Our Chinese friend here loves to talk about Indian Social Structures ....and loves throwing Crap by highlighting that India has a cast system that has existed for ages....but he fails to read Chinese History...I guess....
I think he should take time to learn about his Country and his Society before crapping about other countries and Cultures....
Here is a good piece of Information about China Social Structure and its evil....
The four occupations or "four categories of the people"
The four occupations or "four categories of the people"(Chinese: 仕農工商
was a hierarchic social class structure developed in ancient China by either
Confucian or Legalist scholars(
Similar to Indian Brahmins)as far back as the late Zhou Dynasty and is considered a central part of the Fengjian social structure (c. 1046–256 BCE). In descending order, these were the
shi (gentry scholars),the nong (peasant farmers), the gong (artisans and craftsmen), and the shang (merchants and traders).
In modern Chinese culture, a similar concept remains called the Four Shi (四師
, since each of the occupations ends with the Chinese character 師, meaning "master", here used in the sense of a master specialist. This shi however is unrelated to the shi of the four occupations. The four are doctors (醫師
, lawyers (律師
, engineers (工程師
and accountants (會計師
. Often the engineer is replaced with the architect (建築師
.
There were many social groups that were precariously excluded from the four broad categories in the social hierarchy. These included soldiers and guards, religious clergy and diviners, eunuchs and concubines, entertainers and courtiers, domestic servants and slaves, prostitutes, and low class laborers other than farmers and artisans. The emperor — embodying a heavenly mandate to judicial and executive authority — was on a social and legal tier above the gentry and the exam-drafted scholar-officials. Although his royal family and noble extended family were also highly respected, they did not command the same level of authority.
There were motives behind the aristocratic officials and later scholar-officials' classifying of certain groups in the hierarchy and leaving others out. The scholar-officials placed farmers as the second most prestigious group because the aristocratic officials and scholar-officials were landholders themselves, much like farmers (the ones who weren't tenant farmers or serfs). Both farmers and artisans were placed on a higher tier than merchants because the two former groups produced crops and manufactured goods, essential things needed by the whole of society. The merchants were seen as merely talented at business and trading, and were often seen as greedy and even parasitic to the needs of all other groups.
The social category of the soldier was left out of the social hierarchy due to the gentry scholars' embracing of intellectual cultivation (wen) and detest for violence (wu). The scholars did not want to legitimize those whose professions centered chiefly around violence, so to leave them out of the social hierarchy altogether was a means to keep them in an unrecognized and undistinguished social tier. Entertainers and courtiers were often dependents upon the wealthy or were associated with the often-perceived immoral[citation needed] pleasure grounds of urban entertainment districts. To give them official recognition would have given them more prestige. Although shamans and diviners in Bronze Age China had some authority as religious leaders in society, the scholars did not want religious leaders amassing too much power and influence like military strongmen (one example of this would be Zhang Jiao, who led a Taoist sect into open rebellion against the Han government's authority). There were also multiple persecutions of Buddhism in China, a lot of the contention being over Buddhist monasteries' exemption from government taxation, but also because later Neo-Confucian scholars saw Buddhism as an alien ideology and threat to the moral order of society. The court eunuchs were also viewed with some suspicion by the scholar-officials, since there were several instances in Chinese history where influential eunuchs came to dominate the emperor, his imperial court, and the whole of the central government. In an extreme example, the eunuch Wei Zhongxian (1568–1627) had his critics from the orthodox Confucian 'Donglin Society' tortured and killed while dominating the court of the Tianqi Emperor—Wei was dismissed by the next ruler and committed suicide.
Chinese:
Four occupations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Look Closely and you will know that similar Structure Exists in the so called India Cast System.
According to the ancient Hindu scriptures, there are four "varnas." The Bhagavad Gita says varnas are decided based on Guna and Karma. Manusmriti and some other shastras mention four varnas:
the Brahmins (teachers, scholars and priests), the Kshatriyas (kings and warriors), the Vaishyas (agriculturists and traders), and Shudras (service providers and artisans).
Now if India cast system is bad...what would you call Chinese social Division.
