CH 28

There were only fifteen students that attended the academy, but for the most part, a majority of the students came to the county to assimilate some of the refined culture and aura from the nearby scholarly community. Few children took the initiative to come to the academy early. Teacher Lin was once again absent minded and collected the homework again, commenting a few words at random. When everyone arrived, he called up the students one by one to recite scriptures from memory.

Cui Xie only started reading 《The Classic of Poetry》after enrolling into the academy and was considered half a direct disciple to Teacher Lin in addition to being a moneybags, so Teacher Lin treated him more cordially than the other students. Barely three students had gone up to recite the《Three Character Classic》when Cui Xie was called forward to recite.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, not only was Confucius’ Four Books and Five Classics the primary focus of education, the Three Character Classic, along with Hundred Family Surnames and Thousand Character Classic formed the basis of elementary education. This group came to be known as San Bai Qian (Three, Hundred, Thousand) from the first characters in the titles. It was the universal introductory literacy texts for students written mainly by Wang Yinglin. The Classic of Poetry is the oldest existing collection of the Chinese century and has traditionally been said to be compiled by Confucious (one of the Five Classics) and then studied and memorized by scholars in China. It is a rich source of chengyu (four-character classical idioms) that is still part of the learned discourse and modern society today. Old Style Poetic forms The Classic of Filial Piety is a treatise giving advice on filial piety and gives basic moral messages to young scholars.

For some reason, every time he got up to recite or discuss scriptures, a few students would quietly raise their heads to look at him while others would shake one’s head underneath, mocking Cui Xie’s style of reciting from memory. If it weren’t for that after class, these people were rather honest and well-behaved, while sometimes the students enjoyed flaunting their composed poems and essays in front of him, they did not dare to talk or move too much. He almost thought that they wanted to engage in campus bullying*.

*Campus bullying: modern term for bullying occuring on a school campus, unfortunately a pretty big problem in Chinese schools (and Asian school systems in general)

But having said that, showing off that their own poems were good in front of Teacher Lin, wasn’t this considered psychological abuse?

Teacher Lin asked him to recite 《Nan You Jia Yu》that was discussed in yesterday’s class. Before Cui Xie began his recitation, he subconsciously turned his head slightly and glanced at those students. Two pairs of eyes met each other and the ten-years-old scholar turned his head away in panic, as if he had been caught cheating, his face and neck turning red.

Nan You Jia Yu: a poem in the Decade of Baihua located in the Xiaoya (Minor Odes) section of the Classic of Poetry in the Book of Songs part of the Five Classics

Here is the poem:

In the south is the barbel,

And, in multitudes, they are taken under baskets.

The host has spirits,

On which his admirable guests feast with him joyfully.

In the south is the barbel,

And, in multitudes, they are taken with wicker nets.

The host has spirits,

On which his admirable guests feast with him, delighted.

In the south are trees with curved drooping branches,

And the sweet gourds cling to them.

The host has spirits,

On which his admirable guests feast with him cheerfully.

The Filial doves keep flying about,

Coming in multitudes.

The host has spirits,

On which his admirable guests feast with him again and again.

Source: https://ctext.org/book-of-poetry/nan-you-jia-yu

Tsk tsk, this group of scholar’s fighting strength was really too weak. They had empty intentions to engage in campus bullying, but they were all bark but no bite.

Cui Xie shook his head slightly in his heart and then began to recite the poem in earnest, “In the south is the barbel, and, in multitudes, they are taken under baskets. The host has spirits…” When he recited from memorization, he had a habit of mixing the original text and the translated text. Compared to the 《Four Books》, the《Book of Songs》 had particularly short translations, so reciting it had the emotionally unrestrained and pleasant pleasure of a dripping, racing current that cascaded into a waterfall.

Teacher Lin also appreciated this kind of recitation style, closing his eyes to listen to Cui Xie’s recitation from 《Nan You Jia Yu》to 《Tong Gong》. He nodded and smiled with satisfaction. “Your recitation is good, there is no need for me to urge you any further. Later, review and reflect what you recited earlier. Today, I will not lecture the new section then.”

Cui Xie simply stepped back and sat back down, listening to Teacher Lin asking if there were any other students who had memorized more than him who were willing to go up. Teacher Lin still spot checked and asked for recitations, assigning new topics for the students to write poems and essays for homework. These tongsheng were only one step short of becoming xiucai and did not need Teacher Lin to teach them everything step by step. Teacher Lin quickly dismissed them, instructing Cui Xie to stay behind to receive personal lessons.

