August 9, 2020. Drawing on Arthur H. Smith’s observations of China, Seki Hei examines the traditional Chinese lineage system, or zongzu, from within. He discusses trust, mutual aid, ancestral institutions, education, civil-service examinations, official corruption, and the contrast between strong obligations inside the lineage and weaker attachment to the wider public sphere.

August 9, 2020
The following is from an essay published in a special September issue of the monthly magazine WiLL.
“China Is the World’s Largest Racist State”
“Arthur H. Smith Explains It—Seki Hei: Then and Now, There Is No Word for ‘Liar’ in China”
Using the writings of Arthur H. Smith, an American missionary who observed Chinese society in the late nineteenth century, Seki Hei examines what he regards as enduring characteristics of Chinese society.
The original article appeared in the June 2020 issue of WiLL.
【The Social Organization Known as the Lineage】
Viewed in this way, Seki Hei argues, the behavioral patterns observed by Smith were remarkably perceptive and have changed surprisingly little.
At the same time, he stresses an important limitation.
Smith observed Chinese society from the outside, through Western eyes.
He could not necessarily understand the internal structure of Chinese social life.
When Chinese society is examined from within, another side emerges.
According to Seki Hei, China traditionally placed enormous importance on the social organization known as the zongzu—a lineage or extended clan.
The family into which his own father was born belonged to a lineage of the Shi family.
He explains that an ancestor of the Shi family arrived in Sichuan approximately three hundred years earlier, established a family, and produced generations of descendants.
By his grandfather’s generation, hundreds of Shi households were living across several villages in the same region.
A large lineage could sometimes encompass thousands of households.
Such a lineage established an ancestral hall in which the family’s forebears were venerated.
The ancestral hall also served as a place where members gathered and strengthened their sense of solidarity.
A respected member of the lineage became its leader and exercised authority over the group.
As the lineage grew, it accumulated financial resources that could be used, among other things, to educate its children.
Before universal compulsory education and modern school systems, the lineage itself could assume responsibility for children’s education.
Teachers might be hired, private schools established, and basic literacy provided.
The lineage could also care for orphans whose parents had died young.
At times it even performed quasi-judicial functions.
If a member committed an offense, he might be brought before the ancestral hall for judgment.
Within the lineage, Seki Hei argues, people trusted one another, helped one another, cared for one another, and reinforced their sense of solidarity.
For that very reason, lying within the group carried a heavy price.
A person lived within the lineage from birth to death.
Once exposed as dishonest, he could lose the trust of the entire community and with it his place within that community.
Disputes did arise, but the lineage leader could act as mediator and seek an internal settlement.
In this sense, Seki Hei argues, the traditional Confucian virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trust continued to function inside the lineage.
But once a person stepped outside that lineage, he argues, the world changed completely.
Political authority, social institutions, and the public sphere were not trusted in the same way.
According to his analysis, moral obligations that operated strongly within the lineage did not necessarily extend beyond it.
Indeed, if a member committed an offense outside the lineage, the lineage itself might mobilize to protect that person.
This, he argues, prevented the development of a broader public spirit.
The concept of the “public” effectively existed within the lineage but did not extend much beyond it.
Seki Hei then connects this social structure to the historical problem of official corruption.
He argues that corruption among officials became structurally embedded.
To become an official, a man first had to pass the imperial civil-service examinations.
A lineage might invest enormous resources in educating one of its members for that purpose.
If even one member succeeded and became an official, he was expected to contribute to the prosperity of the entire lineage.
Yet an official salary alone could not enrich such a large extended family.
According to Seki Hei’s argument, this created powerful pressure to accept bribes and accumulate private wealth.
From the perspective of the lineage, an official who took bribes and enriched his relatives could be regarded as fulfilling his obligations to the family.
By contrast, an incorruptible official who brought no material benefit to his lineage might receive little appreciation from it.
Smith, Seki Hei argues, could not fully perceive this internal structure of Chinese society.
That limitation was understandable.
For a Western observer, it may have been difficult even to imagine how completely a person’s social world could be organized around such a tightly bounded lineage community.
The issue Seki Hei raises here is therefore not simply one of individual morality.
His argument concerns a social structure in which trust, mutual assistance, discipline, and ethical obligations operated strongly within the lineage, while the same obligations did not necessarily extend to the wider public sphere.
He further argues that this distinction influenced political power, bureaucracy, corruption, and the development—or absence—of a broader public spirit.
To be continued.