Ancient China and Inventions

With an ongoing history dating back over sixteen thousand years, China is the world's oldest known continuous civilization. While the 17 million square mile nation, now home to over 6 billion inhabitants, is known in the modern world primarily as a source for cheap plastic toys and bootleg CDs and DVDs, this gigantic portion of Asia is actually responsible for countless important and colorful discoveries and inventions; among them fireworks, tea, the modern mousetrap, kites, decorative vases, the fortune cookie, stationery, a variety of interesting and pain-relieving opiates, and the all-you-can eat lunch buffet.
Indeed, were it not for the important contributions of ancient China to the later civilizations of Europe and the Americas, the western world today might well resemble the crude and stinky medieval European world of the early fifteenth century. Luckily--thanks to the trade route known as "The Silk Road," and the riches it channeled toward influential western merchants like Pier One, life in the west has been forever enhanced by what were once considered exotic Chinese "novelties."

In order to understand the contributions China has made to the western world, it is important to try and unravel the mysterious traditions of its ancient culture--a culture whose earliest recorded history takes us back to nearly 14,000 B.C., back to the time of the first fumbling and painful experiments with acupuncture--the era of the Thang Dynasty.
The Thang Clan ruled most of what is now modern China for over twelve centuries. While little is known about Chinese life in those times, scholars do know that the written word made its first appearance during the rule of this powerful family. In 1969, archeologists digging near Feng To, in the northern province of Weng, unearthed the earliest specimen of human writing ever discovered, a scroll known popularly as "The Ancient Chinese Secret," a fifteen hundred word document listing the location and relative quality of all of Weng Province's public wells, washeries, and eateries. Amazingly, a few of the characters in this "pictograph" (picture-writing) document can still be found in the Japanese Kanji alphabet today.

One of the eight wonders of the ancient world, The Great Wall of China remains among the world's most thought-provoking antiquities still in existence. It was built by Emperor Tsu of the Chang Dynasty, a family of rulers who began their lengthy dominion in the eleventh century, B.C. Tsu was a deeply superstitious ruler, one who believed, as did most of his subjects, that spirits--both good and evil--roamed the earth in the form of animals. There were, it was believed, good spirits populating the Chinese countryside in the form of oxen, monkeys, giant pandas, dragons and rabbits. On the other hand, the Chinese during the Chang Dynasty were certain that other animals-- like snakes, ducks, voles and pigs-- had evil spirits within them, spirits intent on the destruction of their glorious empire.
Though cats were popular pets in ancient China, having been domesticated as early as the Sh'ing dynasty some four centuries earlier, Tsu was highly suspicious of one breed of cat in particular--the feral Siamese Cat. By the end of the eleventh century B.C., Siamese cats had begun to breed out-of-control in Mongolia, the untamed tundra north of Ancient China. The cats had thrived on the billions of mice that infested Mongolian granaries and barbeques, and had begun making their way south into China's northern provinces. Tsu, and the northern Chinese in general, were spooked by the breed's capricious and selfish behavior, their cold, vacant eyes, and their devilishly raspy "Mee--yeeooooww." At the end of the century, a strain of typhoid illness actually caused by unsanitary laundering practices was believed to have been caused by the invading cats, and Emperor Tsu publicly proclaimed that the deaths of over 15 million of his northern subjects was the direct result of "We Kha Tchi," or "Cat-Scratch Fever."

Desperate to "save face" as a ruler, Tsu ordered the building of what is now known as "The Great Wall of China" to prevent the further infiltration of Siamese cats. While most of the cats walled out over the next several centuries eventually succumbed to starvation due to overpopulation in Mongolia, those already pouncing within the northern provinces of Ancient China suffered a more immediate, and explosive fate: The Emperor declared that any Siamese cats found within the empire were to be enticed with catnip and gunpowder-packed cat-toys and summarily blown to bits. The subsequent unjust purging of millions of innocent felines is considered the low-point of the history of animal rights as we know it and Chinese folklore is peppered with gruesome accounts of otherwise still evenings punctuated with "flashing, screeching blasts of demonic yowling followed by baleful snowfalls of liberated fur."
Less than ten years after Tsu commissioned the construction of The Great Wall, he passed away and was succeeded by his son Nhu. Construction of the wall continued under the Nhu regime, and then continued for the next nine generations of the Chang Dynasty. When the relatively short-lived Mang Dynasty followed, the construction of the wall doggedly continued, and Siamese cats, gradually, became a rare sight in China, though a few had managed to make it to the empire's southernmost reaches. It was only during the Chung Dynasty, in the year 2560 B.C., that the massive undertaking was considered complete. On what would have been July 9, 2560 B.C. on our modern calendar, Emperor Wang declared the wall finished and ordered three weeks of celebration that halted all labor in the sprawling nation. Celebrated Chinese songwriter, poet, and philosopher Lao Tzu wrote a song to mark the occasion. The jubilant refrain is still remembered today:

Evil cats are, at last, gone ,
Walled off as is their pestilent bite,
Now that there is nothing wrong,
Strike up this song and dance into the night:
So, HU! Everybody have fun tonight,
So, HUH! Everybody Wang Chung tonight!

Unfortunately, when the dancing and fireworks were exhausted, the Chinese soon realized that their land was, in fact, not entirely free from Siamese cats. Though they enjoyed a brief period, during the Ming Dynasty, where their homes were relatively free from the troublesome and creepy felines, soon the problematic pussies could be found all over Asia once again, scratching up China's finest silks and rubbing up against-- and smashing to bits-- some of the Dynasty's most exquisite period vases. Though the passive and reflective philosophy of Confucius had taken hold by 1500 B.C., Emperor Foo, who died in 1478 B.C. was one of the most outspoken critics of Siamese cats, calling them "an enemy to the prospect of traditional Chinese 'joy-luck' foretold in the crispy cookies of [his] forebears."
Shortly after Emperor Foo's burial, nearly all of China's remaining Siamese cats disappeared. Until 1992, this was dismissed as the result of a feline leukemia epidemic that was thought to have swept Asia in the fifteenth century B.C. But could there have been some Ancient Chinese magic responsible for the demise of the "evil" cat-spirits in China? The excavation of Foo's tomb in the early nineties has left many wondering. When the imperial tomb was opened, hundreds of life-sized terra-cotta statues, a statuary legion dubbed the "Terra-Cotta Army," was found.

These imposing statues, it is speculated, were thought by Foo to have insured that all remaining Siamese cats would be, by the time the emperor reached the afterlife, literally stomped out. The statues all wear thick, cat-crushing boots, and many hold ancient cat-toys and cat-lances designed to entice, impale and eviscerate unsuspecting kitties.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead once remarked that "it is the struggles of every civilization, no matter how misguided and downright freaky they might seem in retrospect, that shape them and fashion their unique contributions to our world as a whole." If that's true, it is perhaps also true that, without the Siamese cat, our world would not have the sparkly firecrackers, the tasty Pu-Pu Platters, nor the crispy and compelling fortune cookies that we enjoy today; all products of the cat-fearing land of Confucius; Ancient China.

