The Rhythms of Imperial Society (Antiquity – ca. 1840)

I. The Agrarian Worldview

Before the modern era, social life in China was governed by two parallel yet distinct systems of time. One was the nature-driven rhythm followed by the vast agricultural population; the other was the highly structured and state-regulated system that operated within the ruling scholar-official class.

For the overwhelming majority of the population in the imperial period, “work” was not a category separate from life but an activity deeply integrated with natural cycles. This rhythm was both cyclical and punctuated by a series of collective social and ritual activities.

1.1 “Work at Sunrise Rest at Sunset”: The Mandate of the Sun and Seasons

The foundation of life in traditional agrarian society was determined by the rising and setting of the sun and the changing of the seasons. This was not a choice but a necessity dictated by pre-industrial technological conditions. The concept of time itself was concrete, inextricably linked to natural phenomena. For instance, the oracle bone script for the character “旦” (dàn, dawn) depicts the sun rising above the horizon. The day was divided into descriptive periods like “cock’s crow” or “meal time” (食时, shí shí), rather than abstract, numbered hours.

Agricultural production was the economic lifeblood of the state. From the three-person “collaborative tilling” (协田, xié tián) of the Shang dynasty to the two-person “paired plowing” (耦耕, ǒu gēng) of the Zhou dynasty, the rhythm of planting and harvesting was a paramount concern of the state, a matter of such importance that monarchs would personally inspect agricultural activities. The entire calendrical system was established with the fundamental purpose of predicting and managing these natural cycles, thereby making the future knowable and aligning human activity with the “Mandate of Heaven.”

1.2 Community and Repose

In the agrarian context, “rest” was not personal leisure in the modern sense but a series of structured social and ritual activities. The lives of villagers revolved around the village, with their social sphere limited to the “ten-li, eight-village” area one could travel to and from within a single day. Collective respites from labor were found in village markets, temple fairs, and traditional festivals. These events were not merely venues for commerce but crucial moments for maintaining social bonds and reaffirming community identity.

Local organizations played a key role in structuring rural social life. The “Yiyi” (义邑) or “Fayi” (法义) groups of the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the “Yi,” “She,” or “Hui” associations of the Tang and Song dynasties, all undertook functions such as organizing religious activities (e.g., commissioning Buddhist statues), building public facilities, and promoting ethical morality. They effectively constructed a framework for collective life beyond the direct jurisdiction of the state. Furthermore, folk entertainment like local opera and storytelling often featured Confucian ethics or Buddhist tales of karma, such as “Mulian Rescues His Mother” or the “Chanting of the Ten Kings,” providing both amusement and social edification during people’s leisure time.

This rhythm of life, governed by nature’s standards, reflected a holistic worldview of “harmony between Heaven and humanity” (天人合一, tiān rén hé yī). Work, life, social obligations, and religious rituals were not strictly demarcated. Time was not a linear resource to be “spent” or “saved,” but a life cycle with which one had to live in harmony. The essence of “rest” was not individual freedom but the fulfillment of collective social and ritual responsibilities, which in turn reinforced the community’s structure and its connection to the cosmic order. The state’s profound concern for agricultural output and its promotion of social-moral education through local elites and gentry reveal a core governance strategy: to ensure a stable tax base and long-term social tranquility by consolidating a predictable, stable, and morally ordered agricultural society. Therefore, the seemingly “timeless” rhythm of the countryside was, to a significant extent, the product of meticulous statecraft aimed at stability and productivity.

II. The Regulated World: The Scholar-Official Class

In stark contrast to the fluid, nature-attuned rhythm of the peasantry, the scholar-official class operated within a highly structured, artificial temporal framework created and enforced by the state.

2.1 The Structure of Bureaucratic Work

A formal system of work was a prerequisite for the functioning of the empire’s complex administrative apparatus. This bureaucratic system evolved from the “Three Dukes and Nine Ministers” (三公九卿, sāngōng jiǔqīng) system of the Qin and Han dynasties, where power was highly concentrated in the chancellor, to the “Three Departments and Six Ministries” (三省六部, sānshěng liùbù) system of the Tang and Song dynasties, which featured a more refined division of labor and greater checks and balances. In later dynasties, especially after the Ming founder Emperor Taizu (Zhu Yuanzhang) abolished the chancellorship and established the Grand Secretariat, imperial power reached its zenith, placing officials under more direct and stringent monarchical supervision. This evolution of the administrative system directly impacted the workload and pressure on officials.

