ABSTRACT
In China man's active day begins at dawn. The farmer goes to his field before the last stars have retreated from the sky. While the streets are still hushed with night, shop-front panels are lifted from their grooves, and the itinerant vendor's small charcoal fire pot casts the first warm glow of light upon a dusky world. Throughout Chinese history, rich and poor alike have been subject to this early-rising program. Officials were supposed to begin their duties on the same schedule as that used by the Imperial Government in Peking, where the ruler held his first conference with ministers around four in the morning.