Resources: http://www.idiotica.com/cranium/encyclopedia/content/ancientchina.htm
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/history/index.htm http://listverse.com/2009/04/18/10-great-ancient-chinese-inventions/

More Ancient China:

Modern humans first came to China from Central Asia or India about 50,000 BC. These were Stone Age people, who lived in caves with their dogs and wore fur and leather. They hunted and gathered their food. By around 4000 BC, these people were starting to farm rice and keep sheep and chickens. By about 3000 BC, they were using pottery and living in houses, and they soon afterward learned from Central Asian people how to use horses to pull wheeled chariots.
By 2000 BC, Chinese people had entered the Bronze Age and had begun to use writing. Soon afterwards, about 1800 BC, the Shang Dynasty conquered most of China and ruled it under one Emperor. From this point on, people measure most Chinese history in dynasties - one family of related rulers.

About 1100 BC, the Chou dynasty conquered China. By about 700 BC, Chinese metal-workers learned to make iron tools and weapons. This was the time of Confucius. But beginning in 481 BC, China fell apart into many little Warring States that fought each other.
In 221 BC, the Ch'in dynasty succeeded in putting China back together again. They made China even bigger than it had ever been before, and they built the Great Wall of China. But the Ch'in dynasty only lasted a short time before the Han dynasty took over in 202 BC. The Han dynasty was very successful. They traded along the Silk Road with the Parthians and the Roman Empire. They invaded India and brought back Buddhism to China. But by 220 AD, China had fallen apart again.

Chinese Top Ten Inventions:

It is well known that China has an ancient and glorious history, from the feudal periods ending in 222 BC through the three Imperial and Intermediate Eras, up to the Modern era – over 4000 years of dynastic reigns. It may also be well known that China is the source of many wonderful and useful inventions from spaghetti to gunpowder. This list, however, will take a slightly different slant of the topic: Chinese inventions and developments that were not known to or adopted by the Western (European) world for many decades and sometimes centuries after they were common place in China. Some you may be familiar with, others perhaps less so.
As this is not a ‘top 10’ type list, the entries are in a (mostly) chronological order of when they were invented or developed. Please note that these are inventions and technological developments and not discoveries about the natural world – though it is also true that in many cases the Chinese scientists far preceded ‘The West’ in discoveries as well (e.g. William Harvey is credited with discovering the circulation of blood in 1628. It was described in Chinese documents in the 2nd Century BC).

1
Row Planting
Feudal Period – 6 Century BC

The Chinese started planting crops in rows sometime in the 6th century BC. This technique allows the crops to grow faster and stronger. It facilitates more efficient planting, watering, weeding and harvesting. There is also documentation that they realized that as the wind travels over rows of plants there is less damage. This obvious development was not instituted in the western world for another 2200 years. Master Lu wrote in the “Spring and Autumn Annals”: ‘If the crops are grown in rows they will mature rapidly because they will not interfere with each other’s growth. The horizontal rows must be well drawn, the vertical rows made with skill, for if the lines are straight the wind will pass gently through.’ This text was compiled around 240 BC.

2
Compass
Feudal period – 4th Cent BC

The Chinese developed a lodestone compass to indicate direction sometime in the 4th century BC. These compasses were south pointing and were primarily used on land as divination tools and direct finders. Written in the 4th Century BC, in the Book of the Devil Valley Master it is written: “lodestone makes iron come or it attracts it”. The spoons were made from lodestone, while the plates were of bronze. Thermo-remanence needles were being produced for mariners by the year 1040, with common use recorded by 1119. Thermo-remanence technology, still in use today, was ‘discovered’ by William Gilbert in about 1600.

3
The Seed Drill
Han Dynasty: circa 202 BC – 220 AD

The Seed Drill is used to plant seeds into the soil at a uniform depth and covers it. Without this tool seeds are tossed by hand over the ground resulting in waste and inefficient, uneven growth. Chinese farmers were using seed drills as early as the 2nd Century BC. The first known European instance was a patent issued to Camillo Torello in 1566, but was not adopted by Europeans into general use until the mid 1800’s.

4
Iron Plows
Han Dynasty: circa 202 BC – 220 AD

One of the major developments of the ancient Chinese agriculture was the use of the iron moldboard plows. Though probably first developed in the 4th century BC and promoted by the central government, they were popular and common by the Han Dynasty. (So I am using the more conservative date). A major invention was the adjustable strut which, by altering the distance of the blade and the beam, could precisely set the depth of the plow. This technology was not instituted into England and Holland until the 17th century, sparking an abundance of food which some experts say was a necessary prerequisite for the industrial revolution.

5
Deep Drilling
Han Dynasty: circa 202 BC – 220 AD

By the first century BC the Chinese had developed the technology for deep drilling boreholes. Some of these reached depths of 4800 feet (about 1.5 km). They used technology that would be easily recognizable to a modern engineer and lay person alike. Derricks would rise as much as 180 feet above the borehole. They stacked rocks with center holes (tube or doughnut shaped) from the surface to the deep stone layer as a guide for their drills (similar to today’s guide tubes). With hemp ropes and bamboo cables reaching deep into the ground, they employed cast iron drills to reach the natural gas they used as a fuel to evaporate water from brine to produce salt. The natural gas was carried via bamboo pipes to where it was needed. There is also some evidence that the gas was used for light. While I could not find exactly when deep drilling was first used by the Europeans, I did not find any evidence prior to the early industrial revolution (mid 18th century). In the United States, the first recorded deep drill was in West Virginia in the 1820’s.



6
Ship’s Rudder
Han Dynasty: circa 202 BC – 220 AD

Chinese naval developments occurred far earlier than similar western technology. The first recorded use of rudder technology in the West was in 1180. Chinese pottery models of sophisticated slung axial rudders (enabling the rudder to be lifted in shallow waters) dating from the 1st century have been found. Early rudder technology (c 100 AD) also included the easier to use balanced rudder (where part of the blade was in front of the steering post), first adopted by England in 1843 – some 1700 years later. In another naval development, fenestrated rudders were common on Chinese ships by the 13th century which were not introduced to the west until 1901. Fenestration is the adding of holes to the rudder where it does not affect the steering, yet make the rudder easy to turn. This innovation finally enabled European torpedo boats to use their rudders while traveling at high speed (about 30 knots).

