Four occupations | Wikipedia audio article

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_occupations 00:01:44 1 Background 00:04:42 2 The shī (士) 00:04:51 2.1 Ancient Warrior class 00:06:48 2.2 Scholar-Officials 00:10:34 3 The nóng (农/農) 00:12:46 4 The gōng (工) 00:15:38 5 The shāng (商) 00:20:10 6 Outside China 00:20:36 6.1 Japan 00:23:04 6.2 Korea 00:24:49 6.3 Vietnam 00:25:47 6.4 Maritime Southeast Asia 00:28:26 7 Unclassified occupations 00:29:06 7.1 Imperial clan 00:30:54 7.2 Eunuchs 00:32:13 7.3 Religious 00:33:52 7.4 Military 00:35:57 7.5 Entertainers 00:38:06 7.6 Slaves 00:39:38 8 See also Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago. Learning by listening is a great way to: - increases imagination and understanding - improves your listening skills - improves your own spoken accent - learn while on the move - reduce eye strain Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone. Listen on Google Assistant through Extra Audio: https://assistant.google.com/services/invoke/uid/0000001a130b3f91 Other Wikipedia audio articles at: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wikipedia+tts Upload your own Wikipedia articles through: https://github.com/nodef/wikipedia-tts Speaking Rate: 0.9754916539419798 Voice name: en-AU-Wavenet-C "I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think." - Socrates SUMMARY ======= The four occupations (simplified Chinese: 士农工商; traditional Chinese: 士農工商) or "four categories of the people" (Chinese: 四民) was an occupation classification used in ancient China by either Confucian or Legalist scholars as far back as the late Zhou dynasty and is considered a central part of the fengjian social structure (c. 1046–256 BC). These were the shi (gentry scholars), the nong (peasant farmers), the gong (artisans and craftsmen), and the shang (merchants and traders). The four occupations were not always arranged in this order. The four categories were not socioeconomic classes; wealth and standing did not correspond to these categories, nor were they hereditary.The system did not factor in all social groups present in premodern Chinese society, and its broad categories were more an idealization than a practical reality. The commercialization of Chinese society in the Song and Ming periods further blurred the lines between these four occupations. The definition of the identity of the shi class changed over time—from warriors, to aristocratic scholars, and finally to scholar-bureaucrats. There was also a gradual fusion of the wealthy merchant and landholding gentry classes, culminating in the late Ming Dynasty. In some manner this system of social order was adopted throughout the Chinese cultural sphere. In Japanese it is called mibunsei (身分制) and is sometimes stated as "Shi, nō, kō, shō" (士農工商,, shinōkōshō), although in Japan it became a hereditary caste system. In Korean as "Sa, nong, gong, sang" (사농공상), and in Vietnamese as "Sĩ, nông, công, thương (士農工商). The main difference in adaptation was the definition of the shi (士).