle line:84% And that's just a product of how the English language has changed 00:35:07.150 --> 00:35:08.850 align:middle line:90% over the last four centuries. 00:35:08.850 --> 00:35:12.610 align:middle line:84% So the Chinese language, and just to be precise here, 00:35:12.610 --> 00:35:15.030 align:middle line:84% the language changes all the time. 00:35:15.030 --> 00:35:20.570 align:middle line:84% But the script is more conservative. 00:35:20.570 --> 00:35:21.410 align:middle line:90% It changes less. 00:35:21.410 --> 00:35:23.915 align:middle line:84% And so that's like an alphabetic system. 00:35:23.915 --> 00:35:25.790 align:middle line:84% All right, one thing I was just going to say, 00:35:25.790 --> 00:35:28.210 align:middle line:84% I'm going to pass over that for a second. 00:35:28.210 --> 00:35:29.710 align:middle line:84% But I wanted to get I think, really, 00:35:29.710 --> 00:35:33.590 align:middle line:84% back to this point that was actually just raised here about 00:35:33.590 --> 00:35:38.430 align:middle line:84% when we talk in this class about Chinese history, 00:35:38.430 --> 00:35:41.630 align:middle line:84% And I give you we're doing dynastic China, 00:35:41.630 --> 00:35:45.510 align:middle line:84% this is the perfect place to just stop and ask, 00:35:45.510 --> 00:35:47.710 align:middle line:90% what is "China"? 00:35:47.710 --> 00:35:51.230 align:middle line:84% It's remember, it's not a racial group. 00:35:51.230 --> 00:35:53.950 align:middle line:84% There are many different people who 00:35:53.950 --> 00:35:58.570 align:middle line:84% live in China, who you couldn't classify in one way. 00:35:58.570 --> 00:36:01.810 align:middle line:90% It's a super diverse place. 00:36:01.810 --> 00:36:05.500 align:middle line:84% You can't even classify it by one food. 00:36:05.500 --> 00:36:06.687 align:middle line:90% Do Chinese people eat rice? 00:36:06.687 --> 00:36:07.520 align:middle line:90% Do they eat noodles? 00:36:07.520 --> 00:36:08.652 align:middle line:90% Do they eat this? 00:36:08.652 --> 00:36:09.360 align:middle line:90% Do they eat that? 00:36:09.360 --> 00:36:11.060 align:middle line:90% They eat a lot of things. 00:36:11.060 --> 00:36:13.380 align:middle line:84% And it just depends on where you are. 00:36:13.380 --> 00:36:17.800 align:middle line:84% And so we, of course, I always say this, when we're outside, 00:36:17.800 --> 00:36:19.220 align:middle line:90% we go Chinese food. 00:36:19.220 --> 00:36:21.552 align:middle line:84% But when you're in China, nobody says Chinese food. 00:36:21.552 --> 00:36:22.760 align:middle line:90% That doesn't even make sense. 00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:23.660 align:middle line:90% It's food. 00:36:23.660 --> 00:36:25.040 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:36:25.040 --> 00:36:27.700 align:middle line:84% You don't need-- you don't need the adjective there. 00:36:27.700 --> 00:36:28.500 align:middle line:90% It's food. 00:36:28.500 --> 00:36:29.680 align:middle line:90% It changes all the time. 00:36:29.680 --> 00:36:31.840 align:middle line:84% Chinese dress has changed all the time. 00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:34.840 align:middle line:90% 00:36:34.840 --> 00:36:39.100 align:middle line:84% Certainly, you can see this in the dynasties. 00:36:39.100 --> 00:36:41.980 align:middle line:84% A dynasty, for instance, Qing dynasty dress 00:36:41.980 --> 00:36:46.700 align:middle line:84% looks so dramatically different than the dynasty that preceded 00:36:46.700 --> 00:36:48.520 align:middle line:90% it, Ming dynasty dress. 00:36:48.520 --> 00:36:50.523 align:middle line:90% It's like scandalous, actually. 00:36:50.523 --> 00:36:52.440 align:middle line:84% If you really-- it looks, when you say, again, 00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:53.920 align:middle line:84% we're sitting in the 21st century, oh, 00:36:53.920 --> 00:36:55.160 align:middle line:90% it looks like ancient China. 00:36:55.160 --> 00:36:57.740 align:middle line:90% No, no, look at the hats. 00:36:57.740 --> 00:36:58.720 align:middle line:90% Look at the hair. 00:36:58.720 --> 00:36:59.600 align:middle line:90% It's different. 00:36:59.600 --> 00:37:01.620 align:middle line:90% It's all different. 00:37:01.620 --> 00:37:02.400 align:middle line:90% It matters. 00:37:02.400 --> 00:37:04.680 align:middle line:84% China's borders have constantly changed. 00:37:04.680 --> 00:37:06.460 align:middle line:84% Chinese ethnicities and languages 00:37:06.460 --> 00:37:07.720 align:middle line:90% have constantly changed. 00:37:07.720 --> 00:37:12.120 align:middle line:84% There is no eternal China defined by those things. 00:37:12.120 --> 00:37:16.140 align:middle line:84% But I think that what you can say 00:37:16.140 --> 00:37:19.395 align:middle line:84% is something really old is this writing system. 00:37:19.395 --> 00:37:21.020 align:middle line:84% And this gets back to the point that we 00:37:21.020 --> 00:37:23.920 align:middle line:84% were talking about just a little bit earlier. 00:37:23.920 --> 00:37:28.800 align:middle line:84% The reality is, if you look, you can recognize all those letters, 00:37:28.800 --> 00:37:30.840 align:middle line:90% but you can't read that. 00:37:30.840 --> 00:37:34.320 align:middle line:84% You just can't read, I mean, unless you're really impressive. 00:37:34.320 --> 00:37:37.600 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's an absurd-- maybe some of you can read that, 00:37:37.600 --> 00:37:40.357 align:middle line:84% but it would be a little bit of a challenge, right? 00:37:40.357 --> 00:37:41.940 align:middle line:84% I mean, you know there's a date there. 00:37:41.940 --> 00:37:45.220 align:middle line:84% Or there's at least numbers there. 00:37:45.220 --> 00:37:47.700 align:middle line:90% This is what you can read. 00:37:47.700 --> 00:37:51.640 align:middle line:84% So you can read that, but you can't read that. 00:37:51.640 --> 00:37:54.260 align:middle line:84% But you recognize that these letters are the same. 00:37:54.260 --> 00:37:58.620 align:middle line:84% But obviously, the language that they're representing 00:37:58.620 --> 00:38:00.420 align:middle line:90% is totally different, right? 00:38:00.420 --> 00:38:05.730 align:middle line:84% Now, a Chinese person can read that. 00:38:05.730 --> 00:38:08.010 align:middle line:90% And they can read that. 00:38:08.010 --> 00:38:13.210 align:middle line:90% That's the magic here. 00:38:13.210 --> 00:38:17.770 align:middle line:84% That's when you realize there's something special about this 00:38:17.770 --> 00:38:23.210 align:middle line:84% because yeah, I can read I can read a newspaper from the 20th 00:38:23.210 --> 00:38:24.370 align:middle line:90% century. 00:38:24.370 --> 00:38:27.630 align:middle line:84% And a middle school student, let's say, 00:38:27.630 --> 00:38:30.610 align:middle line:84% middle school student can make his way through her way through 00:38:30.610 --> 00:38:32.650 align:middle line:90% newspaper from the 20th century. 00:38:32.650 --> 00:38:34.610 align:middle line:84% And they might not be able to pick up 00:38:34.610 --> 00:38:39.490 align:middle line:84% Confucius in The Analects and read it letter perfectly. 00:38:39.490 --> 00:38:44.690 align:middle line:84% But they'd be able to tell you, oh, this is about studying. 00:38:44.690 --> 00:38:46.430 align:middle line:90% They could tell you something. 00:38:46.430 --> 00:38:48.870 align:middle line:84% They'd say, I recognize some-- it's about studying. 00:38:48.870 --> 00:38:50.770 align:middle line:90% It's about this. 00:38:50.770 --> 00:38:54.330 align:middle line:90% So that's really the magic. 00:38:54.330 --> 00:38:57.930 align:middle line:84% That's like that information dense, that 00:38:57.930 --> 00:38:59.350 align:middle line:90% is something that we can say. 00:38:59.350 --> 00:39:02.680 align:middle line:84% Now, I want to emphasize here, in history, 00:39:02.680 --> 00:39:05.600 align:middle line:84% one of the ways that you can think of historians 00:39:05.600 --> 00:39:08.600 align:middle line:84% is that we specialize in identifying 00:39:08.600 --> 00:39:10.560 align:middle line:90% change and continuity. 00:39:10.560 --> 00:39:14.640 align:middle line:84% It's every question comes down to what's changing, 00:39:14.640 --> 00:39:16.280 align:middle line:90% and what's staying the same? 00:39:16.280 --> 00:39:18.720 align:middle line:84% And what I need to emphasize to you here 00:39:18.720 --> 00:39:21.740 align:middle line:90% is that change is constant. 00:39:21.740 --> 00:39:23.320 align:middle line:90% There's a lot of change. 00:39:23.320 --> 00:39:25.340 align:middle line:84% And when we talk about Chinese history, 00:39:25.340 --> 00:39:29.900 align:middle line:84% because you have this literary continuity, 00:39:29.900 --> 00:39:32.960 align:middle line:84% it's very easy to sometimes overlook the change. 00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:35.840 align:middle line:90% It's all too easy to sometimes. 00:39:35.840 --> 00:39:37.840 align:middle line:84% And to think like, oh yeah, Confucius 00:39:37.840 --> 00:39:40.395 align:middle line:84% he's eating dumplings with chopsticks 00:39:40.395 --> 00:39:42.020 align:middle line:84% and enjoying bubble tea on the weekend. 00:39:42.020 --> 00:39:43.020 align:middle line:90% No, he wasn't. 00:39:43.020 --> 00:39:44.140 align:middle line:90% No, he wasn't. 00:39:44.140 --> 00:39:45.180 align:middle line:90% He wasn't. 00:39:45.180 --> 00:39:46.740 align:middle line:84% That would be totally alien to him. 00:39:46.740 --> 00:39:48.320 align:middle line:84% He would be like, what's going on? 00:39:48.320 --> 00:39:52.092 align:middle line:90% No, no, no, no. 00:39:52.092 --> 00:39:56.300 align:middle line:84% So you have to always center that change. 00:39:56.300 --> 00:39:58.100 align:middle line:90% Be aware of that. 00:39:58.100 --> 00:40:01.990 align:middle line:84% It's not that there's this kind of geographical person called 00:40:01.990 --> 00:40:04.630 align:middle line:84% China who puts on a different dynastic clothing 00:40:04.630 --> 00:40:05.810 align:middle line:90% every few hundred years. 