L. Newton Hayes, The Chinese Dragon
Passing the Dragon Gate
The illustrated gateway belongs to Hayes’s account of Nanking’s examination hall. Beneath it, a carp is shown changing into a dragon. His caption explains that a successful candidate could be congratulated as having passed through the Dragon Gate. The change of creature becomes an image of scholarly advancement: effort and a difficult passage lead to a transformed standing in the world.
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In the sources
An examination-hall image
DocumentedHayes reports the expression Passing the Dragon Gate as a congratulation for academic advancement.
Carp and scholarly transformation
InterpretationThe picture and caption link the carp’s transformation with the difficulty of attaining a higher degree.
Context & interpretation
The illustration and accompanying passage on the cited page of The Chinese Dragon.
Original passages
Source 1
The Chinese Dragon
Dragon GatewayOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Illustration and accompanying passage
Quotation and accompanying passage individually checked against the exact original page image. Line breaks and line-end hyphenation normalised. Caption small capitals normalised to title case.
- Edition
- IMJ-0474-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0474-E001-P0034
- Original scan leaf
- 38
- Recorded leaf number
- 38
- Current Reader position
- 29
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