7
Harness for Horses
Age of Division; circa 220 – 581 AD
Throat harnesses have been used throughout the world to harness horses to carts and sleds. These harnesses press back on the neck of the horse thus limiting the full strength of the animal. In the late feudal period (4th Century BC) there is pictorial evidence (from the Chinese state of Chu) of a horse with a wooden chest yoke. By the late Han Dynasty the yoke was made from softer straps and was used throughout the country. By the 5Th century, the horse collar (pictured above), which allows the horse to push with its shoulders, was developed. This critical invention was introduced into Europe approximately by 970 and became widespread within 200 years. Because of the greater speed of horses over oxen, as well as greater endurance, agricultural output throughout Europe increased significantly.

8
Porcelain
Sui Dynasty: 581 – 618 AD
Porcelain is a very specific kind of ceramic produced by the extreme temperatures of a kiln. The materials fuse and form a glass and mineral compound known for its strength, translucence and beauty. Invented during the Sui Dynasty (but possibly earlier) and perfected during the Tang Dynasty (618-906), most notably by Tao-Yue (c. 608 – c. 676), Chinese porcelain was highly prized throughout the world. The porcelain of Tao-Yue used a ‘white clay’ that was found on the edge of the Yangtze River, where he lived. By the time of the Sung Dynasty (960-1279) the art of porcelain had reached its peak. In 1708 the German Physicist Tschirnhausen invented European porcelain, thus ending the Chinese monopoly. The picture above is a teabowl with black glaze and leaf pattern from the Southern Sung Dynasty (1127-1279).

9
Toilet Paper
Sui Dynasty: 581 – 618 AD

As noted above, paper was an early invention of China. One of the first recorded accounts of using hygienic paper was during the Sui Dynasty in 589. In 851 an Arab traveler reported (with some amazement) that the Chinese used paper in place of water to cleanse themselves. By the late 1300’s, approximately 720,000 sheets per year was produced in packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets. In colonial times in America (late 1700’s) it was still common to use corn-cobs or leaves. Commercial toilet paper was not introduced until the 1857 and at least one early advertiser noted that their product was ‘splinter free’ – something quite far from today’s ‘ultra-soft’. One rather odd piece of trivia I picked up during my research is that the Romans used a sponge tied to the end of a stick – which may have been the origin of the expression “to grab the wrong end of the stick”.

10
Printing – movable type
Song Dynasty: 960 – 1279 AD
That paper was invented by the Chinese is well known (by Cai Lun c 50-121 AD), and it is one of the great Chinese inventions. The recipe for this paper still exists and can be followed by today’s artisans. In 868 the first printed book, using full page woodcuts, was produced. About 100 years later the innovations of Bi Sheng, pictured above, (990-1051) were described. Using clay fired characters he made re-usable type and developed typesetting techniques. Though used successfully to produce books, his technology was not perfected until 1298. By contrast, Gutenberg’s bibles – the first European book printed with movable type – were printed in the 1450’s. Interestingly, the Chinese did not start using metal type until the 1490’s.

Jade

What Is Jade?

Jade is a stone valued for its beauty and utility. The term jade is actually applied to two different stones: jadeitite and nephrite. Both of these stones exhibit very similar characteristics, having roughly the same hardness, color range, and ability to be carved. Jadeitite is the rarer stone, and as such tends to be considerably more expensive. Jade appears historically throughout the world in various cultures, but is perhaps most well-known as the stone of China. Jade has been used in China dating back nearly seven-thousand years, used in both decorative carvings and more practical items. Throughout China’s history jade has been important, both to common people and to the various rulers.
Mythically, the highly-valued emerald-green jade was said to literally be moonlight in crystal form. With the establishment of the Chinese dynastic system, jade became known as the Imperial stone, being used as the material for amazingly ornate objects, including the iconic jade armor some rulers were buried in. Only nephrite is commonly found in China, but beginning in the 19th century jadeitite was imported from nearby Burma, and became the variety of choice, known as Kingfisher jade.

Jade was also important in the historical Americas, where it was quite rare, and therefore quite valuable. Many ceremonial objects were crafted from jade quarried from modern-day Guatemala, and it was also used as a medium upon which to inscribe hieroglyphs. Although no culture will ever truly compete with the Chinese for the intricacies and beauty of jade carvings, many of these Mesoamerican artifacts are truly stunning.
In many parts of the world jade is viewed as a stone symbolizing luck, and thought to offer protection. Jade amulets can be found in more than one culture, as can jade protector figurines. The Egyptians believed it embodied personal harmony, and used it in their art accordingly.
Chemically speaking, nephrite jade is made up of a mineral called actinolite, a mineral high in both magnesium and calcium. It is quite hard, and it is likely that many early cultures began valuing it so highly because it proved an ideal material from which to craft weapons and tools.

The value of jade varies widely, depending on the tastes in a region, and the history of the jade itself. Tastes for jade are different in different cultures, and the costs will reflect this. In many Western countries, for example, the most highly-prized varieties of jade are those with the most vivid greens — especially those which seem almost emerald in hue. In China, on the other hand, jade that is virtually white, or jade with tinges of yellow, is very valuable.
When looking to buy jade, it is important to make sure you are actually getting what you set out to buy. While the term jade may reasonably be used to describe either nephrite or jadeitite, it is often also used to refer to serpentine, Vesuvianite, green quartz, carnelian, and other stones. Because of the range of issues that need to be taken into consideration, and because of the many different, lesser stones sold as jade, it is highly recommended that jade be purchased through a reputable dealer, unless you are confident in your own abilities to appraise the stones.

Resource: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-jade.htm

What year was your Chinese animal?

What Is Your Chinese Animal?

Warriors And History

Anceint China video in 4000 bc

A Sight Of China

The Peoples Republic of China is roughly 3.7 million square miles. This makes it one of the largest nations on Earth. Over 1 billion people make their home. The third-largest country in the world, China is bounded to the north by the deserts of Mongolia, to the west by the Tibetan plateau and the Himalayas, and to the east by the East and South China Seas. China's 22 provinces and 5 autonomous regions are governed from Beijing, along with some 5000 islands. China isn't just a country – it's a different world.

From shop-till-you-drop metropolises to the epic grasslands of Inner Mongolia – with deserts, sacred peaks, astounding caves and imperious ruins – it's a land of cultural and geographical wonders. It is not that China has done away with its Maoist past – it is more that the yin of revolutionary zeal is being balanced with the yang of economic pragmatism. The old guard communists are giving way to the new wave entrepreneurs.

It is also a land of towering mountains and epic landscapes – background scenery to the fall of dynasties, the rise of emperors and the turning of the revolutionary wheel. Unless you have a couple of years and unlimited patience, it is best to follow an itinerary such as Beijing to Tibet via Xian's Terra Cotta Warriors or following the Silk Route or sailing down the Yangtze River or simply let Goway plan your trip in China.

