Tang+and+Song+China

APPARTS for pg. 261:

__Project__:
political for Song
 * first emperor: Zhao Kuangyin
 * signed treaty with Khitans saying to keep them from raiding and conquering the Song domains...they had to pay very heavy tributes
 * only civil officials were allowed to be govenors...reduced possibility of military commanderst to seize power

ESPIRIT for Japan:

e s p i
 * Taika reforms- completely revamped imperial administration along chinese lines
 * 794- Kammu established capital at Hein (later called Kyoto)
 * Japanese tried to establish Chinese-style society
 * in the towns with the common people, they stared in awe at the great Buddhist temples and bowed to passing aristocrats
 * peasants turned to Buddhist monks when they were sick or Buddhist magic when they needed a change of luck
 * women could NOT become empresses
 * rank by birth
 * little mobility within the social pyramid
 * emperor and his courtiers inhabitted closed luxurious delights
 * men and women of of aristocratic classes followed strict codes of polite behavior
 * social status was everything!- love affairs was preoccupation and gossip was rampant
 * members of imperial household and the leading aristocratic families lived in complex of palaces and gardens
 * chinese cultural imports believed to be more for men than for women
 * women played strong role in the creative parts of japanese culture...they wrote poems, played flutes and participated in schem,es to snub or disgrace rivals
 * women became involved in palace intrigues and power struggles
 * Japanese rulers tried to establish Chinese-style bureaucracy
 * isolated court centers at Nara (later Heian) lost politicakl control to aristocratic famillies and local warlords
 * 3 periods in japan: Taika (645-710), Nara (710-784), Heian (794-857)
 * main goal of the Taika reforms was to change the japanese monarch into an absolutist chinese-style emperor
 * reform also intended to create professional bureaucracy and peasant conscript army in japan to match those of Han and Tang ChinaBuddhist monks dominated both the emperor and the capital as a whole
 * aristocracy and court feared the buddhist monks would uprise against the Taika reforms
 * emperor restored all power to aristocratic families
 * aristocrats taken over most positions in the government- could build up rural estates
 * local leaders forced to organize militia forces so that the emperor could get his peasant army

r i t
 * japanese struggled to master Confucian ways
 * worshipped in chinese-style temples
 * began to mix up the worship of Buddhist deities with "KAMI" or nature spirits of japan
 * Buddhists forbiddened to build temples in the new capital of Kyoto
 * monks built monastries at the hills of Kyoto and became potent force at court as advisors
 * Japanese scholars mastered thousands of chinese characters...little relationship to the language they actually spoke
 * japanese scholars wrote dynastic histories patterned after those by chinese emperors
 * elaborated court etiquette that combined chinese protocol with ancient japanese ideas about politeness and decorum
 * admired Buddhist art
 * writing verse was the most valued art at the court
 * unpainted wood seen as most flattering
 * fish ponds and sliding door panels in homes of the aristocratic families
 * written script borroed from the chinese was simplified and more compatible with the japanese language
 * The Tale of Genji- literary work...most celebrated in Japan