As I continue reading the book I mentioned the other day, Jonathan Spence’s Return to Dragon Mountain, I keep running across little passages that scream out to be shared, along with a little commentary. Here’s one, comprising the observations of Zhang Dai and his contemporary Ai regarding the horrors of the Imperial examination system, the civil service exams that we Westerners, when we’ve heard about it, sometimes know as the “Mandarinate” exams (emphasis below is mine, not Spence’s): Ai wrote of the endless discomforts and indignities that he endured in the examination halls, joining the shivering crowds of young men at dawn, signing in …
Zhang Dai on Civil Service Exams (And South Korea Today)
