1.
Demographics of Hong Kong
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Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with an overall density of some 6,300 people per square kilometre. At the same time, Hong Kong has one of the world’s lowest birth rates—1.11 per woman of child-bearing age as of 2012, far below the replacement rate of 2.1. It is estimated that 26. 8% of the population will be aged 65 or more in 2033, Hong Kong recorded 8.2 births per 1,000 people in 2005-2010. Ethnically, Hong Kong mainly consists of Han Chinese who constitute approximately 92% of the population, of these, many originate from various regions in Canton. There are also a number of descendants of immigrants from elsewhere in Southern China, in English, the term Hong Kongers is also used to refer to Hong Kongese people, while the term Hongkongese is sometimes used as an adjective to describe people or things related to Hong Kong. The following census data is available for Hong Kong between the years 1841-2011, in 2011, Hong Kong had a population of just over 7 million, with a density of approximately 6,300 people per square kilometer. This makes Hong Kong the fourth most densely populated region in the world, after Macau, Monaco, the national census does not subdivide people of European descent, nor does it categorise Chinese ethnic subgroups. However, the majority of Hong Kongers of Chinese descent trace their ancestry to various parts of Southern China, some Cantonese people also originate from Hakka-speaking villages in the New Territories. Most Teochew-speaking migrants immigrated to Hong Kong from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, many Taishanese and Cantonese also migrated after 1949. Currently, the ethnic groups include the Punti, Hakka, Cantonese, Hoklo. Punti and Tanka are Hong Kong indigenous people, while Cantonese people are not Hong Kong indigenous people, the following table shows birth rates and mortality rates in Hong Kong between 1950-2015. At the end of the 20th century, Hong Kong had one of the lowest birth rates in the world. However, the number of births doubled in the decade between 2001-2011, largely due to an increase in the number of children born in Hong Kong to women with residence in Mainland China. In 2001 there were 7,810 births to Mainland women out of a total of 48,219 births and this increased to 37,253 births to Mainland women out of a total of 82,095 births. According to The World Factbook in 2013, the infant mortality rate in Hong Kong was 2.89 deaths/1,000 live births. People in Hong Kong follow a range of religions, although most people of Chinese descent follow Taoist, Confucian, or Buddhist faiths
2.
Culture of Hong Kong
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The culture of Hong Kong can best be described as a foundation that began with China, and became more influenced by British colonialism. After the 1997 transfer of sovereignty to the Peoples Republic of China, one-hundred-fifty years of rule as a separate British colony, as well as political separation from the rest of mainland China have resulted in a unique local identity. Structurally, one of the first laws to define peoples relationships was the Hong Kong Matrimonial Ordinance passed in 1972, the law set the precedent of banning concubinage and same sex marriages with a strict declaration for heterosexual relationships with one partner only. Other economic changes include families in need of due to both parents working. In particular, foreign domestic helpers have become an part of the household since the late 1980s. Traditional Chinese values such as family solidarity, courtesy and saving face carry significant weight in the minds of the people, Hong Kongs mainstream culture derives from, or is heavily influenced by, the Cantonese from the neighbouring province of Guangdong, China. There are also communities of Hakka, Fukien, Teochew. Although Cantonese is not one of the Hong Kong indigenous languages, since the 1997 handover, the government has adopted the biliterate and trilingual policy. Hakka is commonly used in villages in New Territories and Hakka ethnic communities in Hong Kong since Hakka is one of the indigenous languages for Hong Kong indigenous people. Punti Language, another form of Hong Kong indigenous languages, are spoken by the older generation living in walled villages in New Territories. The Tanka people from the villages is another group of Hong Kong indigenous people. Their language, Tanka, with their own variation of Cantonese, is another form of Hong Kong indigenous languages, a significant amount of the adherents of non-indigenous Chinese religions, in some cases the majority, are Hong Kong people of non-Chinese descent. The traditional Chinese religiosity, including Chinese Buddhism, was discouraged during the British rule over Hong Kong. With the end of the British rule and the handover of the sovereignty of the city-state to China, there has been a renewal of Buddhist and Chinese folk religions. There are some distinctive holidays that are celebrated in Hong Kong as a part of eastern culture, the most well known is Chinese New Year, which occurs approximately a month after Gregorian New Year, variably in late January or early February. Other events include the Dragon Boat Festival, where Zongzi is made by millions at home as part of the tradition, Dragon boats also compete for regional awards. Mid-Autumn Festival is another highly celebrated event, involving the purchase of Mooncakes from Chinese bakery shops. Category, Hong Kong artists For participation or viewing, Hong Kong has available different kinds of performing arts, including drama, dance, music, Hong Kong is also home to the first full-time comedy club in Asia, The TakeOut Comedy Club Hong Kong
3.
Hong Kong
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Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the Pearl River Delta of East Asia. Macau lies across the delta to the west, and the Chinese province of Guangdong borders the territory to the north. With a total area of 1,106 square kilometres. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during World War II until British control resumed in 1945, under the principle of one country, two systems, Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative, in addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of appropriate fields. Hong Kong is one of the worlds most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the worlds most competitive and freest economic entity. As the worlds 8th largest trading entity, its legal tender, Hong Kongs tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by simple taxation with a competitive level of corporate tax and supported by its independent judiciary system. However, while Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and it has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the worlds longest life expectancy. Over 90% of the population use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring areas of Mainland China. Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island, before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour, literally means Little Hong Kong)—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was a point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen. Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time, fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbours fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour, the name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric. As of 1997, its name is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China. This is the title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law. Hong Kong has carried many nicknames, the most famous among those is the Pearl of the Orient, which reflected the impressive nightscape of the citys light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour
4.
Census in Hong Kong
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Population census in Hong Kong, a collection of demographic data in Hong Kong, is conducted by the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Government. The census has been held ten years since 1961 and the by-census is held between two census. The last census was in March 2011 and by-census was from 15 July to 1 August 2006, the census is based on the administrative districts in Hong Kong to find out the characteristics and trends in population. The census is conducted on a scale and a wide range of data are collected. Statistics collected would be a reference for Hong Kong Government to make policy, Census and Statistics Ordinance, which was first effective in 1978, is the main law governing the work of the Census and Statistics Department. The Ordinance provides for the taking of a census of population and it also provides strict safeguards on the confidentiality of data pertaining to individuals or undertakings. In particular, Section 4 stated that each person aged 15 or above occupying any premises subject to census shall give to the Commissioner particulars of the matters specified in the Ordinance. Since 1841, when Hong Kong Island was ceded to the United Kingdom, the modern census began in 1961, and by-census in 1966 and continues every 10 years. The census in 1961 and 1971 collected the details from every resident, in the 2001 census,1 in 7 households completed the long questionnaire and in the 2011 census, it was 1 in 10. The by-census is similar to the census except relying solely on a sample of households to deduce the characteristics. 10% of households were sampled in the 2006 by-census, when census was conducted by questionnaire, a questionnaire was sent to each household and sent back to the department by the household. For interview, an enumerator would visit each household and fill detailed questionnaires for each household member. March is often selected as the month to avoid extreme weather conditions like typhoons. In order to recruit sufficient enumerators from secondary schools, a holiday is implemented during the census year. The main source of enumerators are from teachers and university students, in the 2006 by-census,5000 of enumerators were recruited with wages between HK$6528 to 11648. Under the Census and Statistics Ordinance, specified persons are legally obliged to provide the information required by the 2001 Population Census, people who refuse to do so are liable to a fine of $500. Also, people wilfully providing untrue answers are liable to a fine of $5,000, in theory, the census counts every household member, even including illegal immigrants. To encourage those interviewed to provide answers, their information provided is strictly confidential
5.
Health in Hong Kong
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Hong Kongs medical infrastructure consists of a mixed medical economy, with 11 private hospitals and 42 public hospitals. There are also polyclinics that offer primary care services, including dentistry, Hong Kong is one of the healthiest places in the world. Hong Kong has high standards of medical practice and it has contributed to the development of liver transplantation, being the first in the world to carry out an adult to adult live donor liver transplant in 1993. Hong Kong has only about 1.7 doctors per 1000 people, only 11 doctors qualified outside the country work in the public hospital system because the Medical Council places barriers to the employment of foreign doctors. There are about 6000 registered practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine, free treatment, with small co-payments, is available to people with a Hong Kong identity card and to resident children under the age of 11. Between 2007 and 2011 public spending on healthcare increased by 30%, in 2014/5, it was about 17% of all government expenditure. The Department of Health, under the Food and Health Bureau, is the adviser of Hong Kong government. Its main role is to safeguard the health of the community through promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative services in Hong Kong. The Hospital Authority is a body established on 1 December 1990 under the Hospital Authority Ordinance to manage all 42 public hospitals. It is mainly responsible for delivering a range of secondary and tertiary specialist care. The Authority also provides primary medical services in 74 primary care clinics. Other healthcare discipline programs are dispersed among other universities which do not host a medical faculty. Hong Kongs 11 private hospitals have partnered with the United Kingdom for international healthcare accreditation, all 11 hospitals are Trent Hospitals and have been surveyed and accredited by the United Kingdoms Trent Accreditation Scheme. The government is proposing a Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme in order to more use of the private sector. The Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme is one of the major medical healthcare reforms proposed by the government, in Hong Kong, the public and private sectors complement each other under a well-established dual-track healthcare system. However, there is an imbalance between the two sectors. Public hospitals take up more than 88% of in-patient services with government subsidies. Thus, the sector can focus on providing services in its target areas
6.
Hong Kong people
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Hong Kong people, also known as Hong Kongers or Hong Kongese, are people who originate from or live in Hong Kong. The terms have no legal definition by the Hong Kong Government, more terms such as Hong Kong Permanent Resident. However, the words Hongkonger and Hong Kongese were officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary in March 2014, Hong Kong people do not comprise one particular ethnicity, and people that live in Hong Kong are independent of Chinese citizenship and residency status. Expatriates from many other live and work in the city. During the years leading up to the 1997 handover of sovereignty from Britain to China, many residents left Hong Kong, as a result, there are groups of Hong Kongers that hold immigrant status in other countries. Some who emigrated during that period have since returned to Hong Kong, due to Chinas one country, two systems policy, Hong Kong is a highly autonomous region and operates largely independently of China, having its own passport, currency, flag, and official languages. The terms Hongkonger, Hong Kongese, and Hong Kong people all translate to the same Cantonese term, the direct translation of this is Hong Kong people, however, the term Hong Konger is also frequently used. 香港人 may also be translated as Hongkongan, in March 2014, Hongkonger and Hong Kongese were both added to the Oxford English Dictionary. According to the Dictionary, the first time that the term Hong Kongese appeared was in 1878, while the term Hongkonger appeared even earlier, in an 1870 edition of US newspaper The Daily Independent. The term Hong Kong Chinese was frequently used during the British colonial era and it was common at that time to refer to an individual as Hong Kong Chinese to differentiate them from a Hong Kong Briton. The term is used to refer to Hong Kongers of Chinese ethnicity. The Hong Kong Basic Law gives a legal definition of a Hong Kong resident. Under Article 24 of the Basic Law, Hong Kong residents can be classified as permanent or non-permanent residents. Non-permanent residents are those who have the right to hold a Hong Kong Identity Card, Permanent residents are those who have the right to hold a Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card as well as the right of abode. The Basic Law allows residents to acquire right of abode by birth in Hong Kong, for example, residents of China may settle in Hong Kong for family reunification purposes if they obtain a One-way Permit. Unlike many countries, Hong Kong does not require applicants for naturalisation to take a citizenship or language test to become citizens. However, Hong Kong migrants and residents are assumed to understand their obligation under Article 24 of the Hong Kong Basic Law to abide by the laws of Hong Kong. According to Hong Kongs 2011 census,93. 6% of its population is ethnically Chinese, with 32. 1% having been born in Mainland China, Taiwan or Macau
7.
