Deck 13: Religious Civilizations Interacting: Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, 550-1500 C.E

Question 1

All of the following are true of Japan EXCEPT:

A) As an island nation, its relative isolation-like that of Great Britain - it could selectively interact with and adapt to continental innovations.
B) It consists of many islands, with the main four islands varying greatly in climatic conditions.
C) Japan is fortunate in that an unusually high proportion of its land is suitable for agriculture.
D) The rugged landscape of Japan has supported development of politically isolated, culturally united communities.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

All of the following are true of the Mongol conquests on the Korean peninsula EXCEPT:

A) The Mongols used weapons such as rockets and bombs in the siege of Kaesong.
B) About 250,000 Koreans were deported by the Mongols to be used as slave labor.
C) The Mongols kept themselves separate from the Koreans, prohibiting intermarriage or the overt adoption of Korean culture.
D) The benefits of protected trade routes and easy travel and transport were useful, but were far outweighed by the cruelty of the Mongol conquest.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Ancient Vietnamese relationships with China are accurately described by all of the following statements EXCEPT:

A) The Qin dynasty occupied northern Vietnam in the third century BCE, as did the Han in the second century BCE.
B) With the fall of the Han Empire in 220 BCE, the Vietnamese were able to attain a long lasting period of independence.
C) The occupation of parts of Vietnam did much to develop and solidify a sense of a Vietnamese identity.
D) Two women, the Trung sisters, became national symbols because of their fierce rebellion against the Han dynasty.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

All of the following statements are true about the status of Vietnamese women EXCEPT:

A) Obtaining a divorce seems to have been relatively easy for both parties.
B) During the first millennium BCE, women occupied official and bureaucratic roles, such as diplomats and small-business operators.
C) During the first millennium, villages and clans were often organized on a bilateral basis.
D) They were generally physically sequestered and under the authority of their fathers, husbands, or sons.

Question 5

The Shogunate era in Japan refers to:

A) The period during which the emperor personally assumed the responsibilities of military leadership.
B) The organization developed by the Japanese to repel the Mongol invasions.
C) The period during which all Japanese, including peasants and merchants, had military responsibilities.
D) The time when real power was vested in a hereditary military dictator, with the emperor largely acting as a figurehead.

Question 6

All of the following are true EXCEPT:

A) Asian literacy rates grew in the twelfth century, but never reached the levels attained in Europe.
B) By the twelfth century, Korea developed into one of the world's largest centers of printing.
C) The demand for printed material was fueled by the demand for Buddhist literature.
D) Korean publishers used what may have been the world's first movable metallic type.

Question 7

After instituting their version of the Confucian examinations, Koreans:

A) Developed a social structure that mirrored that of China, but unlike in China, class tensions erupted immediately and official designations were abandoned.
B) Became influenced much less by warrior/serf feudal power structures as the responsibilities of the upper classes to see to the wellbeing of the lower classes became codified.
C) Developed four basic classes: the high-ranking scholar/gentry; the lower or minor officials; commoners, such as artisans and peasants; and then the lower group, bond slaves, laborers, and prostitutes.
D) Focused on maintaining a social structure that allocated specific responsibilities to each level, including women, who tended to become more secluded as Koreans adopted the practice of foot binding.

Question 8

All of the following are generally accurate about the institutions governing Vietnamese politics, labor, and trade EXCEPT:

A) The village headman and the institutions of the court provided the basic structures.
B) Local leadership was elective, but the choice had to be approved by the imperial court.
C) The headman had considerable power, collecting taxes and sitting with a council of notables, composed of members of a scholar-gentry class.
D) The notion of a balance between the central and local governments was promoted, but it was always a sham.

Question 9

Problems arising during the Heian period in Japan include all of the following EXCEPT:

A) The effectiveness of political organization in the outlying area diminished as power was absorbed by the capital.
B) Although supported by the elite, rapid social change was unwelcome to peasants, artisans, and merchants.
C) The bureaucracy weakened as the rural uji began reasserting power.
D) Revenues dropped to dangerous levels as much of the land, such as elite clan estates and Buddhist monasteries, became tax exempt.

Question 10

The following events/circumstances were important in the development of the Yamato regime EXCEPT:

A) The introduction of Chinese writing systems and imperial histories.
B) The Chinese concept of the "Mandate of Heaven" was rejected in favor of more concrete notions.
C) The Soga clan was overthrown and Fujiwara No-Kamatari emerged as advisor to the new emperor.
D) A 17-article constitution, modeled on Confucian and Buddhist precepts, was adopted.

