When Li Xueqin was born in Beijing on 28 March, 1933, the Republic of China was in power, with its capital in Nanjing, and the Japanese occupied Manchuria. On 29 July 1937 Japanese troops invaded Beijing and brought it under control in little more than a week. The occupation of Beijing lasted until the Japanese surrender in August 1945. The People's Liberation Army entered Beijing in the end of January of 1949 and on 1 October 1949, when Li Xueqin was sixteen, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. This period of warfare was followed by periods of political turmoil which often centered around intellectuals—thought reform in the early fifties, the anti-rightest campaigns and the Great Leap Forward of the late fifties and early sixties, the Cultural Revolution from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies.

The following interview with Li Xueqin took place at his home in the Tsinghua University campus on June 5, 2012. In the early 1980s, I was a graduate student at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and I first became acquainted with Li when he was on a visit to SOAS. My interview began with questions about Li's experiences travelling to the West soon after China first opened up and his contributions towards building a bridge between the Chinese and Western academic communities and his.

This article argues that the Period V ritual postface associated with the five-ritual cycle in oracle bone inscriptions is prospective in nature.

The recent discovery of an unusual ninth century B.C.E. bronze inscription dedicated to Yu as a founder deity has reopened discussions regarding the historicity of legendary figures. This article examines the occult role of this figure in Zhou society and suggests that the inscription be read as a song used in a harvest ceremony of thanksgiving to Yu. The author suggests that Yu once functioned along the same lines as Houji, as both ancestral founder and earth deity, but was eventually suppressed in favor of Houji.

This article discusses some of the major issues that arise in the reconstruction and interpretation of the Suigong xu inscription, including a discussion of the authenticity issue from the perspective of Western Zhou calligraphy, and provides a contextual reconstruction of the bronze inscription as well as an English translation. The author argues that the Suigong xu calligraphy is consistent with the typical calligraphic style of the late Western Zhou bronze inscriptions represented by the Sanshi pan and Maogong ding rather than with the style of the middle Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, in particular, those dated to the reign of King Gong. It also argues that the main body of the Suigong xu inscription consists of two paragraphs that end with the two exclamatory sentences jue wei wei de 厥亹唯德 and with (jue) hungou yi wei xie tian (厥) 婚媾亦唯協天 respectively, and that both sentences share the same sentence structure jue 厥 … wei 唯 …

This article aims at providing a Chinese-English reference source for researchers studying the inscription on a bronze vessel published in 2002, sometimes called the X Gong xu because the name of lord (gong) is transcribed by some scholars as Sui 遂 and by others as Bin 豳. It is a compilation of the transcriptions and interpretations of each character in the inscription by nineteen scholars in the field. It also provides transcriptions and English translations of the inscription in its entirety.

This study traces the origins and development of the concept of Li 理 (Pattern) in early Chinese Cosmology, locating its foundation in the root metaphor derived from the natural lines or veins along which a block of jade can be split by a skilled artisan. From this relatively concrete image, li comes to eventually represent in Daoist cosmology the more abstract quality of the natural patterns or structures within the universe along which all phenomena move and interact with one another without the interference of human beings. After examining how early Confucian works emphasize the more abstract and derivative qualities of order and structure, we see that the likely Yangist authors in the Lüshi chunqiu return to the original metaphor of veins in jade but, instead, apply this to the veins through which the qi circulates through the human body.

We then see how this metaphor is expanded beyond the human body in the classical Daoist texts to come to represent the natural guidelines both within all phenomena and those that guide their movements within the cosmos. Within phenomena these include such varied things as the structures for the generation and expression of emotions within human beings as well as the natural lines along which the butcher's chopper passes in order to cleave oxen. In Daoist inner cultivation literature it is these patterns with which sages accord so that their spontaneous actions are completely in harmony with the greater forces of the cosmos. Only after long practice of the apophatic contemplative methods that include concentrating on one breathing and emptying out the normal contents of consciousness can the sage be able to accomplish this goal of “taking no action yet leaving nothing undone.” Thus the concept of li as these natural guidelines comes to serve as an explanation for why this classical Daoist dictum is effective in the world.

Finally, the Huainanzi contains the most sophisticated and sustained usages of the concept of li as the natural patterns and guidelines in the cosmos arguing that complying with them is the key to a genuinely contented life.

Since the 1970s scholars in China have identified mo 貘 as the ancient name for the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). I concur with this identification and I trace the source of the modern misidentification of mo as the Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus) to the article by Jean Pierre Abel-Rémusat published in 1824. Abel-Rémusat based his identification on woodblock drawings of the mo depicted as the quadripartite animal first described by Bo Juyi in the ninth century: elephant trunk, rhinoceros eyes, cow tail, tiger paws. Xu Shen (ca. 55–ca. 149) in the Shuowen jiezi compared mo to the bear, as did all descriptions of mo before Bo Juyi. Bo Juyi's description reflects new ideas about mo in medieval culture, and cannot be used as evidence of the animal named mo in early China. As a consequence of Abel-Rémusat's mistaken identification – which was immediately accepted in Western zoology – the word mo lost its original meaning and became the word for tapir in modern Chinese and Japanese. Examination of textual and zooarchaeological evidence confirms the giant panda as the original referent of mo. Although the tapir inhabited the region of China in prehistory there is no evidence of the tapir in China in historical times.