Hong Kong residents
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Hong Kong residents, also called Residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, according to the Hong Kong Basic Law include permanent residents and non-permanent residents. Rights of Hong Kong residents are protected by the Basic Law such as freedom of speech, freedom of movement, Hong Kong permanent residents have the right of abode in Hong Kong and the right to vote in elections for the Legislative Council and the District Council. Under the Hong Kong Basic Law, permanent residents are,1, Chinese citizens born in Hong Kong before or after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,2. Chinese citizens who have resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than seven years before or after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,3. Persons of Chinese nationality born outside Hong Kong of those listed in categories. Persons under 21 years of age born in Hong Kong of those listed in category before or after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Persons other than those listed in categories to, who. The status of permanent resident was first introduced into Hong Kong law on 1 July 1987 when it replaced Hong Kong belonger status in the Hong Kong Immigration Ordinance Cap 115. Non-permanent residents of Hong Kong are persons qualified to obtain Hong Kong Identity Cards but have no right of abode
8.
Hong Kong Identity Card
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The Hong Kong Identity Card is an official identity document issued by the Immigration Department of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card is a class of HKID issued to Hong Kong residents who have the right of abode in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, HKIDs contain amongst others the name of the bearer in English, and if applicable in Chinese. It does not expire for the duration of residency in Hong Kong, the use of identity documents has a long history in Hong Kong, starting with manually filled paper documents, to the smart card introduced on 23 June 2003. Before 1949, people could move freely into and out of Hong Kong, Hong Kong residents who held Republic of China citizenship were not registered. These measures were put into practice to halt the influx of refugees from Communist China. The registration was completed in 1951, although registration was compulsory for all residents, people were not required to carry their documents with them at all times when out in public. Beginning on 1 June 1960, the government introduced the second generation of ID cards and these bore the holders fingerprint and photograph, and an official stamp. The information was typed, and the card was laminated, males had a blue card and females had a red card. The format of card was replaced in November 1973 with a card without fingerprints, the colour of the stamp identified and differentiated permanent residents from non-permanent ones. New immigrants subsequently became known colloquially as green stamp guests, from 24 October 1980, carrying the identity card in public areas and showing it when requested by a police or immigration officer became compulsory. This law was passed to halt large numbers of immigrants arriving in the territory. The government adopted a policy of deporting illegal immigrants within three if they could not produce a valid ID card. From March 1983, digitally processed identity cards were introduced to reduce forgery, on 1 June 1987, the Immigration Department produced cards without the coat of arms of British Hong Kong, which would last through the handover on 1 July 1997. Following the handover the cards display a seal of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the back of the card. In 2003, the government began replacing the cards with smart IDs in stages, from 23 June 2003, only Smart ID cards were issued. Between August 2003 to 2007, all Hong Kong ID cards were replaced, on 23 June 2003, the Immigration Department of Hong Kong began issuing a new revised Smart Identity card. The new cards contain a microchip, which stores the bearers information electronically. Previous HKIDs remained valid until the Executive Council, through the Secretary for Security, in addition, existing holders of HKID documents were called to apply to have their old-style HKID documents replaced by the new cards
9.
Languages of Hong Kong
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The Basic Law of Hong Kong stipulates that Chinese and English are the two official languages of Hong Kong. During the British colonial era, English was the official language until 1974. In addition, immigrants and expatriates from the West and other Asian countries have contributed much to Hong Kongs linguistic and demographic diversity, Chinese and English are both official languages of Hong Kong under the Hong Kong Basic Law and the Official Languages Ordinance. No law stipulates choice of spoken Chinese dialect, historically, English was the sole official language of Hong Kong from 1883 to 1974. Only after demonstrations and petitions from Hong Kong people demanding equal status for Chinese did the language official in Hong Kong from 1974 onward. In March 1987, the Official Languages Ordinance was amended to require all new legislation to be enacted bilingually in both English and Chinese, in 1990, the Hong Kong Basic Law declared Englishs co-official language status with Chinese after the 1997 handover. As a result of immigration into Hong Kong from Canton Province, there are also numerous sinitic languages spoken by the native peoples of the New Territories, many of which are mutually unintelligible. Cantonese is a vernacular and when reduced to writing is normally converted to a standard written Chinese quite dissimilar to the spoken word, there is also a written language based on the vocabulary and grammar of spoken Cantonese known as written Cantonese. Although the biliterate and trilingual policy implies an absence of support for written Cantonese, it has gained popularity in media where entertainment. Written Cantonese is unintelligible to speakers and is considered nonstandard by educators despite its widespread usage in Hong Kong. Some have also credited written Cantonese for solving the challenges that standard written Chinese had faced in popular culture, traditional Chinese characters are widely used, and are the de facto writing standard in Hong Kong. Simplified Chinese is seen in some posters, leaflets, flyers, the principal language of Hong Kong is standard Cantonese, spoken by 87. 5% of the population at home daily. As an official language, it is used in education, broadcasting, government administration, legislation and judiciary, as well as for daily communication. As a result of its predominance throughout the community, Cantonese is virtually the exclusive language of discourse at all levels of the executive, legislature. A few closely related dialects to standard Cantonese continue to be spoken in Hong Kong, most notable is the Weitou dialect, which is mostly spoken by the older generation living in walled villages in New Territories. Additionally, the Tanka people from the villages on outlying islands speak their own variant of Cantonese. However, this dialect is now limited to those middle aged. Hakka is indigenous to many villages in the New Territories and within Hakka communities in Hong Kong, nowadays, outside these rural villages and older populations, younger Hakka Chinese populations communicate primarily in Cantonese
10.
Religion in Hong Kong
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Religion in Hong Kong is characterized by a multi-faith diversity of beliefs and practices. Most of the Hong Kong people of Chinese descent practice Chinese folk religion—which may include Confucian and Taoist doctrines and ritual traditions—or Buddhism, the traditional Chinese religiosity was generally discouraged during the British rule over Hong Kong, which favoured Christianity. With the end of the British rule and the handover of the sovereignty of the city-state to China, there has been a renewal of Buddhist, Chinese folk religion, also named Shenism, is the indigenous religion of the Han Chinese. Traditionally Hong Kong Chinese practised Daoist or folk religion, along with some Buddhist practices, in recent decades urban residential areas seldom have neighborhood temples. Bosco argues that modern life styles do not comport well with traditional practices. Many residents fail to recognize their practices as religious, instead they misperceive many traditional practices and rituals, such as neighborhood processions, as part of the unremarkable heritage representing traditional Hong Kong culture. Consequently, religion is often overlooked in Hong Kong, one result, says Bosco, is that diversity and tolerance are the characteristics that most mark the Hong Kong religious landscape. The major festival of Confucianism in Hong Kong is Confucius birthday that falls on the 27th day of the month of the lunar calendar. Confucians in Hong Kong have been involved in education. They run a number of schools with an objective of promoting the teachings of Confucius. Taoism is a philosophy and ritual tradition that emphasises living in harmony and union with the Tao. Notable Taoist temples in Hong Kong include the Wong Tai Sin Temple located in the Wong Tai Sin District in Kowloon and this popular temple is dedicated to Wong Tai Sin. Buddhism has a number of adherents in Hong Kong. Buddhist organisations and temples in Hong Kong have long involved in social welfare. The Buddhist Association of Hong Kong operates a primary and secondary schools. The leadership of mainstream Buddhists organisations have aligned themselves with the establishment in Hong Kong, for example, high-ranking Buddhist Associations executives have openly endorsed the re-election of the citys former Chief Executive Donald Tsang. Several of the members were on the Drafting Committee of the Basic Law. Under the leadership of the former Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa, in 1997 the government designated Buddhas Birthday as a public holiday, which replaced the Queens birthday holiday
11.
Right of abode in Hong Kong
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The right of abode in Hong Kong is the right to legally reside in Hong Kong without any limit or condition of stay being imposed by the Hong Kong Immigration Department. Since Hong Kong has never been an independent country, there is no provision for its own citizenship status, Hong Kong Permanent Resident is the legal status for those who have the right of abode in Hong Kong. Some rights in Hong Kong are granted to all permanent residents, the right of abode is enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and Hong Kong Basic Law, and is synonymous with the permanent resident status. A Hong Kong permanent resident has the right to land in the HKSAR, to be free from any condition of stay in the HKSAR, not to be deported from the HKSAR, and not to be removed from the HKSAR. During British administration prior to 1997, right of abode in Hong Kong was shaped by British nationality laws, with the Handover imminent in 1997, the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law defined who may reside in Hong Kong once China assumes sovereignty over Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong was created a British colony in 1842, those who were born in the territory or become naturalised had British nationality and this included the right to enter and live in United Kingdom in addition to Hong Kong. By the 1960s, the United Kingdom passed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, as such, British nationals connected to Hong Kong were subjected to immigration control since 1962 and no longer had the right of abode in the United Kingdom. Until 1997, British nationality related closely with the permanent resident status which guaranteed right of abode, Hong Kong permanent residents had British nationality either by birth, naturalisation or by descent. The type of British citizenship connected to Hong Kong eventually evolved to become different from that of the United Kingdom, what has not changed is the definition that a Hong Kong permanent resident has the right of abode in Hong Kong. There was no immigration restriction into Hong Kong until 1950, people were free to travel across the Hong Kong-Chinese border. The government also began to register Hong Kong residents to issue identity cards. The Hong Kong ID card is proof of legal residency still in use today, nevertheless, the immigration boom intensified throughout the 50s and 60s with the onset of the Cultural Revolution. The government adopted the Touch Base Policy in 1974 and began repatriating immigrants intercepted at the border, the government had abolished the policy by 1980 and began repatriating all illegal immigrants once discovered. There was also a quota for PRC residents to apply for a One-way Permit under special circumstances to immigrate to Hong Kong, many Vietnamese people sought refuge in Hong Kong as a result of war and persecution in Vietnam that began in the mid-1970s. Backed by a Hong Kong Government humanitarian policy, and under the auspices of the United Nations, between 1975 and 1999,143,700 Vietnamese refugees were resettled in other countries and more than 67,000 Vietnamese migrants were repatriated. The illegal entry of Vietnamese refugees remained an issue for the Hong Kong government for 25 years, the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed on 19 December 1984 stated that the PRC would assume sovereignty over the entire ceded territory of Hong Kong on 1 July 1997. The terms right of abode first appeared in Annex I of the Declaration as the government of the Peoples Republic of China elaborated its basic policies regarding Hong Kong. Certain classes of people hold Hong Kong Permanent Resident status, and hence the right of abode, on the other hand, Article 22 states that for the purpose of entry into Hong Kong, people from other parts of China must apply for approval
12.
