The Sociological Significance of Community Drinking Ceremony in the Qing Dynasty

The Community Drinking Ceremony in the Qing Dynasty is a ceremony that reflects the Confucian conception of ruling the country and it acts a role as a link between the officials and the local elite community.In provinces and prefectures,the ceremony is a channel for officials to handle the local affairs by the hand of the elite community.In rural areas,working with other local autonomic systems,the Community Drinking Ceremony plays a role of moral education and maintenance of social order.In the process of observing the ceremony,there arose many problems,to the weakening of the original social function of the ceremony.In the later Qing period,the observation of the ceremony became not enforced,due to the social turbulence and financial pressure and finally it developed into a folk custom in some places.