高考这件事明明是一年一度，却每年都能营造出一种盛况难逢的气氛。各大媒体恨不得在第一时间跟着写一遍高考作文，或者翻出过去随意哪篇旧作颇为牵强地声称自己押中了作文题目。虽然我个人觉得只有在声明“我这是在押题”之后预测的内容才算是“押题”，但是我也十分理解各位同行蹭热度的行为，毕竟，如果对如此热点不作出积极反应会显得缺乏职业素养。所以，基本原则大概应该是，把文章写得有趣一点。
搜寻 一下过去写过的高考相关的文章，发现只有这么一篇“古代高考落榜生”的相关内容，似乎我不仅蹭热度，还有标题党之嫌——当然，如果坚持这是一种幽默，我似乎也可以心安理得。总之，由于杂志曾经对中国高考现状做过深度报道，所以我也只是在网站上更新了一篇古代科举落榜生盘点。内容不算新鲜，但是还算丰富详细，作为网站的文章来说，也算是颇具趣味。
Gaokao, the university entrance examination, drives the attention of people every year, from the preparation, the motivation, to the recruiting competition. In China many people consider Gaokao the most effective and fairest way to change density. In ancient times, theimperial examination served the same purpose.
There is an old Chinese expression “He who excels in study, can follow an official career (学而优则仕)”, denoting that in the traditional value system, to be a government official was the final goal and the best way for self-fulfillment. The imperial examination, also known as keju (科举), was designed to select officials for the government from scholars. However, whatever exam form it is, there were always talented candidates left out. In keju’s long history, many great people failed this fate-deciding exam but established marvellous achievements in other fields.
Artist: Tang Bohu (唐伯虎)
Image courtesy of shangdu.com
TangYin (唐寅), or Tang Bohu (唐伯虎), was a Chinese scholar, painter, calligrapher, and poet in the Ming Dynasty. His life story has become a part of popular lore and was adapted into movies and TV plays. To some extent, his legendary story started with his failure in the imperial exam.
Known as a brilliant scholar at a young age after coming first in the provincial examinations, Tang went to the capital to partake in the national examinations. Before the exam started, Tang and his friend Xu Jing visited an official surnamed Cheng, who later held the examination that year. During the exam, Tang and Xu were the only two people who gave the perfect answer to a difficult question. However, Tang and Xu were accused of bribing Cheng to give them the examination questions in advance. All of them three were jailed. Afterwards, Tang returned to his hometown with his hopes of being an official dashed forever and his lifestyle went in another direction.
In those folktales about him, Tang was always depicted as a rebellious, unconventional, and romantic guy, who drank and flirted with girls all day, looked down upon powerful people, and pursued freedom. But in reality, he lived a poor life, making a living by selling his paintings. In order to avoid a political whirlpool, he even pretended to be crazy.
But such a miserable life didn’t stop him from becoming a great artist. His paintings, especially landscapes, exhibit his outstanding artistic skills and profound insight. He was listed as one of the “Four Masters of Ming dynasty (明四家)” , which was made up of four prominent painters. As a poet, he was also one of the “Four Literary Masters of the Wuzhong Region (吴中四大才子)”.
Poets: Du Fu (杜甫) and Zhang Ji (张继)
Image depicts Du Fu, courtesy of ce.cn
There were many famous poets who failed the keju. Du Fu, one of the greatest poets in Chinese history, experienced a failure in the exam for a very unusual reason.
In 747, Tang Dynasty, Du took part in the examination. However, the premier Li Linfu (李林甫), a corrupt official, stepped into this exam. In case any candidates would become a threat to his political career, he suggested all examinees should be “filtered” carefully. After a series of tests, it turned out that not even one was admitted. Such an unprecedented situation was explained by Li, as “it was because the emperor was so wise that all the talents in the country had already been recruited with no others left (野无遗贤)”.