Concurrently, the state developed increasingly sophisticated mechanisms for selecting officials, evolving from early hereditary systems and recommendation-based systems (like the chájǔ and zhēngpì) to the examination-centric civil service examination system (科举, kējǔ) after the Sui and Tang dynasties. This created a professional administrative class whose entire life cycle was strictly regulated by state statutes.

2.2 The Evolution of the Official Leave System: From “xiūmù” to “xúnxiū”

• Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE): The first standardized, routine leave system in Chinese history was the “xiūmù” (休沐), a one-day rest after every five days of work. “Xiūmù” literally means “to rest and bathe,” which reflects not only its practical function of personal hygiene but also its close connection to the living arrangements of officials at the time. Han officials typically resided within their government offices, and the five-day leave allowed them to return home to reunite with their families.
• Tang Dynasty (618–907) to Qing Dynasty (1644–1912): The system was adjusted to “xúnxiū” (旬休), a one-day rest after every ten days of work. The three rest days in a month were known as the upper, middle, and lower “xuàn” (浣, a term for washing). This reduction in leave frequency was a direct consequence of changes in officials’ living arrangements. From the Tang dynasty onwards, officials generally lived in their own homes, commuting daily between their residence and the government office. Since they were no longer separated from their families for long periods, the state deemed the more frequent “xiūmù” unnecessary. This change was also seen as a measure to counteract the perceived decrease in efficiency caused by daily commuting.
• Ming and Qing Dynasties: Although the “xúnxiū” system continued, the total number of holidays was reduced. This reflected both the increasingly heavy burden of government affairs and the macroscopic trend of ever-strengthening imperial authority and tightening autocracy.

2.3 A Calendar of Celebrations and Obligations: Festivals and Personal Leave

In addition to routine leave, officials enjoyed a very generous system of festival holidays and personal leave.

• Festival Holidays:
  • The Golden Age of the Tang and Song: This was the “golden age” of official holidays. Major festivals like the New Year (元日, Yuánrì), Winter Solstice (冬至, Dōngzhì), and the Cold Food Festival (寒食, Hánshí) all came with seven-day vacations, comparable to modern “Golden Weeks.” The Lantern Festival holiday also expanded from one day in the Han dynasty to three in the Tang, five in the Song, and even ten in the Ming. According to estimates, a Song dynasty official could have over 110 days of vacation per year.
  • Austerity in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing: The number of holidays was drastically cut. The Yuan rulers reduced the annual statutory holidays to a mere 16 days. The famously diligent Ming Emperor Taizu took only 18 days of leave annually. Although the number later increased to around 50 days after his death, it never returned to the levels of the Tang and Song. The Qing dynasty consolidated the three long holidays of Winter Solstice, New Year, and the Lantern Festival into a single month-long “sealing of the seals” (封印, fēngyìn) vacation. From late in the twelfth lunar month to late in the first month of the next year, government offices would seal their official seals and cease operations.
• Personal and Family Leave (A Reflection of Confucian Values):
  • Dīngyōu (丁忧): Institutionalized since the Han dynasty, dīngyōu was the cornerstone of this system. Upon the death of a parent, an official was required to resign from his post and return to his hometown for a three-year mourning period (effectively 27 months). This was a powerful manifestation of the state’s enforcement of filial piety.
  • Filial-Visit Leave (Dìngxǐng jiǎ, 定省假): This was established to allow officials to visit their distant parents. For example, an official posted three thousand li from his parents’ home was entitled to a thirty-day leave every three years (excluding travel time).
  • Life-Cycle Ceremony Leave: The state also provided leave for important family events, such as a three-day leave for a son’s coming-of-age ceremony (guānlǐ, 冠礼) and a nine-day leave for the marriage of a child.
  • Other Holidays: There were also holidays for special events, such as the emperor’s birthday (called “Qianqiu Festival” during Emperor Xuanzong’s reign, with a three-day holiday), specific religious anniversaries (e.g., in the Tang dynasty, Laozi’s birthday was a one-day holiday), and even leaves designed to meet agricultural needs (like the 15-day “field leave” or tiánjiǎ in May during the Tang dynasty).