This paper compares how ancient Chinese sources discussed the causes and treatment of ailments suffered by the elite. It focuses on the Zuozhuan account of the long-term illness of Duke Ping of Jin (r. 557–532 B.C.E.) but contextualizes this passage by introducing as well other examples of stories—found in transmitted literature as well as in recently excavated manuscripts—about sick rulers who consulted with a sage in search of a cure for their troubles. The Zuozhuan passage is also viewed in the light of the Yin shu, an excavated text written on bamboo strips that is concerned with the treatment of elite ailments. A comparison of the two sources suggests that the claim in the Zuozhuan that Duke Ping's illness was “incurable” was not simply based on the medical knowledge and practices of the day.

This paper reconsiders the dating of the Houma covenant texts in light of new findings from the Wenxian covenant texts. Dating of the Houma covenants has focused on matching certain names found in the Houma covenants to names and events in historical texts. These include the name of the sanctioning spirit invoked in the covenants, and that of the covenant lord overseeing the covenants. I argue that the sanctioning spirit is not, as is often proposed, a former lord of Jin, but a mountain spirit called Lord Yue, and, as such, has no bearing on the dating of the texts. I further argue that the use of the personal name of a Han lineage leader in the Wenxian covenants strongly supports the identification of the figure referred to as jia 嘉 in the Houma texts as the historical Zhao Jia (Zhao Huan Zi). I suggest that the mention of Zhao Jia in the recently published Chu-slips Xinian implies that Zhao Jia came to the leadership of the Zhao lineage around 442 B.C.E., well before 424 B.C.E., the date of his single-year reign reported in the Shi ji. I conclude that the Houma covenants include materials that may be linked to the Zhao Wu incident of the early fifth-century B.C.E., but that those materials in which Zhao Jia is named as the covenant lord probably date to sometime between 442 and 424 B.C.E.

Among the 190 articles in the so-called “Answers to questions about the Qin Laws/Statutes” (Falü dawen 法律答問) written on bamboo strips excavated from a tomb at Shuihudi in Yunmeng County, Hubei Province, the one concerning Qin's citizenship particularly attracts my attention. It says: “What is the meaning of a ‘Xia child’? (A child born of a) father from a vassal state, and a Qin mother.” (可 [何] 謂夏子? 臣邦父、秦母 謂也). In this paper, I argue that this article, which is perhaps surprising in regard to the patriarchal mentality dominating the Chinese world, can be explained by the historical, political and military context of the Qin state in the 3rd Century B.C.E. and by its global strategy of infiltrating and “nibbling at” its protectorates.

This essay introduces the newly published Qin documents from levels 5, 6, and 8 of Well no. 1, Liye, Hunan province, the ancient Qianling County of the Qin dynasty, as presented in two 2012 works, Liye Qin jian (yi) 里耶秦簡 (壹) and Liye Qin jiandu jiaoshi (di yi juan) 里耶秦簡牘校釋 (第一卷), ed. Chen Wei 陳偉, together with some of the documents on display in the Liye Qin jian bowuguan (Liye Museum of Qin Slips). It discusses some of the problems in those two publications, the nature of the documents; dating issues; military logistics; the Qin legal system as revealed in the documents, especially those relating to fines and punishments, rewards, rations for convicts, status distinctions and the purchase of rank, forms for writing up documents, and Qin ordinances (ling 令); and materials relating to the religious activities of local officials in Qianling County. It concludes by offering a speculation on why the documents were thrown into the well as the Qin dynasty began to crumble.

The discovery in 1977 at Fuyang (Anhui province) of several mantic instruments dating from the beginning of Western Han (ca. 165 B.C.E.) marked a decisive change in modern studies of early Chinese science, divination, and religion, many of which now regard the shi 式 as the material basis for modes of thought in Warring States, Qin, and Han culture. While the examples of devices discovered to date have provided a valuable interpretative key to early Chinese schematic cosmography, the meaning of the term shi remains a source of perplexity as its connotations are imprecise and can vary from one author to the next. Whether this change is an accurate representation of ideas about the shi in pre-Han and Han is precisely the issue at stake in the present paper. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) the existence during the Han of several instruments of the shi type no longer permits the use of the term to refer to a singular and unique device, even though evidence drawn from the received texts tends to show the contrary; (2) the multiple meanings of the term shi, as well as the gradual shift between its strict sense as mantic device (shipan 式盤) and its broad sense as calendrical astrology (shizhan 式占) give rise to serious misunderstandings when it is used alone; (3) since these mantic devices are primarily offshoots of pre-Han and early Han astrographic and calendrical theories, the patterns and designs that appear on their surface (shitu 式圖) need to be considered within the larger scope of the spatial representations of calendrical time cycles, of which the excavated texts and artifacts now offer numerous examples; (4) the widespread use of the term shi-method (shifa 式法) in modern studies when referring to some mantic techniques described in the manuscripts raises the interesting question of how to delineate boundaries between the early developments in calendrical astrology and the hemerological practices in general.

While Yuandi's reign is not known as a period of imperial expansion, discussions of the major questions of the concept of imperial government and the administrative problems of the day were to be of long-lasting influence. The views put forward by scholars and officials such as Xiao Wangzhi, Gong Yu, Wei Xuancheng, Kuang Heng, Liu Xiang and Yi Feng led the way to the open adoption of Zhou as the ideal which Wang Mang and subsequent emperors claimed to follow. Yuandi himself played little part in government; his advisors raised matters of religious cults, economic practice, the standards of officials, the extravagance of the palace, relations with non-Han leaders, and the value of holding outlying parts of the empire.

This paper is a preliminary attempt at a history of the western world's interest in Chinese currency and numismatics. It focuses on Western language publications of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and pays particular attention to the backgrounds of the authors of those publications on the grounds that they were the first people to shape the field in Europe and the USA.