Tongsheng (童生, lit. “child student”), an entry-level examinee/candidate that has not yet passed the county/prefecture exams

Xiucai or shengyuan: an entry-level licentiate/candidate who will pass the college exam.’

Note: there are three classes according to exam performance: Linsheng (includes gongsheng, anshou), Zengzheng and Fusheng. Refer to previous chapters for more information or this wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination

Due to the reverence and awe modern people had for the eight-legged essay that had dominated the Ming and Qing dynasties, Cui Xie was more serious than usual when he listened to the lecture, hating that he could not take out a small notebook to jot down some notes so he could review them from time to time in the future.

Eight-legged essay: ‘eight bone text’; style of essay in imperial examinations during the Ming and Qing dynasties in China. The eight-legged essay was needed for those test-takers in these civil service exams to show their merits for government service, the contents often focusing on Confucian thought and knowledge of the Four Books and Five Classics in relation to governmental ideals

Teacher Lin sat upright and still, lecturing to him, “The Imperial court has bestowed great favor in allowing and opening the imperial examination: scholarship, imperial edicts, decrees, memorials and policy essays on current affairs is merely the tip of the branch. Actually, the criterion depends entirely on only the content covered in the Five Classics and Four Books. I will not bother in talking about the famous saying of  ‘purposefully expounding the subtle intentions of the Sage’s scriptures’ and those empty and abstract philosophies—us scholars composing art and literature, it is all considered to be pioneering experimental analysis!”

“For example, in last year’s Xinchou Metropolitan examination, in the land under the vast heavens, four thousand gifted scholars flocked to the capital. Nine huishi examinations were conducted in early February and on March 15th was the dianshi examination. During this period, more than a dozen examiners had to grade three different examination papers for four thousand people. Just how many papers would an examiner have to read in a day? How attentive can he be? It will be nothing but a quick glance, just looking for if the content of the first section is taking a lead in invoking righteousness with one’s words! If the first page is not written well, no  matter how well the latter parts are written, that examiner will not take the time to look so closely.”

Huishi: metropolitan exams  held every three years in the national capital

Dianshi: top grade imperial exam or court exams that were held every three years in the Imperial palace, often supervised by the Emperor himself.

Teacher Lin was especially passionate this time around, and just like the art of storytelling, his narration had violent and aroused intonations, giving off the feeling that he would stand up on the chair any second.

Of course, he did not really stand up in the end. Not only did he not stand up, but even the volume of his voiced lowered as he stared at Cui Xie and solemnly said, “Today, I will teach you how to poti (breaking open the topic)*, although it is merely employing three to four sentences to make a few points to break the topic, while it looks easy, it is actually the most difficult thing to do. This is the so-called ‘before poti, the essay is up to me; after the poti, I am up to the essay’. The depth of your thoughts,  the amount of talent and learning you possess, the vigor of strokes in your calligraphy and its relative superiority, one can see all of it with just these few sentences of the poti.”

*Poti or “breaking open the topic’ is the opening of the eight-legged essay in which two sentences of prose are written that function as broaching the topic and demonstrating the test-taker’s knowledge about the title/prompt and its source. It is a writing style in which the main subject is approached directly from the outset. I will be using poti and the phrase “breaking the topic” interchangeably since either versions fit better in certain contexts than the other.

Cui Xie nodded repeatedly, his eyes opening wider than usual, exhibiting a full, deep and long pair of double eyelids, looking as if the line had been painted above the eyes.

Teacher Lin was extremely satisfied with Cui Xie’s attitude. He took the《Collected Works of the Cheng Brothers》from the table, flipped through a few pages, pointing to the line “The Duke of Zhou desired to unite in himself the virtues of those kinds, those founders of the three dynasties, that he might display in his practice the four things which they did” and glanced at him: “This is the essay written by Hanlin Academy’s Wang jieyuan (Wang Ao) in the Yiwei Imperial examinations. Just look at this exposition, this is the paradigm of essays under these vast heavens! I will use this essay as an example in dissecting the technique and method for breaking a topic.”

The Collected Works of the Cheng Brothers: full collection of the works of Cheng Han and Cheng Yu. They made many interpretations and discussed their understanding of Confucian classics.

