On September 23, 2017, the “15thInternational Academic Seminar of Imperial Examination System and the Study ofImperial Examination” was co-hosted by the traditional Chinese culture researchcenter, the imperial cultural professional committee of the Chinese YanhuangCulture Research center, Faculty of arts in Wuhan University. The theme of thisconference is “Imperial Examination System and Chinese Culture”. Prof. LiuHaifeng, Dean of Institute of Education, Xiamen University, was invited toattend the meeting. In addition to the opening ceremony, he also made a specialreport titled “The Destruction and Protection of Imperial Cultural Relics”.Scholars from Wuhan University, Xiamen University, Tianjin University, CapitalNormal University, Beijing Normal University, East China Normal University,Chinese Academy of Social Sciences were also invited to this meeting, as wellas about 90 scholars from South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Submitted paperswere more than sixty.
In Professor Liu’s speech at the openingceremony, he pointed out that the imperial examination system has had asignificant and far-reaching impact on China's bureaucracy, culture, education,literature and social development during 1300 years, and has profoundimplications to the Chinese history and world civilization development. In1905, although the system abolition was valued at that time, the politicalturmoil, social disturbance, and cultural rupture brought about by it were farbeyond the imagination and prospect of people back then. There are manypositive effects on the abolition of the imperial examinations, but thenegative aspects also have an impact on the subsequent shocks, as a result,many overseas scholars have analyzed the term, and so as the scholars from themainland. Imperial examinations as a subject still possesses very broadresearch space till nowadays, since there are still a lot of imperialexaminations related papers that have not been utilized. As we no longermeasure the ancient history with the modern standards, and nolonger glance the ancient imperial examinations with bias standpoint,we areable to dig out plenty of new valuable matters. About five or six hundredsChinese research papers regarding imperial examination published each year. Itshows that the study of imperial examination system has a profound researchvalue and thus is one of the most promising research fields.
Inthe report of “The Destruction and Protection of Imperial Relics”, ProfessorLiu explained the imperial relics produced by the imperial examinations, whichare wide-range and huge in number. Unfortunately, after the abolition of the imperialexamination, the imperial examination was regarded as backward and decadent, abandoned as worn-out shoes, especially duringthe Cultural Revolution. As a result, during the 1950s, paper of the palaceexamination could be bought with only dozens of yuan but hard to get withseveral hundred thousand yuan now. Nowadays, in the era of the revival of theChinese nation, it is of great significance to protect and research culturalrelics, to preserve the traditional culture of the nation, to retain the imprintof civilization, including further understanding the extensive nature of theimperial examination.
In the seminar, our school's doctoralstudents Cai Zhengdao and Lou Zhouyang published their papers. In the trend ofcultural revival, cultural consciousness and cultural self-confidence, thestudy of imperial examinations has a far-reaching significance. This seminarlaid a firm foundation for this goal, and it was an important academicconference.
（Translator: Xie Zidi）