00:40:05.810 --> 00:40:08.270 align:middle line:84% That's not what we're talking about. 00:40:08.270 --> 00:40:11.970 align:middle line:84% We can make an argument that the Zhou state, the Han state, 00:40:11.970 --> 00:40:14.958 align:middle line:84% all of these others, they're totally different states. 00:40:14.958 --> 00:40:16.250 align:middle line:90% They're totally different eras. 00:40:16.250 --> 00:40:17.870 align:middle line:84% They have totally different cultures. 00:40:17.870 --> 00:40:20.930 align:middle line:84% But once you identify that change, 00:40:20.930 --> 00:40:24.170 align:middle line:84% you can then say, OK, what is continuous? 00:40:24.170 --> 00:40:26.990 align:middle line:84% What is something that is still there? 00:40:26.990 --> 00:40:30.950 align:middle line:84% And the writing system is certainly one of those things 00:40:30.950 --> 00:40:34.830 align:middle line:84% because it allows, as was so perfectly stated earlier, 00:40:34.830 --> 00:40:37.150 align:middle line:84% people who live in different centuries 00:40:37.150 --> 00:40:41.430 align:middle line:84% to talk to one another in a way that you have that divide. 00:40:41.430 --> 00:40:44.215 align:middle line:84% So you might say, I give you an ancient Greek text, 00:40:44.215 --> 00:40:46.090 align:middle line:84% and you go well, I could learn ancient Greek, 00:40:46.090 --> 00:40:47.850 align:middle line:90% or could look at a translation. 00:40:47.850 --> 00:40:51.550 align:middle line:84% But you still you have the divide there of the translation, 00:40:51.550 --> 00:40:54.410 align:middle line:84% rather than picking up The Analects and being, yeah, 00:40:54.410 --> 00:40:57.770 align:middle line:90% I kind recognize this. 00:40:57.770 --> 00:41:04.130 align:middle line:84% Any other final thoughts on this about the writing system? 00:41:04.130 --> 00:41:05.650 align:middle line:90% I don't know, pros, cons? 00:41:05.650 --> 00:41:08.110 align:middle line:84% I felt like when we were talking about your discussion 00:41:08.110 --> 00:41:11.350 align:middle line:84% post, Linda and I, it kind of felt like a lot of people 00:41:11.350 --> 00:41:13.990 align:middle line:84% thought there were a lot of cons. 00:41:13.990 --> 00:41:16.050 align:middle line:84% So which was interesting, because in class, 00:41:16.050 --> 00:41:17.530 align:middle line:90% I'm hearing a lot of pros. 00:41:17.530 --> 00:41:21.030 align:middle line:90% 00:41:21.030 --> 00:41:25.030 align:middle line:84% I mean, look, I think one thing, just before moving on, 00:41:25.030 --> 00:41:28.990 align:middle line:84% that is just the reality of this is that Chinese kids spend 00:41:28.990 --> 00:41:30.990 align:middle line:90% a long time in school. 00:41:30.990 --> 00:41:33.530 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:41:33.530 --> 00:41:36.170 align:middle line:84% You have to learn this for many, many, many years. 00:41:36.170 --> 00:41:39.470 align:middle line:84% And it takes a lot of rote memorization. 00:41:39.470 --> 00:41:44.170 align:middle line:84% My freshman year at Harvard was destroyed by this. 00:41:44.170 --> 00:41:48.230 align:middle line:84% OK, I mean, I had quizzes every day. 00:41:48.230 --> 00:41:50.430 align:middle line:90% How do you write the character? 00:41:50.430 --> 00:41:53.210 align:middle line:84% There's an embarrassment when you get it wrong. 00:41:53.210 --> 00:41:54.910 align:middle line:90% Your teacher gives you the face. 00:41:54.910 --> 00:41:57.700 align:middle line:90% And you do this for years. 00:41:57.700 --> 00:42:03.400 align:middle line:84% And you feel illiterate for so long, no matter how hard I try. 00:42:03.400 --> 00:42:04.280 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:42:04.280 --> 00:42:07.220 align:middle line:84% But then you have to-- you have to see the rainbow 00:42:07.220 --> 00:42:08.420 align:middle line:90% at the end of the cloud. 00:42:08.420 --> 00:42:11.640 align:middle line:84% You have to see it's worth it in the end, it really is. 00:42:11.640 --> 00:42:14.340 align:middle line:90% It really is. 00:42:14.340 --> 00:42:15.780 align:middle line:90% So that's one thing. 00:42:15.780 --> 00:42:19.060 align:middle line:84% The learning curve, it takes a long time. 00:42:19.060 --> 00:42:23.060 align:middle line:84% And also, perhaps because of all the memorization 00:42:23.060 --> 00:42:26.020 align:middle line:84% required with the writing system, that 00:42:26.020 --> 00:42:28.700 align:middle line:84% may have influenced, over time, ideas 00:42:28.700 --> 00:42:33.242 align:middle line:84% of education in China of what is an ideal education, what 00:42:33.242 --> 00:42:35.200 align:middle line:84% should that look like, what should teachers do. 00:42:35.200 --> 00:42:38.620 align:middle line:84% That's another thing that you can think about. 00:42:38.620 --> 00:42:39.595 align:middle line:90% So everybody good? 00:42:39.595 --> 00:42:40.720 align:middle line:90% Any other thoughts on this? 00:42:40.720 --> 00:42:42.277 align:middle line:90% All good? 00:42:42.277 --> 00:42:44.860 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Let me speak a little bit more on the negative side. 00:42:44.860 --> 00:42:45.980 align:middle line:90% But I'm going to also-- 00:42:45.980 --> 00:42:48.188 align:middle line:84% I also [INAUDIBLE] of the English language because we 00:42:48.188 --> 00:42:49.700 align:middle line:84% discussed that too, because I had 00:42:49.700 --> 00:42:53.570 align:middle line:84% memories of my childhood of my mom making me sit and memorize 00:42:53.570 --> 00:42:54.670 align:middle line:90% script. 00:42:54.670 --> 00:42:56.810 align:middle line:84% I said I was like, right and right. 00:42:56.810 --> 00:42:59.177 align:middle line:84% And it's still a language I think I would want to learn. 00:42:59.177 --> 00:43:00.510 align:middle line:90% I think it's important to learn. 00:43:00.510 --> 00:43:02.410 align:middle line:90% It's fascinating to learn. 00:43:02.410 --> 00:43:04.932 align:middle line:84% When you discuss that early with combining characters, 00:43:04.932 --> 00:43:06.390 align:middle line:84% there's a much more recent example. 00:43:06.390 --> 00:43:08.870 align:middle line:84% You pull up the periodic table of elements, 00:43:08.870 --> 00:43:10.630 align:middle line:84% you can actually see in each element, 00:43:10.630 --> 00:43:13.070 align:middle line:84% there's a part that indicates the type of element, 00:43:13.070 --> 00:43:15.528 align:middle line:84% and there's a part that usually indicates how to pronounce. 00:43:15.528 --> 00:43:17.510 align:middle line:84% There's a modern variation of that. 00:43:17.510 --> 00:43:20.770 align:middle line:84% And when I was realizing that, that's one of my interests, 00:43:20.770 --> 00:43:23.210 align:middle line:84% there's so many ways that character 00:43:23.210 --> 00:43:25.670 align:middle line:84% was able to connect to the meaning of the element, 00:43:25.670 --> 00:43:30.530 align:middle line:84% they name of the element in the West, other attributes about it. 00:43:30.530 --> 00:43:33.270 align:middle line:84% And it was like extremely fascinating. 00:43:33.270 --> 00:43:36.150 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: Wow, wow, that's really interesting, 00:43:36.150 --> 00:43:40.490 align:middle line:84% but your point makes me remember, the question, 00:43:40.490 --> 00:43:42.890 align:middle line:90% are emojis a script? 00:43:42.890 --> 00:43:44.370 align:middle line:90% What do you think? 00:43:44.370 --> 00:43:45.170 align:middle line:90% You think they are? 00:43:45.170 --> 00:43:46.570 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Yes. 00:43:46.570 --> 00:43:48.050 align:middle line:90% TRISTAN BROWN: Tell me why. 00:43:48.050 --> 00:43:51.670 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Well, just like for example, 00:43:51.670 --> 00:43:54.410 align:middle line:84% we're talking about cuneiform, so drawing pictures. 00:43:54.410 --> 00:43:57.890 align:middle line:84% So you're representing something using a picture. 00:43:57.890 --> 00:43:59.610 align:middle line:84% And that's exactly what emojis are. 00:43:59.610 --> 00:44:02.730 align:middle line:84% They're communicating emotion through pictures. 00:44:02.730 --> 00:44:05.210 align:middle line:84% Or not only that, they also have cameras. 00:44:05.210 --> 00:44:08.530 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: Yeah, OK, OK, OK, good, yeah. 00:44:08.530 --> 00:44:11.370 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I would argue like in their current form, 00:44:11.370 --> 00:44:12.690 align:middle line:90% they're not really a script. 00:44:12.690 --> 00:44:16.610 align:middle line:84% Because cuneiform, everything is standardized. 00:44:16.610 --> 00:44:19.570 align:middle line:84% You can write a full definition, you 00:44:19.570 --> 00:44:24.990 align:middle line:84% have all of this kind of grammatical structure around it. 00:44:24.990 --> 00:44:25.790 align:middle line:90% Whereas emojis. 00:44:25.790 --> 00:44:27.390 align:middle line:90% It's just an emotion. 00:44:27.390 --> 00:44:32.250 align:middle line:84% And you could do the work and come up with a grammar 00:44:32.250 --> 00:44:33.790 align:middle line:90% to make it into a script. 00:44:33.790 --> 00:44:36.330 align:middle line:84% But as of now, it's not really a script. 00:44:36.330 --> 00:44:38.490 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: So yeah, so your intuition 00:44:38.490 --> 00:44:41.450 align:middle line:84% is that it's proto-writing, we're 00:44:41.450 --> 00:44:44.950 align:middle line:84% at the stage of labeling the jars, 00:44:44.950 --> 00:44:46.830 align:middle line:90% but we don't have grammar yet. 00:44:46.830 --> 00:44:48.310 align:middle line:90% But we might get there. 00:44:48.310 --> 00:44:58.520 align:middle line:84% I will say this is that I mean, theoretically, I'm 00:44:58.520 --> 00:45:02.800 align:middle line:84% fine sending texts using WeChat in China. 