Jieyuan: first placed candidate in Imperial provincial examinations

Hanlin Academy was an academic and administrative institution that performed secretarial and literary tasks for the court. One of the main duties was to decide on the interpretation of the Chinese classics.

Wang Ao (1450-1524) was a politician, essayist and poet of the Ming Dynasty. In this book, it would be around 1469, so he would have only been 19 here. He was considered a master of eight-legged essays.

Cui Xie stood by the title and lowered his head to read the essay, seeing that the first two sentences read: “A great Sage discusses a former saint’s desires to gather the Holy One’s virtues , pondering all with a worried, diligent, vigilant and stern heart.”

Cui Xie said very consciously, “This topic originates from 《Mencius·Li Lou II》. The Duke of Zhou wanted to imitate the three sacred kings: Xia Yu (King Yu the Great), Shang Tang (King Tang of Shang), Zhou Wen (King Wen of Zhou); Wanting to be like Xia Yu who hated the pleasant wine that made people indulge in pleasure and instead loved the good advice and words of others; wanting to be like Shang Tang, who insisted on the doctrine of the mean and meritocracy; Wanting to be like King Wen, who took care of his people, still ambitious to walk on the Way of the King; like King Wu, he would not slight the near courtiers and neither forget the distant courtiers. The phrase ‘worry, diligence, vigilance and sternness’ mentioned in breaking the topic originated from Zhu Xi’s commentaries that praised Duke

Of Zhou for his diligence in governance. Following such examples such as former kings (sage rulers) and their good actions will certainly result in effective morality and conduct.”

Doctrine of the Mean represents moderation, rectitude, objectivity, sincerity, honesty and propriety. The guiding principle is that one should never act in excess.

Note: King Wu of Zhou is the son of King Wen of Zhou

Teacher Lin nodded; “The Four Books are well memorized. Do you know why the Duke of Zhou and the Three Kings in the original question were referred to as the great Sage and former holy ones?”

That is….is it because when writing the first section, breaking the topic, the phrasing should not duplicate the same words originally used in the topic?

Cui Xie was a little uncertain so he did not dare to say. But, Teacher Lin did not need him to answer, so he began to explain while kneading his thin beard, “While breaking the topic, one cannot bring the name of people into it. For example, the Three Great Sage Kings: King Wen, Duke Zhou and Confucious must all be referred to as ‘Holy One’’ while philosophers must all be referred to as ‘Sage’, but only Mencius can be referred to as the ‘Second Sage’ or also referred to as just ‘Sage’. The remaining topics like vegetation, birds, flowers,and utensils are all alternatively referred to as either ‘thing’ or ‘object’. In short, when breaking the topic, neither the person nor the thing in the topic can be written using the original name, and thus, the original name in the scripture should be substituted for something else.”

Mencius: Confucian philosopher second only to Confucious by popularity, esteem and contribution

Hmm…Was breaking the topic just like clarifying the meaning of the topic in modern writing? Cui Xie could not help but ask: “To poti, does it mean to explain it in your own words after understanding the meaning of the question?”

Teacher Lin nodded slightly, saying ‘En’, “To say it simply, it is precisely so. Consecutively writing phrase after phrase and hitting the nail on the head is called shunpo. Conversely, writing the literal meaning first and then clarifying the meaning mentioned in the prompt is called nipo. But this doesn’t mean that making sense is enough, it is necessary to grasp the main gist of the topic with a clear emphasis on the act of ‘breaking’. Sticking closely to the topic’s wording and hitting the nail on the head is called mingpo. If you don’t discuss the topic using the wording given, but refer to it in a different way, this is called anpo. Hanlin Academy’s Wang Ao’s essay was a precise and literal interpretation of the Duke of Zhao’s efforts to imitate and cite the former King’s benevolent governance, and is considered as using the mingpo method.” 

Shunpo: method of consecutively writing phrase after phrase that hits the nail of the head (subject)

Nipo: literally means reverse/inverse breaking involving where one dives straight into defining the literal meaning of the topic and then clarifying the former meaning referenced in the original question.

Mingpo: literally means clear breaking, most likely is the most straightforward as it is the most clarified/transparent of the methods

Anpo: secretly breaking; a way to break the topic by alluding and referring to your topic in a novel, obscure way that does not use the topic’s original wording from the question.

