Word: thienhia
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Part of the explanation is the dominant role in China's history played by the bureaucracy, which was intensely conservative, and by Confucian philosophy, which emphasized order, continuity and stability. Ricci noted that the Chinese word for their country, Thienhia, meant "everything under the heavens." Believing that China was superior to other nations, officials of the imperial court were leery of innovation and humiliated to learn that something had been done better elsewhere. Like its artists, historian J.M. Roberts notes, China's governing elite "strove to imitate and emulate the best, but the best was always past...
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