Preface

With about one-fifth of the world’s population living in China, it is almost trite to say that China is an important country for Westerners to understand. Learning about China can be an engaging adventure, but it can also be a frustratingly confusing experience. The purpose of this book is to serve as a reference guide for readers who are just beginning to learn about China. In the specialized chapters and A–Z entries, the authors seek to provide some basic facts that will help readers to orient themselves in their studies. Since the rest of this book covers these facts in detail, this introduction will provide some general pointers to beginners in the study of China.

This introduction is divided into two parts. Part I will discuss several basic ideas about China. Part II will discuss some common difficulties for the beginner in Chinese studies, and will suggest ways to deal with such difficulties. To put it another way, Part I includes a broad interpretation of what one needs to know in order to begin to understand China. Part II presents some technical tips on how to read about China. In the broad interpretation, I have tried to remain as impartial as possible. Nevertheless, anything interpretative is inevitably colored by the author’s own understanding of the issues involved. It is my hope that the readers who disagree with my general interpretive ideas will still find the technical tips in Part II of this introduction useful.

Part I. Some General Ideas about China

Although media reporting of China has become increasingly sophisticated over the last 30 years, one can still be confused by contradictory reports about China. At one moment, an expert will tell us that China is becoming so powerful that it is bound to become the main rival of the United States in the 21st century. At another moment, other experts will argue that China has so many problems that the country might collapse very soon. While these two opinions seem mutually exclusive, there are also experts who have agreed with both opinions. To avoid being confused by such reporting, one needs to look not to the various predictions about the future of China, but to China’s past and present. The predictive value of history has been much maligned by some scholars. Still, when the unexpected happens in China, those who have some knowledge of China’s culture and history will be in a better position to understand it than those who do not.

In Part I of this introduction, I will present five general ideas about China. They should be useful not only for understanding the past and present of China, but also for understanding China in at least the near future. Of course, with the size and complexity of China, it is impossible for five simple ideas to explain everything about China. Nevertheless, they should be a helpful point of entry for beginners.

1) Historical Consciousness

For at least the last few thousand years, the Chinese people have been looking to their history as a source of wisdom for understanding the present and the future. While China is not the only country that takes its history seriously, history does carry a greater weight in Chinese culture than in some others. While this idea may seem trite—and coming from a historian of Chinese descent, prideful—it is nevertheless useful for students of Chinese culture to bear in mind.

Chinese people tend to have very long historical memories. Politicians, scholars, and common people alike often cite examples from history to justify their ideas. Government reforms in the 11th century continue to inspire reformers of today, while the discussion of China’s wars in the 12th century may inform current discussions of patriotism. In the Chinese television industry, it is well known that historical drama remains one of the best selling genres. For example, A Romance of Three Kingdoms (based on the great historical novel of the same title) was one of the most successful series on Chinese TV in recent years. The story of this 84-episode series is set in the 3rd century a.d.

This historical consciousness is related to many other aspects of Chinese culture. We will discuss three here. First, many Chinese people have the tendency to look for historical situations that are analogous to the situation they face at the present. Once the analogous, past situations have been found, they then examine how earlier people dealt with such situations. Success in the past situations can be used as inspiration for the present, while past failures can serve as warnings of potential pitfalls.

Second, history is also a source of national, and local, pride. The claim that China is the world’s oldest continuously surviving civilization is an important part of patriotic education in China. At the same time, local governments also emphasize the glorious history of their areas as a way to inspire local pride, to win respect from outsiders, and even to attract outside investment.

Third, the painful memory of 19th- and 20th-century history has pushed many generations of Chinese youth towards nationalism. To many Chinese, much of their modern history consists of a long string of humiliating defeats at the hands of foreign powers. From the Opium War (1839–1842) to the devastating Japanese invasion that ended in 1945, China was repeatedly attacked, humiliated, and exploited by stronger foreign powers. To a large, proud, and ancient country like China, this modern experience is particularly difficult to bear. This third point, of course, leads us to the discussion of Chinese nationalism.