Chinese Legends and Gods

Houyi Shot the Suns
Legend says Yi was very good at archery. There were once ten suns in the sky, which made plants wither, and fierce beasts run wild to imperil people. It was too hot to live under the suns. To save the people, Yi started to shoot the suns. He shot down nine of them one by one, and he might have shot the last one if it was not called off by others. Thus the severe drought was gone. He also got rid of those fierce animals for the people.
It is said Yi's wife was Chang'e, a legendary lady in the famous story, "Chang'e flying to the moon." Chang'e swallowed the elixir stolen from her husband, and she flew to the moon and became the goddess of the moon, who has lived in the palace on the moon ever since.
Yi was killed by Fengmeng, a disciple of Yi who learned to shoot from

Chinese Ghost
Many people believe ghosts, yet many don't. Chinese people often say, "If you believe it, there will be, but if you don't, there will not." Here is a story about this saying.
Zhuxi was a famous scholar in the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279). He believed there were no ghosts in the world, so he decided to write an essay "No Ghost." It was said he was a great sage so even ghosts were afraid of him. If he said no ghosts, ghosts could no longer exist. When ghosts knew he was writing the essay, they gathered together to discuss this and decided to send the smartest ghost to entreat him abandon the writing.
So one night, the smartest ghost appeared at Zhuxi's desk and kowtowed towards Zhuxi repeatedly. Zhuxi was surprised and asked:

"Where comes the ghost? How dare you disturbing me at night.""Yes, I am a ghost, but ...""Why don't you leave and why do you come in my study room?""I am here to entreat ..." replied the ghost."People are in the Yang world and ghosts are in the Yin world. We are in the different worlds so there are no way I can help you.""I have very important things to entreat you, Sir.""Ok, say it!"Then the ghost told Zhuxi the reason and beg him to abandon the writing to save them. Zhuxi laughed and said:
"You, the ghosts have been worshipped in the human world for so long. Isn't the time for you go away all together.""We also have good and bad ghosts...""Well, I heard you can do anything. Can you move me to the outside?""Certainly, Sir."Zhuxi was moved to the outside instantly without even noticing it. Zhuxi was astonished by the ability of ghosts, but was unwilling to say it. Then he asked again,

"You can move my body. Can you move my heart?""That is impossible to do, Sir." "But we can move things or a person's body so that it proves we exist." "We exist in illusion. If you believe it, there will be, but if you don't, there will not." "Can you say something like that in your essay, Sir?"Zhuxi felt the words did have some merits so he promised the ghost he would do that. The ghost left happily. Therefore, Zhuxi wrote the words, under the title of the no ghost essay, "If you believe it, there will be, but if you don't, there will not."

The Gate Gods.
It is said that long ago there grew a peach forest. The king of the peach trees shaded two stone huts in which lived two brothers, Shen Tu and Yu Lei. Both of them were so strong that in front of them lions would bend down their heads, leopards shivered at them and tigers gave in entirely to promise to serve as guards in the forest. And the two brothers lived there on the peaches.
In the Northeast of Mount Duso, there lived a monster which was said the son of a spirit of a bull. By right of the uncommon strength, it made itself the king of that area. When it heard that the delicious peaches on the mountain of Duso were magic in turning an evil into a god, he couldn't wait to go there. Of course, the monster was refused absolutely by the brothers. The monster was so angry that he led more than 300 ghosts to fight against the brothers.

After a fierce fight, the monster was defeated completely and ran away. But the monster wouldn't bury its axe. In the dark, he sent a few of the strongest ghosts to attack the brothers' huts. Though the ghosts appeared with blue faces, long buckteeth and dark red eyes, the brothers were very calm and they determined to give them a hard blow. The elder brother fought ahead with a hard stem of a tree and the younger followed with a strong reed rope. When the brother beat down one of the ghosts, the younger would tie it hard and put it into the mouth of a tiger. The bothers, Shen Tu and Yu Lei, won the battle at that night and the ghosts never dared to annoy them again.

Thus, the reputation of the brothers was spread quickly around the area, and they also helped a lot of people in the area. Many years later, when the bothers died, people thought they had got into the Heaven and became gods there and served as guards by the gate of the Heaven. Because the gate gods were once lived in the peach forest, people thought the branches of peach trees were full of magic. So it began to get popular for people to hang a peach board with the bothers' names on it on each side of their door pinning their hope for peace on the two giants. When paper was used, a picture of them was put up instead of those peach boards.

Kitchen God.
Traditionally the Spring Festival actually begins its course a week before the Chinese New Year (the 23th of the last month from Chinese lunar calendar), with the practice of offering a sacrifice to the Kitchen God, a god sent from Heaven to each family to take charge of family's affairs and make a report on what the family has done in the past year to Heaven annually on the date of the 23th.

Strangely enough, the sacrifice to the Kitchen God is a lotus root-like sticky cake made of a kind of confection, a typical Chinese traditional candy, instead of the usual cows, pigs or sheep. The purpose of the practice is compromising, for people are making full use of the sticky cake to prevent the Kitchen God from speaking ill of the family in Heaven by sticking his mouth. Of course, it seems to be quite a tacit agreement between the Kitchen God and his prayers; he is always accepting the sweet food from the people around. This tradition is no longer popular in cities now, but may still be observed in some areas of countryside.

From the 23th to the 28th, it is the seed time for the great festival. People are usually found themselves buying various things which vary from new clothes to delicious food. The Spring Festival is also the time for all family members getting together. Usually most people are trying to get home from different places before or on the New Year's Eve (the 29th) so the week before the Chinese New Year is the busiest travel time in China.

Yellow Emperor
It is believed there were many tribes settled down near Yellow River and engaged in farming about 4,000 years ago. Huangdi was the chief of a large tribe lived around Ji River. As the legend goes, at that time, Yan Emperor disturbed the other tribes in the region and Yellow Emperor defeated Yan Emperor at Banquan. Later the tribes lead by Huangdi killed Chiyou, a troublemaker, who was the chief of a large tribe in the east. Then he became the leader of all the tribes.

It is also believed there were many inventions originated from the time of Yellow Emperor, such as characters, ships and carts, medicines, music, sericiculture and some daily utensils. Thus Huangdi was said to be the founder of Chinese civilization.
Huangdi is also regarded as the central god among the five gods in the heaven in Chinese mythology.

Shennong
Shennong was also regarded as the god of Chinese medicine. Legend says he tasted all kinds of herbs. Once he identified poisonous plants more than 70 times in a day. It was because of his practice that people learned that medical herbs could cure diseases.

According to "Baihutong" by Ban Gu of the Han Dynasty, in ancient times, people only ate animal meat. By Shennong's time, there were too many people and animals were insufficient. Thus Shennong taught people to do farming. People benefited a great deal from it. So they called him Shennong, which means the god of farming.
In "Stories of Gods" by Gan Bao of the Jin Dynasty, Shennong used a reddish brown whip to beat all kinds of plants to test their properties as drugs and identify those suitable for crop growing.
Because of his contribution to Chinese civilization, he and Huangdi are generally regarded as the ancestors of the Huaxia race.