Question 11

Archeologists and anthropologists believe that:

A) Matriarchal and matrilineal clans dominated prehistoric society in Japan.
B) The predominant political organization was based on clans led by warrior patriarchs.
C) There was very little social or political structure until the Japanese established contact with Koreans and some of the Late Zhou Chinese coastal states.
D) The first tribal organizations were centered upon "big men," warriors powerful enough to protect the fragile food supply.

Question 12

Korea's final imperial dynasty was:

A) The Koguryo of Choson.
B) The Yi.
C) The Latter Silla.
D) The Former Paekche.

Question 13

All of the following statements are true of Vietnamese agriculture EXCEPT:

A) Vietnam has been one of the world centers of wet rice cultivation from the time the grain was domesticated.
B) Vietnamese rice yields ran as high as 25 bushels per acre.
C) By the mid-fifteenth century, there were about 50 strains of rice cultivated in northern Vietnam.
D) During the long rainy season of the summer, vegetables and commercial crops such as hemp would be cultivated.

Question 14

The following are in the correct chronological order:

A) Yayoi period; Yamato period; Koryo kingdom; dynasty of Le Loi
B) Heian period; Yamato period; Ashikaga shogunate; Koryo kingdom.
C) Ashikaga shogunate; Yamato period; Koryo kingdom; dynasty of Le Loi.
D) Kamakura Shogunate; Heian period; Tran dynasty; Parhae kingdom.

Question 15

Geographically, Korea could be described as:

A) Basically consisting of planes, with a few high plateaus.
B) Generally mountainous in the north and hilly in the south.
C) Desolate and arid in the southern areas, forcing South Koreans to import most of their food.
D) Rainy in the winter and hot and dry in the summer.

Question 16

The authors of the textbook consider the influence of China in northeast and southeast Asia to be analogous to:

A) The influence of France in Europe.
B) The influence of India in China.
C) The influence of the Greek-Hellenistic and Roman cultures in Europe.
D) The influence of Aristotle on Enlightenment thought.

Question 17

All of the following is true of the first Korean state EXCEPT:

A) The first Korean state predated Korean contact with China.
B) Was named Choson, meaning "The Land of the Morning Calm."
C) Extended far into the area of what is now southern Manchuria.
D) We are able to reconstruct the history of early Korea from the copious written records of the first dynasty.

Question 18

The dramatic changes in Japanese society and political organization during the period between 1250 and 1600 were made possible by:

A) The creativity with which the Japanese interpreted and implemented Western ideas.
B) Dramatic increases in food production.
C) The symbiotic relationship between the emperor and the shogun.
D) The wealth accrued through trade with China and Korea.

Question 19

Systematic Chinese attempts to transform Korea:

A) Were initiated after the Han conquest in the second century BCE.
B) Were largely due to the efforts of Qin Shiuangdi.
C) Resulted in the loss of Korean metallurgy.
D) Cut off contact between Korea and Japan.

Question 20

The sixth century was momentous in Japanese social, political, and cultural development in all of the following ways EXCEPT:

A) Buddhism was introduced from the Korean state of Paekche.
B) The Korean kingdom of Silla eliminated the Japanese colony of Kaya.
C) Daoism was formally adopted as the state religion by the Yamato empress Suiko.
D) The Chinese Sui dynasty attempted to dominate the Korean peninsula, pushing the levels of emigration from Korea to Japan to high levels.

Question 21

In the first century BCE:

A) The Chinese abandoned the entire Korean peninsula.
B) The northern kingdom, Silla, invited the Japanese to help them conquer the south.
C) Three Kingdoms-Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla-emerged in Korea.
D) Paekche rejected Buddhism and Daoism as "vile foreign lies."

Question 22

The farming of _______ caught on only much later in the southern part of the Korean peninsula, where rainfall and the terracing of hillsides made it feasible.

A) Wheat
B) Millet
C) Tea
D) Rice

Question 23

There is reference to the kingdom of Choson, 'The Land of the Morning Calm', in _________.