This complex leave system was not simply a form of welfare but a sophisticated tool of ideological governance. The long leaves for dīngyōu and filial visits were direct institutionalizations of Confucian filial ethics, binding the bureaucracy tightly to the state’s core ideology. Holidays for the emperor’s birthday and state-sanctioned sages constantly reinforced the supremacy of imperial power and the dynasty’s legitimacy. The system aimed to shape a loyal, ideologically unified, and socially responsible ruling class. The drastic reduction in holidays from the Song to the Ming and Qing dynasties thus serves as a barometer for the degree of monarchical absolutism. The state’s demands on its bureaucracy became more stringent, imperial power more absolute, and the official’s personal time and family obligations increasingly subservient to the emperor’s will.

III. The Unregulated Rhythms: Artisans and Merchants

The work patterns of artisans (“工,” gōng) and merchants (“商,” shāng) existed largely outside both the state-mandated leave system and the agricultural seasonal cycle.

• The Artisan’s Work Pattern: The work of artisans was typically project-based or piece-rate, organized in family workshops or guilds. Their work rhythm was determined by market demand, the supply of raw materials, and guild regulations, not a fixed state calendar. The spirit of the artisan centered on “dedication, excellence, focus, and innovation.” This often meant dedicating one’s entire life to a single craft, like the butcher Ding described in the Zhuangzi. For them, work was life. Although they had no official “xiūmù” or “xúnxiū,” they participated in major public celebrations like the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival along with the general populace, which constituted their primary form of collective rest.
• The Merchant’s Work Pattern: A merchant’s life was dictated by the logic of the market: trade routes, market days, and commercial opportunities. Many merchants were itinerant, spending years on the road. Their work was inherently opportunity-driven and irregular. For a merchant, a major festival might be the busiest and most profitable time of the year, not a time for rest. Despite their vital economic role, merchants were ranked last in the traditional “scholar-farmer-artisan-merchant” (士农工商, shì nóng gōng shāng) social hierarchy, and their activities were often viewed with suspicion by the state. They were not integrated into the state’s temporal and ideological system in the same way as officials or farmers.

The work rhythms of the “four peoples” (四民, sìmín) existed on a spectrum of autonomy versus regulation. Peasants were bound by nature; officials were bound by the state. In contrast, artisans and merchants possessed a greater degree of temporal autonomy. Their schedules were more flexible and self-determined, though this freedom was always constrained by economic necessity. This demonstrates that “work” in imperial China was not a monolithic experience but was highly stratified and varied. The social hierarchy was, in a sense, also a hierarchy of temporal control. Officials and peasants were the most strictly controlled, while artisans and merchants enjoyed more (albeit precarious) command over their own time.

The Great Transformation: Rhythms of the Modern Era (ca. 1840 – ca. 1949)

Contact with the Western world and the advent of industrialization brought a violent shock to traditional rhythms. This period depicts the collision of solar time and clock time, giving rise to new forms of work, new social conflicts, and fundamentally reshaping the planning and time management of production and life in Chinese society.

IV. The Arrival of the “Week”

4.1 From “Worship Day” to “Star Cycle”: Introduction and Cultural Integration

The cyclical seven-day method of recording days, known as the “qīyào” (七曜), had been introduced to China as early as the Tang dynasty through cultural exchange but had no practical impact on social life. Its introduction in the modern sense began in the 19th century, when the work system, concepts of time, and the education system all began to Westernize, primarily through Christian missionaries, Western merchants, and diplomats. Missionaries observed Sunday as the “Sabbath” (礼拜日, lǐbàirì) for religious activities, which was the initial Chinese exposure to the modern weekend.

