COMPETITIONS

May 14, 2008
@Home

NEWS: Myanmar Cyclone - Number of Dead unbelievable...
China Earthquake... How does one know the TRUTH when the ONLY source is MEDIA...
Maybe if one had friends in those places, then one may ask them... But still this knowledge would be LIMITED... One has to have a BIG VIEW (GOD'S-POINT-OF-VIEW)...

While surfing I found the following item from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN magazine, one of my very important readings/sources of knowledge as a youth... Now I wonder its difference from the AMERICAN SCIENTIST magazine...

Brought back to my memory a description of civil exams in old CHINA as related by my Asian Civilizations teacher who was a Filipina-Chinese... She must have read this item.

OURCE: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 841
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 13, 1892
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No. 841,
February 13, 1892, by Various
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15193/15193-h/15193-h.htm#art14
================================
CHINESE COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS
================================
Wuchang, on the Yangtsze opposite Hankow, is the capital of the two provinces Hupeh and Hunan. Here, every third year, the examination for competitors from both provinces is held, and a correspondent of the North China Herald, of Shanghai, describes the scene at the examination at the beginning of September last. The streets, he says, are thronged with long-robed, large-spectacled gentlemen, who inform the world at large by every fold of drapery, every swagger of gait, every curve of nail, that they are the aristocracy of the most ancient empire of the world. Wuchang had from 12,000 to 15,000 bachelors of arts within its walls, who came from the far borders of the province for the examination for the provincial degree. About one-half per cent. will be successful; thousands of them know they have not the shadow of a chance, but literary etiquette binds them to appear. In the wake of these Confucian scholars come a rout of traders, painters, scroll sellers, teapot venders, candle merchants, spectacle mongers, etc.; servants and friends swell the number, so that the examination makes a difference of some 40,000 or 50,000 to the resident population. In the great examination hall, which is composed of a series of pens shut off from each other in little rows of 20 or 30, and the view of which is suggestive of a huge cattle market, there is accommodation for over 10,000 candidates. The observance of rules of academic propriety is very strict. A candidate may be excluded, not only for incompetence, but for writing his name in the wrong place, for tearing or blotting his examination paper, etc. After the examination of each batch a list of those allowed to compete for honors is published, and the essay forms for each district are prepared with proper names and particulars. The ancestors of the candidate for three generations must be recorded, they must be free from taint of yamen service, prostitution, the barber's trade and the theater, or the candidate would not have obtained his first degree. With the forms 300 cash (about 1s.) are presented to each candidate for food during the ordeal. The lists being thus prepared, on the sixth day of the eighth moon (Tuesday, the 8th of September, in 1891), the city takes a holiday to witness the ceremony of "entering the curtain," i.e., opening the examination hall. For days coolies have been pumping water into great tanks, droves of pigs have been driven into the inclosure, doctors, tailors, cooks, coffins, printers, etc., have been massed within the hall for possible needs. The imperial commissioners are escorted by the examination officials to the place. A dozen district magistrates have been appointed to superintend within the walls, and as many more outside, two prefects have office inside, and the governor of the province has also to be locked up during the eight days of examination. The whole company is first entertained to breakfast at the yamen, and then the procession forms; the ordinary umbrellas, lictors, gongs, feathers, and ragamuffins are there in force; the examiners and the highest officers are carried in open chairs draped in scarlet and covered with tiger skins. The dead silence that falls on the crowd betokens the approach of the governor, who brings up the rear. Then the bustle of the actual examination begins. The hall is a miniature city. Practically martial law is proclaimed. In the central tower is a sword, and misdemeanor within the limits is punished with instant death. The mandarins take up their quarters in their respective lodges, the whole army of writers whose duty it is to copy out the essays of the candidates, to prevent collusion, take their places. Altogether there must be over 20,000 people shut in. Cases have been known in which a hopeful candidate was crushed to death in the crowd at the gate. Each candidate is first identified, and he is assigned a certain number which corresponds to a cell a few feet square, containing one board for a seat and one for a desk. Meanwhile the printers in the building are hard at work printing the essay texts. Each row of cells has two attendants for cooking, etc., assigned to it, the candidates take their seats, the rows are locked from the outside, the themes are handed out, the contest has begun. The examination is divided into three bouts of about 36 hours, two nights and a day, each, with intervals of a day. The first is the production of three essays on the four assigned books; the second of five essays on the five classics; the third of five essays on miscellaneous subjects. The strain, as may be imagined, is very great, and several victims die in the hall. The literary ambition which leads old men of 60 and 70 to enter not unfrequently destroys them. Should any fatal case occur, the coffin may on no account be carried out throughthe gates; it must be lifted over or sometimes through a breach in the wall. Death must not pollute the greatentrance. At the end of the third trial, the first batch of those who have completed their essays is honored with the firing of guns, the bows of the officials, and the ministry of a band of music. Three weeks of anxious waiting will ensue before a huge crowd will assemble to see the list published. Then the successful candidates are the pride
of their country side, and well do the survivors of such an ordeal deserve their credit. The case of those who are in the last selection and are left degreeless, for the stern reason that some must be crowded out, is the hardest of all.
=======================
It seems the Philippine BAR imitates this Chinese civil exams...

COMPETITION, COMPETING
If there is ONE single personal problem I have - it's my being NON-COMPETITIVE...
I mentioned in a previous POST that I have WEAK WILL - MORE ACCURATELY, I am essentially a NON_COMPETITIVE INDIVIDUAL & this is the SINGLE BIG REASON for my not being successful in Life... In fact, I DISLIKE/HATE COMPETING (i.e. being COMPARED WITH OTHERS)... I have attained distinction in my studies & even received some "citations of distinction" even in CHESS but this was because I just did naturally what was needed to be done... But I did not give that added PUSH, I did not have that DESIRE to go over & above another fellow human characteristic of STRONG PERSONALITIES or COMPETITIVE INDIVIDUALS... This LACK OF INITIATIVE or "TIMIDITY" I believe is common among the "Philippine Islanders" & that s why they are POOR & MATERIALLY UNSUCCESSFUL... Maybe they have grown weary of CENTURIES of STRUGGLING [REMEMBER: The Nusantarans were the first in ASIA to collide with the WEST - SPAIN & PORTUGAL in the 15-16th Centuries & the DUTCH, ENGLAND, & AMERICA later...
We were fighting the de facto SUPERPOWERS ever since time immemorial!
REMEMBER: We fought SPAIN (SPAIN & PORTUGAL DIVIDED THE WORLD BETWEEN THEMSELVES THEN). WE FOUGHT AMERICA & IT WAS DURING THAT TIME (TURN OF 19th-20th CENTURY THAT MARKED THE RISE OF U.S.A. TO WORLD POWER STATUS...

TODAY's GLOBAL POWER PLAYERS SHOULD STUDY US (WE) IF THEY WANT TO LEARN SOME VALUABLE LESSONS...