Scholar-official in the context of "Fengjian"

The gentry, or landed gentry in China was the elite who held privileged status through passing the Imperial exams, which made them eligible to hold office. These literati, or scholar-officials, (shenshi 紳士 or jinshen 縉紳), also called 士紳 shishen "scholar gentry" or 鄉紳 xiangshen "local gentry", held a virtual monopoly on office holding, and overlapped with an unofficial elite of the wealthy. The Tang and Song dynasties expanded the civil service exam to replace the nine-rank system which favored hereditary and largely military aristocrats. As a social class they included retired mandarins or their families and descendants. Owning land was often their way of preserving wealth.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. A large share of its claims are pseudoscientific, with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence of effectiveness or logical mechanism of action. Some TCM ingredients are known to be toxic and cause disease, including cancer.

Medicine in traditional China encompassed a range of sometimes competing health and healing practices, folk beliefs, literati theory, Taoist and Confucian philosophy, herbal remedies, food, diet, exercise, medical specializations, and schools of thought. TCM as it exists today has been described as a largely 20th century invention. In the early twentieth century, Chinese cultural and political modernizers worked to eliminate traditional practices as backward and unscientific. Traditional practitioners then selected elements of philosophy and practice and organized them into what they called "Chinese medicine". In the 1950s, the Chinese government sought to revive traditional medicine (including legalizing previously banned practices) and sponsored the integration of TCM and Western medicine, and in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, promoted TCM as inexpensive and popular. The creation of modern TCM was largely spearheaded by Mao Zedong, despite the fact that, according to The Private Life of Chairman Mao, he did not believe in its effectiveness. After the opening of relations between the United States and China after 1972, there was great interest in the West for what is now called traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

A mandarin (Chinese: 官; pinyin: guān) was a bureaucrat scholar in the history of China, Korea and Vietnam.

The term is generally applied to the officials appointed through the imperial examination system.

Su Shi (simplified Chinese: 苏轼; traditional Chinese: 蘇軾; pinyin: Sū Shì; 8 January 1037 – 24 August 1101), courtesy name Zizhan (子瞻), art name Dongpo (東坡), was a Chinese poet, essayist, calligrapher, painter, scholar-official, literatus, artist, pharmacologist, and gastronome who lived during the Song dynasty. A major personality of the Song era, Su was an important figure in Song Dynasty politics, he had a lengthy career in bureaucracy, taking various provincial posts and briefly serving as a senior official at the imperial court. Despite his high hopes to serve the country, Su's political career was filled with frustrations due to his out-spoken criticism, and he often fell victim to political rivalries between the radical and the conservative forces. He endured a series of political exiles during which his creative career flourished.

Su is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished figures in classical Chinese literature, leaving behind him a prolific collection of poems, lyrics, prose, and essays. His poetry had enduring popularity and influence in China and other areas in the near vicinity such as Japan, and is well known in some English-speaking countries through translations by Stephen Owen, Burton Watson, and Arthur Waley, among others. In arts, Su was described by Murck as "the preeminent personality of the eleventh century." His prose writings contributed to the understanding of topics including 11th-century China's travel literature and iron industry. His writing frequently touched upon the topic of cuisine, where he is considered to have had a profound influence. Dongpo pork, a prominent dish in Hangzhou cuisine, is named in his honor.

Yuan Hongdao (Chinese: 袁宏道; pinyin: Yuán Hóngdào; Wade–Giles: Yüan Hung-tao, style name Zhonglang, 1568–1610) was a scholar-official and one of the greatest Chinese poets and littérateurs of the Ming Dynasty. He is also a well known author on Pure Land Buddhism.

Yuan Hongdao is one of the Three Yuan Brothers, along with his brothers Yuan Zongdao and Yuan Zhongdao. All were known for their literary writings influenced by Buddhism and Neo-Confucian Yangmingism. In Chinese Buddhism, Yuan is most famous for his Comprehensive Treatise on the West [Pure Land] (Xīfāng hélùn), an influential ten-fascicle work on Pure Land Buddhism.