Cinema of Hong Kong
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The cinema of Hong Kong is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China, and the cinema of Taiwan. For decades, Hong Kong was the third largest motion picture industry in the world, in the West, Hong Kongs vigorous pop cinema has long had a strong cult following, which is now arguably a part of the cultural mainstream, widely available and imitated. Economically, the industry together with the value added of cultural. Unlike many film industries, Hong Kong has enjoyed little or no government support. It is a commercial cinema, highly corporate, concentrating on crowd-pleasing genres like comedy and action. Hong Kong film derives a number of elements from Hollywood, such as certain genre parameters, but the borrowings are filtered through elements from traditional Chinese drama and art, particularly a penchant for stylisation and a disregard for Western standards of realism. This, combined with a fast and loose approach to the process, contributes to the energy. In 2010, the box office gross in Hong Kong was HK$1.339 billion, there were 56 Hong Kong films and 220 foreign films released in 2011. According to McDonald, a system emerged in Hollywood as talent scouts, coaches. In the vertically integrated Hollywood film industry of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, the studios made the stars and, due to notoriously restrictive terms imposed by exclusive services contracts, the studios also owned the stars. As is common in cinema, the industrys heart is a highly developed star system. In earlier days, beloved performers from the Chinese opera stage often brought their audiences with them to the screen, possibly even more important is the overlap with the Cantonese pop music industry. In the current commercially troubled climate, the casting of young Cantopop idols to attract the all-important youth audience is endemic, in the small and tightly knit industry, actors are kept very busy. During previous boom periods, the number of made by a successful figure in a single year could routinely reach double digits. Films are typically low-budget when compared with American films, a major release with a big star, aimed at hit status, will typically cost around US$5 million. A low-budget feature can go well below US$1 million, occasional blockbuster projects by the very biggest stars or international co-productions aimed at the global market, can go as high as US$20 million or more, but these are rare exceptions. Hong Kong productions can nevertheless achieve a level of gloss and lavishness greater than these numbers might suggest, given such as lower wages. Films in the Cantonese language have made in Hong Kong since the beginning
13.
Hong Kong cuisine
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From the roadside stalls to the most upscale restaurants, Hong Kong provides an unlimited variety of food in every class. Complex combinations and international gourmet expertise have given Hong Kong the reputable labels of Gourmet Paradise, Modern Hong Kong has a predominantly service-based economy, and restaurant businesses serve as a main economic contributor. With the third-densest population per square meters in the world and serving a population of 7 million, due to its small geographical size, Hong Kong contains a high number of restaurants per unit area. With Chinese ethnicity making up 94% of the resident population, Chinese cuisine is served at home. Rice is predominantly the main staple for home meals, home ingredients are picked up from local grocery stores and independent produce shops, although supermarkets have become progressively more popular. Take-out and dining out is very common, since people are often too busy to cook with an average 47-hour work week. The cuisine of Hong Kong traces its origins to its founding as a British colonial outpost in 1841, soon after the colony was founded, many British and other Western merchants along with Chinese from nearby Guangzhou flocked there to conduct business. Initially, much of Hong Kong society was segregated into expatriate Westerners, a majority of working class Chinese coolies, Chinese farmers and fishermen, the simple peasant cuisine was rudimentary compared to the cuisine of 19th century Canton. As the colony developed, there arose a need for meals to entertain businessmen, for the majority of Chinese who were not part of the merchant class, dining out in restaurants was non-existent and consisted of simple Cantonese country fares. Meat only appeared in festive occasions and celebrations such as birthdays were often done by catering services who prepared the meals at the celebrants home, the restaurant scene for Europeans in Hong Kong was segregated from Chinese dining. Elaborate colonial dining existed at the likes of Hongkong Hotel and subsequently Gloucester Hotel, Hong Kongs dining lagged behind the then-leader of Chinese cuisine, Canton, for a long time and many Hong Kong chefs spent their formative years in Canton. Canton was renowned for its food, and there was a saying of The food is in Canton. Cantonese cuisine in Canton reached its peak during the 1920s and was renowned in the care in preparation even for peasant fares such as char siu or boat congee. Dasanyuan was renowned for its braised shark fin dish that charged 60 silver yuan, the Guandong cooking style eventually trickled down to the culinary scene in Hong Kong. The victory of Chinese Communists in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 created a wave of refugees into Hong Kong, a sizeable number of refugees were from non-Cantonese speaking parts of China, including the Yangtze River Delta, and introduced Shanghai cuisine to Hong Kong. On the other hand, most renowned chefs of Canton, now known as Guangzhou in pinyin romanisation, egg tarts and Hong Kong-style milk tea soon became part of Hong Kongs food culture. It could be argued that the seeds of Hong Kong society as understood today were not sown until 1949, the Cantonese cuisine in Hong Kong had by then surpassed that of Guangzhou, which had witnessed a long period of decline after the Communists came to power. The rising prosperity from the mid-1960s had given birth to increasing demand for quality dining, many of the chefs, who spent their formative years in pre-Communist Guangzhou and Shanghai, started to bring out the best of fine dining specialties from pre-1949 Guangzhou and Shanghai
14.
Media of Hong Kong
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Media in Hong Kong are available to the public in the forms of, television and radio, newspapers, magazines and the Internet. They serve the community by providing necessary information and entertainment. Hong Kong is home to many of Asias biggest media entities and it also once had numerous newspapers funded by Kuomintang of Taiwan but all of them were terminated due to poor financial performance. The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong publishes Kung Kao Po, a weekly newspaper, Apple Daily and Oriental Daily News are the two best selling newspapers, according to AC Nielsen, accounting for more than 60% of readership. Both are known for their anti-Hong Kong government political positions, colourful presentations, whereas Apple Daily is strongly regarded as pro-democracy, Oriental Daily is inclined to be pro-China government. Traditional PRC government-friendly journals, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, are owned by the Central Government Liaison Office, the freedom of press is protected by the Bill of Rights, in contrast to the rest of China where control over media is pervasive. However, this freedom has been in decline since the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, according to the Reporters Without Borders, Hong Kong enjoyed real press freedom and ranked second in Asia after Japan in the Press Freedom Index, although it has been rapidly declining. Different views over topics sensitive in mainland China, such as the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Chinese Communist Party rule, and democracy are still dynamically discussed among the media. Many books banned in China, such as the memoir of Zhao Ziyang, Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority is responsible for monitoring television and radio broadcasting to secure proper standards. Radio Television Hong Kong, operates as an independent government department, non-Governmental bodies, Press Council was established in July 2000. The objective of the Council is to promote the professional and ethical standards of the industry, defend press freedom. There is no law called media law in Hong Kong, instead, the media are governed by statutory laws. In brief, there are 31 Ordinances that are related to mass media. Six of which are highlighted below, Registration of Local Newspapers Ordinance, provides for the registration of local newspapers and news agencies and the licensing of newspaper distributors. Books Registration Ordinance, provides for the registration and preservation of copies of books first printed, produced or published in Hong Kong, telecommunications Ordinance, makes better provision for the licensing and control of telecommunications, telecommunications services and telecommunications apparatus and equipment. Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance controls and classifies articles which consist of or contain material that is obscene or indecent, Obscene Articles Tribunals are established to determine whether an article is obscene or indecent. Broadcasting Authority Ordinance, provides for the establishment and functions of a Broadcasting Authority, Broadcasting Ordinance, licenses companies to provide broadcasting services and regulate the provision of broadcasting services by licensees. The passing of Bill of Rights Ordinance in 1986 strengthened the protection of human rights like press freedom or freedom of speech
15.
