An interesting thought occurred to me watching this and other Chinese period dramas that talk about law enforcement and government administration during the Qing; many of these stories all portray the general police characters as being selfless and noble. Historically speaking however, most of the people employed by the government, rather than protect, instead routinely shook down the populace. I wonder how this skews contemporary perceptions by younger (ie less inclined to read history) Chinese; do they genuinely perceive Qing cops (ie the BO FIE) as good guys? -detect
well to be fair .... over the past16 years of watching tvb its always been like that ... so for me i have no choice but to think that they are good people .... but personally i dont think they are good people as the obv cliche in eery ancient drama about "bo feis" is that their entire family is captured or threatened by the higher profile person .. sooo meeeeh ... and i live in england ... so every limited place to find ancient chinese history :/
Well, at least you're getting the chance to find (on the net) and think about such questions at such a young age. I remember having to hike down to the local library and take out (gasp) actual physical (not virtual) books on the the subject, LOL. Seriously though, if you're interested in Chinese history, there are tremendous and an almost endless selection on Amazon. Just in the last few years, I've gotten myself quite a wide ranging selection on many aspects of Chinese history and at fairly decent prices (don't buy new, wait until the book has been out a year to two, or buy used but in "new" condition). The best part is, the more I read, the more I realize how little I really know. I'm already resigned to the fact that I'm going to die without ever learning everything about Chinese history, and I've been reading books about China for over 30 years, LOL... Also, if you wanted to do research on China (or anything else) from older, out of print and or out of copyright texts; you can find just about anything ever written by searching on Google books. Heck, I even found a book written in the 1600's. It was taken from some dusty university stacks collection and digitized by Google. While people may be bitching about Google getting too much power from dominating the market for forgotten texts, they're doing the world a huge service. Unlike those pay services, like JSTOR, et al. So the moral is, wherever you may be, you can still immerse yourself in a history that is as rich as life itself. Enjoy your Chinese-ness to its fullest
first this is a comedy second, depends on which era you are talking about in the Qing, there was a time in the Qing when most people (officials and cops) were clean and good...under Yong Zheng emperor, he was a strict emperor...
LOL, Yes I agree that this is a comedy, but the historical period that it represents is nonetheless real. I also agree that during the reigns of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong (aka the "high Qing") was probably the most productive administration of the entire dynastic period. Yongzheng, especially was near draconian in his efforts to stamp out corruption. But on the other hand, in the latter Qing period, corruption, malfeasance, and even judicial positions being openly bought and sold was routine (about one third of the newly appointed imperial positions were bought, and not earned by passing examinations). Thus, when European colonial powers showed up in China, they found easy pickings. Corruption became China's biggest enemy and it pervaded all levels of the Qing government, especially at the levels that dealt with the public on a daily basis through the Yamen 衙門.
yeh, hence i said depends on who was emperor at the era of the story...besides its only 3 or 4 bo fies that you were talking about... the prince (who is just playing around), two useless ones (say die, ming bo) and Gordon Liu... to be honest Gordon Liu is the only and good cop...
