Figure 1.--These Chinese students in 1938 were in Chunking where the Chinese Givernment fled after Peking was taken by the Japanese. It is hard to make out much detail, but both boys and girls wear heavy coats. Interestingly, this photograph was taken by a Hitler Youth boy who was visiting with his father. The caption read "Een schoolklasse in Tsjoengking" (The available copy is a Dutch translation.) That meant "A school class in Chungking". Another Chinese photograph was captioned, "In de school van het ationalistische China wordt de kinderen de oude Chineesche afkeer van het [?soldaten...]. Which meant, "In the school of nationalist China children are being cured of the old Chinese aversion to being soldiers". (The boys are pictured working on a model tank.) That does sound like something the NAZIs would say. Click on the image for details about the German boy.

Chinese history dates back over 5,000 years and from the earliest times education was a concern of Chinese leaders. Over time scholars acquired great status in China, although they have at times been perceuted by various emperors and most recently by Red Guard zealots during the Cultural Revolution. Education under the Imperial system was reserved for a small minority and this did not change until the collapse of thE amnchu Dynasty in the early 20th century. HBC has begun to acquire some basic information about the Chinese educational system over time, but we stull have very limited information on chronological trends in Chinese schoolwear and uniforms.

Imperial Dynasties

Chinese history dates back over 5,000 years to about 3000 BC, although much of the country's early history is shrouded in lengend rather than historical fact. The beginning of a formal education system can first be identified in the 16th century BC or the later Shang Dynasty (1523-1027 BC). Presumably there were earlier antecedents, but they are lost to history. Education was the destinct privilege of the small elite class. The principal purpose was to train boys for imperial givernment service. From an eraly period, the Chinese curriculum focused on the "Six Arts": Rites, Music, Archery, Chairot-Riding, History, and Mathematics. Confucius (551-479 BC) helped direct the Chinese curriculum to the study of the The Four Books and The Five Classics. These classical volumes provided an outline of an entire educational and scocial system. They included the principles of society and government, as well as codes for personal conduct. Taken together they are findamental works explaining Confucian philosophy. Confuucianism was to dominate the Chinese view of life and more specifically the approach toward education until the victory of the Communist Revolution in 1949.

The Manchus

The last Ming emperor in 1643 employed the warlike Manchus from the northeast to defend China from the Central Asian Tatars. A Manchu prince established himself in Peking, and, in 1644, on the suicide of the last Ming emperor, took the imperial throne, founding the last royal dynasty of China. We mention them separately because they were the more recent and because it was the Mnachus whonwere forced to confront the Europeans, especially in the 19th century. After the Opium War and the subsequent granting of concessions to European powers, schools in the modern sence were established in China, primarily by Christian missionary societies. Most Chinese officials looked upon the Western influence, including the missionaries and schools with humiliation and suspicion. Throughout the 19th century, other than the Christian missionary schools, there was no effort to promote literacy for the masses in China. The Confuscian civil service examinations werestill the only way of entering the imperial civil service. This of course was one reason that Chinese officials, all trained in the Confuscian system, were so resistant to any change in the educational system. As is the case for the Muslim world today, the response of many Chinese officials including the the Dowger Emperess in the late 19th century was to turn inward and reject all contacts with the West. The result was even more military reversals in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and by a coalition of Western Powers on the Boxer Rebellion (1900-01). These humiliating defeats signaled the end of the Manchu Dynasty convincing many younger Chinese that the Manchus were incapable of dealing with te challenge from the West.

Republic of China

When the Republic of China was established in 1911, modern schools on the European, American and Japanese educational models were operating in China. Republican officials first turned to the Japanese because thaey had already adapted Western education for their domestic education system. Many Chinese scholars were trained in Japan. After World War I (1914-18) when Japanese designs on China became increasingly manifest, Jaoanese officuials turned to a more American educational model. The question of eduaction, however, was the subject of hotly contested debates and concerning the role Western-style educational systems in China. The debates were part of the larger debate concerning the future of China. The Bolshevick Revolution in Russia (1917) was an inspiration for many young Chinese and the Communist Part was founded (1921). The Communists until 1927 were part of the Kuomintung Pary founded by Sun Yat-sen and they had their own ideas about educational policy. Japan gradually gained control over Manchuria--northeastern China. The Japanese in 1931? set up a pupet government in Manchurai which they called Manchuko. They installed the last Manchu Emperor Pu-yi as a figurehead ruler. The Japanese invaded China proper in 1937 launching a war. As China mustered its resources to fight the Japanese, debates over education and other domestic isues were shelved. We note some children in Chunking during the 1930s wearing plain long pants uniforms. We do not know how common that was in China.

People's Republic

The Chinese Civil War (1927-49) ended with the Communists defeating Chang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces in 1948-49. Chang retired to Taiwan. The Communist's founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) and inititiated fundamental educational reforms, inituially slavishly using a Soviet model. Here the Comminists did not engage in the extensive debate earlier about importing foreign models. The simply adopted the Soviet model whole scale. The Chinese Government for the first time devoted considerable attention to developing a mass educational system. Great attention was given to university-level education. An analysis of education in China has to be dibided into three destinct periods: early PRC era, the Cultural Revolution, and the modern reform era. Mahor changes in the educational system ocurred during these three very different periods. Chinese school children in the 2000s all wear uniforms. The uniforms, however, are quite different. There is no national style, rather each school selects its on uniform. There appear to be regional differences. A HBC reader who has provided information has only been to Peking, Dalian, Suzhou and Shanghai. These are all big cities (between 1 and 15 million) in the prosperous eastern part of the country. I don’t think they are representative of the rural areas of the West and South. Some schools in the less prosperous areas may not require uniforms. The uniforms are seasonal, depending on where the school is located in China. The summer uniforms usually consist of short pants and a shirt in the same style, sometimes in quite bright colors. Sailor collars are frequent for girls. One favourite style is a colored suit with piping in white or a contrasting color. Children used to wear their school uniforms with red Young Pioneer scarves, but this is now less common.

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Created: August 15, 2002
Last updated: August 29, 2002