Music of Hong Kong
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The Music of Hong Kong is an eclectic mixture of traditional and popular genres. Cantopop is one of the more prominent genres of music produced in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta regularly perform western classical music in the city. There is also a tradition of Cantonese opera within Hong Kong. In colonial Hong Kong, pipa was one of the instruments played by the Chinese, Western classical music was, on the other hand, the principal focus amongst British Hong Kongers with the Sino-British Orchestra being established in 1895. In the beginning of 20th century, Western pop music became popular, Mandarin pop songs in the 1920s were called Si Doi Kuk. They are considered the prototype of Chinese pop songs, in 1949 the Peoples Republic of China was established by the communist party. One of the first actions taken by the government was to denounce popular music as pornography, beginning in the 1950s massive waves of immigrants fled from Shanghai to Hong Kong. Along with it was the Pathé Records record company, which ended up becoming one of the most significant popular record companies in Hong Kong. The 1960s was marked by the rise of Hong Kong English pop which peaked until the mid-1970s among both British and Upper Middle/Upper class ethnic Chinese Hong Kongers, traditional Chinese Huangmei opera, on the other hand, had peaked in the 1960s amongst the general Chinese population. As an open economy, a vast variety of music is available in Hong Kong. Most retail music stores in Hong Kong carry Cantopop, Mandopop, imported English language pop music, Japanese pop music, larger music stores, such as HMV in Hong Kong, stock a more extensive range which includes classical music, Cantonese opera in addition to the aforementioned genres. Like Japan, audio cassettes have never been big sellers in Hong Kong, the art form is one of the first organised forms of entertainment in Hong Kong. The art form still exists today in its traditional format despite the changing trends in other industries, beginning in the 1950s, massive waves of immigrants fled Shanghai to destinations like North Point, boosting its fanbase. Cantonese Naamyam is a unique narrative singing tradition in Cantonese dialect/language, a singer would be engaged for a single performance or for regular performances over an extended period of time. Before the first half of the 20th century, naamyam sung by blind singers was a form of entertainment in Hong Kong. Prior to the development of music in the 1960s, Hong Kongs musical output was dominated by Cantonese opera. Prominent singers included Tang Kee-chan, Cheng Kuan-min, the godfather of Cantopop Roman Tam made significant strides in the industry. The youth began to gravitate towards Cantonese pop in the 70s, around 1971, Sandra Lang was invited to sing the first Cantonese TV theme song, The Yuanfen of a Wedding that Cries and Laughs
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Cantonese opera
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The Cantonese opera is one of the major categories in Chinese opera, originating in southern Chinas Guangdong Province. It is popular in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau, like all versions of Chinese opera, it is a traditional Chinese art form, involving music, singing, martial arts, acrobatics, and acting. In the 12th century, there was a form called the Nanxi or Southern drama. With the invasion of the Mongol army, Emperor Gong of the Song dynasty fled with hundreds of thousands of Song people into Guangdong in 1276, among them were Nanxi performers from Zhejiang, who brought Nanxi into Guangdong and helped develop the opera traditions in the south. Many well-known operas performed today, such as Tai Nui Fa originated in the Ming Dynasty and The Purple Hairpin originated in the Yuan Dynasty, with the lyrics, until the 20th century all the female roles were performed by males. Beginning in the 1950s massive waves of immigrants fled Shanghai to destinations like North Point and their arrival boosted the Cantonese opera fan-base significantly. However, a number of Cantonese opera troupes are left to preserve the art in Hong Kong today. As a result, many stages that were dedicated to the Cantonese genre are closing down, Hong Kongs Sunbeam Theatre is one of the last facilities that is still standing to exhibit Cantonese opera. In 1999, the Association and the Academy further conducted a two-year daytime diploma programme in performing arts in Cantonese opera in order to train professional actors and actresses. Aiming at further raising the level, the Association and the Academy launched an advanced course in Cantonese opera in the next academic year. In recent years, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council has given grants to Love and Faith Cantonese Opera Laboratory to conduct Cantonese opera classes for children, Cantonese opera shares many common characteristics with other Chinese theatre genres. Thus, music, singing, martial arts, acrobatics and acting are all featured in Cantonese opera, Most of the plots are based on Chinese history and famous Chinese classics and myths. Also, the culture and philosophies of the Chinese people can be seen in the plays, virtues are often reflected by the operas. Some particular features of Cantonese opera are, Cing sik sing - formulaic, heoi ji sing - abstraction of reality, distancing from reality. Sin ming sing - clear-cut, distinct, unambiguous, well-defined, zung hap ngai seot jing sik - a composite or synthetic art form. Sei gung ng faat - the four skills and the five methods, the four skills and five methods are a simple codification of training areas that theatre performers must master and a metaphor for the most well-rounded and thoroughly-trained performers. Before widespread formal education, Cantonese opera taught morals and messages to its audiences rather than being solely entertainment, the government used theatre to promote the idea of be loyal to the emperor and love the country. Thus, the government examined the theatre frequently and would ban any theatre if a message was conveyed or considered
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Shopping in Hong Kong
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Shopping is a popular social activity in Hong Kong, where basic items for sale do not draw any duties, sales taxation, or import taxation. Only specific import goods such as alcohol, tobacco, perfumes, cosmetics, cars, for companies, there is a 17. 5% corporate tax, which is lower than international standards. Shoppers reportedly spend over US$5.2 billion a month in Hong Kong shops, Hong Kongs proximity to manufacturing plants in China, as well as its status as a free port, allow it to sell and transport a wide variety of goods. There are few restrictions on merchandise vending, and therefore items such as realistic toy weapons are available, the two main shopping seasons are at Christmas and the Chinese New Year. The MTR subway and effective taxi service also facilitate Hong Kongs busy shopping industry, Hong Kong is the fifth largest exporter of jewellery in the world, mainly in the supply of jade and gold, and the second largest exporter of custom jewellery. Chow Seng Seng and Luk Fook are among the more well-known local jewellery chains, Street vendors or hawkers selling local snacks such as dumplings and snake soup can be found in Mong Kok and Causeway Bay. Custom tailoring is popular and affordable in Hong Kong, customers can draw out a design for clothing and have it made in a few days. Modern fashion is sold in the Times Square, IFC, and Elements shopping malls, fa Yuen Street and the Ladies Market on Tung Choi Street in Mong Kok, as well as Jardine’s Crescent in Causeway Bay, are known for the availability of low-priced clothing and accessories. Electronics from Japan and Europe are available for example in Apliu Street, there are computer appliances centers in Wan Chai, Mong Kok, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, and Causeway Bay. Japanese culture has become popular in Hong Kong, with Japanese department stores such as Sogo, Yata, Japanese clothing brands like Swordfish, Moussy, and Uniqlo have also opened flagship stores in the city. Stanley Market sells a variety of goods, particularly souvenirs. Antiques can be found on Upper Lascar Row and Hollywood Road, during its early colonial period, Hong Kong served as a port that sold far more than it consumed. Goods were mostly sold via mobile hawking or independent traders, with the majority of trade, utilities, shipping, the establishment of banks and deposit institutions allowed people to accumulate savings. The economy underwent an upturn in the 1960s, which led to the opening of shopping centres. Two of the first modern shopping centres were Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui and The Landmark in Central, daimaru led a trend of Japanese exports into Hong Kong in 1966 and Deng Xiaopings 1978 Open Door Policy made Hong Kong the definitive gateway to China. As the economy improved during the 1970s and 80s, there was increasing demand for luxury goods, in 1984, Cityplaza in Taikoo Shing was redeveloped. A large architectural project at the time was undertaken to connect Ocean Centre to the Harbour City shopping mall in Tsim Sha Tsui. Many large shopping centres were built in the new towns, including Tuen Mun Town Plaza, New Town Plaza
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Sport in Hong Kong
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Sports in Hong Kong are a significant part of its culture. Due to British influence going as far back as the late 19th century, Horse racing has most spectators, while football, basketball, swimming, badminton, table tennis, cycling and running have the most participants. In 2009, Hong Kong successfully organised the V East Asian Games, Hong Kong athletes have improved in worldwide rankings. As of 2010, there are 32 Hong Kong athletes from seven sports ranking in worlds Top 20,29 athletes in six sports in Asia top 10 ranking. Moreover, Hong Kong is equally impressive performance of athletes with disabilities in 2009, having won four world championships, Hong Kong City Hall is located today where the original location of Victoria Recreation Club stood in 1849 after having been in operation in Canton since 1832. It is the first sporting club established in Hong Kongs history, the first sports involved were water sports such as rowing. The primary sport in Hong Kong has been due mainly to British influence going as far back as the late 19th century. The first documented team came from the Chinese Football Team of 1904 and it was the first team to join The Hong Kong Football Association league in 1913/1914. At the time, the introduction of Hong Kong First Division League in 1908 was also another milestone, in the 1917 Far Eastern Games and 1919 Far Eastern Games, the club represented the Republic of China and won the football championship. It is the team in Hong Kong sports history to have accomplished this feat. Around 1920–1922, it adopted the present name of South China Athletic Association. Victoria Park was one of the range open space for pick-up games. Until the Hong Kong Stadium was built, there was no arena for spectator sports, by the 1960s a number of clubs have surfaced for mostly social reasons. Since then, Hong Kong sports has been described as Club Life, some clubs have documented their history thoroughly, while others have disappeared along with their past. After World War II the Amateur Sports Federation & Olympic Committee of Hong Kong was established, the committee selected athletic leaders to represent Hong Kong in times of competition. Eventually the committee known as the National Olympic Committee. After the transfer of sovereignty in 1997, Hong Kong has competed internationally under the name Hong Kong and it is treated separately from Peoples Republic of China, which is counted as another entry in the games. A variety of sports are available in Hong Kong, with most having their own association, there are also local organisations that strive to help Hong Kong residents identify sports that are not broadly advertised enough
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Hong Kong literature
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Hong Kong literature is 20th-century and subsequent writings from or about Hong Kong or by writers from Hong Kong, primarily in the poetry, performance, and fiction media. Hong Kong literature reflects the unique history during the 20th century as a fusion of British colonial, Chinese. It has mainly written in vernacular Chinese, and English. Hong Kong fiction and performance are many and varied, though only a few film and theatrical works were known internationally until the late 20th. Many modern Chinese-language publications in Hong Kong have their origins in Chinese writers who fled from Communist and Nationalist fighting during the Chinese Civil War, a significant number of Chinese intellectuals and artists moved to Hong Kong between 1927 and 1937. Many of these people viewed themselves as outsiders in the Hong Kong community, a second wave of writers came to Hong Kong in 1949 after the Communist Party of Chinas victory in the Chinese Civil War. Hong Kongs literature and arts developed quite freely throughout the 20th century, Hong Kong literature flourished domestically under these two different styles. Professors and teachers, teachers of literature encouraged research among their students and were often writers themselves, author Xu Dishan, who taught at Hong Kong University, is the most famous of these. In addition to Chinese writing, there is also a body of literature in English. Notable Hong Kong English language writers include Stewart Sloan, Nury Vittachi, Colin McAdam, Rebecca Bradley, Larry Feign, cha, An Asian Literary Journal List of Hong Kong poets List of Hong Kong authors
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Economy of Hong Kong
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Its currency, called the Hong Kong dollar, is legally issued by three major international commercial banks, and pegged to the US dollar. Interest rates are determined by the banks in Hong Kong to ensure it is fully market-driven. There is no officially recognised central banking system, although Hong Kong Monetary Authority functions as a regulatory authority. When destabilising factors are hitting the market of Hong Kong, they will be monitored and inspected by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Electronic finance trading is evolutionarily impacting the market of Hong Kong. According to Index of Economic Freedom, Hong Kong has had the highest degree of freedom in the world since the inception of the Index in 1995. Its economy is governed under positive non-interventionism, and is dependent on international trade. In 2009, Hong Kongs real economic growth fell by 2. 8% as a result of the financial turmoil. Despite the downturn, these strengths enable it to respond to changing circumstances. It has the most efficient and an application procedure, the lowest income tax. The government of Hong Kong consistently upheld the policy of encouraging and supporting activities of private businesses, examples include the Cyberport and the Hong Kong Disneyland. This has an impact on the overall economic performance by removing unnecessary barriers for the private enterprises in the Special Administrative Region. Hong Kongs gross domestic product has grown 180 times between 1961 and 1997, also, the GDP per capita rose by 87 times within the same time frame. By the late 20th century, Hong Kong was the seventh largest port in the world and second only to New York, Hong Kong is a full Member of World Trade Organization. The Kwai Chung container complex was the largest in Asia, while Hong Kong shipping owners were only to those of Greece in terms of total tonnage holdings in the world. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is the sixth largest in the world, Hong Kong has also had an abundant supply of labour from the regions nearby. A skilled labour force coupled with the adoption of modern British/Western business methods and technology ensured that opportunities for trade, investment. Prices and wages in Hong Kong are relatively flexible, depending on the performance, Hong Kong raises revenues from the sale and taxation of land and through attracting international businesses to provide capital for its public finance, due to its low tax policy
21.