00:45:02.800 --> 00:45:05.720 align:middle line:84% But I've realized over the years, 00:45:05.720 --> 00:45:10.640 align:middle line:84% from many dear friends, that the art of the Chinese emoji 00:45:10.640 --> 00:45:12.640 align:middle line:90% is very, very subtle. 00:45:12.640 --> 00:45:15.660 align:middle line:84% It's like, oh, you're asking for something, 00:45:15.660 --> 00:45:19.460 align:middle line:84% send this, like three of these, send a rose. 00:45:19.460 --> 00:45:20.980 align:middle line:84% And I'm like, why am I sending this? 00:45:20.980 --> 00:45:22.100 align:middle line:90% What does this mean? 00:45:22.100 --> 00:45:24.280 align:middle line:84% And then I sent a smiley face, and they said, 00:45:24.280 --> 00:45:25.660 align:middle line:90% don't send that smiley face. 00:45:25.660 --> 00:45:28.400 align:middle line:84% That smiley face means you hate them. 00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:30.100 align:middle line:90% Send, send this smiley face. 00:45:30.100 --> 00:45:32.200 align:middle line:84% And it's like there's different smiley faces. 00:45:32.200 --> 00:45:35.340 align:middle line:84% And it's like, where is this going to lead? 00:45:35.340 --> 00:45:40.640 align:middle line:84% I mean, definitely, there are a lot of latent rules 00:45:40.640 --> 00:45:43.960 align:middle line:84% that this is like the evolving question 00:45:43.960 --> 00:45:47.840 align:middle line:84% of what will this look like in 30 or 40 years? 00:45:47.840 --> 00:45:52.870 align:middle line:84% Could you imagine just sending a text with only emojis? 00:45:52.870 --> 00:45:55.750 align:middle line:90% You've done this before? 00:45:55.750 --> 00:45:57.150 align:middle line:90% Just pure emojis? 00:45:57.150 --> 00:46:01.150 align:middle line:84% And then the response is just emoji? 00:46:01.150 --> 00:46:02.910 align:middle line:84% And then how about the response to that? 00:46:02.910 --> 00:46:03.910 align:middle line:90% Still emoji. 00:46:03.910 --> 00:46:08.435 align:middle line:84% At what point do you break for language? 00:46:08.435 --> 00:46:09.310 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] 00:46:09.310 --> 00:46:10.950 align:middle line:90% TRISTAN BROWN: OK, I see, I see. 00:46:10.950 --> 00:46:13.130 align:middle line:84% It would be an interesting experiment, 00:46:13.130 --> 00:46:16.430 align:middle line:84% how far can you get just with emojis? 00:46:16.430 --> 00:46:21.270 align:middle line:84% And if the answer one day becomes you can just keep going, 00:46:21.270 --> 00:46:25.190 align:middle line:84% then you really have-- you have a full writing system. 00:46:25.190 --> 00:46:28.270 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] like the AI generator 00:46:28.270 --> 00:46:29.970 align:middle line:90% where you can make new emojis. 00:46:29.970 --> 00:46:31.410 align:middle line:90% So you can have infinite-- 00:46:31.410 --> 00:46:32.690 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: Well, this is the-- but yeah, 00:46:32.690 --> 00:46:34.773 align:middle line:84% so here's the one thing about this, though, right? 00:46:34.773 --> 00:46:37.930 align:middle line:84% So I might love Chinese characters, 00:46:37.930 --> 00:46:40.330 align:middle line:84% but I just can't create my own characters. 00:46:40.330 --> 00:46:44.550 align:middle line:84% So at a certain point, we need somebody to come in. 00:46:44.550 --> 00:46:47.910 align:middle line:84% And in China, in Chinese history, there's always a-- 00:46:47.910 --> 00:46:52.230 align:middle line:84% let's just say, rulers who are happy to oblige and say these 00:46:52.230 --> 00:46:53.830 align:middle line:90% are the right ones. 00:46:53.830 --> 00:46:55.810 align:middle line:90% Stop using the other ones. 00:46:55.810 --> 00:46:58.530 align:middle line:84% And we have this unification drive. 00:46:58.530 --> 00:47:00.750 align:middle line:84% So Apple might be doing this, but then it 00:47:00.750 --> 00:47:03.070 align:middle line:84% will be a question of eventually, 00:47:03.070 --> 00:47:06.410 align:middle line:84% we have to have some consensus on what they mean. 00:47:06.410 --> 00:47:08.790 align:middle line:90% Good? 00:47:08.790 --> 00:47:10.650 align:middle line:90% All right, all right, all right. 00:47:10.650 --> 00:47:12.130 align:middle line:90% So let's now move on. 00:47:12.130 --> 00:47:15.050 align:middle line:84% And now, let's take a look at time and periodization. 00:47:15.050 --> 00:47:20.470 align:middle line:84% Let's basically-- we hit, really, our big points 00:47:20.470 --> 00:47:22.430 align:middle line:90% in the Shang period. 00:47:22.430 --> 00:47:28.030 align:middle line:84% I want to now just look closely at this timeline here 00:47:28.030 --> 00:47:29.630 align:middle line:90% because it's a critical. 00:47:29.630 --> 00:47:33.510 align:middle line:84% But you also have to break it down a little bit. 00:47:33.510 --> 00:47:40.750 align:middle line:84% You can see, the Zhou dynasty lasted a very long time. 00:47:40.750 --> 00:47:45.110 align:middle line:84% Actually, technically, it is the longest lasting royal line 00:47:45.110 --> 00:47:47.140 align:middle line:90% in Chinese history. 00:47:47.140 --> 00:47:52.180 align:middle line:84% None of the royal lines, none of the dynastic states 00:47:52.180 --> 00:47:55.940 align:middle line:84% that come after the Zhou will last this long. 00:47:55.940 --> 00:48:00.180 align:middle line:84% But part of the reason for the Zhou royal line's longevity 00:48:00.180 --> 00:48:04.560 align:middle line:84% was related to its very unique internal structure as a state. 00:48:04.560 --> 00:48:06.500 align:middle line:90% It's really one of a kind. 00:48:06.500 --> 00:48:08.800 align:middle line:84% So what we look at here, if you look, 00:48:08.800 --> 00:48:12.940 align:middle line:84% it's almost an 800 year period of the quote, 00:48:12.940 --> 00:48:14.340 align:middle line:90% unquote "Zhou dynasty." 00:48:14.340 --> 00:48:17.792 align:middle line:84% Now, we can break that down into two sections. 00:48:17.792 --> 00:48:20.000 align:middle line:84% And we can subsequently break that down even further. 00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:21.208 align:middle line:90% But let's start with the two. 00:48:21.208 --> 00:48:24.820 align:middle line:84% You have the Western Zhou, which is the state that 00:48:24.820 --> 00:48:28.300 align:middle line:84% is going to be founded, right, by King Wen, King 00:48:28.300 --> 00:48:32.100 align:middle line:84% Wu, the Duke of Zhou, the big three first early rulers. 00:48:32.100 --> 00:48:34.800 align:middle line:84% It's capital or one of its capitals, the big one, 00:48:34.800 --> 00:48:35.960 align:middle line:90% it's going to be Haojing. 00:48:35.960 --> 00:48:39.540 align:middle line:84% And it's going to be, quote unquote, in Shaanxi province. 00:48:39.540 --> 00:48:41.540 align:middle line:90% It's going to be in the West. 00:48:41.540 --> 00:48:47.090 align:middle line:84% In 771 BC, that capital is basically sacked. 00:48:47.090 --> 00:48:50.450 align:middle line:90% The Zhou King has to flee. 00:48:50.450 --> 00:48:54.150 align:middle line:84% And the capital is basically moved towards the East. 00:48:54.150 --> 00:48:56.790 align:middle line:84% Then you get this Eastern Zhou period. 00:48:56.790 --> 00:48:58.170 align:middle line:84% So that's why you could basically 00:48:58.170 --> 00:49:00.295 align:middle line:84% say the Western Zhou and the Eastern Zhou, in part, 00:49:00.295 --> 00:49:04.690 align:middle line:84% it's a temporal distinction on where the capital was. 00:49:04.690 --> 00:49:08.490 align:middle line:84% The Eastern Zhou period, in turn, 00:49:08.490 --> 00:49:10.990 align:middle line:84% can be broken down into two sections. 00:49:10.990 --> 00:49:12.328 align:middle line:90% OK, follow me here. 00:49:12.328 --> 00:49:13.870 align:middle line:84% I know this kind of gets complicated, 00:49:13.870 --> 00:49:16.328 align:middle line:84% but you need to know these terms because they're important. 00:49:16.328 --> 00:49:19.890 align:middle line:84% The first part of it is this really beautiful phrase, 00:49:19.890 --> 00:49:22.390 align:middle line:90% the Spring and Autumn Period. 00:49:22.390 --> 00:49:24.350 align:middle line:90% The Spring and Autumn Period. 00:49:24.350 --> 00:49:27.090 align:middle line:84% And that's actually named after a book. 00:49:27.090 --> 00:49:30.370 align:middle line:84% It's going to be one of the Confucian classics, The Spring 00:49:30.370 --> 00:49:32.270 align:middle line:90% and Autumn Annals. 00:49:32.270 --> 00:49:35.890 align:middle line:84% And that is basically the name of a book, that 00:49:35.890 --> 00:49:38.030 align:middle line:84% of the history of the state of Lu, 00:49:38.030 --> 00:49:39.830 align:middle line:84% which is where Confucius was from. 00:49:39.830 --> 00:49:42.770 align:middle line:84% Now, Spring and Autumn, in Chinese, 00:49:42.770 --> 00:49:44.760 align:middle line:84% is another way of basically just saying 00:49:44.760 --> 00:49:47.860 align:middle line:84% a year, the turning of time, a year. 00:49:47.860 --> 00:49:52.920 align:middle line:84% So it's like it's this period, the first part of the Eastern 00:49:52.920 --> 00:49:54.560 align:middle line:84% Zhou, The Spring and Autumn Period. 00:49:54.560 --> 00:49:58.880 align:middle line:84% In 481 BC, there's a big thing that happens. 00:49:58.880 --> 00:50:01.620 align:middle line:84% And we get this breakout of the quote, unquote, 00:50:01.620 --> 00:50:02.740 align:middle line:90% "Warring States." 00:50:02.740 --> 00:50:07.600 align:middle line:84% Now, in this period of the Warring States, 00:50:07.600 --> 00:50:11.660 align:middle line:84% you still have the Zhou royal line in existence, 00:50:11.660 --> 00:50:14.000 align:middle line:84% but you have these competing states competing for power 00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:15.520 align:middle line:90% and influence and all of that. 00:50:15.520 --> 00:50:21.120 align:middle line:84% The last Zhou Royal King basically abdicates in 256 BC. 00:50:21.120 --> 00:50:24.520 align:middle line:84% And there's a brief power vacuum, 00:50:24.520 --> 00:50:26.500 align:middle line:84% where there's no more Zhou dynasty, 00:50:26.500 --> 00:50:30.440 align:middle line:84% there's no more Zhou royal line, but before the unification 00:50:30.440 --> 00:50:34.960 align:middle line:84% by that first emperor of the Qin, the big Qin dynasty. 