2) Nationalism

The importance of history to Chinese culture is related to the modern phenomenon of Chinese nationalism. With the memory of past foreign aggression so vivid in their minds, it is difficult for Chinese nationalists to view the world as a safe place for China. (Here "nationalist" with a small "n" is distinguished from "Nationalists" with a capitalized "N," the latter meaning members of the Guomindang.) Because they remember the humiliation China suffered at the hands of foreign powers, they cannot take respect from the international community as a given. They therefore regard the strengthening of the Chinese state as one of the most important goals of the Chinese nation. There is always an outward-oriented but defensive aspect to Chinese nationalism. Chinese nationalists want to prove their country’s ability to withstand foreign pressure as they try to win and keep the respect of the international community.

While nationalism remains a powerful force in modern Chinese society and politics, it is important to remember that as far as the modern Chinese culture is concerned, this nationalism is fundamentally defensive. The phrase "save the nation" is often on the lips of Chinese patriots, whereas the idea that "China conquers all" is so outlandish as to be laughable. In other words, Chinese nationalism is about saving the nation from the crisis and insecurity of the modern era, rather than about China subduing others.

Some readers may object to this characterization of Chinese nationalism by pointing to Chinese "occupation" of Tibet and China’s "aggressive" posture towards Taiwan. Still, whatever one’s opinion regarding such political issues, the fact is that the Chinese government gains popular support for its policies towards Tibet and Taiwan by presenting such policies as defensive. All Chinese citizens have been taught since elementary school that Tibet and Taiwan have been integral parts of China "throughout history." Thus in the eyes of the Chinese citizenry, the Chinese government is trying to defend China’s territorial integrity.

3) Environmental Limitations

Because China is so large, it is difficult to think of it as resource poor. Indeed, Chinese school children are often taught to take pride in China’s large land mass and abundant resources. Still, we can talk about abundance only in absolute terms. As soon as we begin to calculate China’s resources on a per capita basis, we recognize the severe limits nature has placed on the economic development of China.

From my experience teaching, I find that students often have the feeling that China is many times larger than the United States. Actually, in land mass China is about the same size as the United States. China is several times larger than the United States only in population. According to the official estimate of the Chinese government, China has over 1.3 billion people. Some scholars claim that China’s population is actually much larger than that, although such private estimates are not fully substantiated. In the chapter on geography, the reader will learn about the environmental challenges faced by China. But to start, the reader might imagine what the United States would be like if it had 1.3 billion, rather than less than 300 million, residents.

4) China’s Status as a Developing Country

With frequent news reports on the fantastic rate of economic growth in China during recent years, it is easy for people to develop an impression that China is a wealthy place. Indeed, if one were to go to the metropolitan centers of Shanghai and Beijing, one could easily forget that one was in the middle of a developing country. Although China’s economy is growing at a much faster pace than the U.S. economy, the overall size of the Chinese economy is still much smaller. The average Chinese is considerably poorer than the average American.

During recent years, the exaggeration of China’s prosperity has been pushed forth by two opposing forces in the United States. First, media experts and members of the business community who are very interested in promoting trade with China emphasize China’s astounding growth rate. Second, members of the media who seem intent on making China into the next great enemy of the United States emphasize China’s strength. Unfortunately, perhaps because of China’s eagerness to be taken seriously by the outside world, there has not been a strong Chinese effort to correct this exaggerated estimate of China’s wealth. Indeed, some Chinese nationalists enjoy hearing foreign journalists talk about how strong China has become.

If one examined the arguments "proving" China’s great strength, one would find that both sides often base their arguments on the unspoken assumption that the majority of the Chinese people are very poor. Some promoters of trade with China often talk about China’s advantage in "low labor costs." Although low labor costs indeed constitute a kind of advantage in international trade, one must remember that from the worker’s perspective "labor cost" is just another way to say "pay and benefits." In other words, the business advantage of low labor cost implies the disadvantage of very poorly paid consumers. Indeed, according to the chapter in this book on the Chinese economy, the annual income of the average Chinese city dweller was merely 5,425 yuan in 1998. In rural areas, where the vast majority of the Chinese people live, the per capita annual income was only 2,162 yuan. Given the standard exchange rate of roughly 8.3 yuan to the dollar, the average Chinese city dweller made only a bit over $653 in the whole year of 1998.