“Additionally, there is a big taboo when breaking the topic, one cannot refer to information outside of the original topic—look at this sentence, ‘Duke of Zhou desired to unite in himself the virtues of those kings, those founders of the three dynasties, that he might display in practice the four things which they did’. When you first read this prompt, you must first remember which chapter and which sentence the topic is located in the《Mencius》and then using the context given, thread together and understand the meaning of the text, but when you are breaking the topic, one must not involve the original text.”

“If you point out who the three kings are and what the four elements are when breaking the topic, it will be considered an infringement and violation of the first sentence of the topic which is called, Lianshang; If you accidentally mention out the prompt’s latter phrase referencing how Duke of Zhou spent night and day considering how to mercifully govern, this will also be a violation. If you think about the Imperial examination, the examiners will have already graded papers until their eyes have turned blurry, and even upon reading a good essay, they will have no time to look at it in detail. Upon reading the paper, they first pick at the faults, and if they take a glimpse only to catch sight of you infringing and violating the taboo of not mentioning the text when breaking the topic, wouldn’t they quickly demote you and move onto the next paper?”

Lianshang: pointing out the actual names in the opening which is taboo since one cannot directly refer to such topics/original text

Night and day (idiom): strenuous effort 

TN: Basically, for those that may be a little lost, when breaking open the topic, one must not list the real names and classifiers for people or objects nor can they directly mention the text that is being tested. If they do so, it will be considered a violation and it immediately slashes them from passing the examination. There are a lot of subtleties that one has to pay attention to, but tl;dr it seems that one just has to be as vague as possible while still staying on topic, which is honestly counterintuitive but that’s how they did it. The examiners want to test not only your rote memorization skills, but also your ability to synthesize and logically explain concepts using your own words. 

That’s right, when primary school student’s wrote essays investigating a topic or prompt, one would not be able to get high scores if they strayed from the topic. The metropolitan imperial examination had an acceptance rate that was less than ten percent; If the essays were off-topic, they would be dismissed and expelled immediately from the rankings, there were still on-topic and well written papers that were still waiting to be graded.

Cui Xie saw that Teacher Lin seemed to have a lot more to say on the topic, so he might as well apologize in advance as he headed back to his seat to grab a self-made notebook in memorial (like the memorials presented to the Emperor) style. He dipped his brush in Teacher Lin’s pre-prepared ink and started taking notes.

Teacher Lin lauded his diligent attitude and spreading the collected works in front of Cui Xie, he pointed to the poti and continued to explain, “There are two other major taboos: if the meaning of the topic’s question cannot be entirely broken when breaking the topic, this is called louti; Or, even if the topic was completely discussed and pieced together, but inadequately integrated, this is called mati. 

Louti: literally means leaking topic, basically when you miss mentioning a topic or when you forget to include something.

Mati: literally means cursing topic, basically when you try to cover everything in your essay, but it doesn’t really flow well together and doesn’t make much sense

To be able to make these two kinds of mistakes, it illustrates that you are better than those who have made the mistake of commiting lianshang (referring to the topic’s people/objects/principles directly which is taboo and the most basic thing one should not do). These two logistical mistakes are a bit better, but when it comes to the examination room, it is of the same consequence: it will be the end of the road without the examiner taking so much a second look.”

Cui Xie wrote feverishly in his small notebook with a few ‘swish’ sounds, not even daring to look down at the paper while he was writing. He stared at Teacher Lin, as if this method would allow him to hear him more clearly.

Teacher Lin once again rocked his head back and forth to rhythmically recite Wang Ao’s poti: “Breaking open the topic naturally has poti characters, poti phrases, and there are three methods of breaking the meaning. First, break open the characters in the start and then break the sentences in the middle. If one’s poti is subtly embedded with the Sage’s correct interpretations, then and only then, can it be considered top-quality. You are a primary school student, and naturally your skill level is not comparable to the master of essays like Hanlin Academy’s Master Wang. But when breaking the topic, one must carefully select for quality with succinct phrasing, in addition to an imposing and majestic manner, one must link up the poti in one breath. If you just change the wording of the topic and piece it together in a sentence, that will put you in a bad position.”

He rocked his head back and forth, finishing his passionate lecture and suddenly lowered his head to ask Cui Xie: “What I said just now was a bit lacking in detail. You may not be able to understand it because your academic ability is relatively low as of right now. I will first tell you a few ways to poti. You go back and practice. Only by doing it yourself can one develop a deep understanding.”

Cui Xie felt like a huge amount of homework was beckoning to him and sighing slightly in his heart, he bowed his head in response: “Yes.”