00:50:34.960 --> 00:50:38.140 align:middle line:84% So here's how you can really break this down in a nutshell. 00:50:38.140 --> 00:50:40.120 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to give you all the details 00:50:40.120 --> 00:50:44.680 align:middle line:84% as we go on in the next 20 minutes, which is that the Zhou 00:50:44.680 --> 00:50:49.380 align:middle line:84% state basically is founded with a king who enfiefs, 00:50:49.380 --> 00:50:53.760 align:middle line:84% you could say, his members of his lineage line 00:50:53.760 --> 00:50:56.640 align:middle line:84% across the big Zhou royal domain. 00:50:56.640 --> 00:50:58.300 align:middle line:90% And they are loyal to him. 00:50:58.300 --> 00:51:00.620 align:middle line:84% They have this very subtle relationship. 00:51:00.620 --> 00:51:03.080 align:middle line:84% We'll look into what that relationship exactly means. 00:51:03.080 --> 00:51:10.600 align:middle line:84% As time goes on, these enfiefed, let's say, areas become 00:51:10.600 --> 00:51:12.420 align:middle line:90% increasingly independent. 00:51:12.420 --> 00:51:18.400 align:middle line:84% Now, they still proclaim their allegiance to the Zhou King. 00:51:18.400 --> 00:51:21.080 align:middle line:84% They still proclaim allegiance to the Zhou King. 00:51:21.080 --> 00:51:24.960 align:middle line:84% But the center, the Zhou King, the royal center, 00:51:24.960 --> 00:51:26.660 align:middle line:90% weakens over time. 00:51:26.660 --> 00:51:29.580 align:middle line:84% These kind of local powers, regional powers, 00:51:29.580 --> 00:51:32.320 align:middle line:84% increase their power and influence over time. 00:51:32.320 --> 00:51:35.760 align:middle line:84% To the point where eventually, all out fighting 00:51:35.760 --> 00:51:36.818 align:middle line:90% breaks out among them. 00:51:36.818 --> 00:51:38.360 align:middle line:84% And they start to proclaim themselves 00:51:38.360 --> 00:51:40.060 align:middle line:90% as independent states. 00:51:40.060 --> 00:51:43.030 align:middle line:84% Eventually, they even proclaim themselves, some of them, 00:51:43.030 --> 00:51:45.070 align:middle line:90% as taking the title of king. 00:51:45.070 --> 00:51:46.670 align:middle line:84% OK, that happens quite late, but it 00:51:46.670 --> 00:51:50.510 align:middle line:84% does happen, a direct challenge to the Zhou royal throne. 00:51:50.510 --> 00:51:53.450 align:middle line:84% What you have to understand, for instance, in breaking this down, 00:51:53.450 --> 00:51:57.350 align:middle line:84% is that Confucius, he lives towards this end of the Spring 00:51:57.350 --> 00:51:58.450 align:middle line:90% and Autumn Period. 00:51:58.450 --> 00:52:02.070 align:middle line:84% He's witnessing the decline of this Zhou royal line, 00:52:02.070 --> 00:52:03.250 align:middle line:90% of this center. 00:52:03.250 --> 00:52:06.670 align:middle line:84% He's seeing the increasing like fracturing 00:52:06.670 --> 00:52:08.650 align:middle line:90% that's going on in the regions. 00:52:08.650 --> 00:52:10.590 align:middle line:90% And he's worried about it. 00:52:10.590 --> 00:52:14.710 align:middle line:84% And so that's like a big part of where you can see his thought. 00:52:14.710 --> 00:52:17.870 align:middle line:84% And the Confucian movement comes out of that unique era. 00:52:17.870 --> 00:52:21.790 align:middle line:84% A really, really kind of I find useful heuristic 00:52:21.790 --> 00:52:25.470 align:middle line:84% to understanding what is the Zhou dynasty versus what 00:52:25.470 --> 00:52:28.510 align:middle line:84% comes after is like, do you remember in American history, 00:52:28.510 --> 00:52:30.870 align:middle line:90% the Articles of Confederation? 00:52:30.870 --> 00:52:33.850 align:middle line:84% There was this thing called the Articles of Confederation. 00:52:33.850 --> 00:52:35.750 align:middle line:84% It's like there's all these states, 00:52:35.750 --> 00:52:38.230 align:middle line:84% but they don't really have a central government. 00:52:38.230 --> 00:52:39.320 align:middle line:90% It's that. 00:52:39.320 --> 00:52:40.320 align:middle line:90% And then it didn't work. 00:52:40.320 --> 00:52:41.900 align:middle line:84% And then we said, oh, let's redo the Constitution 00:52:41.900 --> 00:52:42.817 align:middle line:90% and have a strong one. 00:52:42.817 --> 00:52:47.520 align:middle line:84% So it's kind of like heuristic, very imperfect here. 00:52:47.520 --> 00:52:51.660 align:middle line:84% You can think of the Zhou as one really large Articles 00:52:51.660 --> 00:52:53.880 align:middle line:90% of Confederation period. 00:52:53.880 --> 00:52:55.020 align:middle line:90% There is a center. 00:52:55.020 --> 00:52:56.660 align:middle line:90% It is important. 00:52:56.660 --> 00:52:59.520 align:middle line:84% Of course, this power dynamic changes over time. 00:52:59.520 --> 00:53:02.500 align:middle line:84% But what eventually is going to replace it with the Qin dynasty 00:53:02.500 --> 00:53:06.340 align:middle line:84% is going to be a more powerful central state, 00:53:06.340 --> 00:53:09.070 align:middle line:84% solving the problem of quote, unquote, "regionalism, 00:53:09.070 --> 00:53:10.320 align:middle line:90% factionalism and all of that." 00:53:10.320 --> 00:53:12.380 align:middle line:84% So that's what I basically brought down 00:53:12.380 --> 00:53:14.280 align:middle line:84% to you, Western Zhou, Eastern Zhou. 00:53:14.280 --> 00:53:16.380 align:middle line:84% Another thing to point out here, all 00:53:16.380 --> 00:53:20.440 align:middle line:84% of this, all of this that we're looking at here, never, 00:53:20.440 --> 00:53:22.460 align:middle line:90% never say emperor. 00:53:22.460 --> 00:53:25.340 align:middle line:84% The only time where you can really 00:53:25.340 --> 00:53:29.100 align:middle line:84% use the concept of emperor in the really early period 00:53:29.100 --> 00:53:35.320 align:middle line:84% is the early sovereigns, the kind of mythical figures very, 00:53:35.320 --> 00:53:38.140 align:middle line:84% very early on, The Yellow Emperor, 00:53:38.140 --> 00:53:44.060 align:middle line:84% these kind of pre-Shah dynasty figures, almost in myth. 00:53:44.060 --> 00:53:47.060 align:middle line:84% They are kind of referred to in traditional historiography 00:53:47.060 --> 00:53:48.440 align:middle line:90% as quote, unquote "emperors." 00:53:48.440 --> 00:53:52.560 align:middle line:84% But really the Zhou King was a wang. 00:53:52.560 --> 00:53:53.920 align:middle line:90% He was a king. 00:53:53.920 --> 00:54:00.340 align:middle line:84% OK, he's not using this title that we have, starting in 221, 00:54:00.340 --> 00:54:04.260 align:middle line:84% of emperor that's going to be a title for the next like almost 00:54:04.260 --> 00:54:07.220 align:middle line:84% 2,000 years, for a very long period of time. 00:54:07.220 --> 00:54:10.200 align:middle line:84% So there are no emperors in the Zhou dynasty. 00:54:10.200 --> 00:54:11.640 align:middle line:90% Never call it an emperor. 00:54:11.640 --> 00:54:17.500 align:middle line:84% It's the king and all of these other enfiefed aristocrats 00:54:17.500 --> 00:54:19.140 align:middle line:90% and such. 00:54:19.140 --> 00:54:23.400 align:middle line:84% States, this is a really interesting question, when does, 00:54:23.400 --> 00:54:26.180 align:middle line:84% for instance, this region formally 00:54:26.180 --> 00:54:30.700 align:middle line:84% become a state rather than a vassal of the Zhou? 00:54:30.700 --> 00:54:35.330 align:middle line:84% This is all very, very local, nuanced politics. 00:54:35.330 --> 00:54:37.290 align:middle line:90% But you can just guarantee. 00:54:37.290 --> 00:54:38.550 align:middle line:90% It's a gradual process. 00:54:38.550 --> 00:54:41.290 align:middle line:84% But by the time you get to the Warring States era, 00:54:41.290 --> 00:54:44.010 align:middle line:84% you have basically these independent, somewhat 00:54:44.010 --> 00:54:47.910 align:middle line:84% independent polities paying lip service right to the Zhou King. 00:54:47.910 --> 00:54:51.850 align:middle line:84% Interestingly, the way in which this breaks out, as you'll see, 00:54:51.850 --> 00:54:57.103 align:middle line:84% is that the states will say the Zhou central states, 00:54:57.103 --> 00:54:57.770 align:middle line:90% they're so weak. 00:54:57.770 --> 00:54:59.110 align:middle line:90% They need to be defended. 00:54:59.110 --> 00:55:02.170 align:middle line:84% My state will defend the Zhou Royal King. 00:55:02.170 --> 00:55:05.848 align:middle line:84% So they basically do the play of like, I have the biggest army. 00:55:05.848 --> 00:55:07.390 align:middle line:84% Let me go defend the Zhou Royal King. 00:55:07.390 --> 00:55:08.850 align:middle line:90% No, your army sucks. 00:55:08.850 --> 00:55:10.710 align:middle line:84% Let me do-- let's do our army, right? 00:55:10.710 --> 00:55:13.028 align:middle line:84% And they have all this, competition between themselves. 00:55:13.028 --> 00:55:14.570 align:middle line:84% And eventually, it's all out warfare. 00:55:14.570 --> 00:55:15.653 align:middle line:90% That's the Warring States. 00:55:15.653 --> 00:55:18.090 align:middle line:84% OK, so that's kind of what they're doing. 00:55:18.090 --> 00:55:19.870 align:middle line:84% All right, what else do we have here? 00:55:19.870 --> 00:55:21.650 align:middle line:90% Let me just keep going-- 00:55:21.650 --> 00:55:22.630 align:middle line:90% where's my computer? 00:55:22.630 --> 00:55:26.210 align:middle line:90% Oh, it's almost frozen. 00:55:26.210 --> 00:55:28.890 align:middle line:84% Hopefully it'll be OK in just a second. 00:55:28.890 --> 00:55:32.050 align:middle line:90% Where's it going? 00:55:32.050 --> 00:55:35.880 align:middle line:84% I get that thing, that circle that's going around. 