To make this foreign concept more palatable and to strip it of its strong religious overtones, reformist intellectuals cleverly linked it to China’s indigenous tradition of the Twenty-Eight Mansions (astrological lodges). Based on calculations of which star was “on duty,” they designated the rest day as the day corresponding to the constellations Fáng, Xū, Mǎo, and Xīng, which neatly aligned with Sunday in the cycle. From this, a new, secular term “xīngqī” (星期, “star cycle” or “week”) was coined and officially adopted by the Qing government in 1907 to replace the religiously infused “lǐbài” (礼拜, worship).

4.2 The Calendar Battle: Resistance and Adoption

Conservative officials, represented by Zhang Zhidong, saw the adoption of the week as blind imitation of “Western customs” and fiercely resisted it. For example, during the Reform Movement, the Liang-Hu Academy he founded insisted on retaining the Tang-era ten-day “xúnxiū” system. However, the tide of history was on the side of the reformists. New-style schools were the earliest adopters, such as the Fuzhou Navy Yard School in 1882, whose initial motive was to accommodate the lifestyle of its foreign instructors. In the 1890s, reformist societies (like the Southern Study Society and Guanxi Study Society) and newspapers (like the Xiang Bao) quickly adopted the weekly system for scheduling meetings and publication cycles.

4.3 State Recognition and Social Normalization

The turning point was the Qing government’s official acceptance. In 1902, the newly promulgated school regulations stipulated for the first time in law that all modern schools nationwide would rest on Sunday. Starting in 1906, government ministries, even the most conservative Board of Rites, began to take public holidays on Sundays. By 1911, the Sunday holiday had become standard practice for the central government, observed even by the young Xuantong Emperor, Puyi. This new rhythm rapidly integrated into public life, with newspaper advertisements beginning to use modern dating like “Tuesday” instead of traditional lunar dates.

The adoption of the “week” was far more than a simple change of calendar. It represented a profound cognitive revolution: a shift from cyclical, nature-based, concrete time to abstract, linear, and standardized time synchronized with the globe. This new temporal grid was a necessary prerequisite for China’s integration into the modern international systems of commerce, diplomacy, and industrial production. As Liang Qichao observed, this new way of organizing time was seen as one of the key factors behind the West’s power. The debate over the name—”lǐbài” versus “xīngqī”—was a microcosm of the broader cultural struggles of the era. The choice of “xīngqī” was a deliberate act of “Sinicization.” It allowed the state to adopt a functionally necessary Western institution while preserving its own cultural subjectivity and resisting wholesale Westernization. This act of naming was itself an exercise in modern state-building: redefining what it meant to be “Chinese” in a new, globalized world.

V. The Industrial Labor System

5.1 Conditions in Early Factories

The rise of modern industry in the late Qing and Republican periods created a new working class. These workers were mostly recently migrated peasants, forming a unique “semi-proletariat.” They maintained ties to their land and villages as a form of survival fallback, exhibiting a characteristic of “leaving the soil but not the hometown.” As the bearers of cultural, class, and economic contradictions, they laid the groundwork for the most revolutionary potential.

Working conditions were extremely harsh. The workday was typically 10 to 12 hours long, or even longer, with few or no days off. A 1921 article revealed that workers at the Jiangnan Shipyard worked 11 hours a day, while an arsenal just across the street had long implemented an 8-hour workday, highlighting the ruthless exploitation of workers in commercial enterprises. This work was completely detached from natural rhythms. The 1931 Factory Act’s provisions protecting female and child laborers from night work and hazardous jobs also serve as indirect proof of the prevalence of these practices. This Republican-era law also stipulated a one-day rest per week for workers.

5.2 The Wave of the Eight-Hour Workday Reaches China

The “eight-hour workday” was a product of the European Industrial Revolution and was advocated globally by international socialist and labor movements. This concept was introduced to China after the May Fourth Movement by intellectuals like Li Dazhao and the founders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The May 1, 1920, issue of New Youth magazine was a “Labor Day Special,” which systematically explained the concept and history of the eight-hour day. From its inception, the CCP made the achievement of the eight-hour workday a central plank of its platform for organizing worker movements.

