The China Globe

IR Illuminator

2009-05-06T07:47:00.000-07:00

IR Illuminator
E-3000C IR Illuminator with 100m IR Distance and 25/30 Degrees IR Angle

Features:

* LED: 27 + 6 pieces
* IR distance: 120m
* IR wavelength: 850nm
* Power supply: 220V AC +\-10%, 600mA
* Status: under 10 lux by CDS
* Gamma: 0.45
* Video output: 1Vp-p 75ohms, negative
* Operating temperature: -10 to 50 degree Celsius, RH 95% maximum
* Storage temperature: -20 to 60 degree Celsius, RH 95% maximum

YES Development Co.,LTD
6/F, Block B,
Runfeng Industrial Park,
Gushu, Bao'an District,
Shenzhen
Guangdong
China 518000
Tel: (86 755) 29988558 (86 755) 88822033
Fax: (86 755) 82722676 / (86 755) 29988777
Mobile: (86) 13760401230
Homepage Address
www.yescctv.cn

USB Video Capture Adapter

2009-05-06T07:44:00.000-07:00

USB Video Capture Adapter with Small Size and Plug-and-Play Function

* Features:
o Video capture
o Plug-and-play
o Edit movies and video mail
o Snap shot
o Small wonder
o Net meeting and video conference
o Video input
o Compression
* Specifications:
o Video input: one RCA composite, one S-Video
o Video output: serial data for USB standard compliant
o Video capture size: 160 x 120, 176 x 144, 320 x 240, 352 x 288, 640 x 480
o Power source: 5V DC, 170mA (max.) through USB port
o Frame rate: 30fps at CIF (352 x 288 pixels)
o Dimensions: 88 x 31 x 21mm
o Version: USB 2.0
o Systems: support NTSC, PAL
o OS support interface: USB 2.0: Windows 2000 / XP P4.1 1.8GHz (real-time MPEG-2)
SharpVision Co Ltd
4F, No. 4 Tangdong Dong Road,
Tianhe District, Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangdong
China 510665
Tel: (86 20) 85572236/85572237 (86 20) 85545366
Fax: (86 20) 85542122

Homepage Address
http://www.sharpvision.cn

Automatic Switch Box

2009-05-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

AC-503 Automatic Switch Box with Four Camera Inputs, Operates from 12 to 32V Voltage

Features:

* Supports four camera inputs
* When five trigger wires for cameras are triggered, image of monitor automatically switches to relative channels
* Button with trigger cable for switching channels are by hand
* Two AV outputs
* Operates from 12 to 32V voltage

SharpVision Co Ltd
4F, No. 4 Tangdong Dong Road,
Tianhe District, Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangdong
China 510665
Tel: (86 20) 85572236/85572237 (86 20) 85545366
Fax: (86 20) 85542122

Homepage Address
http://www.sharpvision.cn

EAS Sensor System

2009-05-04T06:55:00.000-07:00

BS-2108 EAS Sensor with 80 to 180cm Detection Range, Easy to Debug and Install

Specifications/Special Features:

* CE certified
* Technical parameters:
o Scan center frequency: 8.2MHz +/- 0.05MHz
o Sweeping bandwidth: 7.5 to 9.2MHz
o Detection range: 80 to 180m (depends on the size of tag or label)
o Alarm volume: high, medium and low (three kinds of optional volume)
o Optional colors: black, gray and white
o Dimensions: 165 × 39 × 10cm (mm)
* Specially designed for top grand shopping plazas and garment stores
* Elegant design, concise shape and soft color
* Ideal for your ornament taste of stores

Wenzhou Boshine Electric Security Co., Ltd
2nd F D Building Liaoqian Industry,
Liaoqian West Road,
Wenzhou
Zhejiang
China 325000
Tel: (86 577) 88992230
Fax: (86 577) 88992333

Spy DVR Pen

2009-05-04T06:53:00.000-07:00

HY-V001 &2 Spy DVR Pen with High Resolution, Used for Law Enforcement Agencies and Stealth Surveillance

Key Specifications/Special Features:

* Product descriptions:
o Professional pen DVR for the professional investigators or law enforcement agencies
o Has high quality video and audio with real time date and time stamping for the evidence in the court
o Built-in 4GB memory, gives 16-hour audio/video recording in AVI format which is acceptable for the evidence in court or in police and army departments
o Super sensitive microphone can record the voice in a range of 15 square meters
o With delicate outline, fluent writing function, changeable pen filling is super vivid, long
o time used
* Specifications:
o Real-time date and time stamping
o 4GB built-in memory
o Video: 3,000K pixels, AVI format
o Built-in microphone
o Normal size pen with handwriting function
o Built-in lithium battery, can record for two hours if the battery is fully charged
o High-speed USB 2.0 interface
o Portable U-disk function
o Supports firmware upgrade
* Packing includes:
o Pen DVR
o User manual
o Emergency charger
o USB connector
o Charger connector
o Two pieces extra refills for the pen
o Nice gift box
* Parameters:
o Image rate: 15 to 30fps (frames)
o Sensitivity: 0.6 lux (1.3V/lux sec)
o Lens exterior: 8 x 8
o Object lens: 2.8mm
o Focus: 2.6mm
o Video resolution: CIF 640 x 480 pixels
o Dimensions: 150 x 15.6mm
o Weight: 46g
* Product applications:
o Police can use it for law enforcement
o Lawyers can use it to collect evidence
o Reporter can use it to interview in special occasion
o For stealth surveillance

Redleaf Technology (HK) Industry Co.,Ltd
Block A2, Hangcheng Industry Park,
Gushu, Bao'an District
Shenzhen
Guangdong
China 518000
Tel: (86 755) 27479943 (86 755) 83205823 Ext : 801
Fax: (86 755) 83208897

Homepage Address
www.hkredleaf.com.cn

Exorcising Ghosts Opera

2009-05-04T06:40:00.000-07:00

I had heard a long time ago that Guizhou was the only place where an ancient opera of primitive culture, the exorcising ghosts opera (nuoxi), was still played. On my trip to Guizhou this time, I happened to see a few shows.

The performers were all farmers. The accompanying musical instruments included gongs, drums, and cymbals. With simple costumes and masks, they danced to the importance. Although this opera died out long ago in its birthplace, it still lives on in a border province hundreds of miles away.

The exorcising ghosts opera originated from a sacrificial ceremony for driving away evil and pestilence in ancient times. The unearthed objects from the Yin ruins in Henan Province showed the mask worn by the official of the exorcising ceremony. It province that this kind of ceremony was found in the Rites of Zhou, a book recording the system of the court of the Zhou Dynasty (c, 11th century-221B.C.). It reads, "With eyes shining like gold, bear paws over his palms and a red coat over his shoulders, a masked man waved a spear and a shield and led a hundred slaves to exorcise the pestilence...."

By the Han (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) and Tang (618-907) dynasties, the scale of the court exorcising ceremony grew even larger. "Masked Dance" and "Dance of Twelve Gods" appeared in the Han Dynasty. Folk exorcising dances became popular and more entertaining, with stories added to the rituals of offering sacrifices to the gods and exorcising ghosts.

During the Song Dynasty (960-1297), the plot of the story became more complicated and complete, and its masks more varied. Gradually, the ceremony developed into an opera.

By the 13th to 14th centuries, zaju, poetic dramas set to music, flourished in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Instead of wearing masks, performers painted their faces with colourful paint and the exorcising opera was also replaced by different local operas. By the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the exorcising ghosts opera was introduced to China's southwest area by war refugees from the Central Plains. Later in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), soldiers stationed in the Guizhou border area also brought the opera there from the interior.

Now, the exorcising opera and many of its offshoots are still popular in Guizhou.

Wearing a mask, the actor enjoys the status of a god for the moment and can relish the fruits, wine and provisions proffered by the villagers.
However, the exorcising opera and sacrificial rite dance popular among the ethnic groups such as the Yi and Bouyei still remain at their early stage, similar to the sacrificial northeast Guizhou has reached the zenith of its development.

This opera is characterized by various masks made by local artists. In Guizhou, there are almost a thousand exorcising opera troupes and each one has some masks handed down from previous generations.

Looking at the masks, I could not but admire the ingenuity of those who carved them. By the hands of a skilled artisan, a piece of lifeless wood was transformed into an image full of artistic power. Ghost or human, every one of them looks unique and vivid. Further-more, the performers' exaggerated gestures and humorous lines also add dramatic effect to the masks. Though already different from their original form, these bold and vivid masks still capture attention with their artistic beauty.

The Mongolian Nationality

2009-05-04T06:36:00.000-07:00

The Mongolian Nationality, who are the main body of the population of Inner Mongolia, have their own traditional social customs and etiquette which are especially imbued with the characteristics of honesty, courtesy and hospitality. When they meet a guest, they warmly shake hands with him and say "Tasain bainu" (which means "How do you do" in Mongolian). When the guest gets into the yurt, the housewife presents him a bowl of milk tea with both her hands and then puts all kinds of dairy food on the table in front of the guest. When the guest leaves, all the family get out of the yurt to say to him. "Good-bye and wish you a good trip."

The Mongolian Yurt, called " a vaulted tent" or "felt tent" in the ancient times, is a domed peaked tent. The frame of the yurt is a supporting ring, formed by some wooden poles. The wooden poles are fastened with leather thongs and studs to form a fence-like structure (which are called "Hana" in Mongolian). The frame of the yurt is covered with thick felt fastened from outside the yurt with ropes. Every yurt has an opening on the top, which provides both light and ventilation, and a wooden door facing south or southeast.

Mongolian Ox Cart
The ox cart, also called the "Lele" cart, is a traditional traffic vehicle invented and used by the Mongolian people. It used to be made of birth wood or elm wood. The cart itself weighs about 50 kilograms. It is capable of carrying a few hundred or a thousand kilograms of goods.

The Festivals
The major traditional festivals among the Mongolian people are the Off Year, which is on the 23rd day of the last month according to the lunar calendar, and the On Year, which is the first day of the first month of the new year also according to the lunar calendar.

The Mongolian people make use of the Off Year festival to worship the "Kitchen God" as well as to bid farewell to the "Kitchen God". They particularly worship the "the Fire God", believing that the "Fire God" could bring happiness and wealth to man. On the off Year Day all the members of the family are sure to come together to have a reunion dinner. When it is time to bid farewell to the Kitchen God, they throw a little food of all kinds into the fire and pray the god for blessings.

The Mongolian people make the On Year Festival (which is called the Spring Festival by the Han people) a chance to have their family reunited. Before the festival, they are busy getting everything ready, including beef, mutton, new clothes and delicious food of all kinds. On the eve of the festival, all the family sit at the dining table with cooked meat, dairy products and good wine, talking and laughing while they are eating and drinking. A large piece of paper, with their ancestor's name on it, is often placed in the centre of the dinner table, which indicates that the spirit of their ancestor would come back to celebrate the festival with them. On the first five days of the first month of the lunar calendar, they go to the friends and relatives' yurts, paying New Year calls and give Hada and wine as presents. In doing so, they often take back a small packet of tea with them, hoping that they would bring good luck home from outside.

Dress and Personal Adornment

In order to adapt themselves to the natural conditions, the Mongolian people have developed their unique national costume which consists of the loose sleeved tunic, the long sash, Mongolian boots and head ornaments (i.e. head-dress). The Mongolian women often wear head-dress while they visit their friends and relatives. The head-dress is made of agate, pearls, coral, jadeite, gem, gold and silver, with which many different beautiful patterns are formed. The Ordos women's head-dress is the most typical of all in Inner Mongolia. Made of valueable materials, it si exquisite and pleasing in form, weighing about 20 kilograms.

It is customary for the Mongolian women to wrap their heads in scarlet or green silk. The Mongolian men wear hats with heavy ear-flags in winter. The robes worn by Mongolian people have high collars and long loose sleeves, reach below the knees and button down at the right breast. The sash is often worn round the waist to match the robe. The materials of the robes can be silk, satin or cotton cloth. They are suitable for riding horses.

Marriage Customs
Two kinds of marriage customs used to be in fashion among the Mongolian people; snatching a maiden and making her a bride; making a proposal of marriage to the girl and her parents by offering betrothal gifts. The former custom had died out by the 13 th century while the latter custom has been handed down. In the pastoral area cattle, sheep or other live-stock are often sent to the bride's family as betrothal gifts. The number of gifts must be nine or can be divided by nine. This is because cardinal numbers are regarded as auspicious by the Mongolian people. The wedding often lasts two or three days.

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Liao Dynasty Street

2009-05-04T06:33:00.000-07:00

Yingxian Wooden Pagoda is a world-famous Buddhist pagoda in Yingxia County under the jurisdiction of Shouzhou City, Shanxi Province. Now a new Liao Dynasty Street has been built to the south of the noted pagoda. Running from north to south, the street together with the wooden pagoda constitutes in the county.

The street was constructed in line with the architectural style and characteristics of the Liao Dynasty (916-1125). Its completion symbolizes the prosperity of the Liao Dynasty when the construction of the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda began.

Along the street stand buildings with the unique features of the Liao Dynasty. The organized layout of these buildings blends harmoniously with the street, creating both a simple and unsophisticated look. Some are two stories and some are three stories. Some have upturned leaves and some are decorated with crisscrossing beams. Each of these building links to another, forming a typical cultural street of the Liao Dynasty. Together with the wooden pagoda there is a unified architectural style.

The street is 340 meters in length, with a width of 18-meters (42-meters if the buildings on both sides are included). Its construction area covers 12,000 square meters. Twenty million yuan was invested in this large-scale project, where the market played the role of the lever without financial support from the central government. The local people have put their plan into practice and have also created a new way of developing local tourism. Now the Liao Dynasty Street serves as a tourist attraction with a special cultural flavor.

The street is also called a cultural street because it has such a deep cultural connotation. It lures tourists to take a long walk along it. Shops and stalls line both sides of the street and sell various kinds of goods and commodities, such as special local products, goods which are unique to northern Shanxi local food popular in the area beyond the Great Wall, and fine arts and souvenirs for tourists. The market scene is a symbol of the flourishing local tourism.

The Liao Dynasty Street in Yingxia County.
The magnificent wooden pagoda has stood here for 900 years. It is 60 meters tall and 30 meters in diameters at the base. As a representative of the architectural level and culture of the Liao Dynasty, it has become a noted historical site of cultural interest in the Dynasty, it has become a noted historical site of cultural interest in the Datong Tourist Area. Over the past 20 years, it has attracted numerous domestic and overseas tourists who have wanted to see for themselves its beauty and primitive simplicity. The cultural street has formed an entire architectural complex. As a window for both Chinese and foreigners to find out something about economic development in Yingxian County, the Liao Dynasty Street has put local tourism and the economy back on track.

Now the local people are working hard to level the ground in order to build a large square and the Pagoda Reflection Park to the south of the pagoda. They also plan to rebuild a section of the city wall around the square in order to show what the frontier fortress in the Liao Dynasty would have looked like, thus creating a tourist attraction with a unique atmosphere.

"Magpie Dress" in Yunnan

2009-05-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

In the Yunnan local dialect, a small intermontane plain is called a bazi. Baofengba in Puning County is a village inhabited by the Hans. When I saw Luo Meiying, the township leader, she wore a typical peasant dress: a black cloth scarf wrapped apron on her head, a white tight jacket covered with a black lace vest, an embroidered apron around her waist, blue pants and embroidered cotton shoes. Sensing my curiosity, she told me that it was called a magpie dress because the black head and body and white wings.

The Miao women in Guizhou are good at weaving, dyeing and embroidery. They use homemade cloth and embroidery to dress and decorate themselves and their children.
The magpie dress was introduced to this Han village by Luo Meiying from her Yi village when she got married more than 12 years ago. She then changed the chintz scarf and white vest to black, making her look like a magpie which is regarded by the Chinese as a lucky bird. They believe that if a magpie sings in the tree in front of your house, your family will be fortunate.

Yi girls are known for their simplicity, beauty and kindness. Young men from Baofengba think themselves very lucky if they can marry Yi girls. They get to know each other while cutting firewood in the mountains, at country fairs and singing, dancing or drinking mountain wine at local festivals or activities.

When I visited a Yi village called Tianba, I saw a tiyue (dancing) scene. According to the Yi custom, Yi girls can only dance with young men from Han villages bring wine, sausage and candies to the appointed place and start a fire while waiting. When the Yi girls arrive, they all get up and greet them before sitting down around the fire, while the Yi girl gathers some brambles and puts them on the designated meeting spot to show her disappointment, thus breaking up the relationship.

But if a young man breaks his promise by not showing up at the appointed place, the Yi girl gathers some brambles and puts them on the designated meeting spot to show her disappointment, thus breaking up the relationship.

At Tianba, the old Yi houses with thick walls made of sticky soil look as a castle. In the past, there was always a dog crouching on the flat roof to watch our for people who came to attack the village. The frequent contact over the past few decades between the Yi and the Han has also resulted in intermarriage between the Yi and the Han. When the Yis found that the Han's brick houses with slanted roofs were durable and good for drainage, they also started to build their houses as the Hans do.

I was invited by a Yi family of Guo Xiaolan. They lived in a two-story house. Entering the arched gateway, I found myself in a small yard with a sitting room and bedroom in front and two rooms on each side: one that served as a kitchen and the other that served as a storehouse. It looked quite similar to the houses found in the Han village of Baofengba.

It was the slack winter season. A few young people from the Tianba amateur singing and dancing troupe were practising the Flower Lantern Opera, a folk opera which used to be popular among the Hans in Yunnan and Guizhou. During the Spring and Lantern festivals, a group of three to five performers would bring simple costumes with them and give performances from village to village.

After generations of intermingling with the minorities, the Han people have also been influenced by them in clothing and customs.

The Miao women are good at dyeing, weaving and embroidery. Not only do they wear colourful embroidered dresses, but they also dress their children in colourful clothes. Even the bundle cloth they use to carry baby on the back is also embroidered with beautiful patterns. Imitating the Miao women, the Han women also make embroidered hats for their children and carry their babies with embroidered bundle cloths on their backs. It is difficult to tell a Miao woman from a Han from their back. Assimilating and developing the best of different minorities, some Han women in minority-inhabited areas dress themselves in colourful minority costumes, and yet no one can identify them with any particular minority group.

The Han women living at Baofengba of Jinning all wear embroidered cotton shoes. As the shoe has an upturned tip which looks like a turtledove's head, it is known as turtledove shoe. Though most of the minority women living in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces also wear embroidered shoes, no one can say for sure who the originator is.

the Moon Festival

2009-05-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, the moon is round and the Chinese people mark their Moon (or Mid-autumn) Festival. The round shape to a Chinese means family reunion. Therefore the Moon Festival is a holiday for members of a family to get together wherever it is possible.

On that day sons and daughters will bring their family members back to their parents' house for a reunion. Sometimes people who have already settled overseas will come back to visit their parents on that day.

As every Chinese holiday is accompanied by some sort of special food. On the Moon Festival, people eat moon cakes, a kind of cookie with fillings of sugar, fat, sesame, walnut, the yoke of preserved eggs, ham or other material. In Chinese fairy tales, there live on the moon the fairy Chang E, a wood cutter named Wu Gang and a jade rabbit which is Chang E's pet. In the old days, people paid respect to the fairy Chang E and her pet the jade rabbit.

The custom of paying homage to the fairy and rabbit is gone, but the moon cakes are showing improvement every year. There are moon cake

hundreds of varieties of moon cakes on sale a month before the arrival of the Moon Festival this year. Some moon cakes are of very high quality and very delicious. An overseas tourist is advised not to miss it if he or she happens to be in China during the Moon Festival.

Poems on Moon and Home

The Mid-Autumn Moon
by Li Qiao

A full moon hangs high in the chilly sky,
All say it's the same everywhere, round and bright.
But how can one be sure thousands of li away
Wind and perhaps rain may not be marring the night?

The Yo-Mei Mountain Moon
by Li Bai

The autumn moon is half round above the Yo-mei Mountain;
The pale light falls in and flows with the water of the Ping-chiang River.
Tonight I leave Ching-chi of limpid stream for the three Canyons.
And glide down past Yu-chow, thinking of you whom I can not see.

Jingdezhen

2009-05-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

Jingdezhen, formerly spelt Ching Teh Chen and known as the "Ceramics Metropolis" of China, is a synonym for Chinese porcelain.

Variably called Xinping or Changnanzhen in history, it is situated in the northeastern part of Jiangxi Province in a small basin rich in fine kaolin, hemmed in by mountains which keep it supplied with firewood from their conifers. People there began to produce ceramics as early as 1,800 years ago in the Eastern Han Dynasty. In the Jingde Period (1004-1007), Emperor Zhenzong of the the Song Dynasty. decreed that Changnanzhen should produce the porcelain used by the imperial court, with each inscribed at the bottom "Made in the Reign of Jingde." From then on people began to call all chinaware bearing such inscriptions "porcelain of Jingdezhen."

The ceramic industry experienced further development at Jingdezhen during the Ming and Qing dynasties or from the 14th to the 19th century, when skills became perfected and the general quality more refined; government kilns were set up to cater exclusively to the need of the imperial house.

Jingdezhen, the ancient ceramics metropolis, has been regenerated with new vigor since the founding of New China. It now boasts a ceramic research institute and a ceramic museum in addition to five kaolin quarries, 15 porcelain factories, two porcelain machinery plants, one porcelain chemical plant, two refractory materials factories and dozens of porcelain processing works.

The leading centre of the porcelain industry, Jingdezhen has been put under state protection also as an important historical city. With 133 ancient buildings and cultural sites, it is a tourist town attracting large numbers of visitors from home and abroad.

Sleeping Buddha

2009-04-26T08:18:00.001-07:00

The Sleeping Buddha is Sakyamuni on his death bed entering nirvana. It can be seen in temples, grottoes or frescoes all round China, varied from stone engraving, wood cutting, jade carving, clay sculpture, coloured drawing to metal moulding. Its size can be so long as to tens of meters or as small as a grain of rice.

Mr. Zhao Puchu, the president of China Buddhism Association, such described the authentic sight of Sakyamuni's nirvana in the book of "General Knowledge of Buddha":

"Before the Buddha's death, he became severely sick. He walked northwest with his disciples and had the food offered by a blacksmith. His illness was getting worse. In the end, he came to a river and took a bath. Then he made a rope bed among eight sal trees, with each direction has two. He lied on his side, right hand supporting his head, the other resting on his body. All later reclining Buddhas (called Buddha's Nirvana) are in the same posture. The Buddha's disciples kept watch on him after they were told the Buddha was going to nirvana. At night, a scholar of Brahman went to see the Buddha, but was stopped by Ananda, a disciple of the Buddha. Hearing this, the Buddha called the scholar to his bed and worded for him. Thus the scholar became the Buddha's last disciple. The final exhortation of theBuddha to his disciples was that they should not be sorry for losing their tutor. Their should take the Buddhism Doctrine as their guide, eager for progress, no indulgence. After his death, the Buddha's remains were cremated.

Sakyamuni died at the age of eighty years old. People excavated the vestige of the cremation of his remains and the reclining Buddha carved in stone at where he died.

The No.158 Cave of Dunhuang Grottoes in China built in Tang Dynasty has a 15-meter-long glazed figurine of reclining Buddha in clay. Though for art's sake it was exaggerated, it still authentically reflected the scene of Sakyamuni's death. The artists of Tang Dynasty depicted the eighty-year-old Buddha into an asleep woman with plump cheeks, half-opened eyes, deeply sunk corners of mouth and kind and tranquil smile. It is said at that time, he was giving his last expounding on "Nirvana Doctrine" to his disciples around.

The southern wall of this cave drew in color two elder disciples of Sakyamuni. One of them was listening with rapt attention, while the other was running. It is said the latter was practicing Buddhism in a mountain when he heard his tutor was going to nirvana. He rushed down to listen to Sakyamuni's last words.

On the western and eastern walls there is a colored "Sorrow Showing Picture" about Bodhisattvas, arhats and princes of all kingdoms in Turkestan. Bodhisattvas are the figures with higher awareness in Buddhism. They knew only the Buddha after nirvana could enter the Sukhavati (Western Paradise). Therefore, they showed nonchalance and indifference to Buddha's nirvana. For those arhats, as they had not reached such a high level as Bodhisattvas, their expressions are miserable when they knew the Buddha was leaving them. As to those princes, they cried out aloud, thumping their chests and stamping their feet. Some even cut their noses and ears with knives. Some laid open the bowel and committed suicide, deciding to follow the Buddha. What they had done showed their devoutness to the Buddha and their low awareness as well. These colorful pictures not only helped people historically understand the real sight of the Buddha's death, but get to know the folk customs of the ancient Turkestan people through the portraits on the drawings.

There are many reclining Buddha statues all over China, some of which have high artistic value. They have been listed as important cultural relics to be preserved by the nation.

Dragon & Phoenix

2009-04-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

The dragon and the phoenix are the principal motifs for decorative designs on the buildings, clothing and articles of daily use in the imperial palace. The throne hall is supported by columns entwined by gilded dragons, the central ramps on marble steps were paved with huge slabs carved in relief with the dragon and phoenix, and the screen walls display dragons in brilliant colours (see the Nine-Dragon Screen in Beihai Park). The names in the Chinese language for nearly all the things connected with the emperor or the empress were preceded by the epithet "dragon" or "phoenix"; thus, "dragonstone dragon seat" for the throne, "dragon robe" for the emperor's ceremonial dress, "dragon bed" for him to sleep on, and "phoenix carriage", "phoenix canopies" and so on for the imperial processions. The national flag of China under the Qing Dynasty was emblazoned with a big dragon. The earliest postage stamps put out by China were called "dragon-heads" because they showed a dragon in their designs. Even today the dragon is sometimes adopted as the symbol of Chinese exhibitions held abroad or the cover designs of books on China printed by foreign publishers. "The Giant Dragon of the East" is becoming a sobriquet for the country.

Belief in the dragon, and drawings of the imaginary animal, can be traced back to primitive society when certain prehistoric tribes in China adopted the dragon among other totems as their symbol and guardian god. Some of the recently unearthed bronze vessels of the Yin Dynasty, which existed more than 3,000 years ago, are decorated with sketches of dragons of a crude form. Earliest legends in China described the dragon as a miraculous animal with fish scales and long beards. As time went on, it became more and more embellished in the minds of embroidery phoenixthe people, acquiring the antlers of the deer, the mane of the horse and the claws of the eagle -- in short, appropriating the distinctive features of other creatures until it became what we see today everywhere in the palace.

The Chinese phoenix, likewise, exists only in legends and fairy tales. Sovereign of all birds, it has the head of the golden pheasant, the beak of the parrot, the body of the mandarin duck, the wings of the roc, the feathers of the peacock and the legs of the crane; gloriously beautiful, it reigns over the feathered world. An early design of the phoenix can be seen on the silk painting discovered in a tomb of the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.) near Changsha in Hunan Province.

The dragon and the phoenix often served in classical art and literature as metaphors for people of high virtue and rare talent or, in certain combinations, for matrimonial harmony or happy marriage. As an important part of folk arts, dragon lanterns, dragon boats, dragon and phoenix dances are still highly popular on festivals among the people of all localities.