The promoters of the "China threat" theory often emphasize the lower prices in China. They say that with the same amount of money, one can buy far more goods and labor in China than in a country with a higher per capita income, such as the United States. While it is true that the cost of living is much lower in China than in the U.S., this is the case partly because what is considered a normal standard of living is much lower in China than in the United States. Although food and clothing are much cheaper in China than in the West, complicated industrial products and high tech items are not necessarily less expensive. Certainly, the average Chinese soldier is paid much less than his American counterpart, but the same Chinese soldier is also much more poorly equipped and fed.

5) Understanding the Different Meanings of Words and the Importance of Human Relationships

Although Confucius emphasized the importance of making names and realities match each other, a Western visitor may often find that names and realities often do not match in China. Or to put it another way: The names and realities might actually match perfectly from certain local Chinese points of view, but because Western visitors define these names differently, they might not perceive this congruence. One must learn to deal with this phenomenon in order not to be misled by mismatched expectations of what certain terms mean.

For example, the Chinese government makes much of the idea of building "socialism with Chinese characteristics." Many Americans believe that socialism means everybody has lifetime job security and nationalized health care. But of course in today’s China, most people enjoy neither of these. So to understand what is really happening in China, one must be willing to put aside one’s own definition of certain terms, and ask what these terms mean to the Chinese. To take one step further, the same term might mean different things to different Chinese. While this process of understanding may seem very complicated, it is really not very different from the process of realizing that in the United States, the Republican Party and the Green Party understand the concept "patriotism" quite differently.

Another source of misunderstanding may come from what one may expect from looking at a person’s job title. For example, Deng Xiaoping was the paramount leader of China from 1978 to his death in 1997. However, he never held the highest offices in the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party. In other words, he never held positions such as premier, president, chairman of the Communist Party, or general secretary of the Communist Party. The true source of his power came from the personal loyalty and respect he commanded from key military officers, civil officials, and party leaders. Thus, to understand how Chinese institutions function, one must go beyond the formal institutional structure and examine the actual human relationships.

Part II. Some Common Difficulties

There are two main difficulties in learning about China: the thorny issue of Chinese names, and the issue of incomplete information.

1) Names and Romanization

Difficulties with Chinese names are often the first obstacles Americans encounter when they study China. Besides the difficulty with Chinese sounds, the beginning American student might also experience frustration with the following issues: First, Chinese names do not follow the Western pattern of first name + middle name + surname. Second, the same Chinese names can be spelled differently in different texts. In this book, we have tried to make the use of names as simple and consistent as possible. Nevertheless, since this book should serve as a launching pad for further exploration in Chinese studies, this section offers some tips on how to deal with these issues.

a) Naming Patterns and Alternative Names

The Difficulties:

In general, Chinese people say and write their names with the family name first. In other words, Mao Zedong’s family name is "Mao." "Zedong" is his given name. Similarly, Wang Meng’s family name is Wang. Journalists usually respect this naming pattern when they write about Chinese people. Thus President Jiang Zemin, whose family name is "Jiang," is generally referred to in the American news as "Jiang Zemin" rather than "Zemin Jiang."

In spite of the increased sophistication of Western reporters assigned to China during recent years, occasionally a few American newscasters still make the mistake of referring to "Jiang Zemin" as "President Zemin." Now that Mr. Hu Jintao has become the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, the reader may also begin to hear about "Mr. Jintao." Calling Hu Jintao "Mr. Jintao," or calling Jiang Zemin "President Zemin," is as wrong as calling President George W. Bush "President George."

To complicate the matter, the "family names come first" rule usually does not apply to ethnic Chinese who live in the West. When people of Chinese descent live in the West, they often reverse their names to follow Western practice. For example, Dr. Jing Liao, the author of the chapter on the arts, has "Liao" as her family name. In China, people would call her "Liao Jing." Similarly, "Ji" is my family name, while "Xiao-bin" is my given name. In China, I would be called "Ji Xiao-bin." But in the U.S., I identify myself as "Xiao-bin Ji."