Teacher Lin glanced at him and said, “I’ll first talk about the way of handling dati (greater themes), write this down—one can use two sentences to poti, or one can use three to four sentences. However, if you want to be concise and neat, it is best to make it two sentences. Either the first sentence breaks the meaning of the topic and then the latter exposes the purpose of the topic or the first sentence exposes the purpose of the topic and the latter sentence breaks the meaning of the topic.”

Dati: “great themes” examiners discerned dati used for questions in the provincial and capital examinations and lesser themes, xiaoti, for the apprentice examinations or tongshi

Organization of exams: tongshi (child exam) that includes xianshi (county), fushi(prefectural), yuanshi(college) → xiangshi (township exam) → huishi (metropolitan exam) → dianshi (court exam)

“For example, in this tanhua essay, the first sentence breaks the purpose of the topic and the next sentence breaks the meaning of the topic. The first sentence is closely related to the original question, unraveling the main purpose and themes, while the latter sentence covers not only the topic but also the whole chapter tested. With this one second sentence of ‘a worried, diligent, vigilant and stern heart’, it carries the meaning of the whole chapter, and it does not touch off-topic text, extremely clear and concise. Of course, you can also mention and extract the meaning of the topic and whole chapter in the first sentence and then just refrain from mentioning the original question in the next sentence. Just be careful, when breaking the topic, you can use the first two sentences to extract the meaning and purpose, but remember not to mention the taboo words or you will commit the taboo of lianshang (referring to outside text/specific people/objects which is taboo).”

Tanhua: candidate who came in third in jinshi (graduates ranked first class in court exam, usually only the top three individuals)

As Cui Xie bobbed his head up and down, jotting down these notes, the .pdf hovering inside his mind continued to grow and lengthen. He was determined to read these taboos first before doing homework and taking exams to avoid making such mistakes.

Teacher Lin felt that it was about time to wrap it up. When he saw that Cui Xie’s brush finally stopped moving, he asked to look at Cui Xie’s notes. While checking to see if he had omitted anything, he said while reading over, “Although the tongsheng examinations only consist of xiaoti, but those lesser themes are made by isolating, fragmenting and rearranging the Sage’s scriptures. If you are a beginner, you first practice with those, but become liable to end up restricting your creativity. If you want to practice, we must first start with dati, or greater themes, so we can expand our vision and cultivate the boldness needed for writing essays. I will pick a few dati from this essay collection for you as homework and for each topic, try to come up with three to five different poti.”

Tongsheng: candidate who has not yet passed the county level imperial exam (look at diagram earlier)

Xiaoti: lesser themes used for tongshi (apprentice examinations)

Dati: great themes used in provincial and capital examinations

His words suddenly cut off, and the corner of his eyes twitched slightly, setting down Cui Xie’s notebook, naturally changing the topic: “I will now teach you the method of how to straightforwardly break and counter-break a topic. Later, when you go home, copy the three prompts of the huishi essays and their individual poti until you become familiar with them. Then by yourself use zhengpo, fanpo, shunpo, nipo, these four methods to break the topics and give them to me by tomorrow morning.”

Zhengpo:  straightforwardly breaking a topic

Fanpo: counter-break a topic

Shunpo: consecutively writing phrase after phrase that hits the nail of the head (subject)

Nipo: literally means reverse/inverse breaking involving where one inverts the order of the sentences

Huishi: metropolitan examination

Shocked by the demand of these twelve homework questions, Cui Xie did not notice at all that he had missed writing down the two methods of breaking the topic mentioned before and was entirely engrossed, holding his breath with rapt attention as he listened attentively.

Teacher Lin had preserved his dignity as a teacher and he happily spoke, growing more fond of this disciple of his who had the attitude of respecting his teacher. After the lecture, Teacher Lin even felt that he had fully expressed all the teachings on the topic, and thought that more questions ought to be supplemented. But, he had already told Cui Xie to only write poti on three different topic questions, so it would not be too appropriate to add more. As such, he went into his study and fetched a calligraphy book on Shendu script and gave it to Cui Xie. He instructed Cui Xie to take it home and hand in twenty pages of it every day. 

Shen Du script (also known as taiga style): Shen Du was a calligrapher of the Ming Dynasty, and his characters are well-shaped, his brushstrokes clean and calm. Emperor Yongle praised him greatly and entrusted him with the transcription of the most important official documents.

Here is an example: