HEIGHT OF GLORY
Asian city lecture topic
The city of Changan represented the Tang Empire at its height, in its great age of creativity. It was the center of political power and the home of the tastemakers, Arthur F. Wright said last night.
Wright, Charles Seymour professor of history at Yale University, spoke in a lecture sponsored by the history department and the East Asian committee.
He has a bachelor's degree from Stanford and both a master's and a doctor's degree from Harvard. He was a history professor at Stanford before joining the Yale faculty in 1959 and has held study fellowships in both Japan and China.
THE AUTHOR of several books on Chinese social and intellectual history, Wright said Changan was a planned city. He said that it was the center of Chinese cultural life during the Tang Empire. It covered 30 square miles and was walled and divided into three precincts.
Various areas of the city were devoted to business, recreation and imperial administration. The
Tang Empire was at its height from 700-756 A.D. At this time, Changan was not only "the center of power, culture and taste, but also the collective memory of the civilization." Wright said.
"Changan was admired and was the focus of ambitions, everyone wanted to be a part of it. But, there was no such thing as civic pride in the sense of a possessive regard on the part of the people," he said.
CIVIC IMPROVEMENTS fell on the shoulders of officials or imperial family or were acts of piety. "The city's residents were the emperor's subjects, not citizens."
Wright said that an imperial bureaucracy existed to control the emperor's subjects. The bureaucracy controlled religious life, hospitals and all forms of business activity. Administration existed in the form of two separate county governments.
"Defense and police activity were in the hands of the military." Wright said.
CITY LIFE revolved around the imperial family and the emperor's activities were channelled into three areas: ceremonial duties, political-administrative duties, and the pursuit of pleasure.
"The Son of Heaven," as the emperor was referred to, was weighted by tradition and taboos. The imperial bureaucracy grew larger as the dynasty grew older." Wright said.
The city's elite keyed their activities to those of the emperor. "Dawn audiences with the emperor were often required of them," he said.
"THE EBB and flow of power was all important in the city. There was an atmosphere of perpetual change. Families changed fortunes and rural young men took state examinations every year hoping for official careers," Wright said.
Officialdom's rank and file had to work longer hours and had simpler pleasures than did the elite. "They hoped for higher status and style of life, and wanted to help the Emperor put the world in order."
KU delegates attend war-protestors' meet
Anti-war movements are not limited to one part of the country, Richard Hill, Manhattan sophomore and chairman of the KU Committee to End the War in Viet Nam, said yesterday following a regional meeting of war protesters at Nashville, Tenn.
The meeting was called by the Southern Co-ordinating Committee to End the War in Viet Nam. About 100 students and civil rights workers attended the meeting which was held last weekend at a church near Fisk University in Nashville.
Hill and David Forbes, Aberdeen, Scotland, graduate student, represented KU at the meeting.
"WE WENT DOWN there as observers. It was very educational and a good experience for us. We met several intelligent and serious individuals there." Hill said.
During the course of the discussion at the meeting there was a
tendency to link the civil rights problems with the war in Viet Nam. Some civil rights workers think the situation in Viet Nam is parallel with the situation in the South. The lack of free elections was pointed out as an example, Hill said.
The problems of co-ordination and communication were also discussed in the two days of meetings. The groups were concerned with establishing as much communication as possible between the various anti-war groups.
THE ANTI-WAR movement has a definite goal which is to end the war. Co-operation with civil rights workers does exist in an informal way, said Hill.
"The anti-war movements bring social-consciousness more than anything else today. This task of building a movement to end the war is an engrossing task," he said.
The Buddhist monks and nuns, although they renounced worldly ambition, played a part in public observances as part of city life, Wright said. "They ran hospitals, lodging houses and pawn shops also," he said.
There were two markets in the city. The East Market had 220 business firms and dealt mainly with domestic goods. The West Market hosted the camel trains from foreign lands. "It was a busy, raucous and multi-lingual bazaar."
THE MERCHANTS functioned in three spheres. These were commerce, finance and administration having to do with the empire.
The common people of the city led "a gray and constricted life." They were strictly taxed and regimented and had no leisure areas to enjoy.
"Due to insurrection from within and provincial and regional trouble at the expense of the central power, the Tang Empire declined in the ninth century. The city was sacked and the emperor and people were forced to flee at this time. The city was left in physical ruin," Wright said.
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Council will study COSA revision
A resolution calling for a revision of the composition of the Council on Student Affairs (COSA) to allow more student representation will be introduced in tonight's All Student Council (ASC) meeting at 7 p.m. in the Kansas Union.
fairs. In order to make it a fair channel for the expression of student views, he thinks students should compose half of COSA.
The resolution will ask that one-half of the seats on COSA be given to students. COSA currently is composed of six students and 11 faculty and administration members.
HE SAID THAT at present, students have a minority voice on COSA, a council that is concerned wholly with student af-
Jim Klumpp, Coffeyville sophomore (Vox—small men's), and one of the sponsors of the resolution, said that he thinks COSA should be revised in order to make it a more effective body for student-administration dialogues.
A resolution asking for a clarification of the methods by which information in confidential student dossiers is given out will be introduced by Jack Harrington, Summit, N.J., junior (UP—Journalism), and Bill Reese, Hiawatha law student (UP—unmarried-unorganized).
A change in ASC rules will be proposed by Klumpp and Dick Darville, Shawne Mission junior (Vox—large men's).
The resolution was to have been presented at last week's meeting, but was kept off the floor due to lack of time.
2 Daily Kansan Tuesday, April 26, 1966
Smoothly smart