Yao Emperor
Legend says he once appointed Yihe to take charge of the calendar. When Yao became old, he chose Shun as the prince regent after three years' examination. When he died, Shun became the emperor. But it was also said, in his late years, Yao was put in jail and replaced by Shun. Yao was very diligent and economical. He showed great concern for his people, thus was adored by them and was regarded as an ideal emperor in people's mind.

KuaFu Chased the Sun
It is said that in antiquity a god named KuaFu determined to have a race with the Sun and catch up with Him. So he rushed in the direction of the Sun. Finally, he almost ran neck and neck with the Sun, when he was too thirsty and hot to continue. Where could he find some water? Just then the Yellow River and Wei River came into sight, roaring on.

He swooped upon them earnestly and drank the whole river. But he still felt thirsty and hot, thereupon, he marched northward for the lakes in the north of China. Unfortunately, he fell down and died halfway because of thirst. With his fall, down dropped his cane. Then the cane became a stretch of peach, green and lush.
And so comes the idiom, KuaFu chased the Sun, which becomes the trope of man's determination and volition against nature.

Nian
The legend says, long ago, there was a monster called Nian. It was born to be very ugly and ferocious, which looked like either dragons or unicorns. On the first and the 15th of each lunar month, the monster would come down from the mountains to hunt people. So people were very much afraid of it and locked their doors early before sunset on the days of its coming.
There lived an old wise man in a village. He thought it was the panic in people that made the monster so bold and furious. Thus the old man asked people to organize together and to conquer the monster by means of beating drums and gongs, burning bamboo, and lighting fireworks in purpose of making large noises to threaten the hateful monster. When he told people about the idea, everybody agreed on it.

At a moonless and freezing cold night, the monster, Nian, appeared again. The moment it opened its mouth at people, burst out the frightening noises and fire made by people, and wherever the monster went, it was forced to back off by the terrible noises. The monster couldn't stop running until he fell down with exhaustion. Then people jumped up and killed the evil monster. Savage as the monster was, he lost in the end under the efforts from the cooperation of people.
Since then, people have kept the tradition by beating drums and gongs, and lighting fireworks at the coldest day in winter to drive the imagined monsters away and to celebrate the victory over it. Today, Nian refers to the New Year's day or the Spring Festival. People often say Guo Nian, which means 'live the festival.' Furthermore, Nian also means the year. For an example, the Chinese often greet each other by saying Xin Nian Hao, which means Happy New Year! Xin means new and Hao means good.

Nvwa Mended the Firmament
Nvwa is the ancestor of mankind in the mythology of ancient China. As legend goes, she smelted the five-colored stones to mend the firmament (sky), cut off the feet of the great turtle to support the four pillars of the universe, controlled the flood, and drove away fierce beasts so as to let the people live in peace. Another legend says, she made persons with yellow clay, and married her brother, Emperor Fuxi, turning a relationship of brother and sister into a marriage, and multiplying mankind. Thus, later generations adored her as a goddess of marriage and reproduction, especially in charge of matters of copulation between men and women. Learners of cultural history regard her as a goddess that came into being in the era of worship of the female genital organ.

The popular story of "Nvwa Mended the Sky" was noted in "Huainanzi," written in Western Han (206 B.C. - 24). It says, "In remote antiquity, the four poles of the universe collapsed, the sky cracked open, the earth was no longer able to support everything, fire ran wild everywhere without ceasing, and flood overflowed out of control. Fierce beasts ate common people, and ferocious birds attacked the old and the weak. Hence, Nvwa smelted the five-colored stones to mend the sky, cut off the feet of the great turtle to support the four poles, killed the black dragon to help the earth, and gathered the ash of reed to stop the flood."

According to "Taiping Yulan," a set of encyclopedias compiled in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), at the beginning of the universe, there were no human beings. Nvwa molded figures from yellow clay to create people. As the clay was not strong enough, she put ropes into the clay to make the bodies erect. There was also such a saying, "Nvwa prayed to gods to let her be the goddess to take charge of marital affairs. As a result of her going-between, men and women lived in harmony, and she was worshiped as the goddess of marriage." According to "Duyi Zhi" by Li Rong of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), at the opening of the universe, there were a brother and a sister called Nvwa, living in Kunlun Mountain, and there were no ordinary people at that time. They wished to become husband and wife, yet, felt shy about it. Thus, the brother took his younger sister to the top of the mountain and swore: "If Heaven allows us to be husband and wife, please let the clouds gather; if not, please let the clouds scatter." Then, the clouds gathered together. The younger sister came to live with her brother. She made a fan with grass to hide her face. The present custom of women taking a fan in their hands originated from that story.

Nv Wa
Chinese legend has it that in remote antiquity there were no humans when a god called Pan Gu broke the chaotic universe and split the heaven and earth apart. Then a goddess named Nv Wa began to make clay figurines after Pan Gu and herself. After several days of hard work, man and woman were created. And more than that, she also gave the law of marriage to keep human behaviors within bounds. First, the man should ask a matchmaker to talk about the marriage with the woman's family. Then when they agreed he should send some gifts as to show his sincerity. Last, the woman should move to the man's home since food and protection was provided by him.

Nv Wa was so gentle and considerate that she later invented some string instruments such as Sheng and Huang. Later in the north came a monster called Gong Gong who wanted to flood the world. Nv Wa directed her subordinate and the people and defeated the monster. But it bumped into the Buzhou Mountain, which propped up the heaven and split it a hole. So she smelted some five colored stones and patched up the sky. Thus people could live peacefully afterwards. This story is so well known that the novel, Dream of Red Mansions, drew materials from this part.

Fuxi
Fuxi is the legendary god in the mythology of ancient China. He is also called Taihao or Taihao Fuxi. Legend says, by imitating the spider, he created a net to catch fish and animals. He invented the musical instrument, Se, a plucked instrument with 50 strings, and constituted the Eight Diagrams used in divination. He married his younger sister, Nvwa, and started the reproduction of offspring one generation after another. Thus they became the ancestors of the Chinese.

In the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. - 220), they were carved on stone as figures with both human heads and bodies of the snake. They are human-shaped from the waist up, but are snake-like below. The lower bodies are entangled together with each other.

Pan Gu Creates the World

Chinese legend says Pan Gu created the world by separating the heaven and the earth from chaos. In the beginning, the universe was like an egg and there was only chaos in the egg. Pan Gu had slept in the egg for over 18,000 years. Then one day, he woke up and cracked the egg into pieces. By separating the heavy and light parts of the egg, he created the heaven and the earth. Pan Gu stood on the earth and held up the heaven using his hands, and then he had grown with the heaven until the form of the world for another 18,000 years.

