“Would be great if you guys could compose a list, especially as not all of us speak/read Chinese.”

I was thinking the same thing.

Would be great if you guys could compose a list, especially as not all of us speak/read Chinese.

Even some of the major Chinese classics were censored at various points in history, I will admit however, they called that ‘editing’.

Good post.

Much of China’s respect for literature and the literati comes from a historical stratification system which was based on mastery of literature. For most of the Imperial Era, China had the rather unique distinction of being one of the only civilizations in which a true rags-to-riches life story was possible. By receiving a high enough score on the Imperial Exam (an exhaustive brain dump of Chinese literature and philosophy), a rural peasant could become a high-ranking Mandarin in the courts of Beijing. This was easier said than done, as most Mandarins came from previously wealthy and powerful families, and certain degrees of graft and nepotism existed which served to favor the upper classes. But one major effect of this system which was abandoned just before the fall of the Qing Dynasty, was the equation of a mastery of literature with virtue.

Granted it has now been over 100 years since the last Imperial Exam was given, the legacy of the system still has influence over Chinese society. Chinese still respect reading when broached in conversation, but this doesn’t mean that they actually do it. And outside of the classics, many of which are only read because of requirements as students, my own highly unscientific, hyper-generalized, informal observations, lead me to believe that a true culture of reading in China is actually quite lacking.

As for your general point about the value of reading Chinese literature. Agree 100%.

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