Scholar-official

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Scholar-official
Painting that depicts the career of a civil servant. The career path starts with passing the civil service examinations (left side) and progresses to a high position in the government (right side).
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	士大夫
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Shìdàfū
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet	Sĩ đại phu
Chữ Hán	士大夫
Korean name
Hangul	사대부
Hanja	士大夫
Transcriptions Revised Romanization Sadaebu McCune–Reischauer Sadaebu
Japanese name
Kanji	士大夫
Hiragana	したいふ
Transcriptions Revised Hepburn si tai hu

The scholar-officials, also known as literati, scholar-gentlemen or scholar-bureaucrats (Chinese: 士大夫; pinyin: shì dàfū), were government officials and prestigious scholars in Chinese society, forming a distinct social class.

Scholar-officials were politicians and government officials appointed by the emperor of China to perform day-to-day political duties from the Han dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912, China's last imperial dynasty. After the Sui dynasty these officials mostly came from the scholar-gentry (紳士 shēnshì) who had earned academic degrees (such as xiucai, juren, or jinshi) by passing the imperial examinations. Scholar-officials were the elite class of imperial China. They were highly educated, especially in literature and the arts, including calligraphy and Confucian texts. They dominated the government administration and local life of China until the early 20th century.^[1]