Hi
there guys, welcome back to Office Hours with the Brofessor: The Show
Where I Say Things. Tonight: Origins of Chinese Civilization, Part
V: The Rise of the Shang.
Last
time we talked about the Xia Dynasty, which appears to be a
mythologized recollection of the real-life Erlitou culture of the
early second millennium BC. The dynasty was founded by my main man
Da Yu, and remained in the hands of his descendants. Four, maybe
five centuries passed, until an incompetent and sadistic alcoholic
named Jie became king. His favorite thing to do was get drunk
and—get this—force his officials to give him piggy back rides
around the palace(1):
Jie of Xia, gettin' str8 crunk.
Anyone
who said “No your highness, you’re a grown man, that’s
ridiculous” was put to death. Needless to say this did not endear
him to his vassals, who around 1600 BC got tired of his bullshit and
deposed him. The leader of the rebels was Lord Tang of Shang; the
dynasty he founded, therefore, was known as the Shang dynasty.
It
is worth noting here that 1600 BC more or less lines up with the
Erlitou culture’s collapse, further evidencing that it was the
center of what would be remembered as the Xia dynasty. Meanwhile,
sites at Erligang and Anyang came to prominence, mirroring the rise
of the Shang(3)(4). The question is less whether the Erlitou people
were later known as the Xia, and more whether they called themselves
the Xia. Did the Erlitou kings match those found in the Bamboo
Annals? Were they even Chinese speakers? We just don’t know,
and this is something that keeps me up at night.
At
any rate, as of the 16th century BC, there was a new
sheriff in town, one who aimed to clean up these here parts. Tang,
who was now king, seems to have been a pretty cool dude. During his
reign there was a drought so bad that the poor farmers had to sell
their kids off into slavery. When Tang found out he had a bunch of
gold distributed to the people so they could buy their kids back
(and, presumably, food, because otherwise they’d be back to square
one).
When
I heard this story I noticed something interesting. Whereas the
first Xia king had to deal with a flood, the first Shang king had to
deal with a drought—implying
a dualism
between the Xia and Shang.
To
me at least, this invited a comparison with one of China’s most
widely recognized cultural exports:
The
ying-yang
sign.
The
ying-yang
is essentially a representation of how seemingly opposing forces can
complement one another. Chinese 陰
yin1
can
mean, variously, femininity, darkness, negativity, overcast weather
(hence water?), female
genitalia or
the moon. On the other hand, 陽
yang2
represents light, the sun, and masculinity. According
to the leading Sinologist Sarah Allan, the Xia dynasty was associated
with water and darkness, the Shang with light and fire(4).
It
is therefore possible that every time we see someone walking around
with a ying-yang
t-shirt or tattoo, we’re actually looking at a cultural concept
with extremely deep roots, maybe as old as the Shang dynasty
itself—or older.
The
idea of Shang-Xia dualism
could lead one to dismiss the Xia, and even the early Shang, as
mythological. But I think that just because a story contains
mythical elements
doesn’t make it completely untrue. Indeed,
I would argue that the presence of a palace complex at Erlitou more
or less proves the existence of a state later known as the Xia,
although we don’t know what they called themselves.
So,
the Shang are now in charge, and we’re going to talk some more
about them in the next video. The
Shang dynasty was a critical period in the Story of China. It was
during this period, after all, that we find the oldest written
documents thus far recovered in China. “Chinese History”, by its
proper definition, had finally begun. What were these written
documents, and what are their significance? Find out next time, on
Origins of Chinese History, Part VI: Roll the Bones. Bye everyone,
see you next time!
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