Silkworm Raisers' Customs

2009-04-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces are prominent silkworm producers in China. In early May each year, every household begins preparing to breed silkworms when barley becomes yellow and the mulberry fields turn green.

The Mulberry leaves for silkworms must be fresh and clean. Women go to the mulberry fields to collect the mulberry leaves every morning.

dust-sized silkworm ovum will grow into an ant-shaped silkworm after brooding for a month, and then grow into a long white worm after four periods of quiescence and exuviation and then, the silkworm begins spinning pure white silk and finally turns into a pupa. There are many legends about the development of silkworms. One of them is a touching story, which goes as follows.

Once upon a time, there was a father and his daughter who depended on each other very much. They had a white horse, which the girl fed with mulberry leaves. Once, the father went out to do some trade and didn't come back on time. No one knew of his whereabouts. The daughter was very worried about him. One day, she prayed to marry a kind-hearted man who could help her find her father. When she had just finished asking for this, the white horse standing beside her nodded, circled around her three times and galloped away. Several days later, the white horse found the old man who had lost his way in the mountains and carried him home on his back. However, the white horse was always with the girl from then on and the father was puzzled by the matter. After he questioned her, the girl told the truth to her father. He got very angry, "It is natural that the horse looks for its owner, but how can an animal be a match for a person?" When the horse heard this, it began neighing and refused to eat anything. The father was very angry, and killed it with an arrow. He skinned the horse and dried the hide in the sunshine. After the daughter collected mulberry leaves, she returned home. Caressing the skin of the horse, she burst into tears. When her tears dropped on the horse, her body was wrapped up by the skin and flown to the sky. Later, seeing snow-white silkworms hanging on the mulberry trees, people said that theses silkworms were the girls wrapped in the horse's skin. Since the head of the silkworm is similar to that of a horse's head, Matouniang (a girl with a horse's head) became another name for silkworm. When the daughter missed her father, she spun out the long silk. This is a legend about the origin of how silkworms spin silk and become silkworm cocoons.

In the past, whenever there was a bumper

A Picture of the Goddess of Silkworms.

harvest of silkworm cocoons sericulturists would light an incense burner and offerings were arranged in the central room of a house to thank the Goddess of Silkworms. The statue of the goddess engraved on a wooden plate was a goddess in a horse-skin cloth. She had a vertical eye on her forehead which was deliberately drawn because no one could bear to see the arrow wound.

It is very interesting that Japan also has a legend about Matouniang with the spread of Chinese silkworms to Japan in the third century. However, in Japan the Goddess of Silkworms is a Japanese beauty in a kimono that rides a horse.

Sericulture in the region of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces is as important as farming. A good or poor harvest of silkworms is directly related to the livelihood of sericulturists. Silkworms are tender and delicate, hard to raise and easily get diseases. If the diseases spread, all the efforts of the sericulturists will be wasted. Therefore, when the season for breeding silkworms comes, every household in the villages is very busy. There are also many taboos and regulations in this period.

There are taboos surrounding the raising of silkworms. Women are prohibited from visiting friends, children from shouting, and men from going without a shirt during the time when silkworms are being hatched. On seeing peach branches which are thought to avoid evil and red paper with the characters can yue zhi li (A man should be polite in the month of silkworms) inserted on the eaves of a sericulturist's house, an unexpected guest should go away quietly.

There are other taboos and regulations concerning the homes of sericulturists, such as forbidding a stranger to enter the house, prohibitions on shouting, crying, and knocking doors or windows in the house. Liquor, vinegar, and anything smelling of fish of mutton should not be brought into a sericulturist's house and it is forbidden to dig the ground, cut grass, husk rice with a mortar and pestle or to burn fur and hair around a sericulturist's house. In the past, before putting silkworm eggs into a round shallow basket woven out of bamboo, people always pasted a wood engraving of a cat on the basket. This was because mice are natural enemies of silkworms. The mice often climbed to the shelves of silkworms and ate young silkworms when night-watchers dozed off. Hence, every household not only raised cats, but also retains the custom of pasting a picture of a cat on the basket.

Of course, some regulations are superstitious, for instance, menstruating women or women about to give birth are forbidden to raise silkworms; when buying mulberry leaves from other villages, in order to dispel evil spirits, sericulturists use mulberry branches to lash the leaves three times, and then feed them to silkworms. However, the purpose of all these prohibitions is to avoid noise pollution and bad smells. Young silkworms grow healthily in a clean and quiet environment.

When harvesting silkworm cocoons, sericulturists will, according to tradition, buy fish and meat, kill chickens and arrange feasts to celebrate. At this time, friends and relatives bring loquats, duck eggs and zongzi (a triangular dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or other leaves) to visit these sericulturists. They come to send best wishes and ask how many can hua (harvests) these sericulturists get.

Can hua (literally "silkworm flower") is not a flower, but a word which indicates a good or bad harvest of silkworm cocoons. According to local custom, when young silkworms lie dormant for the fourth time, sericulturists will weigh these silkworms on a scale. For instance, if one catty of silkworms can spin out six catties of silkworm cocoons, the six-catty cocoons are called liu fen can hua (liu means six, and fen is a unit of measurement). The word can hua is often used in reference to the silkworm trade, but its meaning has various connotations according to the situation.

According to local tradition, women who raise silkworms wear flowers on their upswept hair, wishing to have an abundant harvest of silkworms.

For example, local people call women sericulturists can hua gu niang (gu niang means a girl). On the morning of the first day of the lunar year, a woman sericulturist must, according to tradition, sweep the floor from the outside to the inside of a house. It is called sao can hua di (sweep the floor of can hua), meaning that there will be a good harvest of silkworm cocoons when can hua is swept into a house.

On New Year holidays, people will greet each other by saying, gong xi fa cai (may you make a fortune) and can hua er she si fen) (wish you a good harvest of silkworm cocoons).

On the day of the Qingming Festival, at the beginning of April, can hua gu niang will insert can hua in their hair at the temples. Can hua here refers to small flower, or golden yellow vegetable flowers. The can hua gu niang will go to a monastery to pray together at an appointed time. They will also buy some silk flowers from the monastery and insert them in round shallow baskets. This is called tao can hua (tao here mean to beg). They believe that can hua coming from a monastery can expel all the evils in a sericulturist's house, so they will have a brisk silkworm business. At night, the woman of the house will prepare a delicious dinner. The family then gets together to drink. This is called can hua jiu (jiu means liquor). Drinking can hua jiu means that they will do their best to raise silkworms.

When a couple get married, the girl's parents will send the couple two young mulberries, two round shallow baskets of silkworms and silk clothes and bedding as a dowry. They hope that the bride will bring brisk business.

Kashi, a pearl on the Old Silk Road

2009-04-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

This is a narrow, quiet lane. The road is lined with houses of one or two storied built of adobe or red brick. It is Saturday. A group of Uygur children are playing, bringing a joyful atmosphere to the quiet bane. At the end of the lane, a sign reading "Vegetable Bazaar Lane" reminds people of its past. The bazaar no longer exists, and people can only imagine the brisk scene here in the old days.

In the old districts of Kashi, many streets have "bazaar" as part of their names. Although most of the bazaars have ceased to exist except in name, there are still some that are still in use. From the names of these streets people can imagine the past glory of this ancient trading city on the Old Silk Road.

The animal market at the Sunday Bazaar.

Kashi, located in the southwestern part of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, has a history of more than 2,000 years. It has occupied an important position in northwestern China since ancient times. Situated at the juncture of the southern and northern routes of the Old Silk Road, it attracted merchants from many parts of the world to trade here . So Kashi became a famous trading city, called a bright pearl on the Old Silk Road. Meanwhile, Kashi is also a sacred place of Islam. Atigar Mosque, the largest mosque in Xinjiang, situated on Atigar Square in the center of the city, is more than 500 years old. The city has produced many famous figures throughout its history.

Kashi is divided into two parts: the new district and the old district, the streets are wide and lined with high-rise buildings, little different from other cities in China ; in the old district, the streets are narrow and most houses are low brick or adobe one.

In fact, today's Kashi has preserved the old traditions. On streets one can find markets selling various commodities, such as vegetables, fruits, food, garments, tools and handicrafts.

Kashi's markets differ from markets in other places in that most of the commodities on sale are made by the vendors themselves. Here tourists can see the handicrafts actually being made in the workshops. Wandering along an ancient street in Kashi, it is as if one has traveled back in time. At the shoes and caps market, the caps and boots on sale are made on the spot.

Going ahead, one can hear the clanging of blacksmiths' hammers. If you hear the sound of an electric saw, then you can go and see carpenters making furniture and kitchen utensils. If you smell the fragrance of baked cakes, you will soon find an eating place serving nang, the staple food of the Uygur people. The nang is broken into small pieces and dipped in soup. It is said nang can be kept for weeks without going stale.

Abahuoga Mazar. It is said that the Fragrant Imperial Concubine of the Qing Dynasty is buried here.

These markets are open every day. The famous Sunday bazaar has been operating since ancient times, and the scale has become larger and larger, attracting merchants from all over Xinjiang and neighboring countries such as Pakistan and Kirghizstan.

Farmers from the suburbs of Kashi come to the bazaar early in the morning, using various means of transportation, such as bicycles, motorcycles, tractors, trucks and donkey-drawn carts. The highways leading to Kashi are crowded with these vehicles and pedestrians on Sunday mornings, as well as with flocks of sheep.

On Sunday the whole city becomes a big market. It is hard to tell the markets from the ordinary streets. Of the 20 markets, some are comprehensive ones, and some are specialized markets selling local produce, arts and crafts, garments, knives, timber, coal or animals. Among them, the animal markets are the largest. Each day, more than 1,000 head of cattle, horses, sheep and camels are traded here.

October is the best season to visit Kashi, as the weather is pleasant and the autumn harvest makes the markets more brisk. In autumn, many types of fruit are on sale, such as grapes, watermelons, Hami melons and figs. Other local products include Xinjiang knives and carpets, which make good souvenirs for tourists.

Uygur people make up most of Kashi's inhabitants. On the streets, one can seldom see people of other ethnic groups except foreign tourists and tourists from other parts of China.

On the ancient streets of Kashi everywhere there are men wearing Uygur skullcaps and women wearing brown veils. The Uygur language is universally spoken by the local people.

After visiting Kashi's Sunday bazaar, people will understand the saying" without visiting Kashi, one cannot say he has visited Kashi. If you have a chance to visit Kashi, don't miss the chance to visit its Sunday Bazaar.

Traditional Chinese Painting

2009-04-24T07:07:00.001-07:00

An important part of the country's cultural heritage, the traditional Chinese painting is distinguished from Western art in that it is executed on xuan paper (or silk) with the Chinese brush, Chinese ink and mineral and vegetable pigments.

To attain proficiency in this branch of art calls for assiduous exercise, a good control of the brush, and a feel and knowledge of the qualities of xuan paper and Chinese ink.

Before setting a brush to paper, the painter must conceive a well-composed draft in his mind, drawing on his imagination and store of experience, Once he starts to paint, he will normally have to complete the work at one go, denied the possibility of any alteration of wrong strokes.

Xuan paper, as discussed in a previous article, is most suitable for Chinese painting. It is of the right texture to allow the writing brush wet with Chinese ink and held in a trained hand, to move freely on it, making strokes varying from dark to light, from solid to hollow. These soon turn out to be human figures, plants and flowers, birds, fish and insects, full of interest and life.

Many a Chinese painter is at the same time a poet and calligrapher. He will often add a poem in his own hand on the painting, which invariably carries an impression of his seal. The resulting piece of work is usually an integrated whole of four branches of Chinese art-- poetry, calligraphy, painting and seal-cutting.

Chinese paintings are divided into two major categories: free hand brushwork (xieyi) and detailed brushwork (gongbi) . The former is characterized by simple and bold strokes intended to represent the exaggerated likenesses of the objects, while the latter by fine brushwork and close attention to detail. Employing different techniques , the two schools try to achieve the same end, the creation of beauty.

It is difficult to tell how long the art of painting has existed in China. Pots of 5,000-6,000 years ago were painted in colour with patterns of plants, fabrics, and animals, reflecting various aspects of the life of primitive clan communities. These may be considered the beginnings of Chinese painting.

China entered the slave society about 2000 B.C. Though no paintings of that period have ever come to light, that society witnessed the emergence of a magnificent bronze culture, and bronzes can only be taken as a composite art of painting and sculpture.

In 1949 from a tomb of the Warring States Period (475-221 B. C.) was unearthed a painting on silk of human figures, dragons and phoenixes. The earliest work on silk ever discovered in China, it measures about 30 cm long by 20 cm wide.

From this and other early paintings on silk it may be easily seen that the ancients were already familiar with the art of the writing or painting brush, for the strokes show vigour or elegance whichever was desired. Paintings of this period are strongly religious or mythological in themes.

Paintings on paper appeared much later than those on silk for the simple reason that the invention of silk preceded that of paper by a long historical period.

In 1964, when a tomb dating to the Jin Dynasty (265- 420 A. D) was excavated at Astana in Turpan, Xinjiang, a coloured painting on paper was discovered. It shows, on top, the sun, the moon and the Big Dipper and, below, the owner of fan in his hand. A portrayal in vivid lines of the life of a feudal land-owner, measuring 106.5 cm long 47 cm high, it is the only known painting on paper of such antiquity in China.

Beef with Black Pepper

2009-04-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

Yue cuisine, whose recipes appeared in the literature of the Han, Wei, South and North Dynasties (220-587), became famous both at home and abroad at the beginning of the 20th century. Various unusual materials are used, cooking techniques include SHAO (boil, then fry in oil), BAO (cook with a special kind of boiler), soft fry in oil, soft stir-fry, and steam in clear soup. the general flavour is light and fresh. Famous dishes are roast suckling pig, snake meat with juice, Dongjiang salted chicken, shark's fin with brown sauce, White Cloud pig's foot, fish belly in clear soup, fried shrimp, bird's nest with wax gourd.

Beef with Black Pepper

Materials:
500g beef
200g onions
25g black pepper
25g hot pepper grains
1 egg
20g Jishi powder

Preparations
1. Remove the sinews of the beef, cut obliquely into thick slices, beat loose with a cleaver, add salt, MSG, flour, cornstarch, soy sauce, five spices powder, water, and beaten egg, steep for 30 minutes, then saute in 40% heated oil until done.
2. Leave a little oil in the wok, add chopped garlic, onion, hot pepper grains, black pepper grains and stir-fry until the fragrance comes out, add the beef, add condiments and stir-fry.
3. Transfer the beef to a heated iron plate covered with onion rings, pour the juice into the iron sauce jug.

Waging War--The Art of War

2009-04-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

Part 8

Sun Tzu said: When you dispatch troops for a battle, you must consider you will require one thousand swift war chariots, one thousand heavy war chariots and one hundred thousand soldiers. Besides, you will require enough provisions for them to cover a thousand miles. Therefore it will spend one thousand pieces of gold a day for the expenditure both at home and on the front, for the entertainment of advisers and counsellors, for the maintenance cost of materials such as glue and lacquer, chariots and armours. After you have had enough money, your hundred thousand bold warriors can go out to battle.

Part 9
In military operations a long-drawn-out victory will make the whole army dull and tired out, and dampen the spirit and enthusiasm of the soldiers; a drawn-out siege of a city will exhaust their strength; a protracted campaign abroad will deplete the financial resources of the state. If the army is tired out, the soldiers' enthusiasm is dampened and their strength exhausted, and the state's treasury is depleted, the neighbouring princes will take advantage of your difficulty and attack you and do you harm. By that time, not even an able or wise counsellor can steer clear of danger to safety.

Though we have heard of criticism of a hasty campaign, we have never seen the cleverness in prolonging a war, and we have never heard a protracted war can benefit a country. It is obvious that he who doesn't fully understand the dangers inherent in military operations cannot fully master the method of conducting the army in a profitable way.

Part 10
He who is adept in military operations never raises an army twice nor provides food again and again. He brings along military supplies from his own country, and obtains provisions in the enemy state. In this way, the whole army can be sufficiently provided with food.

Part 11
Generally, transporting supplies to a distant place will impoverish the state that dispatches troops to wage war. At the same time, it will render the common people destitute. Besides, the prices of commodities normally soar near the battleground or the area where the troops are stationed; and the high price will drain away the common people's financial resources; and the financial exhaustion will lead to urgent exactions. With such financial depletion, every household in the country is stripped bare, about seven-tenths of the people's wealth is sent, and six-tenths of the state's revenue is dissipated, with chariots broken, horses worn out, weapons lost or worn, including armours and helmets.arrows and crossbows, halberds and bucklers, spears and shields, draught oxen and heavy wagons and the like.

Part 12
Hence a wise commander should strive to get provisions in the enemy state. The consumption of one zhong* of food from the enemy is equivalent to twenty zhong from his own land; and the consumption of one dan* of enemy fodder to twenty dan of his.

*zhong: ancient Chinese unit of dry measure for food.
*dan: ancient Chinese unit of dry measure for grain.

Part 13
If you want to slay the enemy, you must first rouse the hatred of your soldiers for the enemy, if you want to obtain the enemy's property, you must first give your soldiers material reward. If your army captures ten chariots in a chariot battle, you must reward the first who took the enemy's chariot. Replace the enemy's flags and banners with your own and mix the captured chariots with yours. At the same time, you should treat the captives well and know how to choose them for the right positions. As the saving goes, 'The more times you defeat the enemy the stronger you will be!'

Part 14
Military operations should aim at speedy victory and not prolonged campaigns.

Therefore, the commander who is versed in the art of war is the man to determine the people's fate and to control the security of the nation.

Preliminary Calculations--The Art of War

2009-04-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

Part 1

Sun Tzu said: What is war? It may be described as one of the most important affairs to the state. It is the ground* of death or life of both soldiers and people, and the way* that governs the survival or the ruin of the state. So we must deliberately examine and study it.

*ground: battlefield.
*way: in ancient Chinese language 'way' means law, principle, or reason.

Part 2
Therefore we should analyse and compare the conditions of ourselves and an enemy from five factors in order to forecast if we will win before the beginning of war. The five factors are as follows: the first is way; the second, heaven; the third, earth; the fourth, generals or commanders, and the firth, law.

What is the way? The way may make the people in complete accord with their ruler in their goals and cause them to share weal and woe fearlessly during the war. What is the heaven? The heaven means day and night, cold and heat, and the sequence of the seasons.

What is the earth? The earth signifies whether the battleground is distant or near, whether the terrain is strategically difficult or secure, vast or narrow, and whether conditions are favourable or unfavourable to the chance of survival.

What is the general or commander? The general or commander may be one who is a high ranking military officer with five virtues: intelligence, trustworthiness, benevolence, courage, and sternness.

What is the law? The law refers to the military establishment, the assignment of officers at all levels, and the allocation and use of military supplies.

Part 3
Whoever leads soldiers to fight must be familiar with the above-mentioned five factors. Only he who thoroughly understands them can win victory. If he is not well versed in these, he may be defeated. Therefore, in order to analyse and compare the conditions of the opposing sides according to a scheme to determine whether our side will win or not, the following questions should be asked:

Which ruler is the one who is popular with the people?

Which general is the one who has ability?

Which side has the more favourable climate and the advantageous terrain?

Whose discipline is more effective?

Which side possesses military superiority?

Which side has soldiers and officers that are better trained?

Whose system of rewards and punishments is fairer and clearer?

We may forecast the outcome of a battle if we have a careful consideration of them.

Part 4
The general who adopts my schemes or stratagems will surely win while commanding at the front, and will surely retain his general's position. If he does not adopt my advice, he will certainly suffer defeat at the front, and will not keep his post.

Part 5
The general, having paid attention to my useful schemes or stratagems, must establish his force which will help him realize his plan. What is force? It means that a general should formulate his tactics according to what is expedient.

Part 6
Any military operation takes deception as its basic quality. A commander who is competent should pretend to be incompetent, he who is ready to use military force should pretend to delay his action; he whose troops draw near the enemy should make it seem as if his troops were still far away; and he whose troops are far away from the enemy should let the enemy believe he is drawing near. A good commander must offer a bait to allure the enemy who covets small advantages, capture the enemy when he is in disorder, take precautions against the enemy who has good preparation and substantial strength, evade for a time the enemy while he is strong, enrage the enemy who is hot-tempered, pretend to be weak in order to make the enemy arrogant or haughty, wear the enemy out if he has taken a good rest, set one party against another within the enemy if they are united. A commander must understand how to attack where the enemy is unprepared, and hit when it is unexpected. All the above-mentioned is the key to military victory, but it is never possible to formulate a fixed plan beforehand.

Part 7
It gives a general greater advantage to win to make military decisions in the temple* even before fighting a battle, and less advantage if he makes no military decision in the temple before doing battle. He who plans and prepares carefully will find himself in a favourable position and win victory; he who does so carelessly will find himself in an unfavourable position and win no victory. How much worse off it is for those who do not prepare carefully at all. In this way, we can see clearly who may win and who may lose. *make military decision in the temple: doing battle is a matter of vital importance to the nation , the generals must hold a ceremony for military actions and forecasting the outcome of war.

The Bun Festival in Cheung Chau

2009-04-24T06:42:00.000-07:00

Cheung Chau, a 2.4-square-kilometre outlying island situated to the southwest of Hong Kong Island, is a city dwellers's paradise: there are no skyscrapers, no vehicles and none of the disturbance of modern city life. However, in the fourth lunar month each year, this quiet island is transformed into a hive of activity when the fascinating Bun Festival, Cheung Chau's main claim to fame, takes place.

A Harbour Free From The Commotion of the City

Cheung Chau is 12 kilometres from Hong Kong Island, and it takes around an hour to get there by ferry. When the Bun Festival is not in full swing, visitors are soaked in the atmosphere of a typical fishing village.

Cheung Chau looks very similar to a dumbbell: it was formed by two separate islets linked together by a gradually-accumulated sand bank. As a result, both the north and south ends of the island are hilly while the central region, the isthmus, is narrow and flat, providing an ideal location for housing. To the east of the isthmus if Tung Wan, a beautiful beach with clear water and soft sand, while to the west is a pier with Chinese-style fishing boasts shuttling to and fro. The distance between the two spots is only 200 metres.

Strolling along the maze-like lanes on the island, you feel as if you have been taken back to a fishing village lost in time. The majority of the stalls lining both sides of the lanes sell seafood and dried sea produce; a fishy whiff assails you pass them. The rest are groceries and various restaurants.

Though the lanes zigzag, visitors will not get lost--simply remember that the main streets on the islands run from north to south down the narrow isthmus. Following them in either direction will bring you to the two main tourist attractions on the island: the Tin Hau Temple in the south, dedicated to Tin Hau, the Goddess of the Sea, and the Pak Tai Temple to the north, where the Lord of the North (Pak Tail), the fishermen's patron deity, is enshrined and worshipped.

Since Cheung Chau enjoys such tranquillity and ambience, it has emerged as a popular holiday resort for townsfolk. Many people, including some foreigners, even settle in Cheung Chau, treating this small island as their home town.

The Bun Festival: Entertaining Gods, Spirits and Men

The annual Taiping Qingjiao (Peaceful Taoist Sacrificial Ceremony) better known as the Bun Festival in English, is a thrilling carnival for the islanders. Each year, the peaceful fishing village is converted into a place bursting with joy and excitement: the bay is packed with fishing boats and yachts from near and afar; the streets are decorated with colourful flags; tens of thousands of tourists from Hong Kong and overseas pour into the area, bringing liveliness and jubilation to the island.

In high spirits, the inhabitants of Cheung Chau begin their preparations several days before the grand ceremony. Scaffolds are erected and decorated with multi-coloured paper flowers contributed by various associations and neighbourhood committees. Written on them are prayers for luck and good health, messages offering thanks for gods' blessing, and the names of the contributors. On the square outside the Pak Tai Temple, a bamboo stage and a temporary altar are built, and three gigantic "bun towers" are erected.

During the festival, there is a tradition that the residents stop slaughtering and give up meat for three days. Most of the restaurants on the island serve only vegetarian foods in this period of fasting. Respecting the local customs, foreigners living there generally follow suit.

Opinions vary concerning the origins of the Bun Festival. The prevalent theory goes like this: in the middle of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Cheung Chau was devastated by a storm, followed by an outbreak of the plague which claimed many lives. The island was believed to be haunted. In view of this, a sacrificial ceremony was performed by the inhabitants, on the one hand to placate the lingering spirits of the dead, on the other hand to pray for the gods' favour for the living. The island was clear thereafter. This tradition passed on from generation to generation and has now transformed into a major Chinese festival held in the fourth lunar month.

In fact, the original ritual of the Bun Festival has undergone some changes. In the past, the festival reached its climax with the rite of "snatching the bun towers"' in which villagers competed with each other in scrambling up the mountains to grab the lucky buns. However, following an accident in the 1970s when the bun towers collapsed causing injuries, the rite ceased. Buns are now distributed, and an exhilarating parade has replaced the rite as the climax of the festival. Meanwhile, the objective of this Taoist service has changed too. Formely, the aim was to pay homage to the gods and to placate the ghosts, but now the living are also considered.

The Fascinating 'Float Procession' --Piaose

The ceremony is held in the open area outside Pak Tai Temple, and the venue is crowded with people early in the morning. The three giant bun towers, 16 metres high, are covered with numerous white buns, each garnished with a red mark. They are called the "nether buns", as no one can eat them until the ghosts have had their fill, but are also referred to as the "lucky buns"' since the locals believe that eating the buns will bring them good luck. Traditional Cantonese opera is performed on the stage at the centre of the square day and night throughout the festival. The temporary altar is decorated with several enormous effigies of deities and giant incense sticks, creating an extraordinary display.

The climax of the festival builds up gradually from the afternoon. The ceremony begins with lion and dragon dancing. The statues of various deities enshrined in different temples on the island are then respectfully transported to the square, where they are worshipped by the inhabitants. Soon after, the impressive parade starts.

A procession composed of members of lion and dragon dancing teams, martial art performers, folk dancers, and children of the piaose parade representing various organisations start out from the square of the Pak Tai Temple, proceeding along the main streets lined with an enthusiastic audience. They head towards the open area outside the Tin Hau Temple, the "stage" for these entertainers. Guests and overseas visitors gather here to admire the spectacular performances.

Overseas travellers are astonished by the Piaose (literally, "Floating Colours"), or the "Float Procession": children dressed up as characters from Chinese folklore--heroes, fairies, demons, scholars and beauties, as well as modern celebrities. They "float" shoulder-high above the crowd to the bewilderment of foreigners: how can the children "stand" on a cup, a paper fan, or even the tip of a sword? The truth is that each of the young performers is actually safely secured by an exquisitely -designed steel frame camouflaged with delicate props. creating the illusion that the children are "gliding through the air". The parents are proud of their kids being elected as a Pialse performer as they believe the child will be blessed.

