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\author{David Golombek}
\title{Qing China compared to Tokugawa Japan}
\date{\today}
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\maketitle

Given no background information, most people would naturally assume
that Japan would be dominated by it's larger neighbor China.  However, 
inspection of the two countries quickly reveals that there are many
fundamental differences between the two.  A brief look at the
concurrent Qing Dynasty in China and Tokugawa Period in Japan,
reveals great differences between the two societies, both social and
political.

To obtain an accurate view of social life in Qing China, one must be
sure to differentiate between the peasant class and the gentry.
Peasant social life was based around the nuclear family, with the
males of the family working the fields or similar labor and the women
staying in the house.  The gentry on the other hand had the financial
ability to keep extended family together, creating stem or even grand
families, where multiple generations lived together, as well as many
members of the same generation.  Men became members of the gentry by
passing one or more levels of the civil service examinations, at which
point they were exempt from physical labor.  Although hereditary
social status was abolished in the Qing dynasty, the finances needed
to learn enough to pass the examinations virtually served the same
purpose.  Females of the gentry usually married from one wealthy
family to another, often in the same region creating close
cross-family ties.  They fared little better than peasant women in
status, but had servants to free them from menial work around the
house.  Male gentry were expected to serve as moral examples for the
rest of their communities, usually including taking local government
positions if they were not already so involved.

Tokugawa Japan failed to match China in abolishing the hereditary
social class system.  People were locked into the occupation of their
parents, within the groups of samurai, peasant, artisan, and merchant.
Merchants were considered the lowest of all classes, samurai the
highest, and peasants without hope of ever advancing, due to the
hereditary system.  Note that samurai, despite the martial connotation, also
served as the scholars and politicians.  Despite these apparent
similarities between Japanese Samurai and Chinese Gentry, and the two
peasant groups, there remained important differences.  While Chinese
social interactions followed the ideas laid out in the "Classic of Filial
Piety" where the child is subservient to his parents, Japanese social
interactions were more a matter of give and take, with the child must
only show {\it Ko}, the equivalent of filial piety, when the parents
reciprocate with {\it On}, or benevolence.  Also, Samurai families
rarely joined into the grand families that were considered ideal by
the Chinese.  Finally, the Japanese used a system of primogeniture in
deciding to whom the family estate would go.  Thus, the eldest son
inherited everything, whereas in Chinese society the property was
split among sons.  

Chinese government during the Qing Dynasty featured the same strong
centralized that had been normal for China.  The emperor held all
power, although there were several levels of government beneath him.
China was broken into 17 provinces, each of which was broken further
into Counties.  Provinces were run by governors any counties were
run by magistrates, all successful testees in the civil servant
examinations.  Each Province had it's own army, but all were fully
under the control of the central government.  Although there usually
wasn't a prime minister, the emperor instead had a {\it Board of
Censors} whom helped him to oversee the nation.

Japanese government during the Tokugawa Period, while much more
centralized than in previous periods, did not approach the level of
unity found in China.  The Emperor was technically head of government,
being the Son of God, but had little real power.  Instead, the Shogun
controlled the government from his castle in Edo.  However, much of
the Shogun's power was limited by the fact that the Daimyos still
controlled their own armies.  The Shogun had the largest individual
army, but the combined armies of the Daimyo's greatly outnumbered his
own.  Thus, the Shogun merely {\it suggested} methods of governing to
the Daimyo's and left it to them to implement the actual governing.
Thus, Japan, while no longer a feudal government, was more an alliance
of Daimyos then a single country.  The Bakufu, or bureaucracy, took
the place of the Chinese civil service system, but had no similar
testing methods.

Thus, although conditions seem superficially similar in Qing China and
Tokugawa Japan, there were actually major differences.  An individual
in China or Japan might live an almost identical life, but the larger
social institutions, such as class structure and family relationships,
that formed a base for all families were quite different.  In
politics, this trend continued.  There were multiple levels of
government, fulfilling similar duties, but the interaction between
these levels was quite different.  


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