The Perception of Pain in Late Imperial China

Abstract

This chapter can only offer some hints on the cultural background and the perception of pain in Late Imperial China, and will limit its scope to an analysis of the main terms used for physical suffering and pain, presenting some examples in order to better understand how pain is represented, described and located in the collective imagination.¹ It will clearly appear that physical pain was understood not only as a physical phenomenon, but also as involving the whole body-mind-he art system. Moral suffering was also related to the body. Cognitive factors involved the roles of values in the emotional process and in the evaluation and perception of bodily sensations. This meant that psychological and cultural factors were fundamental even in physical perceptions. Thus, the specific characters of a culture — intellectual means, categories, symbols, imagery and so on — concurred with the representation and the consciousness of pain.