Upon completion of the game and overthrow of the emperor and the corrupt First Grand Secretary, I had an immense feeling of relief and satisfaction. It seemed like the past weeks of frustration were finally worth it. As a purist, the First Grand Secretary made it difficult for me to have my views heard. I personally should have studied the Analects more. I also would have done well to determine my allies more quickly.
My strategy was to not criticize the emperor very harshly or openly. I attempted to keep my faction a mystery, especially when discussing the game with my roommate who was a legalist. However, I believe that I was not successful. The First Grand Secretary would often ignore me when I attempted to speak which leads me to believe that “he” was well aware of my Purist status. This was very frustrating. In order to follow my role, I should obey decorum and ritual or otherwise be a hypocrite. Some of my fellow faction members resorted to breaking decorum which was hypocritical but I feel that they had no choice. Eventually, we uniformly took a stand which I believe was less of a break in decorum and was justified due to the corruption we were against, also known as the First Grand Secretary.
Often in class, an argument would arise which I could support or counter with an Analect of which I had knowledge but not the location. I could not find it in the book. By the time I located the analect, we were far from the topic. Fearing criticism of the First Grand Secretary, I chose not to reintroduce the topic. I also felt that we were accomplishing little as a council and I did not want to further the lack of accomplishment by reintroducing a pointless argument devised by the First Grand Secretary in order to take up time and prevent the Purists from discussing succession. I personally feel that I should have known the Analects better but I do not feel that my knowledge was poor, merely my memorization of the analect numbers was lacking.
Due to the ambiguous quality of some members of the secretariat, I had trouble determining my allies. Some where very clear. Emily's harsh denunciation of the emperor in her very first memorial made it clear that she was a fellow Purist. However, I struggled over whether or not Secretaries Katie and Erin were allies. I only figure this out about a week before the last session. Had I known who my allies were, I would have been able to meet with more of them and formulated stronger arguments to achieve our goals as Purists.
Overall I'm satisfied with my performance. However, there is always room for improvement, as I have outlined in my preceding remarks. While these were certainly not the only areas in which I could have improved, these were the main three. As a whole, I found the China game to be a challenge but one that was not impossible or negative. The game was an excellent learning experience and at times very fun (the introduction of Dr. Felson). I found this class to be a very unique method of teaching but also very effective. I would recommend this class to other students, especially those needing skills in public speaking. Throughout this course I have noticed a significant improvement in both my public speaking and my extemporaneous speaking. I would definitely like to take another “Reacting” course. Though, perhaps next time, I won't be in ancient China and will be able to pronounce all the names correctly.