Along with intellectual pursuits, the gentry exhibited habits and cultured hobbies which marked their social status and refinement. The erudite term of enjoying the company of the 'nine guests' (九客, "jiuke")—an extension of the Four Arts of the Chinese Scholar—was a metaphor for accepted gentry pastimes of playing the Chinese zither, playing Chinese chess, Zen Buddhist meditation, ink (calligraphy and painting), tea drinking, alchemy, chanting poetry, conversation, and drinking wine. The painted artwork of the gentry shifted dramatically in style from Northern to Southern Song, due to underlying political, demographic, and social circumstance. Northern Song gentry and officials, who were concerned largely with tackling issues of national interest and not much for local affairs, preferred painting huge landscape scenes where any individuals were but tiny figures immersed within a larger context. During the Southern Song, political, familial, and social concerns became heavily embedded with localized interests; these changes correlate with the chief style of Southern Song paintings, where small, intimate scenes with a primary focus on individuals was emphasized.