Everything about Mandarin Bureaucrat totally explained
A
Mandarin was a
bureaucrat in
imperial China, and also in
Feudal Vietnam where the system of
Imperial examinations and
scholar-bureaucrats was adopted under Chinese influence.
The
English term comes from the
Portuguese mandarim or
Dutch mandarijn, from
Malay məntəri, from
Hindi mantrī, from
Sanskrit mantrin (meaning
councilor or minister. The term is also used to refer to the
northern spoken variety of
Chinese because it was the language used among officials during the
Ming and
Qing dynasties.
An alternative theory is that the term comes from the Chinese phrase "Mandaren" (满大人), meaning a "
Manchu official". However, since there's no direct evidence supporting this hypothesis, and since the word "mandarin" is attested in the early 16th century before the establishment of the
Qing Dynasty, this is deemed unlikely by linguists.
In the West, the term "Mandarin" is associated with the concept of the
scholar-official, who immersed himself in poetry, literature, and Confucian learning in addition to performing
civil service duties.
For around 1300 years, from 605 to 1905, Mandarins were selected by merit through the extremely rigorous
imperial examination.
China has had civil servants since at least the
Zhou Dynasty. However most high ranking positions were filled by relatives of the sovereign and the
nobility. It wasn't until the
Tang Dynasty when the final form of the mandarin was completed with the replacement of the
nine-rank system. The mandarins were the founders and core of the
Chinese gentry. The mandarins were replaced with a modern civil service after the fall of the
Qing Dynasty.
The wardrobe of a mandarin during the
Qing Dynasty included
Manchu official headwear and a
mandarin square. The office and residence of a mandarin was a
yamen.
In modern
English, "Mandarin" is also used to refer to any (though usually a senior) civil servant, often in a satirical context, and particularly in the
United Kingdom and
Commonwealth countries.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Mandarin Bureaucrat'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://mandarin__bureaucrat.totallyexplained.com">Mandarin (bureaucrat) Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
