Imperial examination

The imperial examination was a civil service examination system in Imperial China to select candidates for the state bureaucracy. Although there were imperial exams as early as the Han dynasty, the system became the major path to office only in the mid-Tang dynasty, and remained so until its abolition in 1905. Since the exams were based on knowledge of the classics and literary style, not technical expertise, successful candidates were generalists who shared a common language and culture, one shared even by those who failed. This common culture helped to unify the empire and the ideal of achievement by merit gave legitimacy to imperial rule.

The examination system helped to shape China's intellectual, cultural, and political life. The increased reliance on the exam system was in part responsible for Tang dynasty shifting from a military aristocracy to a gentry class of scholar-bureaucrats. Starting with the Song dynasty, the system was regularized and developed into a roughly three-tiered ladder from local to provincial to court exams. The content was narrowed and fixed on texts of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. By the Ming dynasty, the highest degree, the jinshi (進士/进士), became essential for highest office, while there was a vast oversupply of holders of the initial degree, shengyuan (生員), who could not hope for office (however, even those degree-holders who lacked official appointment were granted certain types of social privilege, by virtue of their degrees). Critics charged that the system stifled creativity and created officials who dared not defy authority, yet the system also continued to promote cultural unity. Wealthy families, especially merchants, could opt into the system by educating their sons or purchasing degrees. In the 19th century, critics blamed the imperial system, and in the process its examinations, for China's lack of technical knowledge and its defeat by foreign powers.

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(Down) The Left Hand Path

by: Cage

* I was mislead, but once I found the way
I convinced a group of 19 that they should drown today
How I flipped it, clipped it after madness
Then the dead came back and haunted the wrong address
Cause they some stupid dead motherfuckers
Just like all you bitches, all Weathermen fluffers
And I get my shoes polished
By the best open mic emcees paying Timbaland's homage
In this day and age
If your deck ain't playing Cage
You probably disgruntled your Mrs. Funnel mayonnaise
Or I ain't get the right palm
My whole career been a upstream kayak through blood
My tools love, seeing the face of opponents
Seconds before they scull and wig savor the moment
Light up a Jay, cast silence over Bob
And hair stuck on the ground, shit I might as well rob the dead
[Chorus]
Hear this to the DJ then track the clubs
Lift the cover of my CD then see what acid does
Don't just stand there looking like some average thugs
If there's a chick standing next to you then grab her jugs
And if you ain't grabbin' the dough when they ass below
Then you come back to the crib wearin' a mask and gloves
Then you go back to the club stinkin' of ass and blood
Joke some kid up diggin' pockets and snatch the drugs
I a backwards education
Studied some chick with broken navigation
All this anti-Cage demonstratin'
I don't pray to Satan
I pray on agents makin'
Shapeable minds
Capable of firing traceable 9's
But not at any kegs that make they snout's see
I don't know what I wrote till' I spit and my mouth bleeds
Look, more patterns to market
Not even naming I'm standin' a walkin' target with shoppers that look at me
awkward
Granted I got a canon and my freakin' mouth's leakin'
Cause my crew put more dust in the air than house keeping
If you sleeping you're getting woke the fuck up
Like you're parents while you bought this and smoke the fuck up
With some much rhymin' in the NYC
I carry 9 millimeter in the back of Taxi
While I thought music prevented GOB servants
And a cycle of brain wash entertainments to detergent
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If my thought patterns
Brought palans to Walt Adams
And spit violence and death, then kids start gaddin'
Bloody ear canal
Hold it down with a towel
Cause by the time the verse hatch your stomach's hangin' out
We got a verse on the loose, let's get these mouth zippers
Buy six drinks a night then wake up and wear 'em as house slippers
I'm just fuckin' with you bitch, don't get offended
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Go ask your block
School body and bastard pops
How the fuck you get your hands on acid drops
Music television repellent for kids with extreme views
Start torchin' labs to light the team's fuse
I've gotten plottin', rotten ? been chewing
I keep my hands in it with no tangible influence
Whether a Clockwork Orange or a murderous night
A book of what my pops did to Tony Burgess's wife




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