Culture Insider: Teachers' Day in ancient China
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Culture Insider: Teachers' Day in ancient China
A portrait of Confucius (551-479 BC) [Photo provided to China Daily]
Today is the 40th Chinese Teachers' Day – a festival celebrating the 2,300-year tradition of respecting teachers and education in China. It's similar to the birthday of Confucius or the birthday of private school tutor in ancient China.
The history of Teachers' Day traces back to the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). According to record, during the Han (202 BC–AD 220) and Jin (1115-1234) dynasties, on August 27 each year, the birthday of Confucius, the emperor would go to Confucius' temple and pay tribute to the ancient philosopher followed by court officials, and would also invite royal teachers to the imperial court for a banquet.
Local officials followed the court, and on this day, teachers around the nation enjoyed a day's vacation and were given dried meat as gifts.
The capital, all states and counties would also stage sacrificial ceremonies to worship Confucius, with local chiefs or the emperor leading rituals. Excellent-performed teachers would be chosen from academies and learning institutions nationwide, reporting to the royal court and given 500 liang (两) silver coins as awards.
Until the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the sacrificial ceremony, on August 27, was of a larger scale. The teachers' salaries in schools and academies around the nation were raised, and well-performing teachers would be conferred official titles or promoted to higher positions.
Students present handmade cards for the Teachers' Day in Huaibei city, Anhui province, Sept 9, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]
How were gifts presented to teachers in ancient China?
Normally, an ancient teacher's income included salary, accommodation and festival gifts. There was no fixed tuition fee, generally the parents paid teachers according to their household income. Both money and basic foodstuff could be paid in exchange for tuition.
In private schools, teachers always received money or gifts from the host family at certain festivals or at the beginning and end of each semester.
The festivals in which teachers received gifts varied from region to region, while the most valued ones were the Duanwu, Mid-autumn and Chinese New Year festivals, as well as Confucius' birthday and the private tutor's birthday.
Among all the gift-giving festivals, the first meeting gift was a must. When students met their private tutors for the first time, they had to kneel down to Confucius' spirit tablet and then to their private tutor, before presenting a "gift".
A teacher teaches a child to write the Chinese character during a ceremony celebrating the Teachers' Day in Zhangye city, Gansu province, Sept 10, 2021. [Photo/SIPA]
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I'm about a month late posting this article, Teachers' Day was about a month ago - September 10th. The teachers at the private high school where I taught for 6 years when I first came to China were given a day off and a case of beer, which, because I'm not much of drinker, took me about the whole year to finish.
In China, as opposed to what might often not be the case in Canada and America, teachers are treated with very high respect by their pupils, their parents and others. You would not find a "Blackboard Jungle" in China.
I have heard that, unlike the U.S., teachers are very highly respected in China. (And of course edcuation is highly repsected-- much more so than in countries such as the U.S.).
For me, teaching was an incredibly rewarding experience, and the respect I received was greater than I had ever known. But the experience that will remain with me as long as I live was when I accompanied some school staff when I was teaching in Chengdu to visit a newly built school in the remote Sichuan mountains where the worst of the massive 2008 earthquake happened, bringing gifts for the students who had survived, many of the students lined up to get my autograph as I was the first white man they ever saw. My heart went out to them to the extent that I had the biggest desire to stay there and teach them, but it wasn't a practical thing for me to do.