00:55:35.880 --> 00:55:38.720 align:middle line:90% It's like, come on, circle. 00:55:38.720 --> 00:55:44.000 align:middle line:84% But as I wait for this, questions? 00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:48.360 align:middle line:84% I mean, have you encountered these terms and periods before? 00:55:48.360 --> 00:55:49.340 align:middle line:90% OK, here we go. 00:55:49.340 --> 00:55:52.000 align:middle line:90% It's like hurry up. 00:55:52.000 --> 00:55:52.500 align:middle line:90% Let me see. 00:55:52.500 --> 00:55:53.300 align:middle line:90% Just want to-- 00:55:53.300 --> 00:55:57.160 align:middle line:90% 00:55:57.160 --> 00:55:58.780 align:middle line:90% So I guess I'll just-- 00:55:58.780 --> 00:56:02.300 align:middle line:84% I'm lucky I got it through here, so I'll just start here. 00:56:02.300 --> 00:56:04.280 align:middle line:84% So one of the things that you could 00:56:04.280 --> 00:56:08.180 align:middle line:84% say, as you figure out what's going on here, 00:56:08.180 --> 00:56:12.880 align:middle line:84% is that the Zhou state is going to actually come out-- it's 00:56:12.880 --> 00:56:18.180 align:middle line:84% originally located to the west of the Shang royal domains. 00:56:18.180 --> 00:56:20.340 align:middle line:84% And they're going to overthrow the Shang state. 00:56:20.340 --> 00:56:27.020 align:middle line:84% And in a way, in overthrowing the Shang state, 00:56:27.020 --> 00:56:31.700 align:middle line:84% the Zhou has to legitimize and explain, why did you do that? 00:56:31.700 --> 00:56:34.720 align:middle line:84% OK, why did you just overthrow the Shang state? 00:56:34.720 --> 00:56:38.660 align:middle line:84% So the Zhou does this through creating an ideology, 00:56:38.660 --> 00:56:40.160 align:middle line:84% and I define that here as ideas that 00:56:40.160 --> 00:56:43.680 align:middle line:84% justify power through writing history, prose, and poetry. 00:56:43.680 --> 00:56:47.960 align:middle line:84% And oftentimes, this catch-all phrase to that ideology 00:56:47.960 --> 00:56:50.020 align:middle line:84% is known as the Mandate of Heaven. 00:56:50.020 --> 00:56:52.880 align:middle line:84% So basically, what the Zhou is going 00:56:52.880 --> 00:56:55.080 align:middle line:84% to say, from a very, very early stage 00:56:55.080 --> 00:57:01.560 align:middle line:84% is that, yes, the Shang state was great once upon a time, 00:57:01.560 --> 00:57:05.360 align:middle line:84% but then it its rulers became corrupt, 00:57:05.360 --> 00:57:07.520 align:middle line:90% it lost favor with heaven. 00:57:07.520 --> 00:57:10.100 align:middle line:84% And so therefore, heaven basically said, 00:57:10.100 --> 00:57:13.360 align:middle line:84% let's kick out the Shang, and now it's the Zhou's turn. 00:57:13.360 --> 00:57:15.180 align:middle line:90% Basically what does it do? 00:57:15.180 --> 00:57:18.600 align:middle line:90% It moralizes usurpation. 00:57:18.600 --> 00:57:22.280 align:middle line:84% It moralizes the seizure of power. 00:57:22.280 --> 00:57:24.780 align:middle line:84% And it moralizes, once you've seized it, 00:57:24.780 --> 00:57:27.300 align:middle line:90% the preservation of that power. 00:57:27.300 --> 00:57:29.380 align:middle line:84% Because you're saying heaven's on my team. 00:57:29.380 --> 00:57:32.430 align:middle line:84% This is one really interesting thing, I'll just say, 00:57:32.430 --> 00:57:34.970 align:middle line:84% that happens from the Shang to the Zhou. 00:57:34.970 --> 00:57:37.230 align:middle line:84% Remember, in those Oracle bones, I was saying, 00:57:37.230 --> 00:57:40.190 align:middle line:84% there's this kind of distant deity called Di. 00:57:40.190 --> 00:57:41.570 align:middle line:90% He's way up there. 00:57:41.570 --> 00:57:43.250 align:middle line:90% He seems to be very powerful. 00:57:43.250 --> 00:57:45.110 align:middle line:90% He's like this heavenly force. 00:57:45.110 --> 00:57:47.970 align:middle line:84% That gets elided in the Zhou period. 00:57:47.970 --> 00:57:49.790 align:middle line:84% There's still Di, but he kind of gets 00:57:49.790 --> 00:57:55.230 align:middle line:84% replaced with another force, which is Tian, heaven. 00:57:55.230 --> 00:57:56.850 align:middle line:90% So this is where you go. 00:57:56.850 --> 00:57:58.930 align:middle line:84% It's like the Zhou is going to be like, no, no, 00:57:58.930 --> 00:58:00.450 align:middle line:90% no Di, it's heaven. 00:58:00.450 --> 00:58:02.370 align:middle line:90% Heaven's the key. 00:58:02.370 --> 00:58:05.453 align:middle line:84% So they kind of-- again, and they moralize it. 00:58:05.453 --> 00:58:06.870 align:middle line:84% And you could basically see, we'll 00:58:06.870 --> 00:58:10.830 align:middle line:84% talk about all the various ways in which they basically 00:58:10.830 --> 00:58:12.410 align:middle line:90% tell their story. 00:58:12.410 --> 00:58:13.930 align:middle line:90% OK, all right. 00:58:13.930 --> 00:58:14.910 align:middle line:90% Here we go. 00:58:14.910 --> 00:58:19.750 align:middle line:84% So let's talk about from the historical record, who 00:58:19.750 --> 00:58:21.630 align:middle line:90% founds the Zhou dynasty. 00:58:21.630 --> 00:58:25.870 align:middle line:84% And they're a pretty famous group of people, I have to say. 00:58:25.870 --> 00:58:27.370 align:middle line:84% So let me just throw this out here. 00:58:27.370 --> 00:58:31.080 align:middle line:84% I'll just put it all there first. 00:58:31.080 --> 00:58:32.980 align:middle line:84% These three individuals right here 00:58:32.980 --> 00:58:40.740 align:middle line:84% are basically some of the most famous paradigmatic, whatever 00:58:40.740 --> 00:58:44.000 align:middle line:84% that is pronounced, rulers in Chinese history. 00:58:44.000 --> 00:58:48.500 align:middle line:84% So the King Wen of Zhou, he is basically seen as the quote, 00:58:48.500 --> 00:58:50.460 align:middle line:90% unquote "founder." 00:58:50.460 --> 00:58:53.460 align:middle line:84% Then you have the next in line, King Wu of Zhou. 00:58:53.460 --> 00:58:56.800 align:middle line:84% So King Wen of Zhou sets up the early state, 00:58:56.800 --> 00:59:00.040 align:middle line:84% starts to form alliances, gets people on his team. 00:59:00.040 --> 00:59:01.080 align:middle line:90% He dies. 00:59:01.080 --> 00:59:04.420 align:middle line:84% King Wu of Zhou basically says, hey, you know what? 00:59:04.420 --> 00:59:06.680 align:middle line:90% Let's conquer the Shang. 00:59:06.680 --> 00:59:09.900 align:middle line:84% OK, now I've noticed, I have highlighted 00:59:09.900 --> 00:59:14.020 align:middle line:84% in red here these words Wen and Wu. 00:59:14.020 --> 00:59:18.700 align:middle line:84% Because actually, this is quite an important gloss in Chinese 00:59:18.700 --> 00:59:19.840 align:middle line:90% and in Chinese history. 00:59:19.840 --> 00:59:22.500 align:middle line:84% You're going to encounter this again and again and again. 00:59:22.500 --> 00:59:27.900 align:middle line:84% Basically, his name is like Wen is culture. 00:59:27.900 --> 00:59:31.640 align:middle line:90% It's something very positive. 00:59:31.640 --> 00:59:34.420 align:middle line:84% It's good culture, civilization, all of that. 00:59:34.420 --> 00:59:37.580 align:middle line:90% Wu means martial. 00:59:37.580 --> 00:59:41.140 align:middle line:84% It doesn't mean military in a violent way. 00:59:41.140 --> 00:59:43.560 align:middle line:90% It means it in a good way. 00:59:43.560 --> 00:59:47.500 align:middle line:84% So Chinese actually has phrases like [Chinese] wen wu quan cai. 00:59:47.500 --> 00:59:52.560 align:middle line:84% It means describe somebody, you're good at writing poetry. 00:59:52.560 --> 00:59:54.602 align:middle line:90% You're also good at archery. 00:59:54.602 --> 00:59:56.060 align:middle line:84% You're a [Chinese] wen wu quan cai. 00:59:56.060 --> 00:59:57.240 align:middle line:90% You're good at both. 00:59:57.240 --> 01:00:00.200 align:middle line:84% You're a great talent in that way. 01:00:00.200 --> 01:00:03.560 align:middle line:84% So these rulers of the early Zhou, 01:00:03.560 --> 01:00:05.860 align:middle line:90% they have this in their titles. 01:00:05.860 --> 01:00:07.700 align:middle line:84% Why this is so important is that when 01:00:07.700 --> 01:00:10.320 align:middle line:84% you go across time in Chinese history, 01:00:10.320 --> 01:00:12.420 align:middle line:90% look at the royal titles. 01:00:12.420 --> 01:00:16.100 align:middle line:84% And you will find that sometimes, a ruler 01:00:16.100 --> 01:00:21.440 align:middle line:84% will have this character in his name, the martial one, 01:00:21.440 --> 01:00:23.660 align:middle line:84% the founder of the Ming dynasty who 01:00:23.660 --> 01:00:27.850 align:middle line:84% really loves killing people has this character in his name. 01:00:27.850 --> 01:00:31.810 align:middle line:84% And some emperors, some rulers in later centuries, 01:00:31.810 --> 01:00:34.190 align:middle line:84% have that character, Wen in his name. 01:00:34.190 --> 01:00:38.570 align:middle line:84% So from the name, you get a clue. 01:00:38.570 --> 01:00:41.330 align:middle line:84% You get a clue of what that ruler might 01:00:41.330 --> 01:00:43.750 align:middle line:90% be self-fashioning himself as. 01:00:43.750 --> 01:00:47.650 align:middle line:84% So this is the paradigmatic origin 01:00:47.650 --> 01:00:50.450 align:middle line:84% of that in the early Zhou with these first two. 01:00:50.450 --> 01:00:54.730 align:middle line:84% King Wu starts the launching of the overthrow of the Shang 01:00:54.730 --> 01:00:55.310 align:middle line:90% state. 01:00:55.310 --> 01:00:57.810 align:middle line:84% He dies, I think, about three years after that. 01:00:57.810 --> 01:01:01.450 align:middle line:84% There's a new ruler that's installed for the Zhou. 01:01:01.450 --> 01:01:05.210 align:middle line:84% And this guy over here, the Duke of Zhou, this fascinating fellow 01:01:05.210 --> 01:01:07.810 align:middle line:84% basically says, oh, he's far too young. 01:01:07.810 --> 01:01:09.870 align:middle line:90% I'll serve as his regent. 