Bird

During a recent casual conversation (after a serious business meeting), PL, our senior consultant, told us about his recent trip to Inner Mongolia.

"We had a free afternoon and were taken to an old government office for a short tour. It's a building from the Qing dynasty and is now converted to a small museum. The exhibits were not entirely exciting - except for the government official uniform that was displayed."

"Those form the Qing empire?"

"Yes. You know, in those days government officials were divided into administrative (文官) and military (武官) types, each with nine classes, and every class had a different logo - birds for the administrative staff, and beasts for military officers."

"Quite right," we said.

"And, the one displayed was an uniform for a class 8 administrative officer - quite low a rank I must say," PL continued, "But, the catch is, do you know what kind of bird was used as the logo?"

"Eh...?" Of course we had no idea.

"It's a quail (鵪鶉)."

It really reflects the truth.

PS. That evening, TM, our new trainee, told us that in the Qing dynasty, physicians of the royal family were, according to the system, class 8 administrative staff - and therefore all quails.