Though he failed the exam, Du’s achievements in poetry was unmatched. He was called “Poet-Sage” by critics, considered as a prominent representative of Chinese realistic poets and enjoyed an irreplaceable place in Chinese literary history. Du completed around 1500 poems. Since many of his works revealed real life at that time, his poems were called “poetic history”.
Different from Du, Zhang Ji perhaps couldn’t be regarded as a famous poet. But one of his works “A Night Mooring By Maple Bridge (枫桥夜泊)” is known by almost every Chinese person. The great masterpiece was created just after Zhang failed the imperial examination and went on a journey to Suzhou. When he passed the Hanshan Temple, all the stifling sorrow and frustration burst out and transferred into inspiration. Zhang wrote:
月落乌啼霜满天，
江枫渔火对愁眠。
姑苏城外寒山寺，
夜半钟声到客船。
Moon’s down, crows cry and frost fills all the sky;
By maples and boat lights, I sleepless lie.
Outside Suzhou Hanshan Temple is in sight;
Its ringing bells reach my boat at midnight.
This sad but beautiful poem made Zhang’s name, and thanks to his mention, Hanshan Temple also became a tourist attraction.
Image depicts “A Night Mooring By Maple Bridge”, courtesy of blog.sina.com
Doctor: Li Shizhen (李时珍)
Image courtesy of sssc.cn
An old Chinese expression said that “if I can’t become a good premier, I would like to be a great doctor (不为良相，愿为良医)”.
When Li Shizhen, a 23-year-old young man in the Ming Dynasty, failed the keju for a third time, he decided to follow this saying. Completely giving up his hopes of becoming an official, Li devoted his life to medicine. He spent 27 years walking around China to study different kinds of herbs and wrote his book Compendium of Materia Medica (《本草纲目》). This book collected more than 1,800 Chinese medicines, including 1,100 illustrations and 11,000 prescriptions, and described the type, form, flavor, nature, and application in disease treatment. It has been translated into different languages and remains as the most complete and comprehensive medical book ever written in the history of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).
Novelists: Wu Chengen (吴承恩), Wu Jingzi (吴敬梓), and Pu Songling (蒲松龄)
Chinese literature should also thank the imperial examination for refusing some unqualified official candidates, because many of them became super stars in the Chinese literary world with their excellent traditional novels.
Image of Wu Cheng’en, courtesy of cnhubei.com
Wu took the keju test in 1531 but failed, though his peer—who wasn’t as talented as him—passed. In the later years, Wu kept working hard and tried several more times, but always failed. While poverty-stricken and depressed, he finished the novel Journey to the West (《西游记》), one of the “Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature”. Today, nobody remembers who ranked first in those examinations, but almost everyone in China has heard of Wu and loved Journey to the West.
Image of Wu Jingzi, courtesy of tgljw.com
Wu Jingzi was born to a rich family, whose father was an official. After failing the imperial exam, Wu began to doubt the reasonableness and the meaning of the keju system, and refused to take it again. Wu hated the phenomenon that people were all trying to chase fame and fortune through keju, so he satirized and mocked those people in his book The Scholars (《儒林外史》), which was considered a classic and prime work of satirical novels in Chinese literature.
Image of Pu Songling, courtesy of zhshmrw.com
Different to Wu Jingzi, Pu Songling, was much more enthusiastic about keju. In his life, Pu sat for the exams for four times, but failed every time. It was not until he was 71 years old when he was awarded a degree. But that was for his literary achievements, not because he passed the exam. Making a living as a tutor, Pu spent his spare time collecting strange stories, which were filled with magical foxes,ghost, scholars, jiangshi, Taoist exorcists, and beasts. These stories were published later in Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio （《聊斋志异》), and regarded as one of the greatest Chinese classics that exposed the dark side of human nature and society.
So, remember that all roads lead to Rome. Failure in an exam sometimes really means nothing, no matter how important the exam seems now.
Mastery Image courtesy of haosou.com
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