The carnival still carries on in spite of the end of the procession. Several lion dancing teams entertain the crowd by showing their superb skills. Villages in the parade carrying the statues of deities in sedans compete with each other to send the "gods" back to the temporary altar for good luck, and devotees follow to flock to the altar, praying and offering sacrifices to the gods.

Exotic Sacrificial Ceremony and Bun Distribution

At dusk, in Pak Tai Temple's square, dozens of "nether feasts" are prepared--sacrifices composed of food, wine and daily necessities dedicated to the spirits of the victims of all kinds of disasters. Taoist monks pray for the ghosts so as to placate them; villagers burn incense sticks in front of the sacrifice, inviting the lingering spirits to enjoy the offerings. The surrounding spectators get the feeling that they, too, have entered the nether world.

Fifteen minutes to midnight and the rite is brought to its climax: the paper effigy of the "King of Ghosts" is set on fire in the open area. Without waiting for the extinction of the bonfire, the islanders hurry to grab the offerings of the nether feasts. According to local beliefs, the sacrifices will bring peace to them.

At midnight, the crowd gathers around the bun towers. This was formerly the time to snatch the buns, but today the buns are distributed. All the same, the inhabitants of the island still look forward to this annual event. Several men climb up the immense bun towers to "harvest" the buns with long hooked sticks. They are collected in large bamboo baskets and distributed to the villagers, who are pleased to have a share of these auspicious buns.

Most travellers disperse after this rite, but the locals stay on for the performances staged on the temporary "theatre" throughout the night, immersing themselves in the jovial atmosphere.

Chongyang Festival

2009-04-24T06:40:00.000-07:00

The Chongyang Festival falls on the ninth day of the nonth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, so it is also known as the Double Ninth Festival.

The festival is based on the theory of Yin and Yang, the two opposing principles in nature. Yin is feminine, negative principle, while Yang is masculine and positive. The ancients believed that all natural phenomena could be esplained by this theory. Numbers are related to this theory. Even numbers belong to Yin and odd numbers to Yang. The ninth day of the ninth lunar month is a day when the two Yang numbers meet. So it is called Chongyang. Chong means double in Chinese.Chongyang has been an important festival since ancient times.

The festival is held in the golden season of autumn, at harvest -time. The bright clear weather and the joy of bringing in the harvest make for a festive happy atmosphere.The Double Ninth Festival is usually perfect for outdoor activities. Many people go hiking and climbing in the country, enjoying Mother Nature's final burst of color before she puts on her dull winter cloak. Some will carry a spray of dogwood.

It is hard to say when these customs were created. But there are many stories which are closely related. The book Xu Qi Xie Ji ,written by Wu Jun in the sixth century has one such story. In ancient times, there lived a man named Huan Jing. He was learning the magic arts from Fei Changfang, who had become an immortal after many years of practicing Taoism. One day, the two were climbing a muntain. Fei Changfang suddenly stopped and looked very upset. He told Huan Jing,On the ninth day of the ninth month, disaster will come to your hometown. You must go home immediately. Remember to make a red bag for each one of your family members and put a spray of dogwood in every one. Then you must all tie your bags to your arms, leave home quickly and climb to the top of a mountain. Most importantly, you must all drink some chrysanthemum wine. Only by doing so can your family avoid this disaster.

On hearing this, Huan Jing rushed home and asked his family to do exactly as his teacher said. The whole family climbed a nearby mountain and did not return until the evening. When they got back home, they found all their animals dead, including chickens, sheep,dogs and even the powerful ox. Later Huan Jing told his teacher, Fei Changfang, about this. Fei said the poultry and livestock died in place of Huan Jing's family, who escaped disaster by following his instructions.

And so it happened that climbing a mountain, carring a spray of dogwood and drinking chrysanthemum wine became the traditional activities of the Chongyang Festival.

The dogwood is a plant with a strong fragrance, and is often used as a Chinese herbal medicine. People in ancient times believed it could drive away evil spirits and prevent one from getting a chill in lalte autumn. So its history as a medicine goes back many centuries. But the custom of carrying a spray of dogwood during the Double Ninth Festival is slowly dying out and many people, especially young people in the cities, do not even know what a dogwood spray looks like.

Even thouht the tradition of carrying a few sptigs of dogwood dies out, that of climbing mountains is reaching new heights.

Early in the Western Han Dynasty, about 2,000 years ago, people used to climb a high platform outside the capital city of Chang'an on the occasion of the Chongyang Festival. For many, it was the last outing of the year before the onset of winter. The custom evolved into its present form, when people go climbing to get some exercise as well as enjoy the autumn scenery.

But what about those people who live in flat regions far from any mountain? The problem is solved by going for a picnic and eating cakes. The Chinese word for cake is Gao, a homonym of the Chinese word for high. Mountains are high, so eating cake can, by a stretch of the imagination, take the place of going for a climb.

Since nine is the highest odd digit, people take two of them together to signify longevity. Therefore, the ninth day of the ninth month has become a special day for people to pay their respects to the elderly and a day for the elderly to enjoy themselves. It has also been declared China's day for the elderly.

A Wedding Without Bridegroom

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Occasionally the procedure of some of minority nationalities' marriage in Yunnan like this, engaged, married, the bride goes back her mother's home for living, pregnant, birth and bride come back to husband's home, then begin to fall in love and romantic life again. It is quite different from ours. It is happened to meet a wedding of Yi nation without the bridegroom in a county of Yunnan. A bride is sitting on the grassland and a colorful scarf covers the face, many people around her, it seems no any merry atmosphere on the wedding ceremony. The sisters of the bride prepare ready the wine, cooked pig head and eggs, the aunt of the bride takes off the scarf and combs the hair for her under the sun. She looks a little bit of shames on face. The wedding is going on officially. Every three eggs are put in five bowls separately, a half of pig head and a bottle of wine; all of these are set before the bride. An old man, Bimo (a priest with rich traditional cultural knowledge) prays for the happiness for her, then the relatives of the bride, who are the people with the red cloth strips around the heads, enjoy and share the pig head, eggs and wine. They pray the good lucks for bride together while they drink, they will send the bride back home before sunset. It is a greatly question that where is the bridegroom?

In the fact the bride had lived with her lover for a time, called common-law marriage, which had been considered as a very happy marriage by all people in the village, she can be living with her husband after 3 years of at her home. The bridegroom now is drinking at his home and waiting for her bride.

Mazu and Mazu Culture

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Over 1,000 years ago, a beautiful young firl by the name of Lin Mu was born at the Xianliang Port of Meizhou Bay in Putian, Fujian Province. Clever, brave and kindhearted, Lin Mu could forecast the weather and was happy to help fishermen in distress at sea. She encouraged the people to conquer nature and defeat evil, so she was much loved and esteemed by the people in her hometown. Unfortunately she died an early death at only 28. As the legend goes, she ascended to heaven and became an immortal at Meizhou Bay located opposite to the Xianliang Port.

For more over 1,000 years, she has been living, with a composed and tender smile, in the hearts of the people. The people pay homage to her, respectfully calling her fairy, the daughter of dragon, goddness, the mother or Mazu ( a title of respect for an aged woman): rulers of past dynasties upheld her and granted her the titles of "Lady", "Heavenly Queen" and "Holy Mother"; the times have bestowed her a series of loveable and respected names such as "Goddess of the Sea", "Goddness of the the Straits" and "Goddess of Peace of the Straits".

She is none other than the world-renowned Mazu, goddess of the sea, of Fujian, China.

The hairstyle of Mazu
The respect for Mazu has turned into a wide-spread belief with the passage of time. Following the footprints of sea merchants and overseas Chinese, Mazu went out of Putian, out of Fujian and out of China, making her presence in many corners of Asia, America, Australia and Europe. Consequently, over 1,500 Mazu temples are found all over the world, where Muzu from Meizhou are consecrated. The belief in Mazu has become a sort of transnational folk belief with more than 100 million worshippers. However, different from a religion in the ordinary sense, is a special kind of ideology connected with thropology, religion, folklore, sociology as well as the history of sea commnication overseas Chinese, culture and the development of Fujian and Taiwan. This is the culture of Mazu which has aroused an extensive interest and great attention of Chinese and foreign scholars and is now under integral part of the culture of the Chinese nation and a part of the brilliant civilization of China.

In recent years, there are a number of academic groups, experts and schoolars working on research of Mazu and published special works on the subject in Taiwan, Hongkong and Macao regions and in such countries as Japan, the United States, France, Singapore and Malaysia. The research on the Mazu culture has a great appeal and cohesive force to the Chinese both at home and abroad. Now the achievements in the research on the Mazu culture have become valuable material in the research on the history of navigation, science, overseas Chinese, development of off-shore islands and economic and cultural exchanges with foreign countries as well as the history of folklore and religion of ancient China.

For geographical and historical reasons, the belief in Mazu at Taiwan has turned out to be a popular belief. According to statistics, around two-thirds of the population in Taiwan believe in Mazu, and more than 500 Mazu temples are scattered on the island. In the wake of improving relations between both sides of the Straits, tens of thousands of Taiwan compatriots swarmed to the Meizhou Island to dedicate their piety at Mazu temples to fulfil their sincere wish which they had cherished for decades. The unique Mazu Pilgrim Tour will undoubtedly breakthrough the artificial hedge standing between the people on both sides of the Straits.

Chinese Gardens

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Chinese garden design reached its fullest development during the late Ming dynasty, where gardens were commonly found in homes of the elite. Gardens were particularly prevalent in southeastern China south of the Yangzi, especially in Hangzhou (p308), Yangzhou (p233) and Suzhou (p243).

Rather than lawn and flowers, the three principle elements of Chi- nese gardens are rock, water and stone, arranged in formations that mimic well-known mountains or paintings. Gardening was considered an intellectual pursuit and calligraphy, poetic names, references to liter- ary classics and other complementary art forms are featured in many Chinese gardens.

Although many are park-like in scale, historically Chinese gardens were nothing like the public parks of today. They were compounds to which only a tiny portion of the population ever had access. The larger and grander of these were imperial, existing to please and entertain the emperor. In prosperous regions, private gardens also proliferated in cer- tain periods. At its peak Suzhou had hundreds of gardens, and the city was registered as a Unesco World Heritage site in 1997 in recognition of those that remain. The numerous pavilions dotted around the gardens were used for

everything from meditating and playing chess to musical performances and banqueting.

CHINA'S TOP 10 GARDENS

Beihai Park, Beijing

Summer Palace, Beijing

Yuyuan Gardens, Shanghai

Garden of the Master of the Nets, Suzhou, Jiangsu

Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou, Jiangsu

Slender West Lake, Yangzhou, Jiangsu

Cuihu Park, Kunming, Yunnan

Wuhou Temple, Chengdu, Sichuan

Shuzhuang Garden, Gulang Yu, Fujian

Du Fu's Cottage, Chengdu, Sichuan

Chinese Architecture

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Architecture

China's architectural history stretches back more than 3000 years, mak- ing it one of the longest of any civilisation. Many different materials and finishes can be seen throughout Chinese architecture - wood, rammed earth, masonry, stone, thatch, tiles, plaster and paint. Its use depended on function, cost, availability and aesthetics.

HISTORY

Few structures survive from before the 8th century AD. Many early build- ings were constructed in wood, which has long since disappeared, with more durable buildings often destroyed by war. Much of what is known has been gathered from references to building in literature, song and artwork.

Until Qin Shi Huang became first emperor around 220 �� and unified China under a centralised system, there was no such thing as a Chinese national architecture. Under Qin Shi Huang's rule large and impressively decorated structures were built. This period saw the beginnings of what would later become the Great Wall.

It is from the Tang and Song dynasties that the first surviving structures appear. Buildings were painted in bright colours, with great attention to detail. When the Mongols ousted the Song in the late 13th century, they contributed little of their own culture to architecture, instead choosing to imitate and rebuild the style of the Chinese.

Beijing was the long-standing capital during the Ming and Qing dynas- ties. The Forbidden City (p110) showcases the architecture of the time. In it we can see the epitome of traditional Chinese architectural ideas of monumentality and symmetry, with strong use of colour and decoration.

WESTERN INFLUENCE & MODERN ARCHITECTURE

China had early contact with foreign traders along the Silk Road, but it was not until the establishment of Western trading headquarters and banks in the late 18th century that a colonial influence in architecture made its presence felt. The Portuguese, Germans, British, Dutch, Spanish and Russians, among others, established communities and constructed buildings using foreign architects and Chinese craftsmen.

It was not until the 20th century that Chinese architects designed Western-style buildings themselves. Buildings with sleek, clean lines, flat roofs and materials such as steel and glass had appeared in Shanghai by the 1940s. There was for some time a push to revive the tradi- tional Chinese style, but this proved uneconomical and was eventually abandoned.

The 1990s especially saw China drawing up an increasingly ambi- tious building agenda. Beijing, in particular, is being transformed for the 2008 Olympics and losing much of its traditional architecture. With so many construction projects currently under way, it's uncertain what China will look like in the not so distant future. Some cities, such as Lijiang (p666) and Zhouzhuang (p250), have been designated Unesco World Heritage sites and are good places to see China's few remaining traditional buildings.

RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE

All Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian temples are built on a north-south axis, with the main door of each hall facing south. Beijing's hutong courtyards were traditionally also constructed on this axis. Most temples tend to follow a strict schematic pattern, depending on the faith. The shape of the roof, the placement of the beams and columns and the location of deities are all carefully placed following the use of feng shui (meaning wind and water), a complex cosmological system designed to create harmonious surroundings in accordance with the natural laws of the universe.

The exteriors of many temples in China look similar. However, Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian temples are all fairly easy to distinguish, once you know what to look for. Buddhist temples have fewer images, except for statues of the Buddha, seated in the middle of the temple on an altar. Guanyin is the next most common deity you'll see, sometimes accom- panied by other bodhisattvas. Pagodas are common features of Buddhist temples, built to house Sanskrit sutras, religious artefacts and documents or to store the ashes of the deceased. A number of pagodas stand alone in China, their adjacent temples gone.

Taoist and folk temples are much gaudier inside, with brightly painted statues of deities and colourful murals of scenes from Chinese mythology. On the main altar is the principle deity of the temple, often flanked by some lesser-ranked gods. Fierce-looking temple guardians are often painted on the doors to the entrance of the temple to scare away evil spirits. Large furnaces also stand in the courtyard; these are for burning 'ghost money', paper money meant to keep the ancestors happy in heaven.

Wutai Shan, Tai Shan, Qingcheng Shan, Wudang Shan and Putuoshan are China's famous sacred mountains and are excellent places to visit Buddhist and Taoist temples.

Confucian temples are the most sedate and lack the colour and noise Environment Korina Miller of Taoist or Buddhist temples. Not nearly as active or as colourful as their Taoist or Buddhist cousins, they often have a faded and musty feel. Their courtyards are a forest of stelae celebrating local scholars, some supported on the backs of bixi (mythical tortoise-like animals). The Confucius Temples in Qufu , Shandong province, and Beijing are very famous.

In addition to Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian buildings, Islamic architecture may also be found across China, most of it dating after the 14th century and influenced by Central Asian styles and often combined with local Chinese style.

Chinese Music

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TRADITIONAL MUSIC
Musical instruments have been unearthed from tombs dating back to the Shang dynasty and Chinese folk songs can be traced back at least this far. Traditional Chinese instrumens are often based on ancient Chinese poetry, making them very symbolic in form. Two books of the Confucian canon, the Book of Songs and the Book of Rites both dwell on music, the first actually being a collection of songs and poems, formerly set to music.
The traditional Chinese music scale differs from its Western equiva- lent. Unlike Western music, tone is considered more important than melody. Music to the Chinese was once believed to have cosmological significance and in early times, if a musician played in the wrong tone,it could indicate the fail of a dynasty.
Traditional Chinese musical instruments include the two-stringed fiddle (erhu), four-stringed banjo (yue qin), two-stringed viola (huqin), vertical flute (dongxiao),- horizontal flute (dizi), piccolo (bangdi), four- stringed lute (pipa), zither (guzheng) and ceremonial trumpet (suona). Traditional music places a lot of emphasis on percussion, which is what you'll most likely hear at funerals, temples and weddings.
China's ethnic minorities have preserved their own folk song traditions;a trip to Lijiang in Yunnan gives you the chance to appreciate the ancient sounds of the local Naxi orchestra.The communist anthem 'The East is Red' developed from a folk song popular in northern China and later became a defining element of the Cultural Revolution. Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth (opposite) contains many beautiful folk songs of this region.
Many department stores in China sell traditional Chinese instruments like flutes and piccolos and most music stores sell recordings of opera and instrumental music.

CHINESE OPERA

Chinese opera has been formally in existence since the northern Song dynasty, developing out of China's long balladic tradition.

Performances were put on by travelling entertainers, often families, in teahouses frequented by China's working classes. Performances were drawn from popular legends and folklore. Beijing opera became officially recognised in 1790, when perform- ances were staged for the imperial family.

There are over 300 types of opera in China, Beijing opera being the most familiar to West- erners. Other types include Yue opera and Kunqu opera, among others. Yue opera is commonly performed in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau. Its singing and dialogue are all in Cantonese dialect. In addition to Chinese traditional instruments, Western instruments such as the violin, saxophone, cello and double bass are also used. Kunqu opera, originating in Jiangsu, is notable for its soft melodies and the use of the flute.

Chinese opera is fascinating for its use of make-up, acrobatics and elaborate costumes. Face painting derives from the early use of masks worn by players and each colour suggests the personality and attributes that define a character. Chinese audiences can tell instantly the per- sonality of characters by their painted faces. In addition, the status of a character is suggested by the size of headdress worn - the more elaborate, the more significant the character. The four major roles in Chinese opera are the female role, the male role, the 'painted-face' role (for gods and warriors), and the clown.

POPULAR MUSIC

China's thriving music industry came about in the 1980s, a time when many younger Chinese were becoming more exposed to international music trends. The energetic Hong Kong song industry had for years been popular in China, with its twinkle-eyed and pretty emissaries (Aaron Kwok, Faye Wong, Andy Lau, Kelly Chen, Jackie Cheung et al) warbling their catchy, saccharine melodies. Further north, however, their harmless songs of love and loss impacted with a growing rock scene. Cui Jian, the singer and guitarist whose politically subversive lyrics provoked authori- ties, led the way for a slew of gritty bands who hacked away at the edifice of rock and metal (Tang Dynasty) and punk (Underground Baby, Brain Failure). Nowadays, major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have a thriv- ing underground music scene and plenty of places to hear live music.

Film

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Cinema in China can be traced back to 1896, when a Spanish entre- preneur by the name of Galen Bocca showed a series of one-reel films to astonished crowds at an entertainment plaza in Shanghai. Bocca's films drew large audiences, who packed the plaza nightly to witness the marvellous new medium. Soon after, permanent film-only theatres were being built in Beijing and Shanghai and the Chinese film craze had of- ficially begun.

The first films shown in China were largely Western, with shots of European cities and Westerners picnicking and frolicking on the beach. As film took hold in China, there grew a demand for films that echoed Chinese tastes. By the 1920s three of the most important genres in Chi- nese cinema were established: historical dramas, costume dramas set in classical China and most importantly, 'swordsmen films' which would evolve into the modern martial arts film.

In 1931, the Nationalist Party in Nanjing placed restrictions on film that were seen as promoting dissent or immorality. The Lianhua Film Company had close connections with the Nationalist Party, and with funding and government support created some of the most important films and film stars of what has been dubbed China's 'Golden Age of Cinema. This age came to a standstill with the invasion of Shanghai by Japan in 1937, when many filmmakers tied to Hong Kong or went into hiding.

Civil war and the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 was a setback for the film industry which was forced to follow rigid political guidelines. Heroic tales of the revolutionary struggle (geming pian) made filmmaking into a kind of communist comic strip of beatific peasants and peerless harvests. The Cultural Revolution added its own extremist vision to this surreal cinematography. .

After the death of Mao, Chinese filmmakers began to break free from years of political repression. The major turning point took place with the graduation of the first intake of students since the end of the Cul- tural Revolution from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982. This group of directors, the best known being Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang, became known collectively as the 'Fifth Generation.

The first film to create an international stir was Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth (1984), a beautifully shot film about a communist cadre who visits a remote village to collect folk songs and inspires a young woman to flee the village and join the communists. The film held little interest to Chinese audiences and the government disparaged the film as too pes- simistic. However, Western audiences loved the film and it spurred a taste in the West for Chinese cinema. Chen's later film Farewell My Concubine (1993) also received critical acclaim in Western countries.

Zhang Yimou followed Chen's success with Red Sorghum (1987), set in a northern Chinese village during the Japanese invasion. Red Sorghum won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and also introduced to the Western world the actress Gong Li, who became the poster-girl of Chinese cinema in the 1990s. She also appeared in Zhang Yimou's To Live(1994), Ju Dou (1990), The Story of Qiu Ju (1991), Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and Shanghai Triad (1995), all popular in the West. These films generated a great deal of criticism in China, particularly for their candid approach to politically sensitive issues. Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Blue Kite (1993), a brilliant but heartbreaking movie that chronicles the events of the Cultural Revolution, was considered so controversial the filmmaker was banned from filmmaking for years.

In the 1990s, China's 'Sixth Generation' of Chinese filmmakers began to create films that were a reaction against the Fifth Generation's need to please Western audiences. In 1990, Beijing Film graduate Zhang Yuan cre- ated Mama, a beautiful but disturbing film about a mother and her autistic child. This small film, created without government sponsorship, started a trend in independent films that continues today. Some of these indie filmmakers include Wang Xiaoshuai, Beijing Bicycle (2000), Jia Zhangke. Unknown Pleasure (2002), Jiang Wen, Devils on the Doorstep (1999) and Lu Xuechang, The Making of Steel (1996). Their films are far grittier, more urban observations than their Fifth Generation precursors. As a result, many Sixth-Generation directors are blacklisted by the authorities and are not allowed to travel outside of China to attend film festivals.

China's contemporary film industry faces great challenges. Filmmakers are continually dealing with a shortage of funds, small audiences and high ticket prices. Except for a few directors who are able to attract domestic and overseas investments, such as Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, most directors have very small budgets and because of limited box-office appeal, see few profits. Many Chinese prefer Hollywood blockbusters to local movies, with the exception of Hong Kong martial arts movies. Rises in ticket prices, putting many movies out of reach for the average Chinese, also contribute to dwindling audiences. Still, the movie indus- try carries on, producing often surprisingly high-quality movies on tiny budgets that few Westerners, or even Chinese, get to see.

HONG KONG & BEYOND

Hong Kong cinema has always been uniquely Chinese - a ramshackle, violent, slapstick, chaotic, vivid and superstitious world. Money, vendet- tas, ghosts, gambling and romance are endlessly recycled themes. John Woo's gun-toting films are probably the most celebrated of the action films (dongzuo pian). The master of slow motion and ultra violence (Hard Boiled; City On Fire) has been seduced by Hollywood and now works on gargantuan budget spectaculars (Face/Off; Mission Impossible 2).

Taiwan director Ang Lee's Oscar-winning epic tale Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) caused quite a stir among Western audiences. The Chinese, a public with loftier expectations of cinematic kung fu and death-defying stunts, panned it. Northern Chinese viewers squirmed in their seats at fellow southerners Chow Yun-fat's and Michelle Yeoh's spoken Mandarin. The Western taste was enticed by the film's combina- tion of epic story telling and novel fighting moves but Chinese suspicions were that Ang Lee had shrewdly milked the Western market.

FUNERARY OBJECTS

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As early as Neolithic times (9000-6000 BC), offerings of pottery vessels and stone tools or weapons were placed in graves to accompany the departed.

During the Shang dynasty, precious objects such as bronze ritual ves- sels, weapons and jade were buried with the dead. Dogs, horses and even human beings were sacrificed for burial in the tombs of great rulers, later replaced by replicas (usually in pottery).

The cosmopolitan life of Tang China was illustrated by its funerary wares; western and Central Asians flocked to the capital at Chang'an and were portrayed in figurines of merchants, attendants, warriors, grooms, musicians and dancers.

Guardian spirits are some of the strangest funerary objects. A common one has bird wings, elephant ears, a human face, the body of a lion and the legs and hooves of a deer or horse, all rolled into one.

China Literature

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China has a rich literary tradition. Unfortunately - barring many years of intensive study - much of it is inaccessible to Western readers.

Many of the most important Chinese classics are available in translation, but much of the Chinese literary heritage (particularly its poetry) is untranslatable, although scholars persevere.

PREMOOERN LITERATURE

Prior to the 20th century there were two literary traditions in China: the classical and the vernacular. The classical canon, largely Confucian in nature, consisted of a core of texts written in ancient Chinese that had to be mastered thoroughly by all aspirants to the Chinese civil service, and was the backbone of the Chinese education system - it was nearly indecipherable to the masses.

The vernacular tradition arose in the Ming dynasty and consisted largely of prose epics written for entertainment. For Western readers it is the vernacular texts, precursors of the contemporary Chinese novel, that are probably of more interest. Most of them are available in translation and provide a fascinating insight into life in China centuries past.

Classical

Book of Songs (Shijing) is the earliest collection of Chinese poetry includ- ing over 300 works that date back to the Zhou dynasty. Originally meant to be sung, the poems were compiled during the Han dynasty. This book belongs to the five Confucian classics (Wujing) which includes the / Ching (Yijing), Book of History (Shujing), Analects (Lunyu), Book of Rites (Lijing) and the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chun Qiu).

I Ching, or Book of Changes, is a divinatory system involving 64 hexa- grams that dates back to antiquity. The hexagrams are symbols composed of broken and continuous lines, representing the transitory nature of heaven and earth. If interpreted correctly, the hexagrams can advise on moral conduct and foretell the future.

Analects is a collection of sayings attributed to Confucius that were remembered by his followers and compiled over a period of years. The Analects contain all the essential tenets of Confucianism, including filial piety, respect to ancestors and adherence to ritual. Many still consider Arthur Waley's 1938 translation to be the best.

Vernacular

Water Margin/Outlaws of the Marsh (Shuihu Zhuan) by Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong is a rollicking tale of a group of outlaws (with good hearts) who fight against corruption and evil during the Northern Song dynasty. This book is considered one of the great historical epics of China, along with Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms (San Guo) by Luo Guanzhong is a swashbuckling historical novel about the legendary battles that took place during the latter half of the Han dynasty, when the country was divided into three kingdoms. The novel remains as popular today in China as it was when it first appeared in the Ming dynasty. The best translation is by Moss Roberts (University of California Press, 1999), whose English version of the novel is highly readable and entertaining.

Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou Meng) by Cao Xueqin, also translated as The Dream of Red Mansions and The Story of the Stone, is a novel of manners about the decline of a genteel family in 18th-century China. The preferred translation is by David Hawkes (Penguin, 1973), who provides a captivating rendition of the original.

Journey to the West (Xiyou Ji) by Wu Cheng'en is a delightful novel about the Buddhist monk Xuanzhang's pilgrimage to India, accompanied by the rebellious 'Monkey King' Sun Wukong. The monkey's rebellious nature causes a wild assortment of misadventures. Two of the best trans- lations of Journey to the West are by Arthur Waley (John Day, 1943) and Anthony Yu (University of Chicago Press, 1990).

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MODERN & CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

By the early 20th century, Western novels had begun to appear in Chinese translations in increasing numbers. Chinese intellectuals began to look at their own literary traditions more critically, in particular the classical one, which was markedly different in form from the Chinese that was spoken by modern Chinese.

After China came under the control of the communists, most writ- ing in 20th-century China tended to echo the CCP line, with formulaic language and predictable plotlines. Writing was rigid and unimaginative, with little allowance for creative embellishment.

Things changed after Mao's death in 1976, when Chinese artists and writers were finally able to throw off political constraints and write more freely. Writers for the first time dared to explore the traumatic events of the 20th century that had reshaped the Chinese landscape. China's economic progress and the excessive materialism of the 1990s have spawned a new generation of authors, many of whom remember little about the Cultural Revolution and instead are most affected by the day-to-day realities of growing up in the city. Growing up without war or poverty, young writers are instead writing about the loneliness and decadence of urban life.

The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun (Chinese University Press, 2002), and translated by Gladys Yang and Yang Xianyi, was first published in 1921 by an author who is regarded by many as the father of modern Chinese literature. Lu Xun was the first of the major Chinese writers to write in colloquial Chinese. Ah Q is a moving tale of a simple-minded man caught up in the turmoil of the 1911 revolution.

Blades of Grass: The Stories of Lao She (University of Hawaii Press,1999), translated by William Lyell, is a collection of 14 stories by Lao She,one of China's most famous 20th-century writers. The stories contain poignant descriptions of people living through times of political upheaval and uncertainty. Lao She faced severe persecution during the Cultural Revolution and committed suicide.

Family by Ba Jin (Anchor Books, 1972) is the first in a trilogy that also includes Autumn and Spring. Influenced by the May 4th Movement, the novel offers a scathing view of Chinese feudalism.

Wild Swans by Jung Chang (Touchstone Books, 2003) is a gripping saga about three generations of Chinese women struggling to survive the tumultuous events of 20th-century China. This book has been banned in China for its frank depictions of modern Chinese life.

Half of Man Is Woman by Zhang Xianliang (WW Norton & Co, 1998), and translated into English by Martha Avery, is a candid exploration of sexuality and marriage in contemporary China and considered one of the most controversial novels to appear in the 1980s.

Love Must Not Be Forgotten (Panda Books, 1986) by Zhang Jie and translated by Gladys Yang is a novel by one of China's most famous female authors. This novel challenged the traditional

structure of mar- riage with its intimate portrayal of a middle-aged woman and her love of a married man.

Please Don't Call Me Human by Wang Shuo (Hyperion East, 2000) and translated by Howard Goldblatt is a mocking look at the failures of Chi- na's state security system. Wang Shuo has been dubbed China's hooligan author' for his criticism of government policies. Wang's works appeal to a broad spectrum of Chinese society, despite being banned.

Chinese Tea Culture

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China, the Homeland of Tea

Of the three major beverages of the world-- tea, coffee and cocoa-- tea is consumed by the largest number of people.

China is the homeland of tea. It is believed that China has tea-shrubs as early as five to six thousand years ago, and human cultivation of teaplants dates back two thousand years. Tea from China, along with her silk and porcelain, began to be known the world over more than a thousand years ago and has since always been an important Chinese export. At present more than forty countries in the world grow tea with Asian countries producing 90% of the world's total output. All tea trees in other countries have their origin directly or indirectly in China. The word for tea leaves or tea as a drink in many countries are derivatives from the Chinese character "cha." The Russians call it "cha'i", which sounds like "chaye" (tea leaves) as it is pronounced in northern China, and the English word "tea" sounds similar to the pronunciation of its counterpart in Xiamen (Amoy). The Japanese character for tea is written exactly the same as it is in Chinese, though pronounced with a slight difference. The habit of tea drinking spread to Japan in the 6th century, but it was not introduced to Europe and America till the 17th and 18th centuries. Now the number of tea drinkers in the world is legion and is still on the increase.

The Categories of Tea

Chinese tea may be classified into five categories according to the different methods by which it is teaprocessed.

1) Green tea: Green tea is the variety which keeps the original colour of the tea leaves without fermentation during processing. This category consists mainly of Longjing tea of Zhejiang Province, Maofeng of Huangshan Mountain in Anhui Province and Biluochun produced in Jiangsu.

2) Black tea: Black tea, known as "red tea" (hong cha) in China, is the category which is fermented before baking; it is a later variety developed on the basis of the green tea. The best brands of black tea are Qihong of Anhui , Dianhong of Yunnan, Suhong of Jiangsu, Chuanhong of Sichuan and Huhong of Hunan.

3) Wulong tea: This represents a variety half way between the green and the black teas, being made after partial fermentation. It is a specialty from the provinces on China's southeast coast: Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan.

4) Compressed tea: This is the kind of tea which is compressed and hardened into a certain shape. It is good for transport and storage and is mainly supplied to the ethnic minorities living in the border areas of the country. As compressed tea is black in colour in its commercial form, so it is also known in China as "black tea". Most of the compressed tea is in the form of bricks; it is, therefore, generally called "brick tea", though it is sometimes also in the form of cakes and bowls. It is mainly produced in Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

5) Scented tea: This kind of tea is made by mixing fragrant flowers in the tea leaves in the course of processing. The flowers commonly used for this purpose are jasmine and magnolia among others. Jasmine tea is a well-known favourite with the northerners of China and with a growing number of foreigners.

Tea Production

A new tea-plant must grow for five years before its leaves can be picked and, at 30 years of age, it will be too old to be productive. The trunk of the old plant must then be cut off to force new stems to grow out of the roots in the coming year. By repeated rehabilitation in this way, a plant may serve for about l00 years .

For the fertilization of tea gardens, soya-bean cakes or other varieties of organic manure are generally used, and seldom chemical fertilizers. When pests are discovered, the affected plants will be removed to prevent their spread, and also to avoid the use of pesticides.

The season of tea-picking depends on local climate and varies from area to area. On the shores of West Lake in Hangzhou, where the famous green tea Longjing (Dragon Well) comes from, picking starts from the end of March and lasts through October, altogether 20-30 times from the same plants at intervals of seven to ten days. With a longer interval, the quality of the tea will deteriorate.

A skilled woman picker can only gather 600 grams (a little over a pound) of green tea leaves in a day.

The new leaves must be parched in tea cauldrons. This work , which used to be done manually, has been largely mechanized. Top-grade Dragon Well tea, however, still has to be stir-parched by hand, doing only 250 grams every half hour. The tea-cauldrons are heated electrically to a temperature of about 25oC or 74oF. It takes four pounds of fresh leaves to produce one pound of parched tea.

The best Dragon Well tea is gathered several days before Qingming (Pure Brightness, 5th solar term) when new twigs have just begun to grow and carry "one leaf and a bud." To make one kilogram (2.2 lbs) of finished tea, 60, 000 tender leaves have to be plucked. In the old days Dragon Well tea of this grade was meant solely for the imperial household; it was, therefore, known as "tribute tea".

For the processes of grinding, parching, rolling, shaping and drying other grades of tea various machines have been developed and built, turning out about 100 kilograms of finished tea an hour and relieving the workers from much of their drudgery.

a ceramic teapot China's Tea-Producing Areas

Tea is produced in vast areas of China from Hainan lsland down in the extreme south to Shandong Province in the north, from Tibet in the southwest to Taiwan across the Straits, totalling more than 20 provinces. These may be divided into four major areas:

1) The Jiangnan area: It lies south of the middle and lower reaches of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River, and is the most prolific of China's tea-growing areas. Most of its output is the green variety; some black tea is also produced.

2) The Jiangbei area: This refers to a large area north of the same river, where the average temperature is 2-3 Centigrade degrees lower than in the Jiangnan area. Green tea is the principal variety turned out there, but Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, which are also parts of this area. produce compressed tea for supply to the minority areas in the Northwest.

3) The Southwest area: This embraces Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Tibet, producing black, green as well as compressed teas. Pu'er tea of Yunnan Province enjoys a good sale in China and abroad.

4) The Lingnan area: This area , consisting of the southern provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian and taiwan, produces Wulong tea, which is renowned both at home and abroad.

Advantages of Tea-Drinking

Tea has been one of the daily necessities in China since time immemorial. Countless numbers of people like to have their aftermeal cup of tea.

In summer or warm climate, tea seems to dispel the heat and bring on instant cool together with a feeling of relaxation. For this reason, tea-houses abound in towns and market villages in South China and provide elderly retirees with the locales to meet and chat over a cup of tea.

Medically, the tea leaf contains a number of chemicals, of which 20-30% is tannic acid, known for its anti-inflammatory and germicidal properties. It also contains an alkaloid (5%, mainly caffeine), a stimulant for the nerve centre and the process of metabolism. Tea with the aromatics in it may help resolve meat and fat and thus promote digestion. It is, therefore, of special importance to people who live mainly on meat, like many of the ethnic minorities in China. A popular proverb among them says, "Rather go without salt for three days than without tea for a single day."

Tea is also rich in various vitamins and, for smokers, it helps to discharge nicotine out of the system. After wining, strong tea may prove to be a sobering pick-me-up.

The above, however, does not go to say that the stronger the tea, the more advantages it will yield. Too much tannic acid will affect the secretion of the gastric juice, irritate the membrane of the stomach and cause indigestion or constipation. Strong tea taken just before bedtime will give rise to occasional insomnia. Constant drinking of over-strong tea may induce heart and blood-pressure disorders in some people, reduce the milk of a breast-feeding mother, and put a brown colour on the teeth of young people. But it is not difficult to ward off these undesirable effects: just don't make your tea too strong.

JADE

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The jade stone has been revered in China since Neolithic times. Jade (yu) was firstly utilised for tools because of its hardness and strength, but later appeared on ornaments and ceremonial vessels for its decorative value. During the Qin and Han dynasties, it was believed that jade was empowered with magical and life-giving properties, and the dead were buried with jadeware. Opulent jade suits, meant to prevent decomposi- tion, have been found in Han tombs, while Taoist alchemists, striving for immortality, ate elixirs of powdered jade.

Jade's value lies not just in its scarcity, but depends also on its colour, hardness and the skill with which it has been carved.

While the pure white form is the most highly valued, the stone varies in translucency and colour, including many shades of green, brown and black. China's most famous jade comes from Hotan (p798) in Xinjiang province; much of what is sold in Hong Kong is fake.

BRONZE VESSELS

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Bronze is an alloy whose chief elements are copper, tin and lead. Tradi- tion ascribes the first casting of bronze to the legendary Xia dynasty of 5000 years ago.

Shang dynasty bronzes are marvellous specimens, often fabulously pat- terned with taotie, a type of fierce animal design. Zhou dynasty bronze vessels tend to have long messages in ideographic characters; they describe wars, rewards, ceremonial events and the appointment of officials.

Bronze mirrors had already developed into an artistic form by the Warring States period. Ceramics gradually replaced bronze utensils by Han times, but bronze mirrors were not displaced by glass mirrors until the Qing dynasty. The backs of bronze mirrors were inscribed with wishes for good fortune and protection from evil influence.

Chinese sculpture

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Chinese sculpture dates back to the Zhou and Shang dynasties, when small clay and wooden figures were commonly placed in tombs to pro- tect the dead and guide them on their way to heaven. Often these figures were in the shape of animals - dragons, lions and chimeras, all creatures with magical powers that could quell lurking evil spirits. Sculptures of humans became more common in succeeding dynasties - perhaps the best example is the amazing army of Terracotta Warriors found in the tomb of Qin Shi Huang outside present-day Xi'an.

It wasn't until the introduction of Buddhism in China that sculpture moved beyond tomb figurines to other realms of figurative art. The Buddhist caves of Datong in Shanxi province date back to the 4th century and are an excellent example of the type of art that was introduced to China from India. The enormous figures of the Buddhas, carved directly into the rock, are stiff and formal, their garments embel- lished with Indian patterns and flourishes.

The 4th-century Longmen Caves, in Henan province, are similar in style to those at Datong, with great profusions of sculptures and Indian iconography. The later cave sculptures at Longmen, primarily those completed during the Tang dynasty, take on a more Chinese feel, with elongated features and less stiffness in form.

The best place to see early Buddhist sculpture is at the marvellous caves of Dunhuang, in Gansu province. Here, Indian and Central Asian style sculptures, particularly of the Tang dynasty, carry overtly Chinese characteristics - many statues feature long, fluid bodies and have warmer, more refined facial features. It's also common to see traditional Chinese dragons and lions mingling with the demons and gods of Indian iconography.

The caves in Dazu County, built during the Song dynasty, are another fascinating place to see cave art. The caves feature a wild assort ment of sculpture, including Buddhist statues, animals and people.

Many of the sculptures are more colourful and lively than those of Dunhuang and remarkably well preserved.

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

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On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was formally established, with its national capital at Beijing. "The Chinese people have stood up!" declared Mao as he announced the creation of a "people's democratic dictatorship." The people were defined as a coalition of four social classes: the workers, the peasants, the petite bourgeoisie, and the national-capitalists. The four classes were to be led by the CCP, as the vanguard of the working class. At that time the CCP claimed a membership of 4.5 million, of which members of peasant origin accounted for nearly 90 percent. The party was under Mao's chairmanship, and the government was headed by Zhou Enlai ( 1898-1976) as premier of the State Administrative Council (the predecessor of the State Council).

The Soviet Union recognized the People's Republic on October 2, 1949. Earlier in the year, Mao had proclaimed his policy of "leaning to one side" as a commitment to the socialist bloc. In February 1950, after months of hard bargaining, China and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance, valid until 1980. The pact also was intended to counter Japan or any power's joining Japan for the purpose of aggression.

For the first time in decades a Chinese government was met with peace, instead of massive military opposition, within its territory. The new leadership was highly disciplined and, having a decade of wartime administrative experience to draw on, was able to embark on a program of national integration and reform. In the first year of Communist administration, moderate social and economic policies were implemented with skill and effectiveness. The leadership realized that the overwhelming and multitudinous task of economic reconstruction and achievement of political and social stability required the goodwill and cooperation of all classes of people. Results were impressive by any standard, and popular support was widespread.

By 1950 international recognition of the Communist government had increased considerably, but it was slowed by China's involvement in the Korean War. In October 1950, sensing a threat to the industrial heartland in northeast China from the advancing United Nations (UN) forces in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), units of the PLA--calling themselves the Chinese People's Volunteers--crossed the YaluJiang () River into North Korea in response to a North Korean request for aid. Almost simultaneously the PLA forces also marched into Xizang to reassert Chinese sovereignty over a region that had been in effect independent of Chinese rule since the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911. In 1951 the UN declared China to be an aggressor in Korea and sanctioned a global embargo on the shipment of arms and war materiel to China. This step foreclosed for the time being any possibility that the People's Republic might replace Nationalist China (on Taiwan) as a member of the UN and as a veto-holding member of the UN Security Council.

After China entered the Korean War, the initial moderation in Chinese domestic policies gave way to a massive campaign against the "enemies of the state," actual and potential. These enemies consisted of "war criminals, traitors, bureaucratic capitalists, and counterrevolutionaries." The campaign was combined with party-sponsored trials attended by huge numbers of people. The major targets in this drive were foreigners and Christian missionaries who were branded as United States agents at these mass trials. The 1951-52 drive against political enemies was accompanied by land reform, which had actually begun under the Agrarian Reform Law of June 28, 1950. The redistribution of land was accelerated, and a class struggle landlords and wealthy peasants was launched. An ideological reform campaign requiring self-criticisms and public confessions by university faculty members, scientists, and other professional workers was given wide publicity. Artists and writers were soon the objects of similar treatment for failing to heed Mao's dictum that culture and literature must reflect the class interest of the working people, led by the CCP. These campaigns were accompanied in 1951 and 1952 by the san fan ( or "three anti") and wu fan ( or "five anti") movements. The former was directed ostensibly against the evils of "corruption, waste, and bureaucratism"; its real aim was to eliminate incompetent and politically unreliable public officials and to bring about an efficient, disciplined, and responsive bureaucratic system. The wu fan movement aimed at eliminating recalcitrant and corrupt businessmen and industrialists, who were in effect the targets of the CCP's condemnation of "tax evasion, bribery, cheating in government contracts, thefts of economic intelligence, and stealing of state assets." In the course of this campaign the party claimed to have uncovered a well-organized attempt by businessmen and industrialists to corrupt party and government officials. This charge was enlarged into an assault on the bourgeoisie as a whole. The number of people affected by the various punitive or reform campaigns was estimated in the millions.

The Transition to Socialism, 1953-57
The period of officially designated "transition to socialism" corresponded to China's First Five-Year Plan (1953-57). The period was characterized by efforts to achieve industrialization, collectivization of agriculture, and political centralization.
The First Five-Year Plan stressed the development of heavy industry on the Soviet model. Soviet economic and technical assistance was expected to play a significant part in the implementation of the plan, and technical agreements were signed with the Soviets in 1953 and 1954. For the purpose of economic planning, the first modern census was taken in 1953; the population of mainland China was shown to be 583 million, a figure far greater than had been anticipated.

Among China's most pressing needs in the early 1950s were food for its burgeoning population, domestic capital for investment, and purchase of Soviet-supplied technology, capital equipment, and military hardware. To satisfy these needs, the government began to collectivize agriculture. Despite internal disagreement as to the speed of collectivization, which at least for the time being was resolved in Mao's favor, preliminary collectivization was 90 percent completed by the end of 1956. In addition, the government nationalized banking, industry, and trade. Private enterprise in mainland China was virtually abolished.

Major political developments included the centralization of party and government administration. Elections were held in 1953 for delegates to the First National People's Congress, China's national legislature, which met in 1954. The congress promulgated the state constitution of 1954 and formally elected Mao chairman (or president) of the People's Republic; it elected Liu Shaoqi ( 1898-1969) chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress; and named Zhou Enlai premier of the new State Council.

In the midst of these major governmental changes, and helping to precipitate them, was a power struggle within the CCP leading to the 1954 purge of Political Bureau member Gao Gang () and Party Organization Department head Rao Shushi (), who were accused of illicitly trying to seize control of the party.

The process of national integration also was characterized by improvements in party organization under the administrative direction of the secretary general of the party Deng Xiaoping ( who served concurrently as vice premier of the State Council). There was a marked emphasis on recruiting intellectuals, who by 1956 constituted nearly 12 percent of the party's 10.8 million members. Peasant membership had decreased to 69 percent, while there was an increasing number of "experts" , who were needed for the party and governmental infrastructures, in the party ranks.

As part of the effort to encourage the participation of intellectuals in the new regime, in mid-1956 there began an official effort to liberalize the political climate. Cultural and intellectual figures were encouraged to speak their minds on the state of CCP rule and programs. Mao personally took the lead in the movement, which was launched under the classical slogan "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let the hundred schools of thought contend" (). At first the party's repeated invitation to air constructive views freely and openly was met with caution. By mid-1957, however, the movement unexpectedly mounted, bringing denunciation and criticism against the party in general and the excesses of its cadres in particular. Startled and embarrassed, leaders turned on the critics as "bourgeois rightists" () and launched the Anti-Rightist Campaign. The Hundred Flowers Campaign , sometimes called the Double Hundred Campaign (), apparently had a sobering effect on the CCP leadership.

Republican China

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EARLY DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC

The Provisional Republican Government was set up on 10 October 1911 by Sun Yatsen (1866-1925). Educated in Hawaii and Hong Kong, a Christian and trained medical practitioner, Sun developed a political programme based on the 'Three Principles of the People': nationalism, popular sovereignty and livelihood. In 1895 his 'Revive China Society' initiated one of the country's first republican uprisings, after which Sun fled to Japan and on to Europe.

Determined to arrest and execute him, Qing authorities hunted Sun down in London, where they kidnapped him and held him in the Chinese embassy. Sun managed to sneak out a message to one of his teachers who, in turn, alerted the British Govern- ment. The Chinese embassy was forced to release their prisoner.

Sun went on to build backing tor the revolution he dreamt for China. Supporters from Chinese communities abroad, as well as among disaf- fected members of the Qing army, grew in number. When his revo- lutionist followers began their campaign for victory in Wuhan, Sun watched from abroad. It wasn't until the meeting in Nanjing and the establishment of the Provisional Republic of China that Sun returned to his homeland to be named president.

Lacking the power to force a Manchu abdication, Sun had no choice but to call on the assistance of Yuan Shikai, the head of the imperial army, and the same man that the Manchu had called on to put down the republican uprisings. The republicans promised Yuan Shikai the presidency if he could negotiate the abdication of the emperor, which he achieved. The favour cost the republicans dearly. Yuan Shikai placed himself at the head of the republican movement and forced Sun Yatsen to stand down.

Yuan lost no time in dissolving the Provisional Republican Govern- ment and amending the constitution to make himself president for life, When this met with regional opposition, he took the natural next step in 1915 of pronouncing himself China's latest emperor. Yunnan seceded, taking Guangxi, Guizhou and much of the rest of the south with it.

Forces were sent to bring the breakaway provinces back into the imperial ambit,and in the midst of it all, Yuan died.

Between 1916 and 1927 the government in Beijing lost power over the far- tlung provinces and China was effectively fragmented into semi-autonomous regions governed by warlords. Nevertheless, Sun's labour had not been in vain. On 4 May 1919 large demonstrations took place outside the Gate of Heavenly Peace (p106) in Beijing following the decision of the Allies to pass defeated Germany's rights in Shandong over to Japan. This surge of nation- alist sentiment in China began a movement that was rooted in Sun's earlier revolution and paved the way for the changes that were to come.

KUOMINTANG & COMMUNISTS

By 1920 the Kuomintang (KMT; Nationalist Party), had emerged as the dominant political force in eastern China. Its main opposition was the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), made up of Chinese Marxist groups who had joined together in 1921. While the two groups were on far from

friendly terms, it was decided that it was in their best interests to unite against the Japanese who looked poised to expand into northeastern China.

The union was short-lived. After Sun Yatsen's death in 1925 a power struggle emerged in the Kuomintang between those sympathetic to the communists and those who favoured a capitalist state supported by a military dictatorship. The latter group was headed by Chiang Kaishek(1887-1975).

In 1926 Chiang Kaishek attempted to grind the growing influence of communists to a halt by expanding his own power base. He attempted this first through a Northern Expedition that set out to wring power from the remaining warlords. The following year he took more direct action, ordering the massacre of over 5000 Shanghai communists and trade union representatives.

By the middle of 1928 the Northern Expedition had reached Beijing, and a national government was established with Chiang holding both military and political leadership. Nevertheless, only about half of the country was under the direct control of the Kuomintang; the rest was still ruled by local warlords.

At this time China was heavily laden with social problems: child slave labour in factories; domestic slavery and prostitution; the destitute starving in the streets; and strikes ruthlessly suppressed by foreign and Chinese factory owners. The communists proposed solutions to these problems, namely the removal of the Kuomintang. Not surprisingly, Chiang became obsessed with stamping out the influence of the communists.

Grassroots Rebellion

After the massacre of 1927, the communists became divided in their views of where to base their rebellion - on large urban centres or in the countryside. After costly defeats in Nanchang and Changsha, the tide of opinion started to shift towards Mao Zedong (1893-1976, p483), who advocated rural-based revolt.

Communist-led uprisings in other parts of the country met with some success; however, the communist armies remained small and hampered by limited resources. It wasn't until 1930 that the ragged communist forces had turned into an army of perhaps 40,000, which presented such a serious challenge to the Kuomintang that Chiang waged extermination campaigns against them. He was defeated each time, and the communist army continued to expand its territory.

The Long March(es)

Chiang's fifth extermination campaign began in October 1933. Many of the communist troupes had begun disregarding Mao's authority and instead took the advice of those who advocated meeting Chiang's troops in pitched battles. This strategy proved disastrous. By October 1934 the communists had suffered heavy losses and were hemmed into a small area in Jiangxi. On the brink of defeat, the communists decided to retreat from Jiangxi and march north to Shaanxi to join up with other com- munist armies in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia.

Rather than one long march, there were several, as various communist armies in the south made their way to Shaanxi. The most famous (and commonly referred to as the Long March) was from Jiangxi prov- ince. Beginning in October 1934, it took a year to complete and covered 8000km over some of the world's most inhospitable terrain. On the way the communists confiscated the property of officials, landlords and tax- collectors, and redistributed land to the peasants whom they armed by the thousands with weapons captured from the Kuomintang. Soldiers were left behind to organise guerrilla groups to harass the enemy. Of the 90,000 people who started out in Jiangxi, only 20,000 made it to Shaanxi. Fatigue, sickness, exposure, enemy attacks and desertion all took their toll.

The march brought together many people who held top positions after1949, including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Lin Biao, Deng Xiao- ping and Liu Shaoqi. It also established Mao as the paramount leader of the Chinese communist movement. En route, the posse took a breather in Zunyi (p628), Guizhou; if you're in the neighbourhood, you can take in some of the sights. Serious Long March history buffs might also check out Luding (p738) in Sichuan.

Japanese Invasion

All the internal upheaval going on in China gave the Japanese the mo- ment they'd been waiting for. In September 1931 they invaded and oc- cupied Manchuria, setting up a puppet state with Puyi, the last Manchu emperor. (Check out his digs and one of the settings for Bertolucci's film The Last Emperor in Changchun, p365.) Chiang, still obsessed with the threat of the communists, did nothing to resist Japan's invasion and instead focused on his fifth extermination drive. The Kuomintang was bitterly criticised for not defending against the Japanese.

In particular, Manchurian General Zhang Xueliang (1898-2001) was not impressed. In 1936 he kidnapped President Chiang Kaishek and forced him to agree to a Second United Front with the CCP to resist Japan. Zhang, hero of the hour, later surrendered to the Kuomintang and spent the next half-century under house arrest in China and then in Tai- wan. He was eventually released after Chiang Kaishek's death in 1975.

The rest of China was invaded by Japan in the middle of 1937. The Nanjing massacre of 1937, human experiments in biological warfare factories in Haerbin (p381) and burn all, loot all, kill all' campaigns quickly made it one of the most brutal occupations of the 20th century. China experienced massive internal migrations, and was subjected to a process of divide and rule through the establishment of puppet governments.

The Kuomintang was forced into retreat by the Japanese occupation. Its wartime capital was Chongqing, a higgledy-piggledy town piled up on mountains in the upper reaches of Yangzi River. The city was subjected to heavy Japanese bombardments, but logistical difficulties prevented it from being approached by land.

Civil War

Following Japan's defeat and the end of WWII, the USA attempted unsuccessfully to negotiate a settlement between the CCP and the Kuomintang. The CCP had expanded enormously during the war years, filling a vacuum in local government in vast areas behind and beyond Japanese lines, and creating a base from which it would successfully chal- lenge the Kuomintang's claims to legitimacy.

Civil war broke out in 1946. While their base at Yan'an was destroyed by the Nationalists, Communist forces managed to out- manoeuvre the Kuomintang on the battle ground of Manchuria. Three great battles were fought in 1948 and 1949 in which the Kuomintang were not only defeated, but thousands of Kuomintang troops defected to the communists.

In Beijing on 1 October 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed the foundation of the People's Republic of China (PRC, Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo). Chiang Kaishek fled to the island of Taiwan, taking with him the entire gold reserves of the country, and what was left of his air force and navy.

Tibet Travel Guide

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Tibet (Xizang), the Roof of the World, remained unknown to the world until the beginning of the 20th century. The massive, snowy land has exerted an awesome draw on travelers and adventurers ever since. Its majestic scenery, mysterious and exotic religious culture, and wonderful people, reward every tourist with an indelible life long memory!

Tibet (Tibet Autonomous Region, TAR for short) borders Xinjiang, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan internally while India, Burma, Bhutan, Sikkim, and Nepal meet its external borders. It covers a massive 1,220,000 square kilometers (470,920 square miles), which is about 12.8 % of the whole of China. With an average height of 4,000 meters above sea level, Tibet is encompassed by some of the world's highest mountains. The Himalayas to the south, the Karakoram to the west, and the Kunlun to the north are the dream lands of all adventurers and mountaineers.

Potala Palace in LhasaThe vast land is also the cradle of several great rivers such as the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, the Nu River (Salween), the Lancang River (Mekong), the Yarlong Tsangpo (Brahmaputra), the Indus, and the Ganges. Tibet also offers awe-inspiring scenery of beautiful lakes and valleys. Over 1,500 lakes including Heavenly Lake Namtso and the holy Lake Manasarova make Tibet the plateau with largest amount of lakes. Without irrigation and nurturance of these rivers and lakes, the surrounding lands may not flourish.

The long history and exotic religion allures more and more tourists every year. Tibetan Buddhism inhabits most Tibetans' hearts. Thus, a great deal of splendid monasteries, vivid murals and sculptures, and solemn stupas were built to worship the unparalleled Buddha. Lhasa and Shigatse, the most important cities of Tibet, feature most of the religious monuments including the Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple, Drepung Monastery, Sera Monastery, Ramoche Monastery, Tashilunpo Monastery and Sakya Monastery. Besides the monasteries, sacred mountains and holy lakes are also great places to show the Tibetan peoples' devotion to Buddha.

Western Tibet, Ngari, is a vast barren plateau and renowned as the Roof of Tibet. As the place where the Holy Lake (Lake Manasarova) joins the Sacred Mountain (Mt.Kailash), Ngari is a holy pilgrimage destination of both Tibetans and Hindus, as well as a popular challenge to trekkers. The ancient Shang Shung Kingdom and Guge Kingdom also exert a pull. As the climate is so inclement few people live in this region. Therefore, Ngari is also the home of wild yak, Tibetan antelope, wild donkey, and many other rare wild animals.

The Tibetan womenIn Tibet, five mountains exceed the altitudes of 8,000 meters (26,240 feet) and many of the mountains exceed the altitudes of 7,000 meters (22,960 feet). Hence, southwestern Tibet has been a popular destination for mountaineers. Mt. Everest towers over the region. Besides, more than 40 snow capped peaks are open to mountain climbing enthusiasts. Each year, thousands of adventurers and mountaineers come to Tibet to challenge both nature and themselves. Southern Tibet also offers primeval forests, running waters, and a relatively mild climate. Yarlong Tsangpo Canyon, the largest canyon in the world, is the home of rare plants and animals, and remains unknown to anyone other than the local people.

Tibetan people are warm and hospitable. Tourists can visit local families and experience the daily life of Tibetan people. Holidays and festivals are the most important days in Tibet. Enjoying the local food and dancing with beautiful Tibetan girls are the most excellent ways to celebrate these joyful times. Buying some typical handicrafts in Barkhor Street or from other authentic vendors may add extra happiness to your visit.

Beside white snow capped mountains, verdant virgin forests, clean running rivers and tranquil beautiful lakes, the devotional pilgrim progress toward their places of worship by prostrating themselves under the sky and along the roads, making people humble and modest. Tibet, the lost paradise under the sky, is undoubtedly a place where the spirit lives!

The already famous Tibet Railway that was completed last October has been officially set for operation from July 1, 2006. This miraculous engineering achievement will make Tibet, the mysterious and amazing sacred land with a thousand-year history, witness many changes leading to prosperity.

Following the opening of the Tibet Railway, 3,000 - 4,000 tourists are expected to travel to Tibet every day. It is anticipated that the railway will enhance tourism to both Qinghai Province as well as the Tibet Autonomous Region, thus bringing prosperity to that part of West China that until now has not enjoyed all the benefits attributable to the tourist industry. The new rail link provides the traveler with a more convenient, comfortable, safer and economical way to go to Tibet. In turn the railway will alleviate the pressure on exiting passenger transport during the peak period of the high season. The Tibet Railway offers the tourist the opportunity to see more of the wonderful landscape that is unique to the 'roof of the world'. By opening up the connection between Lhasa and Qinghai, the railway will not only give outsiders the opportunity to take Tibet tours but will also facilitate economical freight transport for the benefit of the Tibetan people as a whole.

The miraculous railway now closely connects mainland China and remote Tibet, which will speed up economic development. The Tibet Railway will not only bring about a significant change of the mystical view of the outside world to Tibet, but will also create a better cognition of the Tibetan people by the outside world. There is a strong belief that Tibet will welcome a better tomorrow thanks to this widely hailed sacred road.

Xian Travel Guide

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Xian, the eternal city, records the great changes of the Chinese nation just like a living history book. Called Chang'an in ancient times, Xian is one of the birthplaces of the ancient civilization in the Yellow River Basin area of the country. During Xian's 3,100 year development, 13 dynasties such as Western Zhou (11th century BC - 771 BC), Qin (221 BC - 206 BC), Western Han (206 BC - 24 AD) and Tang (618 - 907) placed their capitals here. So far, Xian enjoys equal fame with Athens, Cairo, and Rome as one of the four major ancient civilization capitals.

Xian is the capital of Shaanxi province, located in the southern part of the Guanzhong Plain. With the Qinling Mountains to the south and the Weihe River to the north, it is in a favorable geographical location surrounded by water and hills. It has a semi-moist monsoon climate and there is a clear distinction between the four seasons. Except the colder winter, any season is relatively suitable for traveling.

The Bell Tower of XianThe cultural and historical significance of Xian, as well as the abundant relics and sites, help Shaanxi enjoy the laudatory title of 'Natural History Museum'. The Museum of Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses is praised as 'the eighth major miracle of the world', Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang is listed on the World Heritage List, and the City Wall of the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) is the largest and most intact Ming Dynasty castle in the world. In the city, there is the 3,000 years old Banpo Village Remains from the Neolithic Age (approximately from 8000 BC to 5000 BC), and the Forest of Stone Steles that holds 3,000 stone steles of different periods from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. Around Xian, the Famen Temple enjoys the reputation of being the 'forefather of pagodas and temples in Central Shaanxi,' because it holds the finger bones of Sakyamuni -- the founder of Buddhism. The natural landscape around Xian is also marvelous Mt.Huashan one of the five best-known mountains in China, is famous for its breath-taking cliffs and its unique characteristics.

Traditional downtown Xian refers to the area encircled by the city wall, this has now been expanded to encompass the area within the second ring road (Er' huan Lu). The Bell Tower is the geographical center of Xian and the four main streets are respectively Dong Dajie, Xi Dajie, Nan Dajie and Bei Dajie which are also the main commercial streets. Xiao Zhai, the busiest commercial area is in the southern part of the city and is popular with both youths and students since many universities are located here. Shuyuan Men and the still under construction Luoma Shi are must-visit pedestrian streets in the city. Xian is also famous for its quantity of colleges throughout China. The old campuses of many colleges and universities are massed in the southern suburb of Xian, but most have established new campuses in far southern suburb - Chang'an District due to the lack of space within the city.

The street scene near the South Gate of the City WallAs tourist development grows in Xian, the hotel industry flourishes more and more. It is very easy to find a hotel in Xian, ranging from 5 star hotels to youth hostels. Of course, it will be any traveler's first choice to stay in the city center due to the superior geographical location and the convenient transportation.

Praised as 'the capital of table delicacies', Xian has been rich in the delicious Shaanxi snack, delicate Guangdong Cuisine, various kinds of fashionable foreign delicacies, and popular Sichuan Cuisine such as the hot pot. Among all the delicacies, the most famous and popular one is the Muslim Snack Street.

Xian is the most important city in northwest China, and so there are a lot of shopping outlets for locals and tourists alike. There are many big shopping centers, department stores and supermarkets in and around Xian city - the biggest and most comprehensive being Kai Yuan Shopping Mall and Century Ginwa Shopping Mall.

The night life in Xian has a unique glamour. Traditional ways include enjoying the night scenery around the Bell Tower, taking part in a Tang Dynasty Dinner Show, strolling on the ancient Big Wild Goose Pagoda Square and watching the music fountain performance. More modern and fashionable ways include singing in the KTV, hanging out in a bar, or dancing in a Disco. All in all, any experience in this ancient city will bring you fun and possibly a little surprise!

Beijing Travel Guide

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Beijing, Jing for short, is the nation's political, economic, cultural and educational center as well as China's most important center for international trade and communications. Together with Xian, Luoyang, Kaifeng, Nanjing and Hangzhou, Beijing is one of the six ancient cities in China. It has been the heart and soul of politics and society throughout its long history and consequently there is an unparalleled wealth of discovery to delight and intrigue travelers as they explore Beijing's ancient past and enjoy its exciting modern development.

As the capital of the People's Republic of China, Beijing is located in northern China, close to Tianjin Municipality and partially surrounded by Hebei Province. The city covers an area of more than 16,410 square kilometers (6,336 square miles) and has a population of 14.93 million people.

Beijing is a city with four distinct seasons. Its best is late spring and autumn. But autumn is taken as the golden tourist season of the year since there is sometimes in the spring of recent years, a yellow wind. We suggest tourists visit Beijing during the months of May, September, and October when people can enjoy bright sunshine and blue skies. An abundance of international class performances are presented in May. If you like winter, you will have other chances to appreciate another landscape of Beijing. After skiing in Beihai and viewing the snowy sights on West Hill, enjoying the steaming hotpot is the best choice, which is really the fun of tour in Beijing. Please keep warm and remember to bring your down garments and sweaters when you visit Beijing in the winter.

TiananmenHow can one city boast so many phenomenal places? Beijing's long and illustrious history started some 500,000 years ago. It is here that the ancestors of modern Homo sapiens, Peking men, lived in caves. Records show that Beijing has been an inhabited city for more than three thousand years and has endured invasions by warlords and foreign powers, devastating fires, the rise and fall of powerful imperial dynasties and has emerged each time as a strong and vibrant city. For more than 800 years, Beijing was a capital city - from the Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368) to the Ming (1368 - 1644) and Qing (1644 - 1911) dynasties. Thirty-four emperors have lived and ruled the nation in Beijing and it has been an important trading city from its earliest days.

Although now Beijing is a modern and fashionable city complete with a full 21st Century vitality, you can experience authentic Beijing life and become acquainted with 'old Beijing' by exploring its many teahouses, temple fairs, Beijing's Hutong and Courtyard and enjoy the Peking Opera. Add any or all of these to your Beijing tour and you will leave with a feeling of special appreciation in your heart for this ancient city that has truly seen it all and tells its story with matchless grace, charm and vigor.

With the biggest central square in the world - Tian'anmen Square, the Forbidden City that is the largest and best-preserved imperial palace complex, a superbly preserved section of the Great Wall,as well as the largest sacrificial complex in the world - the Temple of Heaven, Beijing attracts both domestic and foreign visitors who all come to wonder at its century-old history and unique cultural relics.

Dwelling too much on the historical past of Beijing may give tourists the false impression that it is little more than an ancient city in style but this is definitely not so! Strolling around Beijing, you'll find it has much in common with any other great metropolis elsewhere in today's world. There are towering skyscrapers; busy shopping malls and an endless stream of traffic that makes the city much the same as others. The most famous and popular commercial circles and commercial pedestrian streets are predominantly located near the Yansha Shopping Mall, Tiananmen and Wangfujing Street, Guomao Shopping Mall, Qianmen Street and Xidan Street, etc. However, although you will find multinational chains with their own brands to offer, nowhere else on earth will you find such a variety of gourmet Chinese restaurants offering the very best of the eight different styles of Chinese cuisine as well as western style dishes. Modern hotels abound, each offering the highest standards of service and convenience.

Summer PalaceAfter a day's Beijing tours, nighttime can hold other surprises for you. These can vary from traditional performances such as the Beijing Opera, acrobatics and martial arts to modern ones including concerts, ballroom dancing, pubs and clubs. Each and every one has its individual enchantment for the tourist. No description of our capital city is complete without mention of the friendly people who throng the streets. Everywhere you will encounter smiling faces and a warm welcome, especially from the children who love to say 'Hello!' All these things add up to truly make your visit a cultural experience of a lifetime.

CERAMICS

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The Chinese began making pottery over 8000 years ago. The first vessels were hand-crafted earthenware, primarily used for religious purposes. The invention of the pottery wheel during the late Neolithic period led to the establishment of foundries and workshops and the eventual develop- ment of a ceramics industry.

Over the centuries, Chinese potters perfected their craft, introducing many new exciting styles and techniques. Art thrived under the Tang dynasty and the ceramic arts were no exception. One of the most famous styles from this period is 'three-coloured ware', named because of the liberal use of bright yellow, green and white glaze. Blue-green celadons were another popular item and demand for them grew in countries as far away as Egypt and Persia.

The Yuan dynasty saw the first production of China's most famous type of porcelain, often referred to simply as 'blue-and-white'. Cobalt blue paint, obtained from Persia, was applied as an underglaze directly to white porcelain with a brush and then the vessel was covered with another transparent glaze and fired. This technique was perfected under the Ming dynasty and ceramics made in this style became hugely popular all over the world, eventually acquiring the name 'Chinaware', whether produced in China or not. Jingdezhen (p466) in Jiangxi province was es- tablished during the Yuan dynasty as the centre of the ceramics industry and still retains that importance today.

During the Qing dynasty, porcelain techniques were further refined and developed, showing superb craftsmanship and ingenuity. British and European consumers dominated the export market, having an insatiable appetite for Chinese vases and bowls decorated with flowers and land- scapes. The Qing is also known for its stunning monochromatic ware, especially the ox-blood vases, and enamel decorated porcelain.

Jingdezhen remains an excellent place to visit ceramic workshops and purchase various types of ceramic wares, from Mao statues to traditional glazed urns. Another place to pick up pottery is at Dingshan in Jiangsu province, which is famous for ceramic teapots.

China Arts

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With such a long, unbroken history and culture, China has made one of the greatest artistic contributions to mankind. Sadly, much of China's an- cient art treasures have been destroyed in times of civil war or dispersed by invasion or natural calamity. Many of China's remaining great paint- ings, ceramics, jade and other works of art were rescued by exile beyond the mainland - in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and elsewhere.

The West has also been guilty of ransacking China's heritage, making off with religious art and scriptures from such grottoes as Dunhuang. Fortunately since the early 1970s a great deal of work has been done to restore what was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.

China today has a flourishing contemporary art scene, with private galleries competing with government-run museums and exhibition halls. Chinese artists are increasingly catching the attention of the international art world and joint exhibitions with European or American artists are now common. The Beijing Biennale, held in the autumn of 2003, was the first international exhibit of its kind to showcase artworks from over 40 countries and serve as a representative platform for some of China's top artists.

Visual Arts

CALLIGRAPHY

Calligraphy has been traditionally regarded in China as the highest form of artistic expression. The basic tools, commonly referred to as 'the four treasures of the scholar's study', are paper, ink, ink-stone (on which the ink is mixed) and brush. These materials, which are shared by Chinese painters, reflect the close relationship between Chinese painting and calligraphy.

Calligraphy is still an extremely popular pastime in China and a major area of study. It can be seen all over China - on documents, artworks, in temples, adorning the walls of caves, and on the sides of mountains and monuments. There is an annual calligraphy festival held every year outside Shaoxing in Zhejiang province.

PAINTING

Chinese painting is the art of brush and ink applied onto xuan (paper), or silk. The basic tools are those of calligraphy, which has influenced painting in both its style and theory. The brush line, which varies in thickness and tone, is the important feature or a Chinese painting, along with calligraphy itself, which is usually incorporated in the form of an inscription or poem along with the artist's seal. Shading and colour play only a minor symbolic and decorative role.

From the Han dynasty until the end of the Tang dynasty, the human figure occupied the dominant position in Chinese painting. The practice of seeking places of natural beauty and communing with nature first be- came popular among Taoist poets and painters, and landscape painting for its own sake started in the 4th and 5th centuries.

From the 11th century onwards, landscape was to dominate Chinese painting. Towards the end of the Ming dynasty, a group of painters known as the Individualists diverged from traditional techniques with unusual compositions and brushwork; however it was not until the 20th century that there was any real departure from native traditions.

Since the late 1970s, the Chinese art scene has gradually recovered. The work of traditionally influenced painters can be seen for sale in shops and galleries all over China, while in the major cities a flourishing avant-garde scene has emerged. The work of Chinese painters has been arguably more innovative and dissident than that of writers, possibly because the political implications are harder to interpret by the authori- ties. For those interested in purchasing art, it's a good idea to head to the smaller independent galleries and inquire there.

TOP CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERIES

These galleries are the most well known in China and show work by some of China's top inter- nationally recognised artists.

The Courtyard, Beijing

Red Gate Gallery, Beijing

China Academy of Art, Hangzhou

Plum Blossoms, Hong Kong

Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong

Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai

ShanghArt, Shanghai

Art Scene, Shanghai

HEAVY-HANDED:The Qing Dynasty

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The Manchu proclaimed their new dynasty the Qing (1644-1911), al- though it took them four decades to stamp out Ming loyalists in the south and pacify the entire country. This victory for the Qing came at great cost to the population with acts of severe brutality and massacre.

The Qing neutralised threats from inner Asia by incorporating their homeland of Manchuria into the empire as well as that of the Mongols, whom they had subordinated. Their cultural policy involved a careful bal- ance of attention to the Chinese, Manchu, Mongols and Tibetans. They courted the literati via the examination system and great literary projects. Their own people were appointed to key positions in the bureaucracy, but matching positions were created for Chinese officials.

As an alien dynasty, the Qing remained keen to establish its own legitimacy. Chinese men were forced to wear their hair like the Manchu- style (shave the front and braid the back into a long tail), a look you'll quickly recognise as a sign of 'Chineseness' used in countless Western cartoons. Harsh censorship was practised during the 18th century, with a literary inquisition begun in the 1770s and cruel punishments inflicted on authors of works containing anti-Manchu sentiments.

Despite such ideological control, scholarship flourished.

Women's Cultural Battleground Women became a site of Chinese cultural resistance to Manchu rule. Chinese women continued to wear Chinese-style dress, with skirts worn over loose jackets and trousers, as opposed to the one-piece robe worn by Manchu women. Footbinding, in force from perhaps the 10th or 11th centuries, persisted despite Qing prohibitions. Chinese women remained devout to Chinese men, continuing to honour them through the practice of widow suicide. The Manchu showed considerable political skill in moving from opposition to endorsement of widow suicide, awarding honours to women who followed their husbands to the grave.

The Opium War & British Hong Kong

The early Qing emperors had shown a relatively open attitude towards Europeans in China, but this changed in the 18th century. Qianlong, ruler from 1736 to 1795, imposed strict controls on maritime trade, which from 1757 was limited to the single port of Guangzhou.

Chinese exports well exceeded imports at Guangzhou until Westerners hit upon the opium trade. Opium had long been a popular drug in China, but had been outlawed since the early 18th century. The Portuguese first discovered that there was profit to be made through opium, and began trading it between India and China. The British soon joined in. Stronger Chinese prohibitions against the use and sale of the drug followed, but were far from effective as many officials were opium addicts and therefore assisted in smuggling it into China. By the early 19th century the opium trade had grown to the point of shifting the balance in trade in favour of the Westerners.

In March 1839 Lin Zexiu, an official of great personal integrity, was dispatched to Guangzhou to put a stop to the illegal traffic once and for all. He acted promptly, demanding and eventually getting some 20,000 chests of opium stored by the British in Guangzhou. The British believed they were due compensation and, without it, had the pretext for military action. In 1840 a British naval force assembled in Macau and moved up the coast to Bei He, not far from Beijing. The Opium War was on.

The emperor watched with mild distress and authorised a negotiation that managed to fob off the first British force with a treaty that neither side ended up recognising. This increased British frustration, leading to an attack on Chinese positions close to Guangzhou.

A second treaty was drawn up, ceding Hong Kong to the British, and calling for indemnities of Y6,000,000 and the full resumption of trade. The furious Qing emperor refused to recognise the treaty, and in 1841 British forces once again headed up the coast, taking Fujian and eastern Zhejiang. In the spring of 1842 an army inflated with reinforcements moved up Yangzi River. With British guns trained on Nanjing, the Qing fighting spirit evaporated and they reluctantly signed the humiliating Treaty of Nanking. This left Hong Kong in the hands of the British 'in perpetuity'.

In 1898 the New Territories adjoining Kowloon were 'leased' to the British for 99 years and the British agreed to hand the entire colony back to China when the lease on the New Territories expired. For more details on the handover, see p493.

Christ's Kid Brother

By the 19th century the increased presence of missionaries had fuelled hatred against 'foreign devils', leading to further rebellion throughout the provinces (see Boxed Up, opposite).

Also at this time, the Taiping Rebellion erupted in 1850 in the southern province of Guangxi, and commanded forces of 600,000 men and 500,000 women as it raged through central and eastern China. The Taipings owed much of their ideology to Christianity. Its leader was Hong Xiuquan, a failed examination candidate from Guangdong province whose encoun- ters with Western missionaries had led him to believe he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. The Taipings forbade gambling, opium, tobacco and alcohol, advocated agricultural reform, and outlawed foot binding for women, prostitution and slavery. The rebellion took tens of millions of lives before being suppressed in 1864 by a coalition of Qing and Western forces - the Europeans preferring to deal with a corrupt and weak Qing govern- ment rather than a powerful, united China governed by the Taipings.

The Second Opium War

With Hong Kong in the hands of the British following the first Opium War, official trade was diverted to Shanghai. This left Hong Kong's economy in dire straits. With the attention of the Qing court focused on the Taiping Rebellion, the foreign powers struck again. The Anglo- French expedition of 1856 to 1860, sometimes called the Second Opium War, ended with the occupation of Beijing and the flight of the court to Jehol in the Manchurian homeland.

The final outcome was the Treaty of Tianjin, which opened further Treaty ports and established a regular diplomatic corps in Beijing. At the same time further massive rebellions were brewing: the Nian in central north China, the Panthay in Yunnan and the Donggan in the northwest.

DRAGON WOMAN

Like many other Qing dynasty teenagers, at the age of 15, Cixi (1835-1908) gave up her true love to become one of Emperor Xianfeng's concubines. Her cunningness and intelligence soon made her a favourite of the emperor, particularly after she gave birth to his only son in 1856. Cixi's subsequent rise to power was largely due to the convenient deaths of her adversaries. Xianfeng died at the age of 30 and his empress followed suit a few years later. This made Cixi's five-year-

old son, Tongzhi, the new emperor, and Cixi herself the ruling Dowager Empress.

Cixi held onto the government reins for over 40 years in total, galloping over anyone who got in her way - including her own son and Emperor Guangxu whom she replaced him with. Other opponents were slowly starved, thrown down wells or locked away. She spent her reign focusing on her own position rather than the country's; at the end of her life she left nine storerooms of personal treasures, a refurbished Summer Palace and the Qing dynasty in an irreparable state of decline. To see one of her more ridiculous 'achievements', take a gander at the marble boat in Beijing's Summer Palace.

100 DAYS REFORMS

A visionary reformer, Kang Youwei (1858-1927) became a key adviser to the Qing emperor fol- lowing China's disastrous war with Japan. The result was the famous '100 Days Reforms' of 1898, which were expected to set China on the modernising path already taken by Japan. Reforms to the bureaucracy and examination system were proposed, as well as social reforms like the abolition of foot binding. Sadly, '100 Days' ended with a palace coup staged by the supposedly retired Dowager Empress Cixi, the house arrest of the Emperor Guangxu, the execution of some reformist activists and the flight of others, including Kang.

Bringing Home the Enemy

in the second half of the 19th century China sent embassies and students to the West. The goal was to pick up pointers from the enemy on how to strengthen Chinese military technology and industrial development. The Treaty-port cities, especially Shanghai, became the face of mod- ernisation in China. Factories, banks, newspapers, new-style schools, bicycles, trains, and eventually motor cars, trade unions, chambers of commerce and political parties all made their appearance. In Shanghai, land conceded to Western nations quickly outgrew the old city. The unique architecture and atmosphere of the old French Concession makes it worth a wander even today .

In the late 1890s China was in danger of being 'cut up like a melon, divided like a bean', as further leases of land and spheres of influence were ceded to the foreign powers. The Western powers were soon joined by the Japanese who, after a small scrap on Korean soil with Chinese forces, were ceded Taiwan in 1895. The same treaty granted the Japanese (and thereby other foreign powers) the right to construct their own factories in Shanghai. In 1898 Germany gained a lease in Qingdao after Lutheran missionaries were murdered inland. They commenced building a railway that became the focus of protests by local people upset at the disturbance of feng shui. You'll still find a certain 'Germanness' in the air when you visit Qingdao, likely to be emanating from the leftover brewery .

BOXED UP

Culled from secret societies, the Boxen were a xenophobic group who erupted in rebellion at the end of the 19th century with violent attacks on missionaries and their families. Tired of the foreigners themselves, the Qing Court decided to support the Boxers. Armed with this backing and with charms and martial-arts techniques that they believed made them impervious to West- ern bullets, the Boxers began massacring foreigners at random and the famous 50-day siege of Beijing's Foreign Legations began. It wasn't long before Western allies landed, handed the Qing Court a crippling foreign debt and knocked the Boxers down for the count.

The Fall of the Qing

In 1908 the Dowager Empress died and two-year-old Emperor Puyi ascended to the throne. The Qing was now rudderless and teetered on the brink of collapse.

As an increasing number of new railways were financed and built by foreigners, public anger grew and gave birth to the Railway Protection Movement that spread and took on an anti-Qing nature. The movement turned increasingly violent, especially in Sichuan, and troops were taken from Wuhan to quell the disturbances.

As it happened, republican revolutionaries in Wuhan were already planning an uprising. With troops dispensed to Sichuan, they seized the opportunity and were able to not only take control of Wuhan, but to ride on the back of the large-scale Railway Protection uprisings to victory all over China.

Two months later representatives from 17 provinces throughout China gathered in Nanjing to establish the Provisional Republican Government of China. China's long dynastic cycle had come to an end.

FORTRESS MENTALITY:The Ming Dynasty

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A man of no great education, Zhu Yuanzhang was a born leader and a strong if harsh ruler. Remembered for his tyranny (he had some 10,000 scholars and their families put to death in two paranoid purges of his administration), he also did much to set China back on its feet in the aftermath of the Yuan collapse.

Yuanzhang established his capital in Nanjing, but by the early 15th century the court had begun to move back to Beijing. A massive recon- struction project was commenced under Emperor Yongle, who reigned from 1403 to 1424, establishing the Forbidden City (p110) much as it remains today. A burgeoning commercial and residential suburbia grew up south of the walled city, and was itself enclosed by a wall in 1522. In this form the city survived through to the 1950s.

In the early Ming, relations with inner Asia were at an all-time low. Yongle had usurped power from his nephew and the civil war that this provoked left him looking overseas to establish his credentials as ruler. In 1405 he launched the first of seven great maritime expeditions. Led by the eunuch general Zheng He (1371-1433), the fleet consisted of more than 60 large vessels and 255 smaller ones, carrying nearly 28,000 men. The fourth and fifth expeditions departed in 1413 and 1417, and travelled as tar as Aden, on the present Suez Canal. The great achieve-ment of these voyages was to bring tribute missions to the capital, includ- ing two embassies from Egypt. Retreat!

In 1439 a dramatic invasion by the Mongols resulted in the capture and year-long imprisonment of the then-emperor. The Ming reaction was to retreat into itself. The Great Wall was lengthened by 600 miles in the second half of the century, turning it into one of the great building feats of history. The coast, however, was more difficult to defend. In the middle of the 16th century the coastal provinces were harassed by pirate ships and their suppression took great effort.

Around this time, ships also arrived from Europe. The Ming allowed these foreigners to enter their domain, and in 1557 the Portuguese gained the right to establish a permanent trade base in Macau. Traders were quickly followed by missionaries and the Jesuits, led by the formidable Matteo Ricci, made their way inland and established a presence at court. There they made a great impression with their skills in astronomy and in casting canons.

The Portuguese presence linked China directly to trade with the New World. New crops, such as potatoes and maize, were introduced and New World silver was used to pay for Chinese exports, like tea, porcelain and ceramics. Commerce via merchant banks became impor- tant, absentee landlordism and tenant farming became common, and urbanisation intensified.

A House of Cards

The Ming Government was undermined by the power eunuchs wielded at court and by struggles between officials. Strong emperors were needed to maintain order, but were few and far between. Zhu Houchao, ruler from1505 to 1521, handed over matters of state to his chief eunuch so that he could devote his attention to his concubines. This was soon followed by the Tianqi reign (1621-28), a government dominated by the eunuch Wei Zhongxian (1568-1627), who purged officials and built temples in honour of himself.

Such poor leadership could not have happened at a worse time. North of the border, the Jurchen people were consolidated into a militarised state, and by the 1620s they were carrying out periodic raids, sometimes deep into Chinese territory. At the same time floods and drought dev- astated large areas of north China, encouraging banditry that swelled into rebellions.

The Manchu to the north had long been growing in power and looked with keen interest to the convulsions of rebellion in their huge neighbour. Taking advantage of the turmoil they saw, they launched an invasion, but were initially held back by the Great Wall.

Eventually a Ming general let them pass, believing that an alliance with the Manchu was the only hope tor defeating the peasant rebel armies that now threatened Beijing itself.

In 1644 Beijing fell, not to the Manchu but to the peasant rebel Li Zicheng, who sat on the throne for one day before fleeing from the Chi- nese, troops who helped put a Manchu emperor in his place.

GRAND OPENING:The Yuan Dynasty

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Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, now reigned over all of China as em- peror of the Yuan dynasty. He had inherited the largest empire the world had ever known. Foreigners were easily incorporated into this ethnically complex empire as land routes were reopened. European missionaries and traders, such as Marco Polo, went to and fro across the Eurasian continent. Khan's capital, Khanbalig, was on the site of present-day Beijing; today all that's left of his palace is a giant jade urn in Beihai Park.

Under Khan, the entire population was divided into categories of Han, Mongol and foreigner, with the top administrative posts reserved for Mongols. The examination system was revived in 1315, but the Mongols and their non-Chinese allies were still strongly favoured, causing resent- ment among the Chinese literati.

Although they were a mighty military power, the Mongols were not masterminds at politics or economics and were soon faced with insur- mountable opposition. The Mongols controlled China for less than a century; by the middle of the 14th century rebellions raged through central and north China.

Chief among the rebel groups were the Red Turbans who followed a whole gamut of religions - from Buddhism to Manichaeism, Taoism and Confucianism. By 1367 Zhu Yuanzhang, originally an orphan and Bud- dhist novice, had climbed to the top of the rebel leadership and in 1368 he established the Ming dynasty, restoring Chinese rule.

China Islam

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The founder of Islam (Yisilan Jiao) was the Arab prophet Mohammed.

Strictly speaking, Muslims believe it was not Mohammed who shaped the religion but God, and Mohammed merely transmitted it from God to his people. The proper name of the religion is Islam, derived from the word salam, which primarily means 'peace', and in a secondary sense 'surrender' or 'submission'. The full connotation is something like 'the peace that comes by surrendering to God'. The corresponding adjective is 'Muslim'. The Prophet was born around AD 570 and came to be called Moham- med, meaning 'highly praised'. His ancestry is traditionally traced back to Abraham, who had two wives, Hagar and Sarah. Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, and Sarah had a son named Isaac. Sarah demanded that Hagar and Ishmael be banished. According to Islam's holy book, the Koran, Ishmael went to Mecca, where his line of descendants can be traced down to Mohammed. There have been other true prophets before Mohammed, but he is regarded as the culmination of them and the last.

Mohammed said that there is only one God, Allah. The name derives from joining al, which means 'the', with Llah, which means 'God'. His uncompromising monotheism conflicted with the pantheism and idola- try of the Arabs. His moral teachings and vision of a universal brother- hood conflicted with what he believed was a corrupt social order based on class divisions.

The initial reaction to his teachings was hostile. He and his followers were forced to flee from Mecca to Medina in 622, where Mohammed built a political base and an army that eventually defeated Mecca and brought all of Arabia under his control. He died in 632, two years after taking Mecca. By the time a century had passed the Arab Muslims had built a huge empire that stretched all the way from Persia to Spain. Although the Arabs were eventually supplanted by the Turks, the strength of Islam has continued to the present day.

Islam was brought to China peacefully. Arab traders who landed on the southern coast of China established their mosques in great maritime cities like Guangzhou and Quanzhou, and Muslim merchants travelling the Silk Road to China won converts among the Han Chinese in the north of the country. There are also large populations of Muslim Uighur people (of Turkic descent), whose ancestors first moved into China's Xinjiang region during the Tang dynasty.

Christianity

The earliest record of Christianity (Jidu Jiao) in China dates back to the Nestorians, a Syrian Christian sect. They first appeared in China in the 7th century when a Syrian named Raban presented Christian scriptures to the imperial court at Chang'an (present-day Xi'an). This event and the construction of a Nestorian monastery in Chang'an are recorded on a large stone stele made in AD 781, now displayed in the Shaanxi History Museum (p413) in Xi'an.

The next major Christian group to arrive in China were the Jesuits. The priests Matteo Ricci and Michael Ruggieri were permitted to set up base at Zhaoqing in Guangdong in the 1580s, and eventually made it to the imperial court in Beijing. Large numbers of Catholic and Protestant missionaries established themselves in China following the intrusion into China by the Western powers in the 19th century. Christians are estimated to comprise about 1% of China's population.

Judaism

Kaifeng (p441) in Henan province has been the home of the largest com- munity of Chinese jews. Their religious beliefs of Judaism (Youtai Jiao) and almost all the customs associated with them have died out, yet the descendants of the original Jews still consider themselves Jewish. Just how the Jews got to China is unknown. They may have come as traders and merchants along the Silk Road when Kaifeng was the capital of China, or they may have emigrated from India.

Tibetan medicine

2009-04-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

Tibetan medicine, an important part of the Chinese medical tradition, has been evolving for nearly 3,000 years. During the third century BC, a primitive medical system had existed on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, comprising theories on daily life, food and drink, and health care. Although a complete medical theory had not yet formed, simple therapies were used such as blood-letting, massage, using butter to stop bleeding, and using distillers' grains from highland barley to treat wounds. They had also hypothesized that "toxins and medicines co-exist."

During the 7th century, Tibetan King Songtsan Gambo united the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and established the Tubo Kingdom. He invited medical experts and translators from neighboring states, together with medical experts of Tibet, to compile medical classics such as A Complete Collection of Medical Works, Fearless Weapons, Medicine and Diagnosis of Moon King, and Four Medical Classics. He encouraged Tibetan medical researchers to incorporate Indian and Han Chinese medical principles into their work. These efforts promoted the development of traditional Tibetan medicine and laid a solid foundation in the fields of physiology, diagnosis, and treatment.

In around 1450, two contradictory schools of thought-northern and southern-arose. Each school had it own views concerning prescription methods and the Four Medical Classics. This conflict in ideas marked a new stage in the development of traditional Tibetan medicine. Sukar, a representative of the southern school, and his disciples conducted research on diseases caused by dampness in southern Tibet. They based their studies on the Four Medical Classics and created a unique theoretical system for diagnosis and medication. They wrote more than ten representative medical works. Qamba and Namgyai Zhabsang were representative figures of the northern school. They conducted research on diseases caused by the cold climate in northern Tibet and based their work upon the Four Medical Classics. They wrote more than ten representative medical works. The contention between the northern and so/uthern schools of thought greatly promoted the development of traditional Tibetan medicine.

Between 1600 and 1959, traditional Tibetan medicine developed slowly, without any dynamism. But after the peaceful liberation of Tibet, the Party and the central government have been aiding the development of Tibetan medicine. After China adopted economic reform policies in 1978, traditional Tibetan medicine has rapidly developed. Research centers have been established in Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu and Scihuan. Provincial-level hospitals and pharmaceutical production bases have been set up in Tibet and Qinghai. Also, prefecture medical organizations have been established in Sichuan, Gansu, Tibet and Qinghai. Traditional Tibetan medicine is being standardized.

"Theory of Three Factors"

Traditional Tibetan medicine is based on the "theory of three factors." The theory centers around the "seven substances" and "three excrements" of the human body. The three factors are lung, chiba, and peigen; the seven substances include diet, blood, flesh, fat, bone, marrow, and seminal fluid; and the three excrements are sweat, urine and stool. When a person is in good health, the relations between the three factors, seven substances and three excrements are in good balance. Keeping balance is an important principle of traditional Tibetan medicine.

Traditional Tibetan medicine is based on traditional Tibetan culture and thus incorporates life science (combination of heaven, earth and human beings) into its theories. Traditional Tibetan medicine differs from medical traditions of other ethnic groups and modern medicine.

Four Medical Classics

His annotations on the Four Medical Classics are the most authoritative. He made a series of hanging charts on the Four Medical Classics and established a medical school to train doctors. Other well-known Tibetan doctors include Kyenrab Norbu, Gyiba Cewang, Budong, and Qamba Chinlai.

Representative Brand Names of Tibetan Medicines 　　

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau produces more than 3,000 different medicinal materials of traditional Tibetan medicine.

After China adopted reform policies in 1978, the central government invested 200 million yuan in two large, modern pharmaceutical plants in Tibet and Qinghai equipped with advanced facilities. More than 20 pharmaceuticals produced by these plants were listed in the 1995 edition of the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China.

Representative patent medicines include "72-ingredient pearls," "25-ingredient Pearl Pills," "70-ingredient Coral," "Ruyi Zhenbao Pill," and "20-ingredient Agalloch Eaglewood Pill" for treating heart and brain diseases and disorders; "Rinqen Changjue," "5-ingredient Pomegranate Pill" for treating stomach and intestine diseases, and medicines for treating liver and bone diseases. Four patent medicines, including "70-ingredient Pearl" and "25-ingredient Turquoise Pill," have obtained certificates from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Qizheng-brand "Xiaotongtie" (Pain-Killing Plaster) produced by the Qizheng Tibetan Pharmaceutical Group won a gold medal at the World Invention Exposition held in Geneva.

Education and Scientific Research

Before the liberation, traditional Tibetan medicine was taught in major temples and hospitals in Lhasa. Education techniques were traditional, and the number of trainees were limited. But since the peaceful liberation of Tibet, the training situation has been improving. School have been set up throughout the region. In 1983, a secondary school of traditional Tibetan medicine was established in Tibet Autonomous Region. In 1985, the Department of Traditional Tibetan Medicine was set up at the University of Tibet, and in 1989 the College of Traditional Tibetan Medicine was established, the first higher education school of Tibetan medicine. Tibetan medicine schools in Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan where Tibetans live in compact communities have trained more than 3,000 doctors.

Publishing houses in Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, and Yunnan have published more than 50 medical titles including Four Medical Classics, Jingzhu Materia Medica, Blue Glaze, and the New Collection of Traditional Tibetan Medicine. In the mid-1980s, well-known traditional Tibetan medicine experts from Tibet, Qinghai and Sichuan, gathered in Lhasa to compile textbooks on clinical practics, internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, five sense organs, prescriptions, pathology, and diagnosis. In the early 1990s, textbooks for university and secondary students were compiled, and basic theories of modern medical science and diagnosis were added.

Scientific Tibetan medicine research has been gradually spreading. In Traditional Tibetan medicine centers in Tibet, Qinghai and Gansu, research and development have been conducted in the fields of historical document research, Tibetan medicine uses, diagnosis techniques, and pharmaceutical production. The Hospital of Traditional Tibetan Medicine of Tibet Autonomous Region and the People's Hospital of Tibet Autonomous Region work together to improve treatment of chronic atrophic gastritis. Patients take pharmacist-prepared Tibetan medicines and doctors used modern pathological methods to check results. The hospitals' cooperation has won a third-class prize for scientific and technological progress from the Ministry of Public Health. The two hospitals and experts from the pharmacological research institute of Huaxi Medical University jointly conducted research on medicinal herbs unique to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, including rhodiola, Chinese caterpillar fungus and Drosera peltata. Lab tests indicate that these plants contain anti-aging compounds as well as anti-oxidants. In addition, more than ten pharmacist-prepared Tibetan medicines have been found to have anti-bacterial inflammation reducing functions.

More than ten cities in the interior have set up Tibetan medicine centers. One of the largest is the Beijing Hospital of Traditional Tibetan Medicine. Over the past few years, the hospital has received nearly 200,000 patients. The hospital plays a decisive role in publicizing traditional Tibetan medicine.　

Confucius Institutes not for exporting China values

2009-04-20T06:48:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, April 19 -- China has no intention to export its values through its overseas Confucius Institutes, which goes against the country's traditional concept, a Chinese official has said.

The major goal of the Confucius Institutes abroad is to strengthen mutual understanding between China and foreign countries through cultural exchanges, said Xu Lin, director of the Chinese Language Council International, a national body promoting the Chinese language internationally and guiding the establishment of Confucius Institutes.

Xu told U.S.-based China Press in an interview on Thursday that foreign media reports that have said the Confucius Institutes are playing a key role in China's cultural infiltration are groundless. She made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the Confucius Institute at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, which is the 53rd such center in the United States.

Xu iterated that China had not and would not force foreigners to accept its values, adding that Confucianism emphasizes peace and harmony and adherence to tolerance of different cultures. She also said what China wants foreigners to know about is not a perfect China, but a real one.

China has established 256 Confucius Institutes and four Confucius Classrooms worldwide in recent years in collaboration with local universities. They are a main platform for China's cultural exchanges.

Ultraviolet Detector Pendants for Mobile Phones

2009-04-19T05:29:00.000-07:00

Ultraviolet Detector Pendants with Single Key Control and Auto Shut-off, Suitable for Mobile Phones

Key Specifications/Special Features:

* Functions:
o UV measurement
o Triple color LED indication (green is 0 to 2 grade means UV is very low and orange is 3 to 5 grade means UV is of medium grade and red is 6 to 8 grade means UV is high)
o Auto shut-down function (20 seconds auto shut-down)
o One key control (on/off)
* Purposes:
o Super cute pendant designed for measuring UV index
o Hung with mobiles, keychains, bags and necklaces with its miniature and compact design graces vogue
* Remarks:
o Level 1 to 3 means low content
o Level 4 to 6 means middle level
o Skin may be suntanned after 5-minute contiguity under UV
o Strongly recommended to adopt some measures before doing outdoor activities such as using anti-UV lotion, wearing caps and sunglasses to keep the skin from suntan
o Level 7 to 8 means high content, skin will be suntanned easily
o Avoid outdoor activities to keep the skin out of direct sunlight from 10am to 4pm
* Patent number: ZL20060315678.5

Yingzhijian Technology Manufactory Limited
Room 2703-2710, Chuangzhan Building
No. 6007 Shennan Road, Futian
Shenzhen
Guangdong
China 518040
Tel: (86 755) 83867835 (86 755) 83867865
Fax: (86 755) 83867652 / (86 755) 83867637

Other Homepage Address
http://www.yzjcn.com

Buddhism

2009-04-19T05:26:00.000-07:00

Buddhism (Fo Jiao) was founded in India by Siddhartha Gautama (563 -483 BC), a prince brought up in luxury who became disillusioned by the world around him. At the age of 30 he sought 'enlightenment' by fol- lowing various yogic disciplines. After several failed attempts he devoted the final phase of his search to intensive contemplation. One evening he slipped into deep meditation and emerged having achieved enlighten- ment. His title 'Buddha' means 'the awakened' or 'the enlightened one'. The cornerstone of Buddhist philosophy is the view that all life is suf- fering. Everyone is subject to the traumas of birth, sickness, decrepitude and death, and to separation from what they love.

The cause of suffering is desire - specifically the desires of the body and the desire for personal fulfilment. Happiness can only be achieved if these desires are overcome, and this requires following the 'eightfold path'. By following this path the Buddhist aims to attain nirvana: a state of complete freedom from greed, anger, ignorance and the various other fetters of existence.

When Buddhism entered China from India, its exotic nature, with chanting, strange coloured robes, incense and foreign images was an attraction for many Chinese disillusioned with the uptight formalism of Confucianism. Buddhism offered answers to the afterlife that neither Taoism nor Confucianism could address, with its elaborate explanations of karma and how to find relief from suffering.

Slowly, the religion drew more followers, gathering firm support in northern China and gradually moving south. However, Buddhism had its share of critics, and many Chinese were afraid that the foreign reli- gion was a threat to the Chinese identity, which was firmly grounded in Confucianism. The growth of Buddhism was slowed by persecutions and outright abolishment by various emperors.

The Buddhist writings that have come down to us date from about 150 years after the Buddha's death. By the time these texts came out, divisions had already appeared within Buddhism. Some writers tried to emphasise the Buddha's break with Hinduism, while others tried to minimise it. At some stage Buddhism split into two major schools: Theravada and Mahayana.

The Theravada or 'doctrine of the elders' school (also called Hinayana or little vehicle' by non-Theravadins) holds that the path to nirvana is an individual pursuit. It centres on monks and nuns who make the search for nirvana a full-time profession. This school maintains that people are alone in the world and must tread the path to nirvana on their own; bud- dhas can only show the way.

Theravada is the main school of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

The Mahayana, or big vehicle', school holds that since all existence is one, the fate of the individual is linked to the fate of others. The Buddha did not just point the way and float off into his own nirvana, but continues to offer spiritual help to others seeking nirvana.

Mahayana is the main school of Buddhism in Vietnam, Japan, Tibet, Korea, Mongolia and China, Mahayana Buddhism is replete with innumerable heavens, hells and descriptions of nirvana. Prayers are addressed to the Buddha and com- bined with elaborate ritual. There are deities and bodhisattvas - a rank of supernatural beings in their last incarnation before nirvana. Temples are filled with images such as the future buddha, Maitreya (often portrayed as fat and happy over his coming promotion) and Amitabha (a saviour who rewards the faithful with admission to a Christian-like paradise).

The ritual, tradition and superstition that Buddha rejected came tumbling back in with a vengeance.

In Tibet and areas of Gansii, Sichuan and Yunnan, a unique form of the Mahayana school is practised: Tantric or Lamaist Buddhism (Lama Jiao). Tantric Buddhism, often called Vajrayana or 'thunderbolt vehicle' by its followers, has been practised since the early 7th century AD and is heavily influenced by Tibet's pre-Buddhist Bon religion, which relied on priests or shamans to placate spirits, gods and demons.

Generally speaking, it is much more mystical than other forms of Buddhism, relying heavily on mudras (ritual postures), mantras (sacred speech), yantras (sacred art) and secret initiation rites.

Priests called lamas are believed to be reincarnations of highly evolved beings; the Dalai Lama is the supreme patriarch of Tibetan Buddhism.

GOING SOUTH: The Song Dynasty

2009-04-19T05:25:00.000-07:00

Another period of disunity followed the fall of the Tang until the North- ern Song dynasty (960-1127) was established. The Northern Song was a rather small empire coexisting with the non-Chinese Liao dynasty (which controlled a belt of Chinese territory south of the Great Wall) and rather less happily with the Xi Xian, another non-Chinese power that pressed hard on the northwestern provinces. In 1126 the Song lost its capital, Kaifeng, to a third non-Chinese people, the Jurchen, who had previously been their allies against the Liao. The Song was driven to its southern capital of Hangzhou for the period of the Southern Song (1127-1279).

The Jurchen, forebears of the Manchu, established the Jin dynasty with a capital near Beijing. A treaty was drawn up with the Southern Song that divided the empire along the boundary of Huai He. The Jin dynasty pulled rank over the Southern Song, demanding the payment of tribute in the form of silk, tea and silver.

Nevertheless, the Song dynasty, North and South, was a time of enor- mous economic and cultural vitality. Considerable advances were made in archaeology, mathematics, astronomy, geography and medicine. Phil- osophy, poetry, painting and calligraphy flourished. Agricultural produc- tivity was booming, brought on by the spread of rice cultivation since the 8th century, and this left a surplus of labour that was used to develop secondary industries, like mining, ceramics, and silk manufacture. The tea-bush and lacquer trees were cultivated, and gunpowder and move- able type were invented. Paper making and print technology experienced significant advances, and a busy trade with Southeast Asia and Japan sent Song copper currency far afield.

All of these developments nurtured urbanisation and commercial classes. Kaifeng emerged as the great centre of Northern Song politics, culture and commerce. Merchants flourished, while the aristoc- racy more or less disappeared. Many Tang restrictions on society were abolished as the urban population became more liberated; the removal of the curfew led to a thriving nightlife.

Hangzhou prospered as capital of the Southern Song, and to this day retains its reputation as one of the most beautiful and cultured cities in the empire.

An educated class of high social standing became a distinguishing feature of Chinese society as Confucianism achieved a dominance it was to retain until the 19th century. The Song refined and expanded the exam- ination system, selecting officials from the successful candidates.

The Wrath of Khan

While the Song literati were busy studying moral codes, Genghis Khan(1167-1227) was beginning to flex his muscles in Mongolia. The son of a chieftain, Genghis commenced his awesome rise to power by aven- ging his father's murder. By 1206 he was recognised as supreme ruler of the Mongols. The Mongols, despised for what was considered their ignorance and poverty, had occasionally gone to war with the Chinese but had always lost. In 1211 Genghis Khan turned his sights on China, penetrated the Great Wall two years later and took Beijing in 1215. He fought the Jin in the east, destroyed the Xi Xia in the west and advanced on Russia. Under his descendants, a great Mongol empire was formed, stretching from the Ukraine and Persia to Korea and the northern limits of Vietnam.The Jin fell in 1234. Hangzhou, the Southern Song capital, was taken in1276. The court tied and Southern Song resistance ended in 1279

THE GOLDEN ERA:The Tang Dynasty

2009-04-19T05:24:00.000-07:00

The reams of literature produced during the Tang dynasty has prompted historians to think of it as the Golden Age. The Three Hundred Tang Poems, compiled from over 48,000 poems preserved from this time, pro- vides Chinese conversation with quotable quotes, much as Shakespeare does in English.

Sui Yangdi was succeeded as emperor by his own leading general, Li Yuan, who seized the capital, declared the founding of the Tang dynasty, and within 10 years had eliminated the last rival claimant to the throne. To discourage the development of regional power bases, the empire was subsequently divided into 300 prefectures (zhou) and 1500 counties(xian), establishing a pattern of territorial jurisdiction that persists, with some modifications, to this day.

Li Yuan's achievements were consolidated by his son, the much ad-mired Taizong (626-49). The relationship between Taizong, the able ruler, and his wise minister Wei Zheng (580-645) was regarded as a model one by later Confucianists. On the other hand, Taizong's concu- bine, Wu Zhao, was seen as a good example of what should be avoided in government.

All that Glitters...

Following Taizong's death, Wu (625-705) wielded increasing influence over the court. In 690 she managed to declare a new dynasty, the Zhou, with herself as ruler - the only woman in Chinese history to ever officially hold this position. Wu was regarded as infinitely cruel (some claim she even mur- dered her own son); however, it was under her leadership that the empire reached its greatest extent, spreading well north of the Great Wall and far west into inner Asia. The rich repository of texts and paintings at Dunhuang(p820) in Gansu testifies to the Zhou's intense use of the Silk Road to India, Persia and on to the Mediterranean. During the 7th and 8th centuries major cities, like the capital Chang'an, the Yangzi port of Yangzhou and the coastal port Guangzhou, were crowded with foreign merchants. Wu later moved the capital to the more easily supplied Luoyang.

Wu also replaced many aristocratic officials with scholars chosen through examinations. Her strong promotion of Buddhism, however, alienated her from these Confucian officials and in 705 she was forced to abdicate to Xuan Zong.

The Anti-Midas Touch

Emperor Xuan Zong took the reigns of power and moved the capital back to Chang'an. He re-established permanent armies, appointing minori- ties from the frontiers as generals; he believed they were so far removed from the political system and society that ideas of rebellion and coups would not enter their minds. Nevertheless, it was An Lushan, a general of Sogdian-Turkic parentage, who took advantage of his command in north China to make a bid for imperial power. The fighting, which dragged on for around eight years, overran the capital and caused massive disloca- tions of people and millions of deaths.

Following the failed rebellion, the aristocracy declined and a merce- nary army was hired to support the imperial house. The dynasty grew increasingly dependent on the south, and began to close the door to inner and western Asia. Ideas and beliefs of the past were revived, paving the way for a comeback of Confucianism during the Song dynasty. Bud- dhism, on the other hand, was outlawed by Emperor Wuzong from 842 to 845. Although the ban was later modified, Buddhism never regained the power and prestige in China that it had enjoyed up until that time. Tang power gradually weakened during the 8th and 9th centuries. In the northwest, Tibetan warriors overran Tang garrisons, while to the south the Nanzhao kingdom of Dali, Yunnan, posed a serious threat to Sichuan. Meanwhile, in the Chinese heartland of the Yangzi River region and Zhejiang, heavy taxes and a series of calamities engendered wide-rangingdiscontent that culminated in the Huang Chao rebellion (874-84). This reduced the empire to chaos and resulted in the fall of the capital in 907.

China's own Mother's Day

2009-04-18T21:41:00.001-07:00

As many people around the world celebrated Mother's Day yesterday, a Chinese scholar has made it his mission to create China's own Mother's Day.

Li Hanqiu, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, suggested that the second day of the fourth lunar month, which falls on May 18 this year, be the day.

It coincides with the birthday of 4th century BC philosopher Mencius, whose mother has long been considered the epitome of maternal devotion and love.

Li has called for the traditional Western gift of carnations for the day to be changed to lilies, which in ancient times were planted by mothers in their courtyards as a sign of sorrow at their children leaving home.

"In a country with a deeply-rooted tradition offilial piety, we should have our own occasion for people to express love for mothers according to Chinese custom," Li said.

He has founded a non-government organization Chinese Mothers' Festival Promotion Society" with the support of around 100 Confucian scholars and lecturers of ethics. It plans to celebrate its first Chinese Mother Festival on May 18.

"This is our first year and the celebration will be held only in Zoucheng city of Shandong Province and Shijiazhuang in Hebei, but we believe it will be accepted by more Chinese people at home and abroad as it is conducive to revitalizing our traditional culture of filial piety," said Li.

He also plans to build a theme park on maternity culture in Zoucheng, the birthplace of Mencius.

According to Li, the society plans to send pamphlets over the next few years to a million students in 100 cities advocating filial piety.

One-way Motorcycle Alarm

2009-04-18T01:57:00.000-07:00

One-way Motorcycle Alarm with Remote Engine Start or Cut Off and Optional Voice Reminding

Key Specifications/Special Features:

* Arm, disarm and bike finding
* Remote engine start/cut off
* Six-tone alarming horn
* Sensitivity adjustment by remote
* Optional voice reminding
* One million anti-copying code combinations

Key Contact:
Ms Niu, Daisy
Sales Manager
Export Department

LFF Security Equipment Co. Ltd
Xiaolan Industrial Base, Xiaolan
Zhongshan
Guangdong
China 528416
Tel: (86 760) 22138466 Ext : 259 (86 760) 22138466
Fax: (86 760) 22129838 / (86 760) 22132886

Steering Wheel Mechanical Lock

2009-04-18T01:23:00.000-07:00

Key Specifications/Special Features:

* Mechanical lock and electronics alarm make car double safety
* Bright aluminum-alloy with chrome make the lock look strong and attractive
* Strong copper lock inner material
* Easy install to any steering wheel, suit for any car
* Built-in air pressure changing detection for door open alarm
* With built-in 100dB buzzer for alarming on lock body
* The outside 120dB wireless siren can alarm together, the alarm information is send to siren by wireless
* Remote distance is about 50m (Air distance without building)
* Main unit built-in high capacity rechargeable Li battery (battery life about 1 month)
* No installation DIY model, no damage to original car circuit
* Can work independently whether the lock is locked or not
* Can put in anyplace in the car to enable the alarm function
* New design zinc metal key ring remote
* Carrier modulation: AM technology
* Bright LED alarm indicator on lock body
* 1 one-way remote
* Primary competitive advantages:
* No installation charge, no damage to original car circuit
* The main unit and alarm siren is connected by wireless
* Built-in air pressure detection to check door open
* Main unit built in high-capacity rechargeable Li battery (battery life about 1 month)

Key Contact:
Mr Zhang, Grayson
General Manager

Shenzhen Carscop Electronics Co Ltd
P.O. Box: carscop@vip.163.com
Building A1, Yuanling North Road,
E-GongLing Village, Pinghu Town
Shenzhen
Guangdong
China 518111
Tel: (86 755) 84005500 (86 755) 33835288
Fax: (86 755) 33823966

Homepage Address
http://www.carscop.com

One-way Car Alarm Remote Control with 4-color LED Display

2009-04-18T01:16:00.000-07:00

Key Specifications/Special Features:

* One-way car alarm remote control with LED display
* Remote arming, mute arming/disarming, car finder and trunk release
* With chrome-plated buttons and 4-color LED display
Homepage Address
http://www.huatai-alarm.com

Key Contact:
Ms Zhang, Jinlan
Manager
Foreign Trade Department

Mr He, Guohua
General Manager
Zhongshan Hongmao Electronics Co Ltd
Xiaolan Industrial Zone,
Xiaolan Town
Zhongshan
Guangdong
China 528416
Tel: (86 760) 22283831 (86 760) 22282199
Fax: (86 760) 22282918 / (86 760) 22247968

People Group Resources

2009-04-18T00:57:00.000-07:00

The People's Republic of China recognizes 56 people, or ethnic groups, in China. Fifty-five of these are considered minority groups; the last is comprised of the Han people who make up the majority of China's population. The minority groups form about seven per cent of China's population while the Han comprise the remaining 93%. However, upon examination, it becomes apparent that the 55 minority nationalities are actually umbrella groups that gather together hundreds of different people groups. Under each of these umbrella groups there are groups with significant cultural differences as well as groups with various dialects and sub-dialects-some mutually unintelligible.

The identification of the 55 recognized minority groups dates back to the early 1950s when the Chinese government invited leaders from these groups to register their group with the government to be considered for official recognition. The results were overwhelming with the names of over 400 groups submitted. Over the next 20 years, the government carried out further research and, by combining groups into broad ethnic classifications, in 1976 had reduced the number to 51. Since then, four more groups have been added. These artificially constructed categories have often created tension between ethnic groups who have been classified together but see themselves as very different peoples.

It is difficult to know how many people groups actually exist in China. An ethnologue lists 205 ethno-linguistic groups in China. Paul Hattaway, a researcher of people groups of China, in his recently published Operation China, provides profiles on 490 minority peoples.

While most people see the large Han majority as a homogeneous group, this is a false assumption. The peoples of China speak a multitude of diverse languages and dialects and the Han people can also be broken down into subgroups. At present, 29 ethno-linguistic subgroups among the Han have been identified. However, another way of looking at the Han people is to use sociological groupings. When the goal is to discover the natural people groupings within which values and ideologies spread without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance, both ethno-linguistic and sociological groupings are valid. Sociologically, people groups may be identified by generational differences, educational levels, occupations, socio-economic status and a variety of other defining criteria. The crucial issue is how they see themselves. Most people will be part of several different sociologically-defined groups.

The more than 100 million people that form the minority groups occupy 62.5% of China's territory with the remainder of the land being occupied by the 1.2 billion Han people. Traditionally, the minority groups lived in rural areas, often in western and southwestern parts of the country with the Han found on the coast and in the eastern areas. Today, with rapid urbanization and movement between rural areas and the cities, the lines are not quite so clear-cut. In 1997, The State Ethnic Affairs Commission estimated that 20% of the total minority population was living in the cities. For example, 3.8% of Beijing's population is comprised of minority peoples from all 55 of the officially recognized nationalities.

Map of China and Major Cities

2009-04-18T00:55:00.001-07:00

Click here to go to an interactive map of China on South China Morning Post website, and browse through a drop-down menu to link to economic, geographical and environmental details on major cities.

Buy Security Cameras From China

2009-04-18T00:08:00.000-07:00

LED Vandalproof Dome Camera with Remote Control and 1/3-inch Sony CCD Sensor

Waterproof IR/Day and Night CCD Camera with PAL/NTSC TV Systems and 12V DC Power Supply

There are a number of reasons why buyers in the US, Canada and Australia source our security cameras. Foremost, our products here at Shenzhen Borsche Electronics Co. Ltd meet their quality requirements - in addition to carrying CE and FCC marks, our IR day and night cameras go through voltage and aging tests under 40 degree for 48 hours. And all finished products are tested once again, prior to delivery.
Second, we offer them with a wide selection to choose from - our catalog features more than 700 models, updated with five new items each month. Our seasoned R&D team can also create a new product based on your specifications within one month.

Third, we provide them with volume support - sourcing CCDs from Japan and Korea, we turn out 20,000 cameras on two production lines every month. We can have orders ready for shipping in just three days.

Flexible service rounds out our sourcing package - we don't have a minimum order and our products come with a one-year warranty. To learn more about what we can do for you, contact us today.

Homepage Address
http://www.globalsafety.cn

Key Contact:
Mr Chen, Dee
CEO

Ms Zheng, Nancy
Overseas Trade Leader
Foreign Sales Department

Shenzhen Borsche Electronics Co. Ltd
6th Floor, Building A,
ZhaoFeng Industrial Area, Sanwei,
Bao'an District
Shenzhen
Guangdong
China
Tel: (86 755) 81454980 (86 755) 81454981
Fax: (86 755) 81454985

Chinese religion

2009-04-17T23:17:00.000-07:00

Chinese religion has been influenced by three streams of human thought: Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. All three have been inextricably entwined in popular Chinese religion along with ancient animist beliefs.

The founders of Taoism. Confucianism and Buddhism have been deified.

The Chinese worship them , ' their disciples as fervently as they wor- ship their own ancestors and a pantheon of gods and spirits.

Muslims are believed to be the largest identifiable religious group still active in China today, numbering perhaps 2% to 3% of the nation's popu- lation. The government has not published official figures of the number of Buddhists. There are around three million Catholics and four million Protestants. It's impossible to determine the number of Taoists, but the number of Taoist priests is very small.

Taoism

It is said that Taoism (Daojiao) is the only true 'home-grown' Chinese religion - Buddhism was imported from India and Confucianism is mainly a philosophy. According to tradition, the founder of Taoism was a man known as Laotzu, variously spelled in Western literature as 'Laotse', Laotze' and the pinyin variant 'Laozi'. He is said to have been born around the year 604 BC, but there is some doubt that he ever lived at all. Almost nothing is known about him, not even his real name.

At the end of his life, Laotzu is said to have climbed on a water buffalo and ridden west towards what is now Tibet, in search of solitude for his last few years. On the way, he was asked by a gatekeeper to leave behind a record of his beliefs. The product was a slim volume of only 5000 characters: the Dao De Jing or The Way and Its Power. He then rode off on his buffalo. It's doubtful that Laotzu ever intended his philosophy to become a religion. Zhuangzi (399-295 BC) picked up where Laotzu left off. Zhuangzi (also called Chuangtzu) is regarded as the greatest of all Taoist writers and his collection of stories, The Book of Zhuangzi, is still required reading for anyone trying to make sense of Taoism. However, like Laotzu, Zhuangzi was a philosopher and was not actually trying to establish a religion.

At the centre of Taoism is the concept of Tao (dao). Tao cannot be perceived because it exceeds senses, thoughts and imagination; it can be known only through mystical insight and cannot be expressed with words. The opening lines of Laotzu's The Way and Its Power advise that the Tao that can be expressed is not the real Tao. Tao is the way of the universe, the driving power in nature, the order behind all life and the spirit that cannot be exhausted.

Tao is the way people should order their lives to keep in harmony with the natural order of the universe.

Taoism today has been much embraced in the West by many who offer their own various interpretations of what Laotzu and Zhuangzi were really trying to tell us.

Confucianism

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Although more a philosophy than a religion, Confucianism (Rujia Sixiang) has become intertwined with Chinese religious beliefs.

Confucius was born of a poor family around 551 BC in the state of Lu in modern-day Shandong. His ambition was to hold a high government office and to reorder society through the administrative apparatus.

At most he seems to have had several insignificant government posts, a few followers and a permanently blocked career.

At the age of 50 he perceived his divine mission, and for the next 13 years tramped from state to state offering unsolicited advice to rulers on how to improve their governing, while looking for an opportunity to put his own ideas into practice. That opportunity never came, and he returned to his own state to spend the last five years of his life teaching and editing classical literature. He died in 479 BC, aged 72.

The glorification of Confucius began after his death. Mencius (372-289BC), or Mengzi, helped raise Confucian ideals into the national con- sciousness with the publication of The Book of Mencius.

Eventually, Confucian philosophy permeated every level of Chinese society. To hold government office presupposed knowledge of the Confu- cian classics, and his words trickled down to the illiterate masses.

Confucianism defines codes of conduct and patterns of obedience.

Women obey and defer to men, younger brothers to elder brothers, and sons to fathers. Respect flows upwards, from young to old, from subject to ruler. Certainly, "any reigning Chinese emperor would quickly see the merits of encouraging such a system.

All people paid homage to the emperor, who was regarded as the embodiment of Confucian wisdom and virtue - the head of the great family-nation. For centuries administration under the emperor lay in the hands of a small Confucian scholar class. In theory anyone who passed the examinations qualified, but in practice the monopoly of power was held by the educated upper classes.

In its early years, Confucianism was regarded as a radical philoso- phy, but over the centuries it has come to be seen as conservative and reactionary. Confucius was strongly denounced by the Communists as yet another incorrigible link to the bourgeois past. During the Cultural Revolution, Confucian temples, statues and Confucianists themselves took quite a beating at the hands of rampaging Red Guards. Confucian temples, particularly the ones at Qufu in Shandong province (pl98), have been restored.

CHINESE MARTIAL ARTS

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Many martial arts of the East have their foundations deeply entwined with the philosophies, doctrines, concepts and religious beliefs of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and Zen. It is cer- tainly true that most of the martial art systems in existence today owe their development and ultimate dissemination to the monks and priests who taught and transferred such knowledge over much of Asia throughout history.

In China today the various martial art styles that exist number into the hundreds; many still not known to the Western world, and each style reflecting its own righting philosophy and spirit. The following is a thumbnail sketch of two of the arts that you may see while travelling in China.

Shaolin Boxing

Shaolin boxing is one of the major branches of Chinese martial arts. The art is said to have originated at Shaolin Temple on Song Mountain in Henan province (p433). Shaolin monk fight- ers were trained to help protect the temple's assets. The martial art routines of Shaolin Temple were not organised into a complete system until some 30 to 40 years later when Indian monk Bodhidharma visited the site.

Bodhidharma taught the monks various kinds of physical exercises to limber up the joints and build a good physique. These movements were expanded over time and a complicated series of Chinese boxing (or forms) evolved. By the Sui and Tang dynasties, Shaolin boxing was widely known.

The fighting styles originating from Shaolin Temple are based on five animals: dragon, snake, tiger, leopard and crane. Each animal represents a different style, each of which is used to de- velop different skills.

The temple's famous forms have had a profound influence on many of today's martial arts, and the temple is still being utilised today.

Taichi (Shadow Boxing)

Taichi or taijiquan is a centuries-old Chinese discipline promoting flexibility, circulation, strength, balance, relaxation and meditation.

While the art is seen by many outside China as a slow- motion form of gentle exercise, it is traditionally practised as a form of self-defence. Taichi aims to dispel the*opponent without the use of force and with minimal effort. It is based on the Taoist idea that the principle of softness will ultimately overcome hardness. According to legend, it is derived from the movements of animals.

A major part of studying taichi is the development of chi (qi), or life energy that can be directed to all parts of the body with the help of mental training. Chi must flow and circulate freely in the body.

There is no single founder of taichi as the art has been developed over many centuries by countless people. Due to different needs and environments, various styles of taichi evolved. The most popular form of taichi is the Yang style, which is not too difficult to learn in its simplified form (though the full form has 108 postures) and is not strenuous. Other styles, such as the Chen style, call for a wider array of skills as the postures are painfully low and the kicks high, so endurance and flexibility are important. Chen style is popular with younger exponents and clearly has its roots in Shaolin, mixing slow movements with fast, snappy punches. Other styles include the Sun and Wu styles.

CHINA SPORTS

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China has over 3000 years of sports history. Archaeologists have found evidence of an advanced sports culture from the discovery of murals and pottery that show people playing games resembling modern-day archery, acrobatics, martial arts, wrestling and various types of ball games. Most of these games were enjoyed by the well-to-do, who had time to invest in recreational activities.

During the Tang dynasty, equestrian polo was at the height of fashion for aristocrats and officials. There are numerous paintings, ceramics and mirrors from this period that depict men and women engaging in the sport. Board games also became popular around this time and people enjoyed playing a game similar to contemporary mah Jong.

During the Song dynasty, one of the most popular sports was kicking around a leather ball stuffed with hair. This sport, similar to football, was enjoyed by both officials and ordinary people. In 2003, the international football association FIFA officially recognised China as the birthplace of football, which is believed to have originated in present-day Shandong province. Golf is another sport with a long history - as far back as the Yuan dynasty the Chinese were hitting balls into holes in the ground with sticks.

It was during the Qing dynasty that modern sports such as basketball, gymnastics, volleyball and swimming came to China and Chinese athletes began participating in international sports events such as the Olympics and the Asian Games. Some Chinese athletes have achieved worldwide recognition, such as the basketball player Yao Ming, who now plays for the Houston Rockets.

Some sports China excels in today are table tennis, volleyball, gymnastics and women's wrestling, with many athletes bringing home international awards for their efforts. The first Chinese to win an Olympic gold medal was pistol-shooting champion Xu Haifeng at the 1984 Olympic Games. Deng Yaping is China's most celebrated table-tennis player, winning four gold medals in the 1992 and 1994 Olympic Games. With China set to host the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing, Chinese athletes are already being primed for the spotlight.

The government is pouring money into the build- ing of ultramodern sporting facilities in an effort to show off Beijing as a world-class city on par with Olympic host cities of the past.

In the 2004 Olympic Games held in Athens, Greece, the Chinese took home 32 gold medals, 17 silver and 14 bronze, ranking second after the USA. Liu Xiang, of Shanghai, became the first Chinese gold medallist in track-and-field, beating his European, African and American rivals in the 110m hurdles.

BRIDGING THE GAP: THE SUI

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The Wei dynasty fell in 534. It was succeeded by a series of rival regimes until nobleman Yang Jian (d 604) seized all before him to establish the Sui dynasty (581 -618). While the Sui was a short-lived dynasty, its accom- plishments were many. Yang Jian's great achievement was to bring the south back within the pale of a northern-based empire.

Yang Jian's son, Sui Yangdi, has gone down in history as an unsavoury character who had more time for wine and women than for politics; the dynasty went into rapid decline under his rule. Nevertheless, he did contribute greatly to the unification of south and north through the construction of the Grand Canal. The canal combined earlier canals and linked the lower Yangzi River valley to Chang'an via the Yellow River(Huang He). When Beijing became capital of the Yuan dynasty, it was re-routed and extended northward, and remained the empire's most important communication route between south and north until the late 19th century.

CHINA'S ONE-CHILD POLICY

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The prospect of an ever-growing population, with an ever-shrinking capacity to feed itself, prompted a limited birth control programme in the 1950s, but this was abandoned during 1966-1976s.

The one-child policy was railroaded into effect in 1979 without a careful analysis of its logic or feasibility. The original goal was to keep China's population to one billion by the year 2000 and then massaged down to an ideal of 700 million by 2050.

The cost and difficulty of enforcing the policy has been massive, and its implementation an unprecedented intrusion by the state into the reproductive rights of its citizens. The policy was originally harshly implemented but rural revolt led to a softer stance; nonetheless, it has gener- ated much bad feeling between local officials and the rural population.

Rural families are now allowed to have two children, but some have upwards of three or four kids, who are unreported and consequently receive no education. Families who do abide by the one-child policy will often go to great lengths to make sure their child is male. In parts of China, this is creating a serious imbalance of the sexes.

Psychologists also argue that the experiment has created a generation of spoiled children ill-prepared to deal with adult life. Growing up as the centre of attention and treated as 'little emperors' (xiao huangdi) has made the sharp edges of the outside world that much sharper.

Supporters of the policy argue that without it China would be dealing with runaway population growth. Others note that alternative, less coercive strategies, such as a national family planning programme and improved health care could have afforded better results.

The China population

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China is home to 56 ethnic groups, with Han Chinese making up 92% of the population. Because Han Chinese are the majority, China's other ethnic groups are usually referred to as 'national minorities'. Han live throughout the country but are mainly concentrated along the Yellow River, Yangzi River and Pearl River basins.

China's minority groups are also found throughout the country but their main distributions are along the border regions of northwest and southwest China and from the north to the northeast. Yunnan is home to more than 20 ethnic groups and is one of the most ethnically diverse provinces in the country. The largest minority groups in China include the Zhuang, Manchu, Miao, Uighur, Yi, Tujia, Tibetan, Mongolian, Buoyei, Dong, Yao, Korean, Bai, Hani, Li, Kazak and Dai.

Maintaining amicable relations with the minorities has been a continu- ous problem for the Han Chinese. Tibet and Xinjiang are heavily garri- soned by Chinese troops, partly to protect China's borders and partly to prevent rebellion among the local population. The Chinese government has also set up special training centres, such as the National Minorities Institute in Beijing, to train minority cadres for these regions.

China faces enormous population pressures, despite comprehensive programmes to curb its growth. Over 40.5% of China's population live in urban centres, putting great pressure on land and water resources. It's estimated that China's total population will continue to grow at a speed of eight to 10 million each year and even with population programmes such as the one-child policy (opposite) in place, experts claim that China needs at least 30 more years to achieve zero population growth. An unbalanced gender ratio (117 boys to 100 girls) and a rapidly ageing population are very serious problems authorities are trying to address. In 2003, over 10% of China's population was over 60. This is expected to increase to 15.6% by 2020.

ETIQUETTE DO'S & DON'TS

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When beckoning to someone, wave them over to you with your palm down, motioning to yourself.

If someone gives a gift, put it aside to open later to avoid appearing greedy.

Never write anything in red ink unless you're correcting an exam. Red ink is used for letters of protest.

Don't give clocks as gifts. The phrase 'to give a clock' in Mandarin sounds too much like 'attend a funeral'.

Always take your shoes off when entering a Chinese home.

When meeting a Chinese family, greet the eldest person first as a sign of respect.

Always present things to people with both hands, showing that what you are offering is the . fullest extent of yourself.

WIDENING THE NET: THE HAN

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The Han dynasty brought further unification of the empire as vassal states that had continued to linger on the outskirts were swept up under its reign. The energetic Emperor Wu, who reigned from 140 BC to 87 BC, established supremacy over neighbouring societies to the north and west, recruited able men to serve the dynasty as officials, and promoted Confucian education. An examination system was introduced and would go on to become a hallmark of government in the late imperial era; visit the Imperial College in Beijing to learn more.

After more than a century the Han gave way to the Xin dynasty (AD9-23), led by the radical reformer Wang Mang. This 14-year blip divides the dynasty into Former (Western) and Later (Eastern) Han periods.

Venturing Down the Silk Road

The expansion of the Han brought the Chinese into contact with the 'barbarians' that encircled their world. As a matter of course, this contact brought both military conflict and commercial gains.

To the north, the Xiongnu (a name given to various nomadic tribes of central Asia) posed the greatest threat to China. Military expeditions were sent against these tribes, initially with much success. This in turn provided the Chinese with access to central Asia, opening up the routes that carried Chinese silk as far afield as Rome.

Diplomatic links were also formed with central Asian tribes, and the great Chinese explorer Zhang Qian provided the authorities with information on the possibilities of trade and alliances in northern India. During the same period, Chinese influence percolated into areas that were later to become known as Vietnam and Korea.

UNITY & DIVISION

They say the momentum of history was ever thus: the empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide.---LuoGuanzhong

With these words, the storyteller of Romance of the Three Kingdoms (14th century) sums up the seemingly endless warring and reconstruction that followed the Han dynasty. Between the early 3rd and late 6th centuries AD north China saw a succession of rival kingdoms struggling for power. During this time of disunity a strong division formed between north and south China. The north was controlled by non-Chinese rulers and torn by warfare. Many people from the north consequently fled, carrying Chinese culture into previously non-Chinese territories. Meanwhile, the south experienced significant economic growth as Jiankang, later to become Nanjing, served as capital for a succession of dynasties.

Culture Vultures

The most successful northern regime during this period was the North- ern Wei dynasty (386-534), founded by the Tuoba, a people from the north. The Tuoba embraced Buddhism wholeheartedly and left behind some of China's top Buddhist art. Visit the cave temples near Dunhuang(p823) and outside Datong (p403) for a glimpse. The Wei reallocation of lands to peasants and the division of the capital city into wards also outlasted the dynasty.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Dong Zhongshu (179-104 BC) was a brainy fellow with a penchant for reading omens. During the Han dynasty he took up the position of Chief Minister with the task of interpreting the will of the heavens.

At this time Liu Bang was a commoner with little claim to the throne. As founder of the Han dynasty, he seems to have had a slightly guilty conscience about being emperor and needed lots of good omens to boost his moral. Luckily, Dong came up with a cosmology that fitted Liu's needs, interpreting not only the present but the past and future, too. In Dong's 'Five Phase Cycle', earth was overcome by metal, metal by water, water by wood, wood by fire and fire by earth. Each phase was attached to a historical period, conveniently ending with the Han (earth) overcoming the Qin (fire). Therefore, the Han's legitimacy to rule was quite simply a law of nature, as natural and predictable as night and day, summer and winter.

Whether the gods really did love the Han or Dong just had a knack for reading things in a positive light is up to you to interpret.

THE CHINESE ZODIAC

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Astrology has a long history in China and is integrated with religious beliefs. If you want to know your sign in the Chinese zodiac, look up your year of birth in the chart but remember that Chinese astrology goes by the lunar calendar. The Chinese Lunar New Year usually falls in late January or early February, so the first month will be included in the year before. Future years are included here so you'll know what's coming:

Rat: generous, social, insecure, prone to laziness; 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008

Ox/Cow: stubborn, conservative, patient; 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009

Tiger: creative, brave, overbearing; 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010

Rabbit: timid, amicable, affectionate; 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011

Dragon: egotistical, strong, intelligent; 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012

Snake: luxury seeking, secretive, friendly; 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013

Horse: emotional, clever, quick thinker; 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002,2014

Goat: charming, good with money, indecisive; 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015

Monkey: confident, humorous, fickle; 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016

Rooster: diligent, imaginative, needs attention; 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017

Dog: humble, responsible, patient; 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018

Pig: materialistic, loyal, honest; 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019

CROSSING SWORDS:THE QIN

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The principalities had been fighting with one another for more than 250 years, during what became known as the Warring States period. This dark era finally came to an end in 221 BC when the western state of Qin, having conquered the Zhou 35 years earlier, succeeded in subduing the remaining states to establish centralised rule.

"The First Emperor of Qin' (Qin Shi Huang) won and reigned by the sword. His ruling philosophy focused on law and punishment, and dealt a blow to Confucius' teachings of rights and morality. His martial fanaticism was none too subtle; check out his tomb near Xi'an, which is protected by the extraordinary Army of Terracotta Warriors (p418). He pursued campaigns as far north as Korea and south down to Vietnam while, at home, he began linking existing city walls to create the begin- nings of the Great Wall. The 'First Emperor' also laid the foundations for a unified, integrated empire. He introduced a uniform currency, standardised the script, and developed infrastructure through a network of roads and canals.

