Emperor Shen’s New Groove: Song Dynasty Exam Reform

Have you ever heard about China’s intense exam culture? Much like its East Asian counterparts, China both loves and loves to hates its exam system. The most infamous, the Gaokao, determines the testtaker’s college choice, and even major in some cases.

What if we told you that this exam culture had more than a thousand years of history? In today’s podcast, we’re going to take a close look at an exam from the Song Dynasty, which created major reforms in the exam system and led to an overhaul of the civil service. Why were such reforms needed? How did exams play into them? If you want to know the answers to these and other questions, take a listen.