Education in Hong Kong
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Education in Hong Kong is largely modelled on that of the United Kingdom, particularly the English system. It is overseen by the Education Bureau and the Social Welfare Department, a small group of South Asian Hong Kongers marched through Central demanding more schooling in the English language on 3 June 2007. In the 2013/14 school year, there are 569 primary schools,514 secondary day schools and 61 special schools, small village Chinese schools were observed by the British missionaries when they arrived circa 1843. Anthony Sweeting believes those small village existed in Chek Chue, Shek Pai Wan, Heung Kong Tsai and Wong Nai Chong on Hong Kong Island. One of the earliest schools with reliable records was Li Ying College established in 1075 in present-day New Territories, by 1860 Hong Kong had 20 village schools. Chinese who were wealthy did not educate their children in Hong Kong, the changes came with the arrival of the British in 1841. At first Hong Kongs education came from Protestant and Catholic missionaries who provided social services, italian missionaries began to provide boy-only education to British and Chinese youth in 1843. By 1861 Frederick Stewart would become The Founder of Hong Kong Education for integrating a modern western-style education model into the Colonial Hong Kong school system, in 1862, the first government school, Queens College was set up, with Stewart serving as the first Headmaster. One of the much contested debate was whether schools should offer Vernacular education, Education was considered a luxury for the elite and the rich. The first school to open the floodgate of western medical practice to East Asia was the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, the London Missionary Society and Sir James Cantlie started the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese in 1887. In addition, the London Missionary Society founded Ying Wa Girls School in 1900, belilios Public School was a girls secondary school founded in 1890 – the first government school in Hong Kong that provided bilingual education in English and Chinese. Educating the poor did not become a priority until they accounted for the majority of the population, financial issues were addressed in the 1970s. Pre-school education in Hong Kong is not free and fees are payable by pupils parents, however, parents whose children have the right of abode in Hong Kong can pay for part of their fees with a voucher from the government under the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme. In 2013, the amount of subsidy under the PEVS is $16,800, every child in Hong Kong, without any reasonable excuse, is required by law to attend a primary school after the child has attained the age of 6 years. It is also required to attend a school after primary education and is completed before he attains the age of 19 years. However, child who has completed Form 3 of secondary education and whose parent can produce evidence to the satisfaction of the Permanent Secretary for Education, Education in the public sector is free. Children receive primary education usually from the age of 6 until 12, six subjects are studied, including English, Chinese, mathematics, General Studies, music, visual arts and physical education. At schools with religious affiliations, religious education or bible studies may be studied as well, secondary education is separated into junior and senior years
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Geography of Hong Kong
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The geography of Hong Kong primarily consists of three main territories, Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula, and the New Territories. The name Hong Kong, literally meaning fragrant harbour, is derived from the area around present-day Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island, the narrow body of water separating Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Peninsula, Victoria Harbour, is one of the deepest natural maritime ports in the world. Hong Kong and its 260 territorial islands and peninsulas are located in the South China Sea, the Kowloon Peninsula to the south of Boundary Street and the New Territories to the north of Hong Kong Island were added to Colonial Hong Kong in 1860 and 1898 respectively. The landscape of Hong Kong is fairly hilly to mountainous with steep slopes, the highest point in the territory is Tai Mo Shan, at a height of 958 metres. Lowlands exist in the part of the New Territories. Hong Kong is 60 km east of Macau on the side of the Pearl River estuary. It has a border with Shenzhen to the north. The remaining land is reserved as country parks and nature reserves, Hong Kong is located in eastern Asia, on the southeast coast of the Peoples Republic of China, facing the South China Sea. Hong Kongs climate is subtropical and monsoonal with cool dry winters and hot, as of 2006, its annual average rainfall is 2,214 mm, though about 80% of the rain falls between May and September. It is occasionally affected by tropical cyclones between May and November, most often from July to September, the mean temperature of Hong Kong ranges from 16 °C in January and February to 28 °C in July and August. January and February are more cloudy, with cold fronts followed by dry northerly winds. It is not uncommon for temperatures to drop below 10 °C in urban areas, sub-zero temperatures and frost occur at times on high ground and in the New Territories. March and April can be pleasant although there are occasional spells of high humidity, fog and drizzle are common on high ground which is exposed to the southeast. May to August are hot and humid with occasional showers and thunderstorms, afternoon temperatures often exceed 31 °C whereas at night, temperatures generally remain around 26 °C with high humidity. In November and December there are pleasant breezes, plenty of sunshine, Hong Kongs terrain is hilly and mountainous with steep slopes. There are lowlands in the part of Hong Kong. A significant amount of land in Hong Kong, especially on the Hong Kong Island, the lowest elevation in Hong Kong is in South China Sea while the highest elevation is at Tai Mo Shan in Tsuen Wan, the New Territories. Despite its small size, Hong Kong has a large number of mineral occurrences
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History of Hong Kong
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Starting out as a fishing village and salt production site, Hong Kong later evolved into an important free port and eventually a major international financial centre. Archaeological findings suggesting human activity in Hong Kong date back over 30,000 years, Stone tools from the Old Stone Age have been excavated in Sai Kung in Wong Tei Tung. The stone tools found in Sai Kung were perhaps from a tool making ground. Religious carvings on outlying islands and coastal areas have also been found, the latest findings dating from the Paleolithic suggest that Wong Tei Tung is one of the most ancient settlements in Hong Kong. The territory that now comprises Hong Kong was incorporated into China during the Qin dynasty, during the Qin dynasty, the territory was governed by Panyu County until the time of the Jin dynasty. Archaeological evidence indicates that the population increased during the Han dynasty, Tai Po Hoi, the sea of Tai Po, was a major pearl hunting harbour in China from the Han dynasty through to the Ming dynasty, with activities peaking during the Southern Han. During the Jin dynasty until the early Tang dynasty, Hong Kong was governed by Baoan County, under the Tang dynasty, the Guangdong region flourished as an international trading centre. The Tuen Mun region in what is now Hong Kongs New Territories served as a port, naval base, salt production centre, Lantau Island was also a salt production centre, where riots by salt smugglers against the government broke out. From the middle of the Tang dynasty until the Ming dynasty, in 1276, during the Mongol invasion, the Southern Song dynasty court moved to Fujian, then to Lantau Island and later to todays Kowloon City. Emperor Huaizong of Song, the last Song Dynasty emperor, was enthroned at Mui Wo on Lantau Island on 10 May 1278 at the age of eight and this event is commemorated by the Sung Wong Toi in Kowloon. After his defeat at the Battle of Yamen on 19 March 1279, Tung Chung valley, named after a hero who gave up his life for the emperor, is believed to have been one of the locations for his court. Hau Wong, an official of the emperor, is worshipped in Hong Kong today. During the Mongol period, Hong Kong saw its first population boom as Chinese refugees entered the area, many refugees were driven by war and famine. The five clans of Hau, Tang, Pang and Liu and Man were Chinese from Guangdong, Fujian and Jiangxi who lived mostly in the New Territories, despite the immigration and sparse development of agriculture, the area was hilly and relatively barren. People had to rely on salt, pearl and fishery trades to produce income, some clans built walled villages to protect themselves from the threat of bandits, rival clans and wild animals. The Qing-dynasty Chinese pirate Cheung Po Tsai became a legend in Hong Kong, during the Ming dynasty, Hong Kong was administered by Xinan County. During the Qing dynasty, Hong Kong remained under the governance of Xinan County, as a military outpost and trading port, Hong Kongs territory gained the attention of the world. After the Great Clearance policy, ordered by the Kangxi Emperor, many Hakka people migrated from inland China to Xinan County, which included modern Hong Kong
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Politics of Hong Kong
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Executive power is exercised by the government. On July 1,1997, sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred to the China, ending over one and a half centuries of British rule. Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region of the PRC with a degree of autonomy in all matters except foreign affairs and defence. For instance, the International Olympic Committee recognises Hong Kong as a participating dependency under the name, Hong Kong, China, separate from the delegation from the China. The Basic Law, Hong Kongs constitutional document, was approved in March 1990 by National Peoples Congress of China, the Hong Kong government is economically liberal, but currently universal suffrage is only granted in District Council elections, and in elections for part of the Legislative Council. The head of the government is elected through a college with the majority of its members elected by a limited number of voters mainly within business. The Executive Council, the top policy organ of the government that advises on policy matters, is entirely appointed by the Chief Executive. The franchise for the other 30 seats is limited to about 230,000 voters in the functional constituencies. The Judiciary consists of a series of courts, of which the court of final adjudication is the Court of Final Appeal and this caused widespread concerns among the public on the social and economic consequences. The NPCSC issued an interpretation in favour of the Hong Kong Government in June 1999, while the full powers of NPCSC to interpret the Basic Law is provided for in the Basic Law itself, some critics argues this undermines judicial independence. The Hong Kong 1 July March is an annual protest rally led by the Civil Human Rights Front since the 1997 handover on the HKSAR establishment day, however, it was only in 2003 when it drew large public attention by opposing the bill of the Article 23. In 2003, the HKSAR Government proposed to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law by legislating against acts such as treason, subversion, secession and sedition. However, there were concerns that the legislation would infringe human rights by introducing the concept of national security into the HKSAR. Together with the dissatisfaction with the Tung administration, about 500,000 people participated in this protest. Article 23 enactment was temporarily suspended, towards the end of 2003, the focus of political controversy shifted to the dispute of how subsequent Chief Executives get elected. The Basic Laws Article 45 stipulates that the goal is universal suffrage. Under the Basic Law, electoral law could be amended to allow for this as soon as 2007, arguments over this issue seemed to be responsible for a series of Mainland Chinese newspapers commentaries in February 2004 which stated that power over Hong Kong was only fit for patriots. On 26 April 2004, the Standing Committee of National Peoples Congress denied the possibility of universal suffrage in 2007 and 2008, in 2007 Chief Executive Sir Donald Tsang requested for Beijing to allow direct elections for the Chief Executive
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Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
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Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
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Cantonese
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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
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Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions
29.
Music
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Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound organized in time. The common elements of music are pitch, rhythm, dynamics, different styles or types of music may emphasize, de-emphasize or omit some of these elements. The word derives from Greek μουσική, Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as the harmony of the spheres and it is music to my ears point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to. However, 20th-century composer John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, There is no noise, the creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. There are many types of music, including music, traditional music, art music, music written for religious ceremonies. For example, it can be hard to draw the line between some early 1980s hard rock and heavy metal, within the arts, music may be classified as a performing art, a fine art or as an auditory art. People may make music as a hobby, like a teen playing cello in a youth orchestra, the word derives from Greek μουσική. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the music is derived from mid-13c. Musike, from Old French musique and directly from Latin musica the art of music and this is derived from the. Greek mousike of the Muses, from fem. of mousikos pertaining to the Muses, from Mousa Muse. In classical Greece, any art in which the Muses presided, Music is composed and performed for many purposes, ranging from aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, or as an entertainment product for the marketplace. With the advent of recording, records of popular songs. Some music lovers create mix tapes of their songs, which serve as a self-portrait. An environment consisting solely of what is most ardently loved, amateur musicians can compose or perform music for their own pleasure, and derive their income elsewhere. Professional musicians sometimes work as freelancers or session musicians, seeking contracts and engagements in a variety of settings, There are often many links between amateur and professional musicians. Beginning amateur musicians take lessons with professional musicians, in community settings, advanced amateur musicians perform with professional musicians in a variety of ensembles such as community concert bands and community orchestras. However, there are many cases where a live performance in front of an audience is also recorded and distributed. Live concert recordings are popular in classical music and in popular music forms such as rock, where illegally taped live concerts are prized by music lovers
30.
