1.
World Heritage Site
–
A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
World Heritage Site
–
Site #252:
Taj Mahal, an example of cultural heritage site
World Heritage Site
–
Logo of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
World Heritage Committee
World Heritage Site
–
Site #156:
Serengeti National Park, an example of natural heritage site
World Heritage Site
–
Site #274:
Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, an example of mixed heritage site
2.
Qufu
–
Qufu is a city in southwestern Shandong Province, near the eastern coast of China. It is located about 130 kilometres south of the provincial capital Jinan and 45 kilometres northeast of the seat at Jining. Qufu has an population of about 60,000. Qufu is best known as the hometown of Confucius, who is believed to have been born at nearby Mount Ni. The city contains numerous historic palaces, temples and cemeteries, the three most famous cultural sites of the city, collectively known as San Kong, i. e. The Three Confucian, are the Temple of Confucius, the Cemetery of Confucius, together, these three sites have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994. The name Qufu literally means crooked hill, and refers to a hill that was part of the city during its time as capital of the state of Lu. During the Shang, the area around Qufu was home to the people of Yan, along with Pugu and Xu, Yan joined the Shang prince Wu Geng and the Three Guards in their failed rebellion against the Duke of Zhou c. 1142 BC. After the rebels defeat, the Duke launched punitive campaigns against the Dongyi, forcing their submission, the territory of the Yan became part of the state of Lu, who made Qufu their capital throughout the Spring and Autumn period. This city had walls considerably larger than the present Ming-era fortifications, including land to the east. During the Tang Dynasty and the days of the Song Dynasty the city was centered around the present-day Temple of Duke Zhou. A temple in honor of the Yellow Emperor was built there, after the conquest of the northern China by the Jurchens, the new Jin Dynasty renamed Xianyuan back to Qufu, but the city stayed at its Song location. It was not until the reign of the Jiajing Emperor of the Ming Dynasty that the city wall was built. The site of the city in 1012-1522 is now Jiuxian Village, from that time up until the Yuan dynasty, there were two Duke Yanshengs, once in the north in Qufu and the other in the south at Quzhou. An invitation to come back to Qufu was extended to the southern Duke Yansheng Kong Zhu by the Yuan dynasty Emperor Kublai Khan. The title was taken away from the branch after Kong Zhu rejected the invitation. The southern branch still remained in Quzhou where they lived to this day, confuciuss descendants in Quzhou alone number 30,000. The Hanlin Academy rank of Wujing boshi 五經博士 was awarded to the branch at Quzhou by a Ming Emperor while the northern branch at Qufu held the title Duke Yansheng
Qufu
–
Qufu's south gate
Qufu
–
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Qufu
–
Historical plan of the Temple of Confucius (1912)
Qufu
–
Tomb of Confucius
3.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
4.
Chinese language
–
Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
Chinese language
–
The
Tripitaka Koreana, a Korean collection of the
Chinese Buddhist canon
Chinese language
–
Hànyǔ (Chinese) written in
traditional (left) and
simplified (right) characters
Chinese language
–
"
Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion " by
Wang Xizhi, written in
semi-cursive style
5.
Standard Chinese
–
Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
Standard Chinese
–
A poster outside of high school in
Yangzhou urges people to speak Putonghua
Standard Chinese
–
Zhongguo Guanhua (中国官话/中國官話), or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by
Étienne Fourmont (with
Arcadio Huang) in 1742
6.
Hanyu Pinyin
–
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
Hanyu Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Hanyu Pinyin
–
In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
7.
Wu Chinese
–
Wu is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese primarily spoken in the whole city of Shanghai, Zhejiang province, southern Jiangsu province and bordering areas. Major Wu varieties include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Wenzhou/Oujiang, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Wu speakers, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Lu Xun and Cai Yuanpei, occupied positions of great importance in modern Chinese culture and politics. Wu can also be found being used in Shaoxing opera, which is only in national popularity to Peking opera, as well as in the performances of the popular entertainer. Wu is also spoken in a number of diaspora communities, with significant centers of immigration originating from Shanghai, Qingtian. Suzhou has traditionally been the center of Wu and was likely the first place the distinct variety of Sinitic known as Wu developed. Suzhou dialect is considered to be the most linguistically representative of the family. Due to the influence of Shanghainese, Wu as a whole is incorrectly labelled in English as simply, Shanghainese, among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech, Ngu nung nioe ngiu, Wu varieties have the largest vowel quality inventories in the world. The Jinhui dialect spoken in Shanghais Fengxian District has 20 vowel qualities, Wu Chinese, along with Min, is also of great significance to historical linguists due to their retention of many ancient features. These two languages have proven pivotal in determining the history of the Chinese languages. More pressing concerns of the present are those of language preservation, however, many analysts believe that a stable state of diglossia will endure for at least several generations if not indefinitely. Saying one speaks Wu is akin to saying one speaks a Romance language and it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Hochdeutsch. They do this by affixing 話 Wo to their locations endonym, for example, 溫州話 Wēnzhōuhuà is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話 xiánhuà is also common and more typical of the Taihu division, Wu, the formal name and standard reference in dialectology literature. Northern Wu, Wu typically spoken in the north of Zhejiang and it by default includes the Xuanzhou division in Anhui as well, however this division is often neglected in Northern Wu discussions. Southern Wu, Wu spoken in southern Zhejiang and periphery, comprising the Oujiang, Wuzhou, Western Wu, A term gaining in usage as a synonym for the Xuanzhou division and modeled after the previous two terms since the Xuanzhou division is less representative of Northern Wu. Shanghainese, is also a common name, used because Shanghai is the most well-known city in the Wu-speaking region. The term Shanghainese is never used by linguists to refer to anything
Wu Chinese
–
Wu (Wú Yǔ) written in
Chinese characters
8.
Cantonese
–
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
Cantonese
–
Street in
Chinatown, San Francisco. Cantonese has traditionally been the dominant Chinese variant among Chinese populations in the Western world.
Cantonese
–
Gwóngdūng Wah / gwong 2 dung 1 waa 6 (Cantonese) written in
traditional Chinese (left) and
simplified Chinese (right) characters
Cantonese
–
Chinese dictionary from Tang dynasty. Modern Cantonese pronunciation is more similar to Middle Chinese from this era than other Chinese varieties.
9.
Jyutping
–
Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
Jyutping
–
Jyutping Romanization.
10.
Southern Min
–
Southern Min, or Minnan, is a branch of Min Chinese spoken in certain parts of China including southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and southern Zhejiang, and in Taiwan. The Min Nan dialects are spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to Hokkien, including Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien, the Southern Min dialect group also includes Teochew, though Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with Hokkien. Hainanese is not mutually intellgible with other Southern Min and is considered a separate branch of Min. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Pu-Xian Min, any other Min branch, Hakka, Cantonese, Shanghainese or Mandarin. Southern Min dialects are spoken in the part of Fujian. The variant spoken in Leizhou, Guangdong as well as Hainan is Hainanese and is not mutually intelligible with other Southern Min or Teochew, Hainanese is classified in some schemes as part of Southern Min and in other schemes as separate. Puxian Min was originally based on the Quanzhou dialect, but over time became heavily influenced by Eastern Min, eventually losing intellegility with Minnan. A forms of Southern Min spoken in Taiwan, collectively known as Taiwanese, Southern Min is a first language for most of the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklo speak Southern Min fluently, there are many Southern Min speakers also among Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese immigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present-day Malaysia and Singapore. In general, Southern Min from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and speak Teochew language, the variant of Southern Min from that region. Southern Min-speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore, with the largest group being Hokkien, despite the similarities the two groups are rarely seen as part of the same Minnan Chinese subgroups. The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou, the variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Those Southern Min variants that are known as Hokkien in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants. The variants of Southern Min in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province are known as Teochew or Chaozhou. Teochew is of importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra. The Philippines variant is mostly from the Quanzhou area as most of their forefathers are from the aforementioned area, the Southern Min language variant spoken around Shanwei and Haifeng differs markedly from Teochew and may represent a later migration from Zhangzhou
Southern Min
–
Koa-a books, Min Nan written in Chinese characters
Southern Min
–
Distribution of Southern Min.
11.
Taiwanese Romanization System
–
The Taiwanese Romanization System is a transcription system for Taiwanese Hokkien. It is derived from Pe̍h-ōe-jī and since 2006 has been promoted by Taiwans Ministry of Education. It is nearly identical to Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet Romanization for Hakka apart from using ts tsh j instead of c ch j for the fricatives /ts tsʰ dz/, Taiwanese Romanization System uses 16 basic Latin letters,7 digraphs and a trigraph. In addition, it uses 6 diacritics to represent tones, nn is only used after a vowel to express nasalization, so it has no capital letter. Palatalization occurs when J, S, Ts, Tsh followed by i, so Ji, Si, Tsi, of the 10 unused basic Latin letters, R is sometimes used to express dialectal vowels, while the others are only used in loanwords. O pronounced ㄜ in general dialect in Kaohsiung and Tainan, ㄛ in Taipei, -nn forms the nasal vowels There is also syllabic m and ng. ing pronounced, ik pronounced. A hyphen links elements of a compound word, a double hyphen indicates that the following syllable has a neutral tone and therefore that the preceding syllable does not undergo tone sandhi. 臺灣閩南語羅馬拼音及其發音學習網, Taiwanese Romanization System learning site by Ministry of Education, Taiwan
Taiwanese Romanization System
–
Taiwanese Romanization System
12.
Pinyin
–
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Pinyin
–
In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
13.