A) Native Korean records, dating from around 1000 BCE
B) The Japanese Nihongi, detailing the conquest of Korea by Japanese forces
C) Zhou Chinese annals
D) Inscriptions found near the modern city of Pyongyang

Question 24

All of the following Chinese cultural influences could be found in the kingdom of Koguryo by the fifth century CE except:

A) A bureaucracy determined by examinations
B) Translations of the poetry of Li Bai
C) A land tax and conscription system
D) Confucian ethical and political thought

Question 25

The ___________ Wong Kon (d. 943) subdued the crumbling kingdom of Silla and reconstituted it as Koryo, from which comes the name 'Korea'.

A) Buddhist monk
B) Assassin of the previous king
C) Merchant
D) Empress Dowager

Question 26

In the fourteenth century, the highly centralized governmental structure of the Ming was echoed in Choson, and the adoption of ____________ slowly began to drive out older local customs.

A) Foot-binding
B) Government-owned factories
C) Constantly moving bureaucrats
D) Neo-Confucianism

Question 27

One of the chief catalysts for printing was the growing popularity of _______ throughout east Asia.

A) Daoism
B) Buddhism
C) Neo-Confucianism
D) Shinto

Question 28

Sometime after 250 CE, Japan's first fully evolved state, Yamato, centered on the Kanto Plain near modern Tokyo, emerged and absorbed its weaker rivals on the island of __________.

A) Hokkaido
B) Okinawa
C) Honshu
D) Shikoku

Question 29

The Yamato government of the late sixth and early seventh centuries CE made significant moves to:

A) Connect its culture to the Chinese mainland
B) Assert a native Japanese identity, free of Chinese influence
C) Ban Buddhist philosophy, respecting Chinese pressure in this regard
D) Consolidate Japanese military supremacy over China

Question 30

The elites of Heian Japan saw themselves as part of a(n) ____________.

A) Samurai class that would eradicate Chinese influence from the islands
B) Embattled class whose position was being challenged by an aggressive merchant class
C) Competent and deeply entrenched bureaucracy serving a centralized monarchy
D) Cosmopolitan world, held together by Confucian and Buddhist principles

Question 31

Under the shoguns, the Japanese warrior class witnessed the union of bu and bun, the 'dual way' of the sword and __________.

A) Zen Buddhist sandal
B) Shield
C) Subordination of the female
D) Writing brush

Question 32

The stability of the Ashikaga Shogunate was undermined by court intrigue in Kyoto and by ________.

A) An unexpected naval invasion by the Mongols
B) The concentration of power in the countryside
C) A rapid decline in the ranks of armed soldiers
D) Rampant disloyalty to and frequent betrayals of the daimyo.

Question 33

The examples of Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagno reveal that:

A) These heads of sake breweries were organizing into trade guilds at a fast rate.
B) Buddhist monks like these were spreading the custom of tea-drinking.
C) These bodhisattvas could appear as protective deities when needed.
D) Women could develop a highly influential cultural world, despite being sequestered.

Question 34

When Buddhism became the state religion of Yamato in 594, followers of Shinto _________

A) Mounted a fierce counter-attack, reasserting 'the way' of their own gods.
B) Persuaded the Empress Suiko to change her mind and revert to the old religion.
C) Accommodated Buddhist principles into a fused religious tradition.
D) Rejected Mahayana Buddhism but found Amida Buddhism more attractive.

Question 35

The problems of using Chinese characters for the Japanese Man'yoshu led to the kana syllabary, a system of ________ symbols that form the building blocks of Japanese words.

A) 26
B) 50
C) 760
D) 31

Question 36

Like their counterparts in Korea and Japan, the new Vietnamese literate elites ____________.

A) Rejected the imposition of Buddhist culture.
B) Created an independent state with their own emperor by 522 CE.
C) Were incorporated into the far-flung world of Chinese civilization.
D) Were caught up in civil warfare that left their ranks decimated.

Question 37

Dinh Bo Linh, the first emperor of Vietnam, solidified his control of the region in __________ and the next dynasty modeled its institutions on those of Song China.

A) 968 CE
B) 111 BCE
C) 1257 CE
D) 220 CE

Question 38

The village headman in Vietnam, the xa troung, was:

A) Given powers equal to those of the emperor.
B) Expected to eradicate and prevent the re-emergence of slave labor.
C) Checked by a council made up of the scholar-gentry class.
D) Encouraged to marry a woman from a neighboring village, in order to pool knowledge.

Question 39

It may seem strange that an avowedly _________ creed like Zen Buddhism came to be adopted by the Japanese warrior nobility.

