Hidden Dreams of Hermit Scholars: Behind a Crazy Life

Our previous podcast discussed some of the ancient hermits that feature in the Palace Museum’s Figure Paintings Across the Ages exhibition. They gave up political pursuits right from the start and never wavered. But unlike them, most hermit scholars depicted in the exhibition were deeply involved in politics in some way. For Jiang Ziya and the four old men, they lived in seclusion just to wait for the right time to realize their political ambitions. In Jiang Ziya’s case, the lifestyle was even used as a “bait” to “hook” the king. In other cases, living in seclusion was the only choice for scholars whose political dreams were shattered. Why did scholars since the times of the Seven Sages choose to live in seclusion, usually after they lost hope of developing a political career? An important reason was that for about 1,700 years the identity as a scholar had to be officially endorsed, and it was the most important way for a man to realize the dream of either building a better life for his family or serving the country, or both. The identity became a privilege and honor for ancient Chinese scholars.