Vietnamese Mandarin Exam

This is an illustration of a Vietnamese mandarin exam from a 1895 article in the Le Petit Journal.  The Le Petit Journal was a leading illustrated news journal published in France from 1891 until WW2.  It was famous for its brightly colored prints graphically depicting news events around the world as well as happenings in France.

During the late 19th century, Vietnamese government officials were selected from the qualifiers of mandarin (public administrator) exams which were publicly held every four years.  In the illustration, the proctors were situated on the arena's elevated observation posts to facilitate the supervision of the candidates taking the exam below.  The article also reported that the mandarin exams were a very important aspect of Vietnamese education in that period.  In fact, education is extremely important to the Vietnamese people in general and, as a result, Vietnam is one of the most literate countries in Asia if not the world.