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Q: Historically speaking, which dynasty was China's most liberal/open-minded?
I'm trying my best to enhance my current non-existent knowledge regarding ancient Chinese history, and am fascinated at the general pattern of constant ups and downs regarding war, prosperity, influence, liberalism etc that this country has experienced.
Right now, I think China is pushing towards a more liberal stature (whether the authorities like it or not) and is slowly emerging further and further away from repression under Mao. I'm just curious as to which dynasty would be considered the most liberal/open-minded with regards to art, ideas, society, accepting of the outside world and so on.
The dynasty of Tang （唐朝）
it's one of the most prosperous time of ancient dynasties. Christianity reached this part of land the very first time and the government didn't bother to care. Tang was very open to other nationals， and adopted a lot of cultures from the northern minorities. Japan sent many 遣唐使 to learn from Tang's political system ，culture and Chinese characters.the fiction of monkey king is based on the experience of 唐僧 （a monk from Tang）who traveled to India and brought back important Buddhist bibles. 唐诗，Tang poems，made the peak of Chinese poems that no dynasty had ever reached before and after . Tang inherited the Imperial exam system invented by the previous dynasty ，隋 ，which is a pretty short one. it's quite interesting that at Tang dynasty ，people thought over weight women were prettier. Tang also had the only female emperor 武则天. she served both the first emperor of Tang （唐太宗李世民）and his son
. uh sort of gross . after she came to power she had a few quite good looking male servants too . Tang defeated the east part of 突厥 (dunno which English name I should use ，but it is actually the ancestors of turkish）. the west part of those turkish tribes fled away to further west ，caused many wars in Europe and built the ottoman empire. Tang never built the great wall . Tang had a battle against the Arabs in middle Asia. it was a korean general who was the commander of the Tang army. sort of pity Tang lost the most important battle ，the battle of Talas，and middle Asia became Islamic from since then.
angelina8:
"the west part of those turkish tribes fled away to further west ，caused many wars in Europe and built the ottoman empire"
They sure did :(
Great summary, great times.
xinyuren:
I agree. The Tang dynasty had the most interesting culture and creativity. I even adopted Tang as my Chinese family name.
I agree with ohChina. It was Tang, my favorite dynasty in Chinese history.