In this book, we arrange the names as the owners of these names would. In other words, for Chinese people living in China, we place their family names first. For Chinese citizens living permanently in the West, and for American citizens and citizens of other Western countries whose ethnic origin is Chinese, we place their family names last. Since this is a book about China, almost all the Chinese names in the main text belong to Chinese people who spent their lives in China. In the few cases where we mention people of Chinese descent living in the West, their status as such will be clear from the context.

With Chinese people living before the last decades of the 20th century, their names often have further levels of complexity. First, one person could have several names. For example, one famous 11th-century poet has the formal name "Su Shi," the courtesy name "Su Zizhan," and the sobriquet "Su Dongpo." When this poet was alive, "Su Shi" would be the name on his official records, "Zizhan" would be the name his friends called him, and "Dongpo" would be the name he sometimes signed on his literary compositions and art works.

To make things even more complicated, some pre-modern people actually changed their names several times during the course of their lives. The purpose of such name changes could be practical or symbolic. A person might decide to change his outlook on life, and pick a new name that was more closely identified with this new outlook. For example, a scholar who wanted to create a new identity for himself as a strategic thinker might rename himself after a great strategist in early Chinese history. Alternatively, one might change one’s name because the old given name is the same as the given name of the newly enthroned emperor. Since the emperor’s given name was taboo, a subject was not allowed to share his given name. At other times, a man might change his name because he did not like what the government records said about him. So by adopting a new name, he could have a chance to disassociate himself from his old paper trail.

Second, there is the phenomenon of "posthumous titles" and "reign titles." In the age of imperial dynasties, when an important person died, most likely the government would give him or her a posthumous title, which in theory was designed to be a concise description of the essential qualities of that person. Sometimes individuals would be known to history by their posthumous titles rather than by their real names. This is especially the case with emperors. For example, most historians would call the founding emperor of the Song dynasty (960–1279) "Song Taizu" or "Emperor Taizu of Song." (The Ming dynasty has its own "Taizu," so in most cases it is important to specify the dynasty unless the context already makes this clear.) Actually, "Taizu" just means "grand progenitor" and is the abbreviated posthumous title of this emperor. His full posthumous title is "Taizu qi yun li ji yingwu ruiwen shende shenggong zhiming daxiao huangdi." A rough translation of this title would be "grand progenitor, the emperor who opened up the fortune [of the dynasty] and established the utmost [i.e. reached the highest achievement humanly possible], and was heroically martial, perspicaciously cultured, divinely virtuous, sagely accomplished, perceptive to the extreme, and greatly filial." Thankfully, this full posthumous title is almost never used in texts written in English. The emperor’s personal name is "Zhao Kuangyin."

Why don’t historians just call Song Taizu "Zhao Kuangyin"? The reason is that in pre-modern China, it was considered extremely disrespectful to speak—or even write—the given name of the reigning emperor or the given names of all previous emperors of the dynasty under which one lived. Obviously, the family name is not taboo—only the given name. In other words, during the Song dynasty, "Kuangyin" was taboo, but "Zhao" was not. Thus, no writer during the Song dynasty would dare to refer to Song Taizu as "Zhao Kuangyin." By the time the Song dynasty had been replaced by the next dynasty, "Zhao Kuangyin" had so fallen out of use that it had become much less recognizable to readers than "Taizu." This is why posthumous titles of emperors are so widely used in history books.

In addition to "posthumous titles," emperors of China are sometimes also identified by their "reign titles." By convention, each time a new emperor is enthroned, he would consider the first new year of his reign as "year one." How would one then tell the "first year" of one reign from the "first year" from another reign? To solve this problem, we need to refer to "reign titles," which are names the rulers gave to the periods of their rule.

Unfortunately, some emperors liked to signal "renewal" by restarting the counting of years several times. For example, when the Emperor Taizu of Song first became emperor in 960, he named his reign "Jianlong." About three years later, he decided to start over again, so 963 became the first year of the "Qiande" reign. Then about five years after that, he again decided to start over, so 968 became the first year of the "Kaibao" reign.