A) Pacifistic
B) Ethnically restricted
C) Woman-centered
D) Newly formulated

Question 40

A practitioner of Zen Buddhism aims to transcend the self, reaching a state in which one is able to apprehend through extreme 'mindfulness' the ultimate insights that bring the flash of enlightenment or __________.

A) Shinto
B) Satori
C) Uji
D) Seppuku

Question 41

The 'Three Kingdoms' of Korea all seem to have been established in the ____________.

A) First century BCE
B) Seventh century CE
C) Ninth century BCE
D) Fourth century CE

Question 42

The Amnokkang, better known as the _________ River, and Kangnam Mountains form the present dividing line between the Korean peninsula and Manchuria.

A) Mekong
B) Yalu
C) Seoul
D) Yellow

Question 43

The Korean language may be distantly related to the __________ family of languages, which include Turkish, Mongolian, and Manchu.

A) Indo-European
B) Semitic
C) Amharic
D) Altaic

Question 44

In 1231, ________ forces laid siege to Kaesong, and perhaps 250,000 Koreans were deported as slave laborers after the city had fallen.

A) Japanese
B) Russian
C) Mongol
D) Ming

Question 45

The chongjon system of Silla, begun in 722, mandated a(n):

A) Exemption of ethnic Chinese from taxation.
B) Bureaucracy staffed exclusively by Buddhists.
C) Taxation system based on a money currency.
D) Government-sponsored distribution of land.

Question 46

The northernmost of Japan's four main islands is:

A) Honshu
B) Shikoku
C) Hokkaido
D) Kyushu

Question 47

By the fall of the _________ dynasty in 220 CE, we have the earliest remnant examples of wood-block printing.

A) Shang
B) Han
C) Song
D) Ming

Question 48

A disk made of finely worked steatite was found in a third-century CE ___________ in central Japan, and similar objects have been found in China.

A) Burial mound
B) Shinto temple
C) Minaret
D) Imperial palace

Question 49

The Kojiki and Nihongi were:

A) Lunar calendars
B) Buddhist philosophical treatises
C) The first Japanese novels
D) Chinese-style imperial histories

Question 50

In many cases, the shoen, or clan estates, were ____________ because of their military contributions.

A) Monitored closely by royal forces.
B) Declared off-limits to Buddhist monks
C) Given tax-exempt status
D) Designated as martial-arts training centers

Question 51

The chief military official of Japan was called a _____________, and the office would become hereditary in the Tokugawa period (1603-1867).

A) Daimyo
B) Shinto
C) Jomon
D) Shogun

Question 52

A Mongol armada was smashed by a typhoon in 1281, known ever after by the Japanese as kamikaze, '_______'.

A) The providential wave
B) The divine wind
C) A change in the weather
D) Death to the barbarians

Question 53

Like the codes of chivalry current in Europe at the time, daimyo and samurai prided themselves on acting according to a strict system of ____________ called 'bushido'.

A) Agricultural self-sufficiency
B) Horsemanship
C) Honor and loyalty
D) Segregation by sex

Question 54

______ means 'the way of the gods', and Japanese mythology recognized a staggering array of deities.

A) Sutra
B) Shinto
C) Samurai
D) Shogun

Question 55

Introduced from China by the Zen monk Eisai (1141-1215), ___________ in Japan became widely adopted as an aid to discipline and meditation among monks in the twelfth century.

A) Ritual self-flagellation
B) Scroll painting
C) Tea drinking
D) Foot-binding

Question 56

The Tale of _________, credited to Murasaki Shikibu, is often considered the world's first novel.

A) Man'yoshu
B) Kana
C) Raku
D) Genji

Question 57

Southeast Asia is crossed by several major river systems, including all of the following except:

A) Salween
B) Tonkin
C) Irawaddy
D) Mekong

Question 58

'Nam Viet' was the local name for the Chinese 'Nanyue' ('___________'), as the Qin had called their new province.

A) Conquered Territory
B) Rich Land
C) Far South
D) Homeland of Poets

Question 59

The Temple of Literature in _________ was the first national academy for Confucian training in Vietnam, founded in 1076.

A) Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)
B) Hue
C) Haiphong
D) Hanoi

Question 60

The term "Ainu" means:

A) Strangers to the land.
B) Hairy ones.
C) First people.
D) Uncivilized people.

Question 61

The works of a handful of literate Japanese women such as Murasaki Shikibu were often written in:

A) Blue tempera.
B) Formal Mandarin.
C) Kana script.
D) Haikus.