01:01:09.870 --> 01:01:12.950 align:middle line:84% OK, he's basically a really good advisor. 01:01:12.950 --> 01:01:15.770 align:middle line:84% OK, just so you know, historically, we 01:01:15.770 --> 01:01:17.730 align:middle line:90% think this is not true. 01:01:17.730 --> 01:01:20.510 align:middle line:84% He just really wanted to maybe rule for a while. 01:01:20.510 --> 01:01:22.250 align:middle line:90% So he became regent. 01:01:22.250 --> 01:01:24.390 align:middle line:84% What's fascinating about this fellow over here, 01:01:24.390 --> 01:01:29.240 align:middle line:84% the Duke of Zhou, he's like one of the most famous just people 01:01:29.240 --> 01:01:30.140 align:middle line:90% in Chinese history. 01:01:30.140 --> 01:01:31.340 align:middle line:90% What do I mean by this? 01:01:31.340 --> 01:01:35.760 align:middle line:84% If your surname is Zhou and you open up a genealogy pretty much 01:01:35.760 --> 01:01:39.100 align:middle line:84% from anywhere in China, it'll be our first ancestor 01:01:39.100 --> 01:01:40.320 align:middle line:90% is the Duke of Zhou. 01:01:40.320 --> 01:01:42.800 align:middle line:84% He's always going to be like number one. 01:01:42.800 --> 01:01:44.460 align:middle line:90% He's just super famous. 01:01:44.460 --> 01:01:48.960 align:middle line:84% One of the reasons he's really famous is in later centuries, 01:01:48.960 --> 01:01:53.920 align:middle line:84% it turns out, Confucius loves him. 01:01:53.920 --> 01:01:55.600 align:middle line:90% He loves him. 01:01:55.600 --> 01:02:00.240 align:middle line:84% He thinks he's the ideal civil servant. 01:02:00.240 --> 01:02:02.180 align:middle line:84% In a way, towards the end of his life, 01:02:02.180 --> 01:02:05.980 align:middle line:84% he does give up that regency and goes into retirement. 01:02:05.980 --> 01:02:08.180 align:middle line:84% He returns it to the Zhou royal line. 01:02:08.180 --> 01:02:10.200 align:middle line:90% So he does do that. 01:02:10.200 --> 01:02:16.920 align:middle line:84% But his actual historical record as the Duke of Zhou, 01:02:16.920 --> 01:02:20.240 align:middle line:84% let's just say it's historically complicated, but very 01:02:20.240 --> 01:02:21.640 align:middle line:90% consequential. 01:02:21.640 --> 01:02:24.790 align:middle line:84% He basically helps help set up the Zhou 01:02:24.790 --> 01:02:27.570 align:middle line:90% state of what it will be. 01:02:27.570 --> 01:02:30.450 align:middle line:84% And it's a state that lasts for, on paper, 800 years. 01:02:30.450 --> 01:02:31.710 align:middle line:90% It's no small thing. 01:02:31.710 --> 01:02:35.310 align:middle line:84% Just realize that one of the key battles that basically 01:02:35.310 --> 01:02:41.990 align:middle line:84% overthrows the Shang is this Battle of Muye, which is 1046 01:02:41.990 --> 01:02:43.730 align:middle line:90% approximately, give or take. 01:02:43.730 --> 01:02:46.250 align:middle line:84% We don't actually know exactly when it is. 01:02:46.250 --> 01:02:48.830 align:middle line:84% Funny thing about this battle, we know the exact day 01:02:48.830 --> 01:02:52.190 align:middle line:84% and we know the exact month, but we don't know the exact year. 01:02:52.190 --> 01:02:54.630 align:middle line:84% And that's because the 60-year cycle, 01:02:54.630 --> 01:02:56.130 align:middle line:84% we know what day it's talking about. 01:02:56.130 --> 01:02:58.370 align:middle line:84% We know the year, but it's like we're approximate. 01:02:58.370 --> 01:02:59.790 align:middle line:90% Now, there's a clue. 01:02:59.790 --> 01:03:01.510 align:middle line:90% There's a clue. 01:03:01.510 --> 01:03:05.470 align:middle line:84% One clue is that during the Zhou conquest of the Shang, 01:03:05.470 --> 01:03:09.430 align:middle line:84% there's a big record that there was 01:03:09.430 --> 01:03:12.430 align:middle line:84% some kind of astronomical phenomenon 01:03:12.430 --> 01:03:16.350 align:middle line:84% that was interpreted by the early Zhou rulers as the sign 01:03:16.350 --> 01:03:19.630 align:middle line:84% that, OK, now it's our turn to go overthrow the Shang. 01:03:19.630 --> 01:03:22.710 align:middle line:84% And what we know, just as a fact, 01:03:22.710 --> 01:03:27.390 align:middle line:84% is that in 1959, these cluster of 5 planets all did-- 01:03:27.390 --> 01:03:29.250 align:middle line:84% would have appeared in the night sky. 01:03:29.250 --> 01:03:31.230 align:middle line:90% This is actually true. 01:03:31.230 --> 01:03:35.550 align:middle line:84% So if you look, it's kind of close to approximately 01:03:35.550 --> 01:03:37.450 align:middle line:84% when this battle might have taken place. 01:03:37.450 --> 01:03:40.510 align:middle line:84% So those historical records that kind of 01:03:40.510 --> 01:03:42.590 align:middle line:84% say there was this sign in the heavens, 01:03:42.590 --> 01:03:44.710 align:middle line:84% and these planets appeared together, 01:03:44.710 --> 01:03:48.350 align:middle line:84% what they called stars, these stars appeared together, 01:03:48.350 --> 01:03:50.070 align:middle line:84% this might give us a clue of when 01:03:50.070 --> 01:03:51.650 align:middle line:90% this approximately occurred. 01:03:51.650 --> 01:03:55.590 align:middle line:84% Now, after the Zhou state, basically, the Shang 01:03:55.590 --> 01:03:56.570 align:middle line:90% is overthrown. 01:03:56.570 --> 01:03:58.790 align:middle line:90% And the Zhou is set up. 01:03:58.790 --> 01:04:04.430 align:middle line:84% And basically, so how are they going to rule this place? 01:04:04.430 --> 01:04:04.930 align:middle line:90% Oh, God. 01:04:04.930 --> 01:04:06.270 align:middle line:90% I got the circle again. 01:04:06.270 --> 01:04:10.990 align:middle line:84% OK, hopefully it's going to be not too long. 01:04:10.990 --> 01:04:12.850 align:middle line:84% But basically, here's what I'll say. 01:04:12.850 --> 01:04:18.070 align:middle line:84% I can preface the next story here. 01:04:18.070 --> 01:04:19.790 align:middle line:84% This is interesting, you might say, 01:04:19.790 --> 01:04:24.000 align:middle line:84% I don't want to overwhelm you with military moments. 01:04:24.000 --> 01:04:26.380 align:middle line:84% But this is just an interesting rebellion. 01:04:26.380 --> 01:04:29.760 align:middle line:84% This is like the first recorded rebellion in Chinese history, 01:04:29.760 --> 01:04:30.280 align:middle line:90% actually. 01:04:30.280 --> 01:04:32.360 align:middle line:90% This is an interesting one. 01:04:32.360 --> 01:04:34.760 align:middle line:84% And it's called the Rebellion of the Three Guards, 01:04:34.760 --> 01:04:38.940 align:middle line:84% because after the Duke of Zhou basically proclaims himself 01:04:38.940 --> 01:04:44.073 align:middle line:84% as regent, relatives of King Wu of Zhou 01:04:44.073 --> 01:04:46.240 align:middle line:84% basically say, no, I don't think you should do that. 01:04:46.240 --> 01:04:47.580 align:middle line:90% I'm not so happy. 01:04:47.580 --> 01:04:50.060 align:middle line:90% What about us? 01:04:50.060 --> 01:04:52.660 align:middle line:84% And they actually rebel against the early Zhou, 01:04:52.660 --> 01:04:53.900 align:middle line:90% this early state. 01:04:53.900 --> 01:04:57.100 align:middle line:84% There's this kind of-- there's this absolute kind of crisis 01:04:57.100 --> 01:05:00.380 align:middle line:90% very, very early on. 01:05:00.380 --> 01:05:03.420 align:middle line:84% Now, the Duke of Zhou actually solves the problem. 01:05:03.420 --> 01:05:05.840 align:middle line:84% He actually helps put down this rebellion. 01:05:05.840 --> 01:05:07.480 align:middle line:90% The Zhou survives this. 01:05:07.480 --> 01:05:09.500 align:middle line:84% And how they're going to survive it 01:05:09.500 --> 01:05:11.900 align:middle line:84% is they're going to basically implement 01:05:11.900 --> 01:05:14.660 align:middle line:84% what will become known, we now know today 01:05:14.660 --> 01:05:17.820 align:middle line:90% as this fengjian system. 01:05:17.820 --> 01:05:20.670 align:middle line:84% I'm going to go into what the fengjian system is exactly. 01:05:20.670 --> 01:05:23.710 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, it's translated as feudalism. 01:05:23.710 --> 01:05:27.350 align:middle line:84% But that is a very imprecise academic definition of it. 01:05:27.350 --> 01:05:30.570 align:middle line:84% And it kind of gives you wrong impressions of medieval Europe 01:05:30.570 --> 01:05:35.290 align:middle line:84% that don't particularly fit that well onto the Zhou case. 01:05:35.290 --> 01:05:38.890 align:middle line:84% Now, I want to pause here for a minute and just ask you, 01:05:38.890 --> 01:05:41.330 align:middle line:90% where do you think-- 01:05:41.330 --> 01:05:44.490 align:middle line:84% how do we know that this happened? 01:05:44.490 --> 01:05:45.470 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 01:05:45.470 --> 01:05:47.310 align:middle line:84% I know you're sitting there and you're like, 01:05:47.310 --> 01:05:49.070 align:middle line:90% I'll take his word for it. 01:05:49.070 --> 01:05:52.050 align:middle line:84% But like, how do we know it happened? 01:05:52.050 --> 01:05:54.010 align:middle line:90% Any idea? 01:05:54.010 --> 01:05:55.770 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: The next dynasty recorded? 01:05:55.770 --> 01:05:58.610 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: Yeah, so the Zhou was 800 years. 01:05:58.610 --> 01:06:02.930 align:middle line:84% So that would be-- and the Qin, which replaces it, 01:06:02.930 --> 01:06:04.870 align:middle line:84% lasts for a very, very short period of time. 01:06:04.870 --> 01:06:06.910 align:middle line:84% They don't have much time to rent, much history. 01:06:06.910 --> 01:06:09.450 align:middle line:84% So the Han, you're right, Sima Qian 01:06:09.450 --> 01:06:13.790 align:middle line:84% does write the history of lands under heaven of China, 01:06:13.790 --> 01:06:16.810 align:middle line:90% you could say, up to that point. 01:06:16.810 --> 01:06:17.750 align:middle line:90% So that's one source. 01:06:17.750 --> 01:06:18.750 align:middle line:90% But there's other stuff. 