The ancient Chinese stereotyped essays also got the names “shí wén”, “zhì yì”, “ zhì yì”, “ bā bǐ wén”, “ sì shū wén” etc., and readers who are waiting to learn Chinese in China can discover that they are a special writing style adopted during the imperial examinations during ancient China.
Due to the fact that the ancient Chinese stereotyped essays require the article should contain four sections of antithetical parallelism and parallelism in the text, and it is consisted of eight parts, therefore, for students taking interest in ancient Chinese stereotyped essays and have had been longing to study Chinese in China, it got the name “bā gǔ wén(eight duals,)” or the stereotyped writing.
It is noteworthy for poets when you want to study Mandarin in China that all the writing topics of ancient Chinese stereotyped essays were selected from two very ancient textbooks, namely the Four Books, and the Five Classics, and the content discussed should follow the notes of the Chinese ancient philosophers, in addition, and there are also rigid specifications on the structure and style.
It is important for foreign students when they learn Chinese in China that the full text is constituted of many different parts, namely the interpretation of the theme, the further explanation of the theme, the beginning of the argumentation, the transit to the problem analysis, the first part of the formal argument, the middle part of the formal argument, the posterior argument, the last part of the argument, and the overall conclusion part, which possess their respective functions. And it is not difficult for readers to discover when you study Chinese in China that the interpretation of the theme means to firstly figure out the theme at the beginning of the passage within only two words, and the second part is the further explanation of the theme, which is confined within three sentences and enjoys the function of a connecting link between the preceding and the following.
The third part is the beginning of the argumentation, which is aimed at the dwell into the main contents of the theme within ten sentences, and students’ foreign friends when you come to study Mandarin in China might be interested about the other four parts, which are collectively called four duals as well as the formal context.
As can be seen by those to learn Chinese in China ,The formal text is the detailed analysis in both pros and cons, which can be regarded as the most difficult part in the article, which had not only evaluated the candidates’ reading comprehension skills, as well as their abilities in antithetical writing and rhyming skills.
It should be noticed by the students longing to study Chinese in China that the four duals resemble four antithetical couplets which should be corresponding in the word property and the tones between the upper and the lower couplets, and the creating of so many antithetical parallels is not an easy task.
It is explainable for students who’d like to come to study Mandarin in China that the conclusion of the article should be confined within eight sentences; in addition, the ancient Chinese stereotyped essays also has requirements on the word numbers and the style of the sentences, etc.
It can be seen by foreign scholars who’d been to study Chinese in China that the writing in the ancient primitive examples and the metropolitan examination are confined to eight hundred words during the Ming Dynasty and five hundred fifty words during the reign of the emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, and seven hundred words after the reign of Qianlong. However, this type of ancient Chinese stereotyped essays is rigid in form and ivory-formed, which could hardly test the creativity of the candidates. And Readers who are interested in Chinese imperial test and would like to learn Chinese in China may find that it is not absolutely useless; it resembles the current standardized test from the perspective of the examinations.
In addition, it is also interesting for people who are interested about going abroad to study Mandarin in China that the candidates are easy to grasp the standards and requirements of the test to eliminate subjectivity, its writing techniques and briefness are also worth learning from.