Mainland China
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Mainland China, also known as the Chinese mainland, is the geopolitical area under the direct jurisdiction of the Peoples Republic of China. It generally includes Hainan island and excludes the special regions of Hong Kong and Macau. The term mainland China was coined by the Kuomintang after receiving control of Taiwan from Japan after World War II. By 1949, the KMT-led Republic of China government was defeated in the Chinese Civil War, there are two terms in Chinese for mainland, Dàlù, which means continent, and Nèidì, literally inland or inner land. In the PRC, the usage of the two terms are interchangeable and there is no prescribed method of reference in any jurisdiction. To emphasize equal footing in Cross-Strait relations, the term is used in official contexts with reference to Taiwan, but in its relations with Hong Kong and Macau, the PRC government refers to itself as the Central Peoples Government. Mainland area is the term to free area of the Republic of China used in the ROC Constitution. It treats the mainland as part of ROCs territory despite the lack of effective control, by 1949, the Communist Party of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army had largely defeated the Kuomintang s National Revolutionary Army in the Chinese Civil War on the mainland. This has resulted in a situation in which two co-existing governments compete for legitimacy and recognition as the government of China. The phrase mainland China emerged as a neutral term to refer to the area under control of the Communist Party of China. Until the late 1970s, both the PRC and ROC envisioned a military takeover of the other, during this time the ROC referred to the PRC government as Communist Bandits while the PRC referred to the ROC as Chiang Bandits. Later, as a military solution became less feasible, the ROC referred to the PRC as Communist China, due to their status as colonies of foreign states during the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, the phrase mainland China excludes Hong Kong and Macau. Since the return of Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 and 1999, respectively, the territories also have their distinct identities. Therefore, mainland China generally continues to exclude these territories, because of the One country, the term is also used in economic indicators, such as the IMD Competitiveness Report. International news media often use China to refer only to mainland China or the Peoples Republic of China, in the PRC, the term 内地 is often contrasted with the term 境外 for things outside of the mainland region. Examples include Administration of Foreign-funded Banks or the Measures on Administration of Representative Offices of Foreign Insurance Institutions, Hainan is an offshore island, therefore geographically not part of the continental mainland. Nonetheless, Hainanese people still refer to the mainland as the mainland. In some coastal provinces such as Guangdong, Fujian and Jiangsu, in contrast, the pro-Taiwan independence Democratic Progressive Party prefer to use the term China instead, referring to the PRC, to imply that Taiwan is separate from China
31.
Taiwan
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Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. Neighbours include China to the west, Japan to the northeast, Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations, and the one with the largest economy. The island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, was inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before the 17th century. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty, following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROCs loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, in the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage, Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, the PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refused diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC, the PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible. There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, the former name Formosa dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means beautiful island. The name Formosa eventually replaced all others in European literature and was in use in English in the early 20th century. This name was adopted into the Chinese vernacular as the name of the sandbar. The modern word Taiwan is derived from this usage, which is seen in forms in Chinese historical records. Use of the current Chinese name was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture, through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as Taiwan. The official name of the state is the Republic of China and it was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when it lost its seat to the Peoples Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become known as Taiwan. In some contexts, especially ones from the ROC government
32.
Vietnam
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Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 92.7 million inhabitants as of 2016, it is the worlds 14th-most-populous country, and its capital city has been Hanoi since the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1976, with Ho Chi Minh City as a historical city as well. The northern part of Vietnam was part of Imperial China for over a millennium, an independent Vietnamese state was formed in 939, following a Vietnamese victory in the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Following a Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War, thereafter, Vietnam was divided politically into two rival states, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified in what is known as the Vietnam War, the war ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Vietnam was then unified under a communist government but remained impoverished, in 1986, the government initiated a series of economic and political reforms which began Vietnams path towards integration into the world economy. By 2000, it had established relations with all nations. Since 2000, Vietnams economic growth rate has been among the highest in the world and its successful economic reforms resulted in its joining the World Trade Organization in 2007. It is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Vietnam remains one of the worlds four remaining one-party socialist states officially espousing communism. The name Việt Nam is a variation of Nam Việt, a name that can be traced back to the Triệu Dynasty of the 2nd century BC. The word Việt originated as a form of Bách Việt. The form Vietnam is first recorded in the 16th-century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trình, the name has also been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Haiphong that dates to 1558. Then, as recorded, rewarded Yuenan/Vietnam as their nations name, to also show that they are below the region of Baiyue/Bach Viet. Between 1804 and 1813, the name was used officially by Emperor Gia Long and it was revived in the early 20th century by Phan Bội Châus History of the Loss of Vietnam, and later by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The country was usually called Annam until 1945, when both the government in Huế and the Viet Minh government in Hanoi adopted Việt Nam. Archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of humans in what is now Vietnam as early as the Paleolithic age, Homo erectus fossils dating to around 500,000 BC have been found in caves in Lạng Sơn and Nghệ An provinces in northern Vietnam. The oldest Homo sapiens fossils from mainland Southeast Asia are of Middle Pleistocene provenance, teeth attributed to Homo sapiens from the Late Pleistocene have also been found at Dong Can, and from the Early Holocene at Mai Da Dieu, Lang Gao and Lang Cuom. The Hồng Bàng dynasty of the Hùng kings is considered the first Vietnamese state, in 257 BC, the last Hùng king was defeated by Thục Phán, who consolidated the Lạc Việt and Âu Việt tribes to form the Âu Lạc, proclaiming himself An Dương Vương
33.
South Korea
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South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing in the 1st century BC and its rich and vibrant culture left 19 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Annexed into Imperial Japan in 1910, Korea was divided after its surrender in 1945, peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the worlds 10th largest defence budget. South Koreas tiger economy soared at an average of 10% for over 30 years in a period of rapid transformation called the Miracle on the Han River. A long legacy of openness and focus on innovation made it successful, today, it is the worlds fifth largest exporter with the G20s largest budget surplus and highest credit rating of any country in East Asia. It has free trade agreements with 75% of the economy and is the only G20 nation trading freely with China, the US. Since 1988, its constitution guarantees a liberal democracy with high government transparency, high personal freedoms led to the rise of a globally influential pop culture such as K-pop and K-drama, a phenomenon called the Korean Wave, known for its distinctive fashionable and trendy style. Home of the UN Green Climate Fund and GGGI, South Korea is a leader in low carbon growth, committed to helping developing countries as a major DAC. It is the third least ignorant country in the Index of Ignorance, ranking eighth highest for peaceful tolerance. It is the worlds largest spender on R&D per GDP, leading the OECD in graduates in science, the name Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After Goryeo was replaced by Joseon in 1392, Joseon became the name for the entire territory. The new official name has its origin in the ancient country of Gojoseon, in 1897, the Joseon dynasty changed the official name of the country from Joseon to Daehan Jeguk. The name Daehan, which means great Han literally, derives from Samhan, however, the name Joseon was still widely used by Koreans to refer to their country, though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted, there were several groups who fought for independence, the most notable being the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the Republic of Korea was adopted as the name for the new country. Since the government only controlled the part of the Korean Peninsula
34.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
35.
Singapore
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Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, sometimes referred to as the Lion City or the Little Red Dot, is a sovereign city-state in Southeast Asia. It lies one degree north of the equator, at the tip of peninsular Malaysia. Singapores territory consists of one island along with 62 other islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its size by 23%. During the Second World War, Singapore was occupied by Japan, after early years of turbulence, and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation developed rapidly as an Asian Tiger economy, based on external trade and its workforce. Singapore is a global commerce, finance and transport hub, the country has also been identified as a tax haven. Singapore ranks 5th internationally and first in Asia on the UN Human Development Index and it is ranked highly in education, healthcare, life expectancy, quality of life, personal safety, and housing, but does not fare well on the Democracy index. Although income inequality is high, 90% of homes are owner-occupied, 38% of Singapores 5.6 million residents are permanent residents and other foreign nationals. There are four languages on the island, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil. English is its language, most Singaporeans are bilingual. Singapore is a multiparty parliamentary republic, with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government. The Peoples Action Party has won every election since self-government in 1959, however, it is unlikely that lions ever lived on the island, Sang Nila Utama, the Srivijayan prince said to have founded and named the island Singapura, perhaps saw a Malayan tiger. There are however other suggestions for the origin of the name, the central island has also been called Pulau Ujong as far back as the third century CE, literally island at the end in Malay. In 1299, according to the Malay Annals, the Kingdom of Singapura was founded on the island by Sang Nila Utama and these Indianized Kingdoms, a term coined by George Cœdès were characterized by surprising resilience, political integrity and administrative stability. In 1613, Portuguese raiders burned down the settlement, which by then was part of the Johor Sultanate. The wider maritime region and much trade was under Dutch control for the following period, in 1824 the entire island, as well as the Temenggong, became a British possession after a further treaty with the Sultan. In 1826, Singapore became part of the Straits Settlements, under the jurisdiction of British India, prior to Raffles arrival, there were only about a thousand people living on the island, mostly indigenous Malays along with a handful of Chinese. By 1860 the population had swelled to over 80,000, many of these early immigrants came to work on the pepper and gambier plantations
36.
Malaysia
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Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government, with a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia, located in the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries on earth, with large numbers of endemic species. Malaysia has its origins in the Malay kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, the first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946, Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963 to become Malaysia, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. The country is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, which plays a role in politics. About half the population is ethnically Malay, with minorities of Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians. The constitution declares Islam the state religion while allowing freedom of religion for non-Muslims, the government system is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system and the legal system is based on common law. The head of state is the king, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and he is an elected monarch chosen from the hereditary rulers of the nine Malay states every five years. The head of government is the prime minister, since its independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with its GDP growing at an average of 6. 5% per annum for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce. Today, Malaysia has a newly industrialised market economy, ranked third largest in Southeast Asia, the name Malaysia is a combination of the word Malay and the Latin-Greek suffix -sia/-σία. The word melayu in Malay may derive from the Tamil words malai and ur meaning mountain and city, land, malayadvipa was the word used by ancient Indian traders when referring to the Malay Peninsula. Whether or not it originated from these roots, the word melayu or mlayu may have used in early Malay/Javanese to mean to steadily accelerate or run. This term was applied to describe the current of the river Melayu in Sumatra. The name was adopted by the Melayu Kingdom that existed in the seventh century on Sumatra
37.