01:06:18.750 --> 01:06:20.130 align:middle line:90% What other stuff? 01:06:20.130 --> 01:06:22.450 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Does there exist any archeological evidence 01:06:22.450 --> 01:06:24.230 align:middle line:90% for these military events? 01:06:24.230 --> 01:06:25.970 align:middle line:90% TRISTAN BROWN: Yeah. 01:06:25.970 --> 01:06:27.070 align:middle line:90% Yes, absolutely. 01:06:27.070 --> 01:06:28.130 align:middle line:90% Yes, there are. 01:06:28.130 --> 01:06:29.980 align:middle line:90% There is archeological evidence. 01:06:29.980 --> 01:06:31.730 align:middle line:84% And what would that archeological evidence 01:06:31.730 --> 01:06:34.115 align:middle line:90% be you think? 01:06:34.115 --> 01:06:34.990 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: The bronze. 01:06:34.990 --> 01:06:36.870 align:middle line:84% TRISTAN BROWN: Yeah, so the bronzes. 01:06:36.870 --> 01:06:38.730 align:middle line:90% So this is why-- 01:06:38.730 --> 01:06:40.230 align:middle line:90% OK, please appear. 01:06:40.230 --> 01:06:41.130 align:middle line:90% Yeah, there you go. 01:06:41.130 --> 01:06:45.010 align:middle line:84% This is why these bronzes are so important, OK, 01:06:45.010 --> 01:06:46.550 align:middle line:84% because what you have to realize, 01:06:46.550 --> 01:06:49.310 align:middle line:84% you go you go to a museum, you go to the Met, 01:06:49.310 --> 01:06:51.590 align:middle line:84% you go to the National Museum of China in Beijing, 01:06:51.590 --> 01:06:53.590 align:middle line:84% you go to Taipei Palace, you go all over, 01:06:53.590 --> 01:06:55.410 align:middle line:90% you're going to see bronzes. 01:06:55.410 --> 01:06:58.350 align:middle line:84% And you're going to be like, what are these bronzes? 01:06:58.350 --> 01:07:01.630 align:middle line:90% They're fascinating objects. 01:07:01.630 --> 01:07:03.570 align:middle line:84% They were very, very difficult to make 01:07:03.570 --> 01:07:06.610 align:middle line:84% because they require tons of labor, tons of firewood 01:07:06.610 --> 01:07:12.010 align:middle line:84% to smelt this and create the alloy, add tin to copper 01:07:12.010 --> 01:07:14.490 align:middle line:84% and all of that to create the bronze. 01:07:14.490 --> 01:07:19.200 align:middle line:84% But you have to realize, some of them are inscribed. 01:07:19.200 --> 01:07:24.240 align:middle line:84% And what it basically was was that when the Zhou King would 01:07:24.240 --> 01:07:28.000 align:middle line:84% basically give a title to one of his relatives 01:07:28.000 --> 01:07:30.640 align:middle line:84% and say, thank you very much for helping me put down 01:07:30.640 --> 01:07:32.680 align:middle line:84% this rebellion, I'm going to make 01:07:32.680 --> 01:07:35.800 align:middle line:84% you the Marquis of this area, they 01:07:35.800 --> 01:07:38.560 align:middle line:84% would be presented with one of these bronzes. 01:07:38.560 --> 01:07:42.900 align:middle line:84% And because the bronzes, some of them have these inscriptions, 01:07:42.900 --> 01:07:46.020 align:middle line:84% we actually know that these events happened. 01:07:46.020 --> 01:07:47.340 align:middle line:90% This is the incredible thing. 01:07:47.340 --> 01:07:53.200 align:middle line:84% Remember when I showed you that [Chinese] bing gong bronze that 01:07:53.200 --> 01:07:57.280 align:middle line:84% was like 10th century and it's got Yu the Great on it? 01:07:57.280 --> 01:07:59.600 align:middle line:90% That's incredible. 01:07:59.600 --> 01:08:03.400 align:middle line:84% This one, likewise, this was a bronze 01:08:03.400 --> 01:08:07.480 align:middle line:84% presented to a relative of the Zhou royal line 01:08:07.480 --> 01:08:10.680 align:middle line:84% for helping put down that rebellion I was just 01:08:10.680 --> 01:08:11.700 align:middle line:90% talking about. 01:08:11.700 --> 01:08:14.190 align:middle line:84% So this bronze, this is one of this-- 01:08:14.190 --> 01:08:17.430 align:middle line:84% this is an early Zhou, Western Zhou bronze, 01:08:17.430 --> 01:08:19.790 align:middle line:84% unbelievable source, unbelievable source 01:08:19.790 --> 01:08:22.370 align:middle line:84% because it confirms that it actually happened. 01:08:22.370 --> 01:08:24.189 align:middle line:90% Nobody's going to fake that. 01:08:24.189 --> 01:08:26.590 align:middle line:90% OK, you can't fake that. 01:08:26.590 --> 01:08:28.870 align:middle line:90% It's too expensive to fake. 01:08:28.870 --> 01:08:32.590 align:middle line:84% And why would you thank somebody for helping you 01:08:32.590 --> 01:08:35.470 align:middle line:84% in saying, here's your title if you weren't thanking them 01:08:35.470 --> 01:08:36.609 align:middle line:90% and giving them a title? 01:08:36.609 --> 01:08:39.210 align:middle line:84% It's just not-- now, you could say maybe he faked it, 01:08:39.210 --> 01:08:41.370 align:middle line:90% but no, it's real. 01:08:41.370 --> 01:08:42.029 align:middle line:90% It's real. 01:08:42.029 --> 01:08:44.430 align:middle line:84% That's held in the British Museum. 01:08:44.430 --> 01:08:47.649 align:middle line:84% OK, that's held in the British Museum that you can go see that. 01:08:47.649 --> 01:08:49.970 align:middle line:84% Now, I'll show you, there's a few other ones. 01:08:49.970 --> 01:08:54.810 align:middle line:84% When you look, basically, at your readings, 01:08:54.810 --> 01:08:58.229 align:middle line:84% this was the readings for today, you'll basically see, 01:08:58.229 --> 01:09:01.609 align:middle line:84% this is like this is a late Shang bronze. 01:09:01.609 --> 01:09:05.910 align:middle line:84% So the late, so basically, bronzes, as I say, 01:09:05.910 --> 01:09:10.649 align:middle line:84% as these complex objects, started to be created, 01:09:10.649 --> 01:09:13.350 align:middle line:84% casted prior to the invention of writing. 01:09:13.350 --> 01:09:17.550 align:middle line:84% The Shang, we do have a few surviving Shang bronzes, pretty 01:09:17.550 --> 01:09:18.330 align:middle line:90% remarkable. 01:09:18.330 --> 01:09:20.109 align:middle line:84% Those would be our big other written 01:09:20.109 --> 01:09:22.970 align:middle line:84% sources besides the oracle bones for the late Shang. 01:09:22.970 --> 01:09:24.689 align:middle line:84% For the Western Zhou, we have more. 01:09:24.689 --> 01:09:28.170 align:middle line:84% Of course, we have even more for the later Zhou periods. 01:09:28.170 --> 01:09:29.750 align:middle line:84% But these Western Zhou inscriptions 01:09:29.750 --> 01:09:31.073 align:middle line:90% are really, really fascinating. 01:09:31.073 --> 01:09:32.490 align:middle line:84% Let me just read you a little bit. 01:09:32.490 --> 01:09:34.010 align:middle line:84% This is a Western Zhou inscription, 01:09:34.010 --> 01:09:38.390 align:middle line:84% early 10th century BCE, really early Western Zhou, 01:09:38.390 --> 01:09:39.510 align:middle line:90% fairly early. 01:09:39.510 --> 01:09:42.069 align:middle line:84% It was the ninth month when the King was in Zhongzhou 01:09:42.069 --> 01:09:44.470 align:middle line:90% and laid charge on Yu. 01:09:44.470 --> 01:09:49.370 align:middle line:84% The King spoke thus, Yu, the greatly illustrious King Wen 01:09:49.370 --> 01:09:51.490 align:middle line:90% received heaven's great mandate. 01:09:51.490 --> 01:09:55.590 align:middle line:84% When King Wu succeeded King Wen, he built a state, ridding it 01:09:55.590 --> 01:10:00.650 align:middle line:84% of evils, extensively possessed the four quarters of the realm, 01:10:00.650 --> 01:10:03.110 align:middle line:84% and grandly governed its people, attending 01:10:03.110 --> 01:10:05.810 align:middle line:84% to the affairs of the state, alas, in the case of spirits, 01:10:05.810 --> 01:10:09.350 align:middle line:84% none dare overindulge in making burnt offerings 01:10:09.350 --> 01:10:11.680 align:middle line:84% and performing the winter sacrifices. 01:10:11.680 --> 01:10:13.600 align:middle line:90% None dared get intoxicated. 01:10:13.600 --> 01:10:15.700 align:middle line:84% OK, well, OK, so basically, these 01:10:15.700 --> 01:10:17.600 align:middle line:90% are really interesting sources. 01:10:17.600 --> 01:10:20.380 align:middle line:84% But why you should pay attention to them and take a look at them 01:10:20.380 --> 01:10:22.560 align:middle line:84% is exactly what I was just talking about. 01:10:22.560 --> 01:10:24.420 align:middle line:90% They were gifts. 01:10:24.420 --> 01:10:29.260 align:middle line:84% And they tell you, this is the Zhou state and the Zhou royal 01:10:29.260 --> 01:10:31.780 align:middle line:90% line telling its story. 01:10:31.780 --> 01:10:34.420 align:middle line:90% It's like a PR campaign. 01:10:34.420 --> 01:10:35.940 align:middle line:90% Here's your bronze. 01:10:35.940 --> 01:10:37.700 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much. 01:10:37.700 --> 01:10:40.560 align:middle line:84% By the way, we have heaven's mandate. 01:10:40.560 --> 01:10:43.280 align:middle line:84% Remember, our ancestors were fantastic. 01:10:43.280 --> 01:10:45.160 align:middle line:90% Remember, the Shang was awful. 01:10:45.160 --> 01:10:46.320 align:middle line:90% Remember, right? 01:10:46.320 --> 01:10:49.020 align:middle line:84% So then you go and you look at the actual the book 01:10:49.020 --> 01:10:51.140 align:middle line:84% of documents, those quote, unquote classics 01:10:51.140 --> 01:10:56.000 align:middle line:84% that we're going to see, they kind of-- they accord with this. 01:10:56.000 --> 01:10:58.980 align:middle line:84% Some of those documents in there basically 01:10:58.980 --> 01:11:00.780 align:middle line:90% say this is what the Zhou said. 01:11:00.780 --> 01:11:04.080 align:middle line:84% And these bronzes confirm this is what the Zhou said. 01:11:04.080 --> 01:11:06.640 align:middle line:84% OK, this is what the Zhou was telling these folks. 01:11:06.640 --> 01:11:12.130 align:middle line:84% OK, in the last five minutes, basically, let me explain, 01:11:12.130 --> 01:11:14.350 align:middle line:90% what is this fengjian system? 