Going back ten generations from me, our village's ancestor was a county magistrate. Going back twenty generations, it was some prime minister from the Song Dynasty. And further back? I don't know. I only found out this year when I went back to my hometown and saw the genealogy posted in the ancestral hall — it goes back twenty generations. I think it was because last year they met with some branch relatives from somewhere and updated the family tree together. Before that, when I visited the ancestral hall during Spring Festival, I remember there was no genealogy on display, just an old portrait of our earliest ancestor. And this year, they're supposedly going to update the family tree again — the last time was in 1998.
Because China's selection system promotes people based on ability and virtue, it has in practice dismantled the privileges of the nobility. Culturally, Confucianism incorporates the concept of people-centered governance, which reflects a social perspective of equality among individuals in spirit.