In cases such as Taizu of Song, historians generally do not refer to him by his reign title, because he has too many reign titles. However, in the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644– 1911) dynasties, almost all of the rulers had only one reign title each. As a result, sometimes historians identify the emperors by their reign titles. For example, the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty is sometimes called Emperor Taizu ("Grand Progenitor") of Ming, but sometimes also called Emperor Hongwu (Hongwu being his reign title).

Third, in high antiquity, people’s names did not always follow the "family name plus given name" model. For example, the legendary doctor Bianque (5th century b.c.) is simply called Bianque.

Fourth, the names of Buddhist monks and nuns also do not follow the "family name plus given name" model. When a man becomes a monk or a woman becomes a nun, s/he simply drops his/her secular family name and given name, and adopts a completely different religious name, which usually does not include a family name. However, in some cases a monk might identify his family name as "Shi," which is the first syllable of "Shijiamouni," the Chinese transliteration of Sakyamuni, one of the names of the Buddha. (There are at least two secular family names that are spelled as "Shi" in Pinyin. They are written differently in Chinese characters, though.)

Some Solutions:

In this book, we have minimized the use of multiple names. People are generally referred to by their personal names, except in the case of emperors, who are usually referred to by their most commonly used posthumous titles or reign titles. In cases where two different names of the same person are both frequently used in English language books, we have placed the alternative name (courtesy name or sobriquet) in parentheses after the formal name.

How is one to deal with all these complexities of names when reading other books on China? Perhaps the most important strategy is to be on the lookout for these complexities. If one reads about a "Su Dongpo" who sounds very much like a certain "Su Shi" one has encountered elsewhere, then it’s wise to check to see whether these are in fact different names of the same man.

b) Differences in Romanization

The Difficulties:

Before the 1970s, the vast majority of English language books about China used the "Wade-Giles" romanization system to spell out Chinese names in Latin alphabet. Since the 1970s, scholars and the news media have gradually switched to Pinyin, the official romanization system promoted by the Chinese government. Meanwhile, there are scholars who have continued to use the Wade-Giles system. Because of the coexistence of two popular ways to spell Chinese names, students of Chinese studies are forced to deal with alternative spellings of the same Chinese names. For example, Chairman Mao’s name is spelled as "Mao Tse-tung" in Wade-Giles and "Mao Zedong" in Pinyin. The name of the paramount leader of the Chinese government from 1978 to 1997 would be "Teng Hsiao-p’ing" in Wade-Giles and "Deng Xiaoping" in Pinyin. Actually, Wade-Giles and Pinyin are not the only systems for spelling out Chinese names in Latin alphabet. Fortunately, the other systems are so rarely used that even advanced students of Chinese studies are often unfamiliar with them.

A further complication arises when we consider that even in the age when Wade-Giles was dominant, scholars did not always use Wade-Giles consistently. In fact, by scholarly convention, when one uses Wade-Giles to spell out Chinese personal names in a text, one must use the 19th-century English postal spelling for well-known Chinese place names. For example, "Peking" is the old "postal" spelling for "Beijing." The Wade-Giles spelling of "Beijing" would be "Pei-ching," but scholarly convention demands "Peking" when one adopts Wade-Giles spelling for all personal names.

Even with personal names, texts using Wade-Giles are not always consistent in the use of Wade-Giles spelling rules. For example, the name "Chiang Kai-shek" is neither Pinyin nor Wade-Giles, but a spelling based on the pronunciation of Mr. Chiang’s name in his regional dialect. The spelling "Chiang Kai-shek" has become so conventional that it is usually adopted even in texts that otherwise use Pinyin for all Chinese names, although recently the standard Pinyin spelling "Jiang Jieshi" has also begun to appear in some scholarly works.

Some Solutions:

Because Pinyin is becoming increasingly dominant in English language publications, we have decided to use Pinyin in this book. In cases where alternative spellings are so commonly used that they are impossible to ignore, we have included the alternative spelling in parentheses. In very rare cases where the non-standard spelling is the most commonly used (as in the case of "Chiang Kai-shek"), we have used the non-standard spelling as the main spelling, and included the Pinyin spelling (preceded by a "p.") in parentheses.