Qin Shi Huang's heir to the imperial throne proved ineffectual and, shaken by rebellion, the Qin capital fell after only 15 years to an army led by the commoner Liu Bang. Liu lost no time in taking the title of emperor and establishing the Han dynasty.
The Imperial Era
The First Imperial Period

Much of what came to constitute China Proper was unified for the first time in 221 B.C. In that year the western frontier state of Qin, the most aggressive of the Warring States, subjugated the last of its rival states. (Qin in Wade-Giles romanization is Ch'in, from which the English China probably derived.) Once the king of Qin consolidated his power, he took the title Shi Huangdi ( First Emperor), a formulation previously reserved for deities and the mythological sage-emperors, and imposed Qin's centralized, nonhereditary bureaucratic system on his new empire. In subjugating the six other major states of Eastern Zhou, the Qin kings had relied heavily on Legalist scholar-advisers. Centralization, achieved by ruthless methods, was focused on standardizing legal codes and bureaucratic procedures, the forms of writing and coinage, and the pattern of thought and scholarship. To silence criticism of imperial rule, the kings banished or put to death many dissenting Confucian scholars and confiscated and burned their books . Qin aggrandizement was aided by frequent military expeditions pushing forward the frontiers in the north and south. To fend off barbarian intrusion, the fortification walls built by the various warring states were connected to make a 5,000-kilometer-long great wall . What is commonly referred to as the Great Wall is actually four great walls rebuilt or extended during the Western Han, Sui, Jin, and Ming periods, rather than a single, continuous wall. At its extremities, the Great Wall reaches from northeastern Heilongjiang Province to northwestern Gansu . A number of public works projects were also undertaken to consolidate and strengthen imperial rule. These activities required enormous levies of manpower and resources, not to mention repressive measures. Revolts broke out as soon as the first Qin emperor died in 210 B.C. His dynasty was extinguished less than twenty years after its triumph. The imperial system initiated during the Qin dynasty, however, set a pattern that was developed over the next two millennia.

After a short civil war, a new dynasty, called Han (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), emerged with its capital at Chang'an ( ). The new empire retained much of the Qin administrative structure but retreated a bit from centralized rule by establishing vassal principalities in some areas for the sake of political convenience. The Han rulers modified some of the harsher aspects of the previous dynasty; Confucian ideals of government, out of favor during the Qin period, were adopted as the creed of the Han empire, and Confucian scholars gained prominent status as the core of the civil service. A civil service examination system also was initiated. Intellectual, literary, and artistic endeavors revived and flourished. The Han period produced China's most famous historian, Sima Qian ( 145-87 B.C.?), whose Shiji ( Historical Records) provides a detailed chronicle from the time of a legendary Xia emperor to that of the Han emperor Wu Di ( 141-87 B.C.). Technological advances also marked this period. Two of the great Chinese inventions, paper and porcelain, date from Han times.

The Han dynasty, after which the members of the ethnic majority in China, the "people of Han," are named, was notable also for its military prowess. The empire expanded westward as far as the rim of the Tarim Basin (in modern Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region), making possible relatively secure caravan traffic across Central Asia to Antioch, Baghdad, and Alexandria. The paths of caravan traffic are often called the "silk route" because the route was used to export Chinese silk to the Roman Empire. Chinese armies also invaded and annexed parts of northern Vietnam and northern Korea toward the end of the second century B.C. Han control of peripheral regions was generally insecure, however. To ensure peace with non-Chinese local powers, the Han court developed a mutually beneficial "tributary system" . Non-Chinese states were allowed to remain autonomous in exchange for symbolic acceptance of Han overlordship. Tributary ties were confirmed and strengthened through intermarriages at the ruling level and periodic exchanges of gifts and goods.

After 200 years, Han rule was interrupted briefly (in A.D. 9-24 by Wang Mang or , a reformer), and then restored for another 200 years. The Han rulers, however, were unable to adjust to what centralization had wrought: a growing population, increasing wealth and resultant financial difficulties and rivalries, and ever-more complex political institutions. Riddled with the corruption characteristic of the dynastic cycle, by A.D. 220 the Han empire collapsed.
Era of Disunity

The collapse of the Han dynasty was followed by nearly four centuries of rule by warlords. The age of civil wars and disunity began with the era of the Three Kingdoms (Wei, Shu, and Wu, which had overlapping reigns during the period A.D. 220-80). In later times, fiction and drama greatly romanticized the reputed chivalry of this period. Unity was restored briefly in the early years of the Jin dynasty (A.D. 265-420), but the Jin could not long contain the invasions of the nomadic peoples. In A.D. 317 the Jin court was forced to flee from Luoyang and reestablished

itself at Nanjing to the south. The transfer of the capital coincided with China's political fragmentation into a succession of dynasties that was to last from A.D. 304 to 589. During this period the process of sinicization accelerated among the non-Chinese arrivals in the north and among the aboriginal tribesmen in the south. This process was also accompanied by the increasing popularity of Buddhism (introduced into China in the first century A.D.) in both north and south China. Despite the political disunity of the times, there were notable technological advances. The invention of gunpowder (at that time for use only in fireworks) and the wheelbarrow is believed to date from the sixth or seventh century. Advances in medicine, astronomy, and cartography are also noted by historians.

THE NATIONAL PSYCHE

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Many travellers are surprised when they visit China at the energy and optimism of a people that has experienced tremendous social and eco- nomic upheaval over the past century. Despite political and economic uncertainties, most Chinese are excited about the rapid modernisation taking place in their country and look forward to the future.

With Beijing set to host the Olympics in 2008, the Chinese are eager to introduce their long-standing cultural traditions to the world and be accepted as a modern, progressive nation.

Chinese society, generally speaking, is based on the concept of guanxi. To get through difficult times, the Chinese rely on a tight network of family and friends for assistance and support. To get something done, it's often easier to 'go through a back door' (zou hou men), rather than through official channels. If a favour is offered, the receiver is obligated to return the favour sometime in the future. This keeps the gudnxi system running smoothly.

Another concern of visitors is the concept of 'face', which is intimidat- ing to many foreigners. In reality, the idea of face is very simple. All it means is not behaving in a way that would embarrass someone and cause them to lose status in front of their peers. One sure way for foreigners to make someone lose face in China is to lose their temper in public. Not only will the person targeted lose face, the foreigner loses face as well for being weak and unable to control their emotions. The Chinese pride themselves on self-control and when flustered or embarrassed will often giggle or give an evasive response, rather than deal with the situation di- ectly. Of course, this does not mean the Chinese don't get angry, but the general rule is that self-control in dealing with people goes a long way.

Despite language barriers, most foreigners will find themselves regu- arly meeting locals who are eager to strike up a conversation and, for many, practise their English. Once the initial ice has been broken, many foreigners will be faced with a barrage of questions regarding their age, marital status and career. This is mere friendliness on the part of the interlocutor and not meant to be nosy. It's a good idea to travel with some pictures of your family or some postcards from your hometown. These make great items for conversation and will probably win you a few friends.

In some rural areas, foreigners remain an exotic curiosity and will be greeted with stares, giggles and a chorus of 'hellos' that can irritate even the most tough-skinned of travellers. Generally, this behaviour is not mean-spirited but it can be very unsettling, especially if you are travelling alone. Some travellers respond with a simple wave and smile, others ignore the behaviour. Most definitely, getting angry doesn't help -it s likely your Chinese audience will have no idea why you are getting angry and fits of temper will inevitably create more excitement and draw larger crowds.

The lack of privacy is perhaps one of the most disconcerting things about a visit to China. Most Chinese grow up in small apartments in crowded conditions and are not accustomed to Western standards of squatting next to you. In major cities, many of these types of toilets have been replaced with private stalls (with doors), though they are still com- mon in less developed places as well as bus and train stations.

China is a vast country with many regional differences and you'll find that the behaviour of the Chinese may differ from place to place, ac- cording to custom and exposure to the outside world. This is especially true in the countryside, which can offer a remarkably different view of China than that which can be seen in the cities. Travellers will come away amazed at the diversity of people and places they have encountered.

CHINA LIFESTYLE

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Chinese culture is traditionally centred on the family, which was once considered a microcosm of society as a whole. In past Chinese society, the family provided support for every family member, including livelihood and long-term security. Extended family remains exceedingly important, with grandparents commonly acting as caretakers for grandchildren with adult children working and financially supporting their ageing parents. The end of cradle-to-grave welfare (the 'iron rice bowl') has brought increasing pressure on families who struggle to meet the rising costs of health care and education.

Economic pressures have had an impact on many young Chinese who are putting off marriage or having children until they've acquired enough money to ensure their financial security. It's estimated that today 14% of Chinese urban households consist of a single adult or childless couple who both work. The rapid development of the 1990s has raised the standard of living for many Chinese, who now face a dazzling array of choices in consumer items and experience a lifestyle very different from earlier generations.

Unfortu- nately, recent educational and economic opportunities are only available to a small segment of the population. The majority of Chinese live in the countryside, shut off from the benefits of China's economic reforms.

The growing gap between China's rich and poor is one of the worst in the world. City dwellers earn 2.8% more than those living in rural areas and receive subsidised health care and welfare while rural residents do not. The rural communities in inland China are the most poverty stricken, but those on the investment-laden east coast fare better. In the interior provinces, farmers eke out a meagre living growing just enough vegetables and rice to feed their own families but little to sell on the market. To make things worse, epidemics such as AIDS have hit inland provinces especially hard. Many farmers have sold their blood to unscru-pulous 'blood brokers', who collect the blood using unsanitary methods and pass the AIDS virus to donors and recipients.

There are few government programmes in place to help rural towns and villages, where farmers are expected to pay tor their own health care and the education of their children. This unequal treatment has spurred many rural families to move to the cities to try and find work, where they often find low-paying jobs in unsafe conditions. The government has promised to address these devastating trends, but few incentives have been put in place.

While all of this sounds pretty bleak, development has also had some positive effects. With an increasingly open society, and with, more exposure to the outside world, the Chinese are finding new forms of self-expression that were previously frowned upon by the communist authorities. Artists and writers are freeing themselves from earlier politi- cal restraints, contributing to a burgeoning literary and art scene that has been stifled for many years.

Censorship is still common, though what defines something as 'taboo' or 'off limits' can be arbitrary.

Though Chinese women suffer from low political representation and strict family policies (see China's One-Child Policy, p54), the women's movement has made considerable progress. The Marriage Law of 2001 gives victims of spousal abuse official protection and orders that abus- ers be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Victims can also sue for damages. In education, women make up 44% of students in colleges and universities and their average life expectancy is 73.7, 3.3 years more than men.

China's gay and lesbian community is also taking steps to ensure its rights as citizens. Homosexuality in China is technically illegal and any official discussion of the matter is taboo. Gays and lesbians can face harassment by police and, at times, criminal punishment. Regardless, the gay community has begun to organise social-service programmes and promote education about gay and lesbian issues on a grass-roots level. One well-established organisation is the Hong Kong-based Chi Heng Foundation which promotes gay rights through public education and media campaigns. This foundation has expanded into mainland China, focusing on AIDS prevention and the gay community.

THE XIA THE SHANG and THE ZHOU

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Chinese civilization, as described in mythology, begins with Pangu , the creator of the universe, and a succession of legendary sage-emperors and culture heroes (among them are Huang Di , Yao, and Shun) who taught the ancient Chinese to communicate and to find sustenance, clothing, and shelter.

THE XIA

The first prehistoric dynasty is said to be Xia , from about the twenty-first to the sixteenth century B.C. Until scientific excavations were made at early bronze-age sites at Anyang , Henan Province, in 1928, it was difficult to separate myth from reality in regard to the Xia. But since then, and especially in the 1960s and 1970s, archaeologists have uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs that point to the existence of Xia civilization in the same locations cited in ancient Chinese historical texts. At minimum, the Xia period marked an evolutionary stage between the late neolithic cultures and the typical Chinese urban civilization of the Shang dynasty.

TELLTALE SIGNS: THE SHANG

In 1899 peasants working near present-day Anyang unearthed pieces of polished bone and turtle shells. These relics were inscribed with charac- ters and dated back to around 1500 BC, the time of the Shang dynasty. Housed in Anyang's museum, these are the earliest examples of the elaborate writing system still used in China today.Shang culture was spread throughout much of north China, stretch- ing from Shandong to Shaanxi and Hebei to Henan. It was headed by a sacred kingship, who was supported by officials, armies, and a peasantry that supplied labour for the building of city walls and other public works. There was also a skilled artisanry that produced the magnificent bronzeware for which this dynasty is known; visit the Henan Provincial Museum for fabulous examples.

ENTER CONFUCIUS: THE ZHOU

Around three millennia ago the last Shang sovereign was defeated by the forces of Zhou who hailed from present-day Shaanxi province. The Zhou went on to rule over an increasingly large territory, reaching up to Beijing in the north and down to (he lower Yangzi River (Chang Jiang) valley in the south. To overcome the difficulties of ruling such a vast area, the Zhou established a feudal system whereby landlords governed over principalities that were contained within walled cities.In 771 BC the Zhou capital moved from a site near Xi'an to one further east, leading present-day historians to divide this period into Western and Eastern Zhou. During the period of Eastern Zhou law codes were written down, iron was discovered and the fortunes of the landed aristoc- racy waned, while self-made men achieved places at court and merchants grew wealthy. The Zhou's control over the principalities began to fade as landlords began to fight among themselves. The Eastern Zhou was a time riddled with strife, prompting reflection and philosophising on the part of one Master Kong (Kong Fuzi), better known in the West as Confucius. Confucius (551-479 BC) grew up in the old state of Lu, at the present- day site of Qufu (pl98) in Shandong province. The descendant of a minor noble family, he set off at an early age in search of an able and righteous ruler who might lead the world back to virtuous paths. In this mission he was doomed to disappointment, and his death in 479 BC was to be followed by an ever keener struggle among the states for power. Confu- cius did achieve enormous success as a teacher and moral exemplar, and the structure of Chinese society today remains very much rooted in his teachings. For more on Confucian beliefs, see the boxed text or head to Qufu for a good dose of hands-on history.

PEKING MAN

In the 1920s and 1930s Chinese archaeologists unearthed skulls, stone tools and animal bones believed to be between 500,000 and 230,000 years old. Was this the birthplace of civilisation? Unfortunately, we're unlikely to ever know. Research was never carried out on Peking Man's bones because, on the eve of the Japanese invasion, the remains mysteriously disappeared - some fear to the bottom of the sea.

The History of China

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The History Of China, as documented in ancient writings, dates back some 3,300 years. Modern archaeological studies provide evidence of still more ancient origins in a culture that flourished between 2500 and 2000 B.C. in what is now central China and the lower Huang He ( orYellow River) Valley of north China. Centuries of migration, amalgamation, and development brought about a distinctive system of writing, philosophy, art, and political organization that came to be recognizable as Chinese civilization. What makes the civilization unique in world history is its continuity through over 4,000 years to the present century.
The Chinese have developed a strong sense of their real and mythological origins and have kept voluminous records since very early times. It is largely as a result of these records that knowledge concerning the ancient past, not only of China but also of its neighbors, has survived.

Chinese history, until the twentieth century, was written mostly by members of the ruling scholar-official class and was meant to provide the ruler with precedents to guide or justify his policies. These accounts focused on dynastic politics and colorful court histories and included developments among the commoners only as backdrops. The historians described a Chinese political pattern of dynasties, one following another in a cycle of ascent, achievement, decay, and rebirth under a new family.

Of the consistent traits identified by independent historians, a salient one has been the capacity of the Chinese to absorb the people of surrounding areas into their own civilization. Their success can be attributed to the superiority of their ideographic written language, their technology, and their political institutions; the refinement of their artistic and intellectual creativity; and the sheer weight of their numbers. The process of assimilation continued over the centuries through conquest and colonization until what is now known as China Proper was brought under unified rule. The Chinese also left an enduring mark on people beyond their borders, especially the Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese.

Another recurrent historical theme has been the unceasing struggle of the sedentary Chinese against the threat posed to their safety and way of life by non-Chinese peoples on the margins of their territory in the north, northeast, and northwest. In the thirteenth century, the Mongols from the northern steppes became the first alien people to conquer all China. Although not as culturally developed as the Chinese, they left some imprint on Chinese civilization while heightening Chinese perceptions of threat from the north. China came under alien rule for the second time in the mid-seventeenth century; the conquerors--the Manchus--came again from the north and northeast.

For centuries virtually all the foreigners that Chinese rulers saw came from the less developed societies along their land borders. This circumstance conditioned the Chinese view of the outside world. The Chinese saw their domain as the self-sufficient center of the universe and derived from this image the traditional (and still used) Chinese name for their country--Zhongguo () , literally, Middle Kingdom or Central Nation. China saw itself surrounded on all sides by so-called barbarian peoples whose cultures were demonstrably inferior by Chinese standards. This China-centered ("sinocentric") view of the world was still undisturbed in the nineteenth century, at the time of the first serious confrontation with the West. China had taken it for granted that its relations with Europeans would be conducted according to the tributary system that had evolved over the centuries between the emperor and representatives of the lesser states on China's borders as well as between the emperor and some earlier European visitors. But by the mid-nineteenth century, humiliated militarily by superior Western weaponry and technology and faced with imminent territorial dismemberment, China began to reassess its position with respect to Western civilization. By 1911 the two-millennia-old dynastic system of imperial government was brought down by its inability to make this adjustment successfully.

Because of its length and complexity, the history of the Middle Kingdom lends itself to varied interpretation. After the communist takeover in 1949, historians in mainland China wrote their own version of the past--a history of China built on a Marxist model of progression from primitive communism to slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and finally socialism. The events of history came to be presented as a function of the class struggle. Historiography became subordinated to proletarian politics fashioned and directed by the Chinese Communist Party. A series of thought-reform and antirightist campaigns were directed against intellectuals in the arts, sciences, and academic community. The Cultural Revolution (1966-76) further altered the objectivity of historians. In the years after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, however, interest grew within the party, and outside it as well, in restoring the integrity of historical inquiry. This trend was consistent with the party's commitment to "seeking truth from facts." As a result, historians and social scientists raised probing questions concerning the state of historiography in China. Their investigations included not only historical study of traditional China but penetrating inquiries into modern Chinese history and the history of the Chinese Communist Party.

In post-Mao China, the discipline of historiography has not been separated from politics, although a much greater range of historical topics has been discussed. Figures from Confucius--who was bitterly excoriated for his "feudal" outlook by Cultural Revolution-era historians--to Mao himself have been evaluated with increasing flexibility. Among the criticisms made by Chinese social scientists is that Maoist-era historiography distorted Marxist and Leninist interpretations. This meant that considerable revision of historical texts was in order in the 1980s, although no substantive change away from the conventional Marxist approach was likely. Historical institutes were restored within the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and a growing corps of trained historians, in institutes and academia alike, returned to their work with the blessing of the Chinese Communist Party. This in itself was a potentially significant development.

The Four Treasures of The Study

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The Four Treasures of The Study

Writing Brush , Ink-Stick , Paper & Inkstone

Among the various tools of calligraphy, writing brush is peculiar to China. The brushes are varied, and white goat's hair, black rabbit's hair and yellow weasel's hair are three major types. On the basis of the function of tip, the brushes are classified into three groups: "Hard", "Soft" and "Both". The handle is made of not only bamboo, wood, lacquer and porcelain, but also some precious materials including mother-of-pearl inlay, ivory and jade.
Writing brush has such a long history that prehistoric painted pottery, inscriptions on oracle bones, bamboo slips and silks are all writing materials for brush. Some ancient writing brushes were also excavated in the graves of the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States, the Qin and Han Dynasties. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, Xuanzhou became the national writing-brush-producing center, whose products were called "Xuan-bi", and "Zhuge-bi" was the best in quality in Xuanzhou. After the Yuan Dynasty the brush-producing industry of Huzhou boomed, and "Hu-bi" replaced "Xuan-bi". The characteristics of "Hu-bi" were sharp, neat, round and tough.

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The ink-stick is the unique pigment of Chinese traditional painting and calligraphy. At the initial stage natural ink or half-natural ink was generally used. It was during the Han that artificial ink appeared. At that time the most famous ink-stick was "Yumi-mo" produced at Qianyang, Shaanxi. The raw materials of ink-stick were pine, oil and lacquer.
Before the Five Dynasties the ink-producing center was in the North, then it reached the South. The most celebrated South ink-stick was "Hui-mo", which was produced in Huizhou of Anhui.

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Paper ( the background of this page you are reading now is a kind of writing paper made in Qing Dynasty) is one of the most famous Chinese inventions. It is widely accepted that paper was invented by Cai Lun in the Eastern Han. However the archaeologists have discovered paper of Western Han such as "Fang-ma-tan" paper, "Ba-quao" paper, "Xuan-quan" paper, "Ma-quan-wan" paper, "Ju-yan" paper and "Han-tan-po" paper.
After the Eastern Jin Dynasty, paper was extensively used instead of traditional writing materials such as bamboo slips and silks. Various methods of producing paper emerged one after another.

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, the paper producing industry was very thriving. Celebrated products in best quality appeared one after another. In the Qing "Xuan-zhi" produced in Jing Prefecture of Anhui (Xuanzhou), became the special paper for painting and calligraphy, and was regarded as "the king of the paper"

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Inkstone is the most important of "four treasures of the study". Because of its solid texture inkstone can be handed down from ancient times.
In the ruins of primitive society the archaeologists discovered simple stone ink-slab that needed a pestle to grind pigments. After artificial ink-sticks appeared in Han, pestle gradually disappeared. There were pottery ink-slab, lacquer ink-slab and copper ink-slab in the Han Dynasty as well as stone ink-slab. Among the stone ink-slabs, the round tripod pieces were the most typical. During the Wei, Jin and Northern-and-Southern Dynasties, round tripod porcelain ink-slabs were in vogue. It was in the Sui and Tang that "Piyong" inkstone having circular legs appeared.

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Ancient tools of calligraphy included not only brush, ink-stick, paper and inkstone, but also some accessories such as penholder, brush pot, ink box, paperweight, seal, seal box. The raw materials of these tools were pottery, porcelain, copper, iron, lacquer, wood, bamboo, stone, jade, jadeite, agate and coraI.

The Clay Fertility Figures of Henan

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The Clay Fertility Figures of Henan
On any given day of the week, working days as well as holidays, you will find the people of Nanyang and Zhoukou in Henan Province creating rustic-looking yet colourful clay toys. Children, who like to play with them, call them "Nini Gou" (clay puppy) since most of these moulded figures are in the shape of a dog or other small animal. Some of them also have small over holes and can be used as whistles.
Not all the clay moulded figures are toys for children, however:some are made as sacrificial offerings to be taken to the Taihaoling Mausoleum dedicated to Fuxi in Huaiyuang to solicit blessings or tender thanks to Fuxi for favours received. Chinese people believe that Fuxi was the progenitor of the human race, and legend has it that after the marriage of Fuxi and Nuwa, Nuwa began to mould human beings out of clay, and ever since mankind has continued to multiplu. It is based on this legend that moulding clay figures is practised to this day.

These figures often feature conspicuous reproductive organs and some are portrayed in the actual act of conjugation. One can also find sets of twins and half-human, half-animal figures. Such creations are expressions of the artists' hopes for abundant progeny and livestock.

As Fuxi is regarded as the deity in charge of birth, it is said that if those wishing to have a child take home a clay figure which has been previously enshrined at the Fuxi Mausoleum, their wish will be granted. After they have a child, they are expected to mould or buy a new clay figure and take it to the mausoleum as a way of fulfilling their duty and expressing thanks. This custom is known as "Shuan Wawa" (Tethering a Child).

Shanghai World Expo 2010

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Expo 2010 will be held in Shanghai, China and is a scheduled World's Fair in the grand tradition of international fairs and expositions.

The theme of the exposition will be "Better City – Better Life" and signifies Shanghai's new status in the 21st century as a major economic and cultural center. It is expected to generate the largest number of visitors in the history of the world's fairs in terms of gross numbers, although it will have a tough time matching the per capita visit rate of the 1967 Montreal World's Fair, attended by 50 million people at a time when Canada's total population was a mere 20 million.

The event is tentatively scheduled to be held from 1 May 2010 – 31 October 2010.

Infrastructure Preparations

The site of the event is the Nanpu Bridge-Lupu Bridge region in the center of Shanghai along both sides of the Huangpu River. The area of the Expo 2010 covers 5.28 km².

Officials in Beijing announced plans on March 6 2006, to begin construction of a second commercial maglev train system in China by the end of 2006. The new line to connect Shanghai and Hangzhou, which is expected to take four years to complete construction, is hoped to be in service for Expo 2010.

A Dream of Red Mansions

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China is a great ancient country with rich lirterature and art.IF you want to understand Chinese literature,A dream of Red Mansions is the book you have to read.

A Dream of Red Mansions was written in the latter half of the 18^thcentury. It is not only a great Chinese novel but also a gem of world literature. The author is Cao Xueqin (1715-1763), also known as Cao zhan. He was born into a noble and powerful family, which was reduced from extreme prosperity to poverty. The life of luxury in his boyhood acquainted him with the ways of noble families and the ruling classes, while poverty in his old age enabled him to observe life more clearly and penetratingly. Based on his own understanding of life and with his progressive ideas, serious attitude and high craftsmanship, he was able to createA Dream of Red Mansion, a book regarded as the pinnacle of the Chinese classical novel. Of its 120 chapters, the first 80 were written by Cao Xueqin, while the last 40 chapters were thought to have been written by another writer, Gao E. Though certain difference can be discerned in Gao E's sequel, in respect to ideological content and artistic achievement, it still basically follows Cao's original plan and makes the novel and integral whole.

A Dream of Red Mansions describes the life and declining fortunes of a large feudal family. At the heart of the novel is a tragic love story between Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai. The author, instead of telling the love story superficially, tries to tap the social origins of the tragedy through probing deeply into the characters' minds and the complicated relationship among them, hence exposing the hypocrisy and cruelty of feudalism and the decadence of the ruling class. The novel goes far beyond the tragic love story, to depict a broad swath of society through describing a series of complicated conflicts and struggles, and ultimately predicting the domed fate of feudal society as a whole. The novel criticizes feudalism, its corrupted politics, marriage system and ethical relationships and passionately denounces its cruelty and inhumanity. In China, A Dream of Red Mansionsis praised as an encyclopedia for analyzing feudal society.

A Dream of Red Mansions portrays a galaxy of unforgettable characters, including Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu, Xue Baochai, Wang Xifeng, Yuanyang, Qingwen, Jia Zheng, Jia She, Jia Zhen and Jia Lian. Jia Baoyu is a rebel of feudal noble class. His rebellion character is fully expressed in his attitude of indifference to the ways of aristocratic life. He holds in contempt the tiresome men and greatly sympathizes with the women, oppressed and trampled by the feudal system, demonstrating his distinct democratic thoughts. Lin Daiyu is also a rebellious figure of the novel, she represents, to a certain degree, women's unfortunate fate in feudal society, their resistance to its oppression and passionate pursuit for true love. But her weakness is in her restrained and fragile character, typical of noble girls. Baochai is portrayed as a conventional woman of feudal society, and she is also a tragic figure. The author also portrays a large number of servant girls such as Qingwen and Yuanyang, who are kind, pure and brave.

A Dream of Red Mansions made great artistic achievements. For instance, the novel provides a large number of detailed descriptions of everyday lives. Cao Xueqin attained flawlessness in language. A Dream of Red Mansions reflected high aesthetic quality in many aspects including poetry, drama, art, architecture, and gardens.