01:11:14.350 --> 01:11:17.010 align:middle line:84% So what you have to understand is 01:11:17.010 --> 01:11:20.610 align:middle line:84% that the Zhou King assigned basically 01:11:20.610 --> 01:11:24.970 align:middle line:84% pieces of real estate around China, the place we call China 01:11:24.970 --> 01:11:27.370 align:middle line:90% today, to his allies. 01:11:27.370 --> 01:11:29.830 align:middle line:84% In the very, very early Zhou period, 01:11:29.830 --> 01:11:33.270 align:middle line:84% they tended to be relatives of the Zhou royal line, 01:11:33.270 --> 01:11:37.170 align:middle line:84% but they weren't exclusively relatives of Joe royal line. 01:11:37.170 --> 01:11:40.110 align:middle line:84% Actually, the relatives of the Shang royal line, 01:11:40.110 --> 01:11:42.890 align:middle line:84% they even got like some enfiefment in a very faraway 01:11:42.890 --> 01:11:44.470 align:middle line:90% district that nobody wanted. 01:11:44.470 --> 01:11:48.610 align:middle line:84% So you have to play politics with this kind of stuff. 01:11:48.610 --> 01:11:53.850 align:middle line:84% So feng, literally in Chinese, is like to give somebody land. 01:11:53.850 --> 01:11:57.010 align:middle line:84% So you're basically granting this person land. 01:11:57.010 --> 01:12:00.270 align:middle line:84% And that person is going to be able to raise taxes. 01:12:00.270 --> 01:12:05.370 align:middle line:84% It's going to manage the area, make sure security is going OK. 01:12:05.370 --> 01:12:10.940 align:middle line:84% They're even going to eventually mint their own currencies. 01:12:10.940 --> 01:12:13.780 align:middle line:84% They become pretty independent, in a sense. 01:12:13.780 --> 01:12:18.840 align:middle line:84% But they still recognize the authority of the Zhou King. 01:12:18.840 --> 01:12:21.720 align:middle line:84% If the Zhou King is ever in trouble, they help raise an army 01:12:21.720 --> 01:12:22.940 align:middle line:90% and go help him out. 01:12:22.940 --> 01:12:26.540 align:middle line:84% They also send some grain to him, that kind of thing. 01:12:26.540 --> 01:12:30.940 align:middle line:84% So this quote, unquote "fengjian" system. 01:12:30.940 --> 01:12:36.120 align:middle line:84% And you could basically say that the structure of the Zhou state 01:12:36.120 --> 01:12:37.660 align:middle line:84% kind of looks something like this. 01:12:37.660 --> 01:12:38.820 align:middle line:90% OK, there's heaven. 01:12:38.820 --> 01:12:41.460 align:middle line:84% And then the King of Zhou, who answers, of course, to heaven. 01:12:41.460 --> 01:12:43.400 align:middle line:90% He's got a direct line. 01:12:43.400 --> 01:12:46.620 align:middle line:84% The regional rulers that he's enfiefed across China, 01:12:46.620 --> 01:12:49.880 align:middle line:84% and there are different aristocratic titles, 01:12:49.880 --> 01:12:53.340 align:middle line:84% like there's [Chinese] bo zi nan. 01:12:53.340 --> 01:12:56.280 align:middle line:84% There's all of these titles that you'll see. 01:12:56.280 --> 01:12:58.020 align:middle line:90% Beneath them are ministers. 01:12:58.020 --> 01:13:00.560 align:middle line:84% And ministers can either work for the Zhou Royal King 01:13:00.560 --> 01:13:03.860 align:middle line:84% or for one of those regional, I won't say rulers, 01:13:03.860 --> 01:13:06.440 align:middle line:84% but let's say, stewards of the land who 01:13:06.440 --> 01:13:08.480 align:middle line:90% eventually become rulers. 01:13:08.480 --> 01:13:11.560 align:middle line:84% Grand masters, who are like a slightly lower ranking official. 01:13:11.560 --> 01:13:14.880 align:middle line:84% And then the lowest, servicemen in this kind 01:13:14.880 --> 01:13:17.380 align:middle line:90% of bureaucratic rank, the shi. 01:13:17.380 --> 01:13:19.640 align:middle line:84% This is a very, very interesting category here. 01:13:19.640 --> 01:13:21.780 align:middle line:84% The shi were not enfiefed with land. 01:13:21.780 --> 01:13:23.260 align:middle line:84% Everybody else got a bit of land. 01:13:23.260 --> 01:13:25.620 align:middle line:84% The shi did not really have land. 01:13:25.620 --> 01:13:28.320 align:middle line:84% But they were recognized with this title. 01:13:28.320 --> 01:13:30.920 align:middle line:84% What's interesting about this, of course, wild card group 01:13:30.920 --> 01:13:34.140 align:middle line:84% right here, the shi, this is a very loaded term. 01:13:34.140 --> 01:13:36.280 align:middle line:84% It's going to be a character, a word that we 01:13:36.280 --> 01:13:38.400 align:middle line:84% see for the rest of Chinese history. 01:13:38.400 --> 01:13:42.600 align:middle line:84% It basically-- here, it means some of serviceman. 01:13:42.600 --> 01:13:44.600 align:middle line:84% Eventually in China, it comes to mean 01:13:44.600 --> 01:13:48.220 align:middle line:84% like the scholar elite, a member of that scholarly elite. 01:13:48.220 --> 01:13:52.800 align:middle line:84% But it also in Japan, it retains a kind 01:13:52.800 --> 01:13:55.280 align:middle line:84% of element of the serviceman thing in the military role 01:13:55.280 --> 01:13:57.000 align:middle line:90% with the samurai. 01:13:57.000 --> 01:13:58.880 align:middle line:90% The samurai have this character. 01:13:58.880 --> 01:14:01.960 align:middle line:84% That's actually a very old rendering of it. 01:14:01.960 --> 01:14:04.420 align:middle line:84% Japan preserved that meaning of it. 01:14:04.420 --> 01:14:07.070 align:middle line:84% So this kind of ranking, what is so 01:14:07.070 --> 01:14:09.510 align:middle line:84% interesting about this final group, the shi? 01:14:09.510 --> 01:14:12.670 align:middle line:84% Confucius's family comes out of this group. 01:14:12.670 --> 01:14:16.750 align:middle line:84% So that's where his origins, he's 01:14:16.750 --> 01:14:19.530 align:middle line:84% a bit of an aristocratic background, 01:14:19.530 --> 01:14:21.250 align:middle line:90% but the lowest ranked one. 01:14:21.250 --> 01:14:24.910 align:middle line:84% Of course, that's what he would be. 01:14:24.910 --> 01:14:27.550 align:middle line:84% The other thing I would just say is 01:14:27.550 --> 01:14:29.430 align:middle line:84% that there's a thing that you will 01:14:29.430 --> 01:14:33.470 align:middle line:84% see in the early Zhou that's kind of often linked 01:14:33.470 --> 01:14:37.110 align:middle line:84% to this fengjian enfiefed structure called 01:14:37.110 --> 01:14:38.950 align:middle line:90% the well-field system. 01:14:38.950 --> 01:14:42.230 align:middle line:84% In theory, this is how it worked. 01:14:42.230 --> 01:14:49.150 align:middle line:84% Farmers would basically tend to eight plots of land 01:14:49.150 --> 01:14:51.250 align:middle line:90% around one common plot. 01:14:51.250 --> 01:14:53.350 align:middle line:84% And that common plot would be tended together. 01:14:53.350 --> 01:14:55.790 align:middle line:84% And that would be sent up as taxation. 01:14:55.790 --> 01:15:00.790 align:middle line:84% We don't know exactly if this well-field system was actually 01:15:00.790 --> 01:15:03.580 align:middle line:84% implemented and used, but we know 01:15:03.580 --> 01:15:07.360 align:middle line:84% that the Confucians in later centuries idealized it. 01:15:07.360 --> 01:15:08.900 align:middle line:90% They thought it existed. 01:15:08.900 --> 01:15:10.940 align:middle line:84% They thought it was like an ideal order, where 01:15:10.940 --> 01:15:12.180 align:middle line:90% everybody has its place. 01:15:12.180 --> 01:15:13.480 align:middle line:90% And it's kind of equal. 01:15:13.480 --> 01:15:17.290 align:middle line:84% Whether it existed or not, it's up for debate. 01:15:17.290 --> 01:15:19.040 align:middle line:84% But you could say they thought it existed. 01:15:19.040 --> 01:15:21.700 align:middle line:84% By the way, you might say, why is that well-field? 01:15:21.700 --> 01:15:24.720 align:middle line:84% Because think of the Chinese character for well, 01:15:24.720 --> 01:15:26.440 align:middle line:90% it looks like this. 01:15:26.440 --> 01:15:28.960 align:middle line:84% That's why it's called well-field system. 01:15:28.960 --> 01:15:31.563 align:middle line:90% So that's the structure. 01:15:31.563 --> 01:15:32.980 align:middle line:84% All right, really, really quickly, 01:15:32.980 --> 01:15:39.500 align:middle line:84% last minute, if my computer cooperates, and OK. 01:15:39.500 --> 01:15:41.820 align:middle line:84% So this question, really, really quickly, 01:15:41.820 --> 01:15:47.200 align:middle line:84% fengjian is oftentimes glossed into English as "feudalism." 01:15:47.200 --> 01:15:51.700 align:middle line:84% OK, this is kind of complicated because in a way, 01:15:51.700 --> 01:15:54.040 align:middle line:84% it gets into the question, what is feudalism? 01:15:54.040 --> 01:15:57.160 align:middle line:84% Does it refer to a Zhou political order? 01:15:57.160 --> 01:15:59.140 align:middle line:84% Does it refer in the Marxist sense 01:15:59.140 --> 01:16:02.480 align:middle line:84% to a stage of economic development in human history? 01:16:02.480 --> 01:16:05.080 align:middle line:84% Does it refer to something that happened in England? 01:16:05.080 --> 01:16:06.560 align:middle line:90% It's a very imprecise term. 01:16:06.560 --> 01:16:08.760 align:middle line:84% So on a class on Monday, we'll start off, 01:16:08.760 --> 01:16:10.715 align:middle line:84% I'll break it down for you to understand. 01:16:10.715 --> 01:16:12.840 align:middle line:84% How do we understand this term in Chinese, fengjin? 01:16:12.840 --> 01:16:14.160 align:middle line:90% How do we understand feudalism? 01:16:14.160 --> 01:16:15.368 align:middle line:90% And then we'll go from there. 01:16:15.368 --> 01:16:17.700 align:middle line:84% And then end of next week, I think we get to Confucius. 01:16:17.700 --> 01:16:19.653 align:middle line:90% So we're on track, basically. 01:16:19.653 --> 01:16:20.320 align:middle line:90% Good to see you. 01:16:20.320 --> 01:16:20.987 align:middle line:90% Good to see you. 01:16:20.987 --> 01:16:22.650 align:middle line:90% Have a good weekend. 01:16:22.650 --> 01:17:01.000 align:middle line:90%