For the convenience of readers who might read books that use Wade-Giles, we are also enclosing a conversion table between Pinyin and Wade-Giles.

How is one to determine whether a book uses Pinyin or Wade-Giles? Here is a method for readers who do not know Chinese: Look at the patterns of the spelling. If many (but not necessarily all) of the Chinese names include apostrophes (e.g. Ch’eng I), then most likely the text uses Wade-Giles. On the other hand, if the Chinese names often include "x," "z," "zh," and "j," and almost never include apostrophes, then Pinyin is the sure bet. (A note of caution: Only a few apostrophes here and there would not be sufficient to identify the romanization system of a text as Wade-Giles. Sometimes a scholar using Pinyin would insert an apostrophe between two syllables to indicate where one syllable ends and another begins. However, they would insert the apostrophe only in cases where it is absolutely necessary to avoid confusion. One example would be "Yan’an.")

Some teachers might also suggest looking for hyphens as a defining feature of Wade-Giles. The reason is as follows. According to the Chinese government’s current standard for Pinyin spelling, no hyphens are allowed in personal names (e.g. "Mao Zedong" rather than "Mao Ze-dong"). With Wade-Giles, when a given name contains two syllables, these syllables are invariably linked with a hyphen (e.g. "Mao Tse-tung" rather than "Mao Tsetung"). In actual usage, however, this method is not always helpful. The no-hyphen rule for Pinyin is often ignored in practice, sometimes even by branches of the Chinese government itself. Many individuals with two-syllable first names also feel the need to separate the two syllables with a hyphen. For example, when I first arrived in the United States as a teenager in the 1980s, I spelled my first name with a hyphen. It was not until the 1990s that I realized that the "official" Pinyin rules prohibited hyphens. But of course, by then all my academic records had listed my name as "Xiao-bin Ji." Given the importance of the paper trail for an academic, I can no longer afford to change the spelling of my name in a professional context.

One More Note of Caution:

While Western scholarly publications and prestigious news organizations in the West are usually quite consistent in their use of Pinyin and Wade-Giles, this is not always the case with some commercially published texts or, for that matter, texts published in Asia. Some novelists and authors of martial arts manuals have chosen to spell Chinese names the way they have liked, with the result that they often end up with spellings that are consistent with neither Pinyin nor Wade-Giles.

Moreover, some institutions and even local governments in China have also chosen to continue to spell their names in ways that are not consistent with Pinyin rules. For example, while the city government of Beijing has changed the transliteration of the city’s name from the old "postal" spelling of "Peking" to the standard Pinyin spelling of "Beijing," the venerable Peking University continues to identify itself as "Peking University." On the other hand, some authors, who are either unsympathetic to or unaware of the university’s attachment to the old spelling, have chosen to identify this university as "Beijing University" in their articles in English. As a result, the American reader is burdened with the need to remember that "Peking University" and "Beijing University" are in fact the same institution.

Some people with Chinese names have also chosen to spell their own names in non-standard ways. Because of the weight of established usage, these non-standard spellings have become the most widely used version. Sometimes founders of organizations might also spell out the names of their organizations in a non-standard way. For example, the Tzu Chi Foundation is one of the largest charitable foundations in the Chinese-speaking world. Although "Tzu Chi" is neither standard Wade-Giles nor standard Pinyin, this is the spelling used on the foundation’s own Web sites. Some scholars, however, have insisted on applying the standard Pinyin spelling to the foundation’s Chinese name. As a result, I have seen at least one scholarly article on the "Ciji" Foundation.

In cases such as these, there is no pre-designed conversion table to cover all possibilities. One can only be thankful that nowadays, the major newspapers and magazines are

usually consistent about using Pinyin.