Indonesia
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Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a unitary sovereign state and transcontinental country located mainly in Southeast Asia with some territories in Oceania. Situated between the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is the worlds largest island country, with more than seventeen thousand islands. At 1,904,569 square kilometres, Indonesia is the worlds 14th-largest country in terms of area and worlds 7th-largest country in terms of combined sea. It has an population of over 260 million people and is the worlds fourth most populous country. The worlds most populous island, Java, contains more than half of the countrys population, Indonesias republican form of government includes an elected legislature and president. Indonesia has 34 provinces, of which five have Special Administrative status and its capital and countrys most populous city is Jakarta, which is also the most populous city in Southeast Asia and the second in Asia. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, other neighbouring countries include Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia, Palau, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Despite its large population and densely populated regions, Indonesia has vast areas of wilderness that support the second highest level of biodiversity. The country has abundant natural resources like oil and natural gas, tin, copper, agriculture mainly produces rice, palm oil, tea, coffee, cacao, medicinal plants, spices and rubber. Indonesias major trading partners are Japan, United States, China, the Indonesian archipelago has been an important region for trade since at least the 7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India. Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models from the early centuries CE, Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources. Indonesia consists of hundreds of native ethnic and linguistic groups. The largest – and politically dominant – ethnic group are the Javanese, a shared identity has developed, defined by a national language, ethnic diversity, religious pluralism within a Muslim-majority population, and a history of colonialism and rebellion against it. Indonesias national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, articulates the diversity that shapes the country, Indonesias economy is the worlds 16th largest by nominal GDP and the 8th largest by GDP at PPP, the largest in Southeast Asia, and is considered an emerging market and newly industrialised country. Indonesia has been a member of the United Nations since 1950, Indonesia is a member of the G20 major economies and World Trade Organization. The name Indonesia derives from the Greek name of the Indós, the name dates to the 18th century, far predating the formation of independent Indonesia. In 1850, George Windsor Earl, an English ethnologist, proposed the terms Indunesians—and, his preference, in the same publication, one of his students, James Richardson Logan, used Indonesia as a synonym for Indian Archipelago. However, Dutch academics writing in East Indies publications were reluctant to use Indonesia, they preferred Malay Archipelago, the Netherlands East Indies, popularly Indië, the East, and Insulinde
38.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
39.
Rock and roll
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While elements of rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until the 1950s. For the purpose of differentiation, this deals with the first definition. The beat is essentially a blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars, a double bass or string bass or an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. Beyond simply a style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes. In addition, rock and roll may have contributed to the civil rights movement because both African-American and white American teens enjoyed the music and it went on to spawn various genres, often without the initially characteristic backbeat, that are now more commonly called simply rock music or rock. The term rock and roll now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary both define rock and roll as synonymous with rock music. Encyclopædia Britannica, on the hand, regards it as the music that originated in the mid-1950s. In 1934, the song Rock and Roll by the Boswell Sisters appeared in the film Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round, in 1942, Billboard magazine columnist Maurie Orodenker started to use the term rock-and-roll to describe upbeat recordings such as Rock Me by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. By 1943, the Rock and Roll Inn in South Merchantville, in 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style while popularizing the phrase to describe it. The origins of rock and roll have been debated by commentators. The migration of former slaves and their descendants to major urban centers such as St. The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the rhythm and blues, then called race music, particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, gospel, country, and folk. The 1940s saw the use of blaring horns, shouted lyrics. In the same period, particularly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, similarly, country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll. Rock and roll arrived at a time of technological change, soon after the development of the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone. It was the realization that relatively affluent white teenagers were listening to music that led to the development of what was to be defined as rock. Because the development of rock and roll was a process, no single record can be identified as unambiguously the first rock. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
40.
Rhythm and blues
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Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated as R&B or RnB, is a genre of popular African-American music that originated in the 1940s. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy. Lyrics focus heavily on the themes of triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, freedom, economics, aspirations, the term rhythm and blues has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s it was applied to blues records. This tangent of RnB is now known as British rhythm and blues, by the 1970s, the term rhythm and blues changed again and was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a style of R&B developed, becoming known as Contemporary R&B. It combines elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, pop, hip hop, popular R&B vocalists at the end of the 20th century included Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey. Although Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine is credited with coining the term rhythm and blues as a term in the United States in 1948. It replaced the term race music, which came from within the black community. The term rhythm and blues was used by Billboard in its chart listings from June 1949 until August 1969, before the Rhythm and Blues name was instated, various record companies had already begun replacing the term race music with sepia series. In 2010 LaMont Robinson founded the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame Museum, writer and producer Robert Palmer defined rhythm & blues as a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans. He has used the term R&B as a synonym for jump blues, however, AllMusic separates it from jump blues because of its stronger, gospel-esque backbeat. Lawrence Cohn, author of Nothing but the Blues, writes that rhythm, according to him, the term embraced all black music except classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold enough to break into the charts. Well into the 21st century, the term R&B continues in use to music made by black musicians. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, arrangements were rehearsed to the point of effortlessness and were sometimes accompanied by background vocalists. Simple repetitive parts mesh, creating momentum and rhythmic interplay producing mellow, lilting, while singers are emotionally engaged with the lyrics, often intensely so, they remain cool, relaxed, and in control. The bands dressed in suits, and even uniforms, an associated with the modern popular music that rhythm. Lyrics often seemed fatalistic, and the music typically followed predictable patterns of chords, there was also increasing emphasis on the electric guitar as a lead instrument, as well as the piano and saxophone
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Electronic music
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In general, a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound producing devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, purely electronic sound production can be achieved using devices such as the theremin, sound synthesizer, and computer. During the 1920s and 1930s, electronic instruments were introduced and the first compositions for instruments were composed. Musique concrète, created in Paris in 1948, was based on editing together recorded fragments of natural and industrial sounds, Music produced solely from electronic generators was first produced in Germany in 1953. Electronic music was created in Japan and the United States beginning in the 1950s. An important new development was the advent of computers for the purpose of composing music, algorithmic composition was first demonstrated in Australia in 1951. In America and Europe, live electronics were pioneered in the early 1960s, during the 1970s to early 1980s, the monophonic Minimoog became once the most widely used synthesizer at that time in both popular and electronic art music. In the 1980s, electronic music became dominant in popular music, with a greater reliance on synthesizers, and the adoption of programmable drum machines. Electronically produced music became prevalent in the domain by the 1990s. Contemporary electronic music includes many varieties and ranges from art music to popular forms such as electronic dance music. Today, pop music is most recognizable in its 4/4 form. At the turn of the 20th century, experimentation with emerging electronics led to the first electronic musical instruments and these initial inventions were not sold, but were instead used in demonstrations and public performances. The audiences were presented with reproductions of existing music instead of new compositions for the instruments, while some were considered novelties and produced simple tones, the Telharmonium accurately synthesized the sound of orchestral instruments. It achieved viable public interest and made progress into streaming music through telephone networks. Critics of musical conventions at the time saw promise in these developments, ferruccio Busoni encouraged the composition of microtonal music allowed for by electronic instruments. He predicted the use of machines in future music, writing the influential Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, futurists such as Francesco Balilla Pratella and Luigi Russolo began composing music with acoustic noise to evoke the sound of machinery. They predicted expansions in timbre allowed for by electronics in the influential manifesto The Art of Noises, developments of the vacuum tube led to electronic instruments that were smaller, amplified, and more practical for performance. In particular, the theremin, ondes Martenot and trautonium were commercially produced by the early 1930s, from the late 1920s, the increased practicality of electronic instruments influenced composers such as Joseph Schillinger to adopt them
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Western culture
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The term also applies beyond Europe, to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly connected to Europe by immigration, colonization, or influence. For example, Western Culture includes countries in the Americas and Australasia, whose language, before the Cold War era, the traditional Western viewpoint identified Western Civilization with the Western Christian countries and culture. Ancient Greece is considered the birthplace of Western culture, with the worlds first democratic system of government and major advances in philosophy, science, Greece was followed by Rome, which made key contributions in law, government, engineering and political organization. European culture developed with a range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism, and mysticism. Rational thinking developed through an age of change and formation, with the experiments of the Enlightenment. More often an ideology is what will be used to categorize it as a Western society. There is some disagreement about what nations should or should not be included in the category, many parts of the Eastern Roman Empire are considered Western today but were Eastern in the past. Since the context is highly biased and context-dependent, there is no agreed definition what the West is and it is difficult to determine which individuals fit into which category and the East–West contrast is sometimes criticized as relativistic and arbitrary. Globalism has spread Western ideas so widely that almost all cultures are, to some extent. Stereotyped views of the West have been labeled Occidentalism, paralleling Orientalism—the term for the 19th-century stereotyped views of the East, as Europe discovered the wider world, old concepts adapted. The area that had formerly considered the Orient became the Near East, as the interests of the European powers interfered with Meiji Japan and Qing China for the first time. Thus, the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 occurred in the Far East, the Greeks contrasted themselves to their Eastern neighbors, such as the Trojans in Iliad, setting an example for later contrasts between east and west. In the Middle Ages, the Near East provided a contrast to the West, concepts of what is the West arose out of legacies of the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. Later, ideas of the west were formed by the concepts of Latin Christendom, Western culture is neither homogeneous nor unchanging. As with all cultures, it has evolved and gradually changed over time. Nevertheless, it is possible to follow the evolution and history of the West, and appreciate its similarities and differences, its borrowings from, and contributions to, other cultures of humanity. Nevertheless, the Greeks felt they were the most civilized and saw themselves as something between the wild barbarians of most of Europe and the soft, slavish Middle-Easterners. In the meantime, however, Greece, under Alexander, had become a capital of the East, the Celts also created some significant literature in the ancient world whenever they were given the opportunity
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Southeast Asia