Town God Temple
In the old days, people imagined that the city was protected by a god known as Chenghuang (town god). Under his protection, people could live peacefully. Chenghuang's duty was just like that of the county head in feudal China. Taoists accepted him not only as an executive but as a law officer as well. It was believed that Chenghuang was empowered by the celestial ruler to exterminate evils in towns and cities and make citizens live a prosperous and happy life. He was even capable of granting what people prayed for. He gave rain when it was too dry and gave sunshine when there was too much rain. He brought big crop harvests for farmers and flourishing business for traders. As historical records indicate, the first known Chenghuan Temple was built as early as 239 A.D in the Three Kingdoms Period.

Interestingly, the town god had his mold in the practical society. The mold was always a hero who had done a lot and sacrificed his life for the public. People honored him as a god and believed that he would bring them peace and happiness. That's why the town gods in different cities often have different looks. Even today, every year at a fixed time, people come to the temples and show their respect for their protectors by kowtowing and offering some sacrifices. Chenghuang is a god in Taoism, but monarchs of different faiths in history all put him in a very important position.

Speak Chinese

Chinese Polite Expressions

The Mandarin Language is called
Putonghua 普通話 "Common Language"in Mainland China
Guoyu 國語 "National Language"ｉｎTaiwan
Huayu 華語 by the Chinese overseas communities Dialects or Languages?Chinese language is the language spoken by most people of the world, at least theoretically. There exist many inhabitants of China, especially in the South, that do barely understand the official language that is based upon the dialect of Peking. There are a few numbers of dialects, or we should better call it languages, in China that are related to the official language. These dialects are more archaic than the modern official language and tend to have more tone pitches and closed syllable endings. The most important languages are:
Cantonese Guangdonghua 廣東話 or Yueyu 粵語, spoken in Guangdong (the origin of the city name Canton is actually the province name, the city is called Guangzhou)
Wu 吳, spoken in the Yangtse Delta and Shanghai (hence called Shanghaihua 上海話). Wu is the name of an old feudal state of the Spring and Autumn Period.

Northern Min Minbeihua 閩北話, spoken in northern Fujian province
Southern Min Minnanhua 閩南話, spoken in southern Fujian and Taiwan
Hakka 客家, distributed in many provinces of South China and oversees. "Hakka" means "guest people"; the Hakka language "islands" are enclaves inmidst of territories where mainly Cantonese is spoken
Gan 贛, spoken in Jiangxi
Xiang 湘, spoken in Hunan

Recently some dialects were classified as languages: Dongan (the language of the Muslim Chinese in the West), Jin in Shanxi, Mindong, Minzhong and Puxian in Fujian, and Huizhou in Anhui and Zhejiang.Relatives of the Chinese Language are the Tibeto-Burmese languages, the languages of Tibet and of modern Myanmar and many, many small tribes that live in the Himalaya and its foothills. Thai and Vietnamese are definitely not related to Chinese, even if both are isolating (one word-one syllable) languages that have also tone pitches. English for example is also an isolating language, and many highly agglutinating (one word-one chain) languages like Turkish and Japanese have lots of one syllable nouns. Tone pitch languages exist all over the world, and tonality is no criterium for language relationship.The vast country of China comprises many territories where people live that speak languages that are not related to Chinese, like Uighurs, Mongols, Tajiks, Koreans and Russians. And we don't have to forget the many national minorities in the southwest that speak languages related to Thai, Vietnamese and Tibetian. In Taiwan live a few aboriginal people of Malaio-Polynesian origin. The aboriginal people of southern China as well as the nomad immigrants in the north are long assimilated to the Chinese and are not distinguishible except a few officially accepted minorities.The Development of Chinese LanguageLike stated above, Chinese is a tonale language.

In modern Chinese, every syllable has four different tone pitches (sisheng 四聲):
high pitch (yinsheng 陰聲),
rising pitch (yangsheng 陽聲),
lower rising pitch (shangsheng 上聲), and
falling pitch (qusheng 去聲).The quickly falling tone pitch (rusheng 入聲) that once marked a final voiceless stop, disappeared during the end of Song and the Yuan Dynasties. Finally, in two-syllable-words, the second syllable is sometimes unaccented, so to say a pitchless tone (lingsheng 零聲).

In Cantonese exist eight different tone pitches: high, upper rising, upper falling, upper entering, low, lower rising, lower falling, and lower entering; in daily use they are reduced to six. The problem in reconstructing old Chinese language is that we do know how words were written, but because Chinese script is not a sound script (at least not in general) but a symbolic script, we do know nothing about the pronunciation of the old words. Only the researches of Bernard Karlgren (1889-1978) and E. G. Pulleyblank (* 1922) helped to reconstruct middle Chinese (Tang to Song Dynasties) and finally old and archaic Chinese. Both used the rime dictionaries of the Tang and Song Dynasties (Qieyun and Guangyun) and rime groups of the oldest poetry book, the Shijing. Frome these studies, we see that the final sound system of old Chinese was much more complex than today. While we have today only open syllables (without consonant: cha, ji, bo, dao) and the two finals -n (fan, lun, jin) and -ng (fang, cheng, qing). In old Chinese there were also finals like -l, -m, -g, -k, -t, and -p, in archaic Chinese even -gs.

And there existed sound clusters at the begin of a syllable, like gl-, hl-, tr-, mj-, shw- and so on. Such a sound system makes old Chinese much more similar to Tibetian and Burmese. Compared to this, modern Chinese sounds quite crippled and oversimplified. Even at the begin of the 20th century, there existed not so much vowel-less syllables like in modern Chinese, like the seven syllables [d][t][][],[dz][ts][s]. Syllables like [dzi] or [tsi] have died out. Southern dialects (or languages?) in China still show final consonants like -m, -p, -t and -k. Chinese loanwords in Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese show the vanished syllable endings. The Chinese loanword "law" (modern Chinese falü, old Chinese something like paplüet) in Korean is pôp, in Japanese a little bit forced to hôritsu, in Vietnamese turned around to luât pháp. Southern Chinese dialects like Cantonese still today show the ancient syllable endings: "law" in Cantonese is faatleuht. The simplification of the language was due to the central administration in a vast empire that allowed people to come around. Different dialects had to near each other and step by step threw away difficult sounds. The classical written language that had developed during the late Zhou and Han Dynasty, had the same importance like Latin in the West.

Until the begin of the 20th century, all official documents, and even private essays and letters were written in a 2000 years old monosyllabic language, full of citings of the old books and writings. This language could only be used by scholars and well educated people. The literary form that first used the everyday language were the Yuan Dynasty theatre plays and Ming and Qing novels. Writers of the early 20th century fought for the introduction of everyday language (putonghua 普通話) into the literature. Today, only official letters and documents are written in classic language, but even newspapers and higher literature make use of the short and precise classical written language. People who know to write in classical Chinese (wenyan 文言) are esteemed highly.During the course of centuries, Chinese language did not only make itself free from a rich but complicated sound system, but the tone pitches assimilated in such a way that some sounds like [dji] or [u] can stand for more than one dozen words of very different meaning.

In written language, there is no problem with homophony as every word or almost every word has only one character that can barely misunderstood. Reading alound a text in classical written language, the listeners are hardly able to understand a great part of the text.Measurements of the spoken language to encounter this homophony was the development of two-syllable words for nouns, verbs, adjectives and even for conjunctions. Today, most words in Chinese consist of two syllables, composed of two single words, like aiqing "love" from ai 愛 "love, affection" and qing 情 "feeling, sentiment, temperament". The classical word fang 方 can have the meanings of "direction" (modern: fangxiang 方向), "location" (difang 地方), "square" (fangxing 方形; fangmi 方米 fangzhang 　铀ܐtion), "aspect, side, party" (fangmian 方面), "mode, manner" (fangshi 方式), "method" (fangfa 方法), "plan, concept" (fanglüe 方略), "stategy" (fangce 方策), "recipe" (fangji 方劑, fangzi 方子, fangr 方ㄦ, "occultism" (fangshu 方術, fangji 方技), "honest, upright" (fangzheng 方正), "just now" (fangcai 方才), and so on; to discern between the different meanings, two-syllable words came up (in brackets). Already in the oldest examples of Chinese literature, we find two-syllable words with rhyming or reduplication character, like yaotiao 窈窕 "lonely, pityful; honest", qingting 蜻蜓 "dragonfly", putao 葡萄 "grapes".

Another method to enrich a word are suffixes, like the [dz] in [ba-dz] baozi 包子 "filled dumpling" and [i-dz] yizi 椅子 "chair", or the guttural [r] in [ta-r] char 茶ㄦ "tea" (in Peking dialect).Loanwords, New Words and Foreign NamesLike all people, the Chinese had an intensive contact with neighboring people. They adopted many words from the northern steppe people that used things the Chinese did not know. When the Chinese learned to know and to use these things, they also adopted the foreign word for these objects: 駱駝 lwaktuo "camel" or 酪 lwak "yoghurt" from the nomad people, 蜜 mjit "honey" and 獅子 shejshe "lion" from the Tocharians. Southern China was occupied 2500 years ago by Austro-Asiatic people, different from the Chinese in ethnic, cultural and linguistic means. Still today, south Chinese people look different from the northern people that were stongly mixed with the steppe peoples.

But also the non-Chinese people of the south tributed their parts to Chinese language, especially to the southern dialects of Fujian province. In the official language, we find still today traces of the southern peoples' languages: 江 klang "stream, Yangtse river" or 虎 khla "tiger". Words that came with Buddhist religion were either transscribed with sounds (and their respective characters without taking their real meaning) or translated: the Buddhist term nirvâna is called in Chinese 涅磐 niepan (a crippled version of the Sanskrit word) or 寂 ji "serenity" or 智緣滅 zhiyuanmie "destroying the cause of awareness" or simply mie 滅. Even personal names of foreigners were sometimes translated by their meaning, like 竺法護 Zhufahu "Protecor of the Law" for the Indian monk translator Dharmaraksha (transcribed as 曇摩羅察 "Tanmoluoji").

During the 19th century many Chinese went to Japan for educational purposes. Like in Europe where scholars created artificial Latin or Greek words, Japanese and Korean scholars created artificial Chinese words that came to China when the foreign Chinese students went back to their country. In our times, when hundreds of new words rush into China, there is also a need either to describe them with sounds or to translate them. Some loanwords use describing syllables that have also a meaning: 黑客 heike "black host = computer hacker", 雷射 leishe "thunder stroke = Laser". A very famous example of marketing is that of Coca-Cola company, in Chinese called 可口可勒 Kekou-kele "tasty and funny". Other examples are 跑車 paoche "racing car = Porsche" or the word for "taxi", 的士 dishi (Cantonese pronunciation: diksi) "targeting Sirs".

Other characters of loanwords have no real meaning in that combination, like 考貝 kaobei "copy", 摩登 modeng "modern" or 克隆 kelong "clone". There are much more examples of translated words, for example 電腦 diannao "electric brain = computer" or 光碟 guangdie "gleaming disk = CD". Some items also show the possibility of both translating, like 擴音器 kuoyinqi "sound enlarging tool = microphone", and transscribing 麥克風 maikefeng, or 電子郵件 dianzi youjian "electronical mail" as a translation for e-mail, simply called yimeir 伊妹兒 following the sound of the English word. A special field of adopting loan words and even creating new characters, is the field of chemistry.

氨 an "ammonium" is described with the character for 氣 "gas, air" and the phonetic part 安 an. 碘 dian "iodine" with the radical for 石 "stone" and the phonetic part 典 dian. 汞 gong "quicksilver" is decribed as a liquid thing 水 "water" called 工 gong (from mercurium). 酯 zhi "esters" are described with a bottle 酉 and 旨 zhi "tasty, fragrant", because many esters have a very aromatic perfume. The word for "carbohydrate" 醣 tang (all kinds of sugar) is combined of a bottle 酉 and the abbreviated character and sound for 糖 tang "sugar".

Foreign names cannot be translated but must be transscribed with characters that sound like the syllables of the foreign name: Bulaier 布萊爾 for Prime Minister Tony Blair. While there are great differences in how to transscribe a foreign name, the government of mainland China tries to standardize transscriptions. The Soviet ruler Stalin is transscribed in mainland China as 斯大林 Sidalin [sz-da-lin], in Taiwan as 思達林, with different characters. Countries are often abbreviated, like 阿美利加 Ameilijia (southern dialect pronunciation Ameliga) "America" to 美國 Meiguo "beautiful country".

But there are examples of translated names like that of the city of San Francisco. During the gold rush, Chinese immigrants called this city 金山 Jinshan "Gold mountain". Transcriptions: how to write down pronunciationThe old Chinese became aware of the sound system of their own language when they had to translate foreign words with a meaning that could not be expressed in Chinese: Buddhist terms. Dictionaries that tried to express pronunciation came up during the Tang Dynasty. They used the "reverse cutting" system (fanqie 反切), using the initial sound and the final sound of two words/characters to describe the sound of a word/character. For example: 他前切 [ta][tçin]qie "pronounced like [t-] and [-in] ([tjn])". Another possibility to express the pronunciation of a character was to cite a character with an identical pronunciation, like 薪讀若新 "xin (firewood), read like xin (new).

".The first transscriptions of Chinese language that have been made by Westerners were all written like the particular travelers, merchants or missionaries heard the words and wrote them down following the writing rules of their own language. French people of course wrote the same words not in the same style like British would have done or people from the Netherlands. There did not exist a standardized style of transscription until the late 19th century. Typically for the early transscriptions was the hard style transscription of the sounds [dj] or [tç] as "k", like "kin" for [djin] or "kü" for [tçy], for instance "King-ting ku-kin t'u-shu ki-ch'eng" for 清定古今圖書集成 (pinyin: Qing ding Gujin tushu jicheng).

Many geographic names of China are still known today in their old transscription like the provinces Shan-tung, Fo-kien, Kiang-su, or the cities of Peking and Kanton. Also the names of people like Chiang Kai-shek or Sun Yat-sen are derived from non-standardized transscriptions of non-Mandarin languages or dialects (in standard Mandarin, they are called Jiang Jieshi resp. Sun Yixian - but no Chinese calles the founder of the Republic by this name - the is called Sun Zhongshan).Wade-Giles TranscriptionThe first persons to create a standard transscription of Chinese were T.F. Wade (d. 1895) and H.A. Giles (d. 1935).

Their system called Wade-Giles (chin.: Wei Tuoma shi pinyin 威妥瑪式拼音) is quite correct in reflecting the vowels (like "yüen" for [jyn]), but is very complicated in the manner of reflecting consonants. Wade and Giles saw the hard sound "k" as a soft one and added an apostroph to express hard pronunciation: [gan] is written "kuan", [kan] is written k'uan. The sound [] (the french "j") is written "j", the sound [ç] is "hs". A great problem to find a word in an index is that the Wade-Giles system makes no difference between the consonants [tç] and [t] - both "ch'", [d] and [dj], both "ch". Only in their syllable context, these sounds are recognizable as two different sounds: the vowel-less syllables are added by an "ih", like "ch'ih" for [t] and "chih" for [d]. The syllables [tçi] and [dji] are written "ch'i" resp. "chi". The syllables [dz] and [dzu] are written "tzu" resp. "tsu".The tone pitches are marked by one of four numbers added to the transsciption, like hsiao3.

Little girl sings a chinese new year song:

3 year-old little girl sings a chinese song:

Ancient Chinese clothing

People in China generally wore tunics (like long t-shirts). Women wore long tunics down to the ground, with belts, and men wore shorter ones down to their knees. Sometimes they wore jackets over their tunics. In the winter, when it was cold, people wore padded jackets over their tunics, and sometimes pants under them. In early China, poor people made their clothes of hemp or ramie. Rich people wore silk.

Most people in China, both men and women, wore their hair long. People said that you got your hair from your parents and so it was disrespectful to cut it.
During the Sui Dynasty, in the 500's AD, the emperor decided that all poor people had to wear blue or black clothes, and only rich people could wear colors.
X-ray pictures of someone with bound feet and a diagram
In the Sung Dynasty, about 1100 AD, a fashion started at the emperor's court for women to bind their feet. Women thought that to be beautiful they needed little tiny feet, only about three inches long. They got these tiny feet by wrapping tight bandages around the feet of little girls, about five or six years old.

Some of the earliest versions of the story of Cinderella come from Sung Dynasty China. In these versions, the point of the story is that the Prince loves Cinderella because she has the smallest feet of any girl in the kingdom, so the slipper will only fit her.

Then in the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols brought cotton to China. At first people didn’t want to grow cotton, maybe because the people running the silk industry wanted to keep people buying silk. But the Mongol invasions in the 1200’s destroyed a lot of the mulberry trees that were needed to make silk. The Mongol emperors, like Kublai Khan, turned to cotton to fill the gap. In 1289 AD they ordered the opening of special training centers to teach farmers how to grow cotton. And in 1296 they ordered that farmers who grew cotton could pay lower taxes. Soon everyone liked cotton better than ramie or hemp. Cotton was warmer, and softer, and stronger, and cheaper. You could make it thin for summer, or you could make thick padded clothes out of it that were warm for winter.

Resource: http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/clothing/

Ancient Chinese Food And Chinese

When you think of Chinese food you think of rice, and rice was the first grain that was farmed in China. There is archaeological evidence of rice farming along the Yang-tse River as early as about 5000 BC. People cooked rice by boiling it in water, the way they do today. Or they made it into wine. Rice wine has been popular in China since prehistory. But rice doesn't grow in northern China, which is much drier and colder.

People in northern China gathered wild millet and sorghum instead. By 4500 BC, people in northern China were farming millet. They ate it boiled into a kind of porridge.Another food people associate with China is tea. Tea grows wild in China. By about 3000 BC (or it could be much earlier), people in China had begun to drink tea. Soon everybody drank tea.Wheat was not native to China, so it took much longer to reach China. People in northern China first began to eat wheat in the Shang Dynasty, about 1500 BC. Wheat was not native to China, but people brought it to China from West Asia. People in China boiled it like millet, to make something like Cream of Wheat. These were the main foods of China - rice, millet, sorghum, and wheat. In northern China, people mostly ate millet, wheat, and sorghum. In southern China, people mostly ate rice.

Poor people ate almost nothing but these foods.
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When people could afford it, they bought or grew vegetables to put on their rice. Soybeans, for instance, are native to China. So are cucumbers. For fruits, the Chinese had oranges and lemons, peaches and apricots. The native flavorings are ginger and anise (Americans use anise to make licorice).On special occasions, people also put little pieces of meat on their rice. By 5500 BC, the Chinese were eating domesticated chicken, which came originally from Thailand. By 4000 or 3000 BC, they were eating pork, which was native to China. Sheep and cattle, which were not native, reached China from West Asia also around 4000 BC.

Since meat was so expensive, and because Buddhists didn't eat meat, starting around the Sung Dynasty (about 1000 AD) people also put tofu, or bean curd, in their food as a source of protein. Because China doesn't have big forests, it was always hard to find fuel to cook with. Chinese people learned to cut up their food very small, so it would cook quickly on a very small fire.

During the Han Dynasty, millet wine became very popular and was even more popular to drink than tea. Also beginning in the Han Dynasty, about 100 AD, Chinese people began to make their wheat and rice into long noodles. Marco Polo, a visitor to China from Venice, wrote that by the time of Kublai Khan, about 1200 AD, Chinese people ate millet boiled in milk to make porridge. Even as late as 1200 AD, Chinese people did not bake bread.
Here is a video of some Chinese kids eating with chopsticks:

Resource:http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/food/




Here's what Chinese people call China and USA.

Zhong guo (jong goo-ah) translates to "Middle Kingdom" or "Middle Country." They call America "Mei Guo" which means "Beautiful country."
Resource: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070807094227AAHQawO

The Population Of China

The population of China on July 19th 2010 is approximately 1,351,718,522