2) Dealing with Dates and Uncertainties

If one studies history long enough, sooner or later one must deal with the fact that not all details can be known for certain. Although China has had a long history of careful recordkeeping, there are still facts and dates that we cannot know for sure. Readers need to keep this in mind so that they will not be confused by discrepancies between different texts and claims. Moreover, true understanding can be reached only if one acknowledges the limitation of what one can know. This section will bring the reader’s attention to a few key areas of uncertainty.

Separating Legend from History

In the popular press, legends are sometimes presented as historical facts. However, legends do not become history just because some writers sound very sure of their historical knowledge. For example, some texts claim that the Chinese calendar began in 2600 b.c. under the Yellow Emperor ("Huang Di" or "Huangdi" in Chinese). There is nothing wrong with this claim as long as one realizes that it is only a legend. From the historical point of view, we have no solid evidence proving the existence of the Yellow Emperor. Moreover, even if he did exist, we would not be able to date his reign so precisely.

The Issue of Dates

If readers compared this book with other books on China, they might find different books might disagree over the dates of some early dynasties and even of some individuals. This does not necessarily mean that one or more of these books is "wrong." Rather, it often means that scholars cannot be 100% sure.

Among Chinese historians, it is generally accepted that years given as major events became accurate after 841 b.c. (although there are exceptions even after that). This means historians often cannot be certain about the dates of major events that happened before 841 b.c. Even the date of the founding of the Zhou dynasty is not completely certain. In our book, we use the date 1045 b.c. But this is only the best estimate as understood by those among our authors who are specialists in pre-modern Chinese history. Not all scholars agree this estimate is the best. In essence, dates of events that happened before 841 b.c. tend to be working hypotheses constructed from imperfect information. And there is not always a scholarly consensus on what these working hypotheses should be.

Information on Individuals and Events

In this book, the authors have tried to provide accurate dates of individuals mentioned whenever possible. However, there are some rare cases where this is not possible. Sometimes, we can ascertain the death date but not the birth date. Sometimes history only records the events certain individuals participated in, but leaves no trace of where these individuals came from before or where they went after. Because of the necessarily incomplete nature of historical records, we must learn to live with uncertainty, even though we have tried our best to discover the vital facts and record them with precision.

To indicate the uncertain and/or imprecise information available, the authors have used a number of devices. For events that occurred more than several thousand years ago, we have sometimes opted to use b.p. ("before the present"), rather than b.c.; this indicates that we can only be sure that the event happened so many thousands of years ago, and we cannot provide the actual date with any precision. In other cases, we have used "c." (short for "circa") to indicate that the dates we provide are only very rough estimates.

Matters of Convention

The reader should also keep in mind that even when we have precise information on certain events, people, and institutions, there might still be different conventions regarding how to present this information. In such cases, the use of different dates does not necessarily represent serious disagreements over the interpretations of particular events.

For example, the dates of most of the major events surrounding the fall of the Qing dynasty are quite clear. However, there is still more than one way to date the Qing dynasty. Some scholars would write 1644–1912, while others would prefer 1644–1911.

The ending date of 1912 is valid for a simple reason: The last Qing emperor did not formally abdicate until February 12, 1912. However, the date of 1911 is also valid, because the revolution in 1911 effectively ended the imperial rule of the Qing court. Moreover, 1912 is the first year of the Republic of China, so it is only reasonable to list 1911 as the last year of the last imperial dynasty of China. In addition, at the time of the revolution, the Qing government still used the traditional Chinese calendar. By traditional Chinese calendar, February 12, 1912, is actually the 25th day of the 12th month of the third year of the Emperor Xuantong’s (a.k.a. "Henry" Puyi) reign, otherwise known as the year 1911. Since 1911 and 1912 are both valid in their own ways, we have no choice but to put up with the simultaneous use of both dates to represent the end of the Qing dynasty.

Concluding Advice to the Beginning Student

Learning about China can be confusing, but it can also be great fun. As one of my favorite teachers says, sorting out contradictory information in history can be as interesting as reading a detective novel. The greater the challenge, the greater the pleasure of discovery at the end. In learning about China, as in learning about anything else, patience and wise effort can bring great rewards. Enjoy!

Xiao-bin Ji

June 2003