5.3 From Strikes to Legislation

In the 1920s, the Chinese labor movement surged. Painters in Shanghai in 1919 and traditional Chinese medicine pharmacists in 1920 went on strike, explicitly contrasting their long working hours with the eight-hour day already enjoyed by workers elsewhere in the world. In 1922, the First National Labor Congress, organized by the CCP, formally established the eight-hour workday as the common goal for all workers nationwide.

Sustained labor pressure eventually led the Nationalist (KMT) government to promulgate the Factory Act in 1929, which was formally implemented in 1931.

• Core Provision: Article 8 of the Act stipulated, “The actual working hours for adult workers shall, in principle, be eight hours per day.”
• Exceptions: The law permitted extensions of working hours under special circumstances such as “natural disasters, incidents, or seasonal factors,” with the consent of the labor union. However, total daily work could not exceed 12 hours, and total monthly overtime could not exceed 46 hours. The Act also contained special provisions to protect child and female laborers, though enforcement was weak.
• Impact and Limitations: The Factory Act was a landmark piece of social legislation in modern Chinese history. However, against the backdrop of warlordism, civil war, and foreign invasion, its implementation was limited and its effect was feeble. It largely represented a legislative ideal rather than a widespread reality.

The “semi-peasant, semi-worker” identity of many early laborers had a profound impact on the labor movement. Because workers retained a rural fallback, it somewhat weakened the formation of a “class consciousness” in the classic Marxist sense of an urban proletariat completely detached from the means of production. Their identity was split between the clock time of the factory and the seasonal time of the village. This duality shaped the character of Chinese labor struggles and influenced the CCP’s revolutionary strategy, ultimately leading it to shift its focus to the vast peasant class. Similar to the adoption of the weekly system, the promulgation of the 1931 Factory Act was a significant exercise in modern state-building. By enacting such a law, the KMT government declared to its own people and the international community that it was a legitimate, modern regime capable of regulating its economy and protecting its citizens according to international standards (such as those of the International Labour Organization). Given the context of threatened Chinese sovereignty at the time, the mere “existence” of this law was almost as important as its “enforcement,” as it was a declaration of national sovereignty and modernity.

VI. The Institutionalized Urban-Rural Divide

The new temporal rhythms of the city and the factory did not replace the ancient agrarian rhythm but were superimposed upon it, forming two increasingly separate and unequal “Chinas.”

• Diverging Rhythms: The city became a space dominated by abstract, linear clock time, factory whistles, and office schedules. The pace of life was fast, standardized, and oriented towards industrial production and commerce. In contrast, the countryside largely remained in a world of solar and cyclical time, governed by seasons and agricultural tasks.
• State-Led Separation: This separation was eventually solidified by state policy, with its roots in the Republican era and its institutionalization after 1949. The establishment of the “urban-rural dual structure” (城乡二元结构, chéngxiāng èryuán jiégòu), centered on the household registration system (hukou), bound peasants to the land and strictly limited their mobility to cities.
• Consequences of the Divide: This system created profound inequality. The state’s strategy of prioritizing heavy industry meant extracting resources and surplus value from the agricultural sector to support urban development. Urban residents enjoyed state-subsidized welfare, housing, and rationed goods, while rural residents were largely left to fend for themselves. The “migrant worker” (农民工, nóngmíngōng), who works in the city but is stripped of corresponding rights and status, is the contemporary embodiment of this enduring structural and temporal chasm.

In modern China, an individual’s relationship with time became a primary marker of their social status and geographical location. To live by the clock meant to be urban and modern; to live by the seasons meant to be ancient and backward. This temporal hierarchy mirrored and reinforced the spatio-temporal imbalance created by the division regional structrure of urban-rural society.

This complex history—the cycles of agriculture, the regulations of empire, and the timetables of industry—continues to shape contemporary China’s culture, its intense work ethic (such as the “996” phenomenon), the unresolved urban-rural conflict, and a deeply ingrained, hierarchical understanding of work and life. The institutional legacy of “xiūmù,” the cultural memory of “working at sunrise,” and the post-industrial work system are all interwoven into the rhythm of life in the Eastern world today.