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Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies near the intersection of geological plates, with seismic and volcanic activity. Southeast Asia consists of two regions, Mainland Southeast Asia, also known historically as Indochina, comprising Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar. Maritime Southeast Asia, comprising Indonesia, East Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, East Timor, Brunei, Cocos Islands, definitions of Southeast Asia vary, but most definitions include the area represented by the countries listed below. All of the states are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the area, together with part of South Asia, was widely known as the East Indies or simply the Indies until the 20th century. Sovereignty issues exist over some territories in the South China Sea, Papua New Guinea has stated that it might join ASEAN, and is currently an observer. Southeast Asia is geographically divided into two subregions, namely Mainland Southeast Asia and Maritime Southeast Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia includes, Maritime Southeast Asia includes, The Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India are geographically considered part of Southeast Asia. Eastern Bangladesh and the Seven Sister States of India are culturally part of Southeast Asia, the eastern half of Indonesia and East Timor are considered to be biogeographically part of Oceania. Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago, homo floresiensis also lived in the area up until 12,000 years ago, when they became extinct. Austronesian people, who form the majority of the population in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, East Timor. Solheim and others have shown evidence for a Nusantao maritime trading network ranging from Vietnam to the rest of the archipelago as early as 5000 BC to 1 AD. The peoples of Southeast Asia, especially those of Austronesian descent, have been seafarers for thousands of years and their vessels, such as the vinta, were ocean-worthy. Magellans voyage records how much more manoeuvrable their vessels were, as compared to the European ships, Passage through the Indian Ocean aided the colonisation of Madagascar by the Austronesian people, as well as commerce between West Asia and Southeast Asia. Gold from Sumatra is thought to have reached as far west as Rome and this was later replaced by Hinduism. Theravada Buddhism soon followed in 525, in the 15th century, Islamic influences began to enter. This forced the last Hindu court in Indonesia to retreat to Bali, in Mainland Southeast Asia, Burma, Cambodia and Thailand retained the Theravada form of Buddhism, brought to them from Sri Lanka. This type of Buddhism was fused with the Hindu-influenced Khmer culture, very little is known about Southeast Asian religious beliefs and practices before the advent of Indian merchants and religious influences from the 2nd century BCE onwards. Prior to the 13th century CE, Hinduism and Buddhism were the religions in Southeast Asia
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Thailand
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Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, formerly known as Siam, is a country at the centre of the Indochinese peninsula in Southeast Asia. With a total area of approximately 513,000 km2, Thailand is the worlds 51st-largest country and it is the 20th-most-populous country in the world, with around 66 million people. The capital and largest city is Bangkok, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and has switched between parliamentary democracy and military junta for decades, the latest coup being in May 2014 by the National Council for Peace and Order. Its capital and most populous city is Bangkok and its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India on the Andaman Sea to the southwest. The Thai economy is the worlds 20th largest by GDP at PPP and it became a newly industrialised country and a major exporter in the 1990s. Manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism are leading sectors of the economy and it is considered a middle power in the region and around the world. The country has always been called Mueang Thai by its citizens, by outsiders prior to 1949, it was usually known by the exonym Siam. The word Siam has been identified with the Sanskrit Śyāma, the names Shan and A-hom seem to be variants of the same word. The word Śyâma is possibly not its origin, but a learned, another theory is the name derives from Chinese, Ayutthaya emerged as a dominant centre in the late fourteenth century. The Chinese called this region Xian, which the Portuguese converted into Siam, the signature of King Mongkut reads SPPM Mongkut King of the Siamese, giving the name Siam official status until 24 June 1939 when it was changed to Thailand. Thailand was renamed Siam from 1945 to 11 May 1949, after which it reverted to Thailand. According to George Cœdès, the word Thai means free man in the Thai language, ratcha Anachak Thai means kingdom of Thailand or kingdom of Thai. Etymologically, its components are, ratcha, -ana- -chak, the Thai National Anthem, written by Luang Saranupraphan during the extremely patriotic 1930s, refers to the Thai nation as, prathet Thai. The first line of the anthem is, prathet thai ruam lueat nuea chat chuea thai, Thailand is the unity of Thai flesh. There is evidence of habitation in Thailand that has been dated at 40,000 years before the present. Similar to other regions in Southeast Asia, Thailand was heavily influenced by the culture and religions of India, Thailand in its earliest days was under the rule of the Khmer Empire, which had strong Hindu roots, and the influence among Thais remains even today. Voretzsch believes that Buddhism must have been flowing into Siam from India in the time of the Indian Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire, later Thailand was influenced by the south Indian Pallava dynasty and north Indian Gupta Empire. The Menam Basin was originally populated by the Mons, and the location of Dvaravati in the 7th century, the History of the Yuan mentions an embassy from the kingdom of Sukhothai in 1282
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Guangdong
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Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the Peoples Republic of China. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are among the most populous, the population increase since the census has been modest, the province at 2014 end had 107,240,000 people. Since 1989, Guangdong has topped the total GDP rankings among all divisions, with Jiangsu and Shandong second. According to state statistics, Guangdongs GDP in 2014 reached RMB6,779 billion, or US$1.104 trillion, since 2011, Guangdong has the highest GDP among all provinces of Mainland China. The province contributes approximately 12% of the PRCs national economic output, Guangdong also hosts the largest import and export fair in China called the Canton Fair in Guangdongs capital city Guangzhou. Guǎng means expanse or vast, and has associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD226. Guangdong and neighbouring Guangxi literally mean expanse east and expanse west, together, Guangdong and Guangxi are called Loeng gwong. During the Song dynasty, the Two Guangs were formally separated as Guǎngnán Dōnglù and Guǎngnán Xīlù, one should note that Canton, though etymologically derived from Cantão, refers only to the provincial capital instead of the whole province, as documented by authoritative English dictionaries. The local people of the city of Guangzhou and their language are commonly referred to as Cantonese in English. Because of the prestige of Canton and its accent, Cantonese sensu lato can also be used for the phylogenetically related residents, Chinese administration and reliable historical records in the region began with the Qin dynasty. After establishing the first unified Chinese empire, the Qin expanded southwards and set up Nanhai Commandery at Panyu, the region was independent as Nanyue between the fall of Qin and the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. Under the Wu Kingdom of the Three Kingdoms period, Guangdong was made its own province, for example, internal strife in northern China following the rebellion of An Lushan resulted in a 75% increase in the population of Guangzhou prefecture between 740s–750s and 800s–810s. As more migrants arrived, the population was gradually assimilated to Han Chinese culture or displaced. Multiple women originating from the Persian Gulf lived in Guangzhous foreign quarter, together with Guangxi, Guangdong was made part of Lingnan Circuit, or Mountain-South Circuit, in 627 during the Tang dynasty. The Guangdong part of Lingnan Circuit was renamed Guangnan East Circuit guǎng nán dōng lù in 971 during the Song dynasty, Guangnan East is the source of Guangdong. As Mongols from the north engaged in their conquest of China in the 13th century, the Battle of Yamen 1279 in Guangdong marked the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. During the Mongol Yuan dynasty, large parts of current Guangdong belonged to Jiangxi and its present name, Guangdong Province was given in early Ming dynasty. Since the 16th century, Guangdong has had extensive links with the rest of the world
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Guangxi
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Guangxi, officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is a Chinese autonomous region in South Central China, bordering Vietnam. Formerly a province, Guangxi became a region in 1958. Guangxis location, in mountainous terrain in the far south of China, has placed it on the frontier of Chinese civilization throughout much of Chinas history, the current name Guang means expanse and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in 226 AD. It was given provincial level status during the Yuan dynasty, but even into the 20th century it was considered an open, the abbreviation of the region is 桂, which comes from the name of the city of Guilin, the provincial capital during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Originally inhabited by a mixture of groups known to the Chinese as the Baiyue. In 214 BC, the Han Chinese general Zhao Tuo claimed most of southern China for Qin Shi Huang before the emperors death, the ensuing civil war permitted Zhao to establish a separate kingdom at Panyu known as Nanyue Southern Yue. The name Guangxi can be traced to the Expansive or Wide province of the Eastern Wu, Guilin formed one of its commanderies. Under the Tang dynasty, the Zhuang moved to support Piluoges Yi-ruled kingdom of Nanzhao in Yunnan, Guangxi was then divided into an area of Zhuang ascendancy west of Nanning and an area of Han ascendancy east of Nanning. After the collapse of the Southern Zhao, Liu Yan established the Southern Han in Xingwangfu, although this state gained minimal control over Guangxi, it was plagued by instability and annexed by the Song dynasty in 971. The name Guangxi itself can be traced to the Song, who administered the area as the Guangnanxi Circuit, harassed by both Song and the Jiaozhi in modern Vietnam, the Zhuang leader Nong Zhigao led a revolt in 1052 for which he is still remembered by the Zhuang people. His independent kingdom was short-lived, however, and the tattooed Song general Di Qing returned Guangxi to China, the Yuan dynasty established control over Yunnan during its conquest of the Dali Kingdom in 1253 and eliminated the Southern Song following the Battle of Yamen in 1279. Rather than ruling Lingnan as a territory or military district. The area nonetheless continued to be unruly, leading the Ming dynasty to employ the different local groups against one another, at the Battle of Big Rattan Gorge between the Zhuang and the Yao in 1465,20,000 deaths were reported. The Qing dynasty left the region alone until the imposition of rule in 1726. A Yao revolt in 1831 was followed by the Taiping Rebellion in 1850, the execution of St. Auguste Chapdelaine by local officials in Guangxi provoked the Second Opium War in 1858 and the legalization of foreign interference in the interior. Although Louis Brière de lIsle was unable to invade its depot at Longzhou, largely ineffective within Vietnam, it was still able to repulse the French from China itself at the Battle of Zhennan Pass on 23 March 1885. Following the Wuchang Uprising, Guangxi seceded from the Qing Empire on 6 November 1911, the Qing governor, Shen Bingdan, initially remained in place, but was subsequently removed by a mutiny commanded by General Lu Rongting. General Lus Old Guangxi clique overran Hunan and Guangdong as well, Zhuang loyalty made his Self-Government Army cohesive but reluctant to move far beyond its own provinces
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Paula Tsui
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Paula Tsui Siu-fung is a Cantopop singer in Hong Kong, with a career of spanning over 40 years. She has been affiliated with the TVB television station until the mid-1990s but has performed for Asia Television on several occasions since 1995, Tsui is the oldest of six children, with three brothers and two sisters. After graduating high school, she worked at her fathers salon as a nail technician and hairstylist. According to HK magazine, Paula Tsui was born in Hubei, Tsui recalls her childhood of being a mischievous girl. She thinks of herself as hard to control and was not a good kid. For example, she only enjoyed music classes, because she thought singing was so natural to her, however, when her class teacher asked her to sing the school hymns, she rejected and ended up singing pop songs. She believes that her rebellious attitude came about because she never knew what she wanted to do, the thing that changed her life was a singing contest when Tsui entered one in 1965. Initially, she was reluctant to join the competition, but her friends kept persuading her, then finally, Tsui won that contest came out the champion. However, Tsui promised her family that she would not change her mind, finally her family agreed with her choice to become a singer. Tsui felt so grateful to her parents reluctance and from it came a promise with her family to become a successful singer, show business had a lot of temptations and this promise kept a firm focus on her singing. Tsui is private about her life, especially in regards to her romantic life. It was not until the 1990s that was discovered that she had secretly married to Hong Kong radio host. Tsui was then already a singer, while Cheng was still relatively unknown at that time. After winning a contest in 1966, she began performing. She started at lounges and eventually at nightclubs as a supporting act placed between better known performers, during that time, Tsui performed over 400 songs, she did not set out to learn all the songs, but she eventually memorised them all. Thats the reason why a lot of people think she has a high standard. She thought that doing her best was a basic requirement, even though a lot of people told her that she was famous, she never considered herself popular because she thought it would put too much pressure on herself. A record label executive was in the audience during one of her nightclub performances, after signing the contract, Tsui was not allowed to perform in nightclubs again
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