Confucius
–
Confucius was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history. The philosophy of Confucius emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and his followers competed successfully with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin Dynasty. Following the victory of Han over Chu after the collapse of Qin, aphorisms concerning his teachings were compiled in the Analects, but only many years after his death. Confuciuss principles had a basis in common Chinese tradition and belief and he championed strong family loyalty, ancestor veneration, and respect of elders by their children and of husbands by their wives. He also recommended family as a basis for ideal government and he espoused the well-known principle Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself, the Golden Rule. Confucius is also a deity in Daoism. According to tradition, three generations before Confucius time, his ancestors had migrated from the Song state to the Lu state, Confucius was a descendant of the Shang dynasty Kings through the Dukes of Song. Confucius family and personal name respectively was Kong Qiu, in Chinese, he is most often known as Kongzi. He is also known by the honorific Kong Fuzi, in the Wade–Giles system of romanization, the honorific name is rendered as Kung Fu-tzu. The Latinized name Confucius is derived from Kong Fuzi, and was first coined by 16th-century Jesuit missionaries to China, within the Analects, he is often referred to simply as the Master. In 1 AD, Confucius was given his first posthumous name, in 1530, he was declared the Extremely Sage Departed Teacher. He is also known separately as the Great Sage, First Teacher and it is generally thought that Confucius was born on September 28,551 BC. His birthplace was in Zou, Lu state and his father Kong He, also known as Shuliang He, was an officer in the Lu military. Kong died when Confucius was three years old, and Confucius was raised by his mother Yan Zhengzai in poverty and his mother would later die at less than 40 years of age. At age 19 he married his wife Qiguan, and a year later the couple had their first child, Qiguan and Confucius would later have two daughters together, one of whom is thought to have died early in her life as a child. Confucius was educated at schools for commoners, where he studied and learned the Six Arts, Confucius was born into the class of shi, between the aristocracy and the common people. When his mother died, Confucius is said to have mourned for three years, as was the tradition, the Lu state was headed by a ruling ducal house. Under the duke were three families, whose heads bore the title of viscount and held hereditary positions in the Lu bureaucracy
Confucius
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A portrait of Confucius by the
Tang dynasty artist
Wu Daozi (680–740)
Confucius
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Lu can be seen in China's northeast.
Confucius
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The Dacheng Hall, the main hall of the
Temple of Confucius in
Qufu
Confucius
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The
Analects of Confucius
14.
Shandong
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Shandong is a coastal province of the Peoples Republic of China, and is part of the East China region. Shandongs Mount Tai is the most revered mountain of Taoism and one of the sites with the longest history of continuous religious worship. The Buddhist temples in the mountains to the south of the capital of Jinan were once among the foremost Buddhist sites in China. The city of Qufu is the birthplace of Confucius, and was established as the center of Confucianism. Individually, the two Chinese characters in the name Shandong mean mountain and east, Shandong could hence be translated literally as east of the mountains and refers to the provinces location to the east of the Taihang Mountains. A common nickname for Shandong is Qílǔ, after the States of Qi and Lu that existed in the area during the Spring and Autumn period. Whereas the State of Qi was a power of its era. Lu, however, became renowned for being the home of Confucius, the cultural dominance of the State of Lu heritage is reflected in the official abbreviation for Shandong which is 鲁. English speakers in the 19th century called the province Shan-tung, the province is on the eastern edge of the North China Plain and in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, and extends out to sea as the Shandong Peninsula. The earliest dynasties exerted varying degrees of control over western Shandong, over subsequent centuries, the Dongyi were eventually sinicized. During the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, at this time, Shandong was home to two major states, the state of Qi at Linzi and the state of Lu at Qufu. Lu is noted for being the home of Confucius, the state was, however, comparatively small, and eventually succumbed to the larger state of Chu from the south. The state of Qi was, on the hand, was a major power throughout the period. Cities it ruled included Linzi, Jimo and Ju, the Qin dynasty conquered Qi and founded the first centralized Chinese state in 221 BCE. The Han dynasty that followed created a number of commanderies supervised by two regions in what is now modern Shandong, Qingzhou in the north and Yanzhou in the south, during the division of the Three Kingdoms, Shandong belonged to the Cao Wei, which ruled over northern China. After the Three Kingdoms period, a period of unity under the Western Jin dynasty gave way to invasions by nomadic peoples from the north. Northern China, including Shandong, was overrun, Shandong stayed with the Northern Dynasties for the rest of this period. The Sui dynasty reestablished unity in 589, and the Tang dynasty presided over the golden age of China
Shandong
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A
Song -era monument to a legendary native of Shandong, the
Yellow Emperor, at his
supposed birthplace
Shandong
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Map showing the location of Shandong Province
Shandong
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Dezhou, Shandong.
Shandong
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The sacred
Mount Tai.
15.
Province (PRC)
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Provinces, formally provincial-level administrative divisions or first-level administrative divisions, are the highest-level Chinese administrative divisions. There are 34 such divisions, classified as 23 provinces, four municipalities, five autonomous regions, the Peoples Republic of China claims sovereignty over the territory administered by the Republic of China, claiming most of it as its Taiwan Province. The ROC also administers some offshore islands which form Fujian Province and these were part of an originally unified Fujian province, which since the stalemate of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 has been divided between the PRC and ROC. Note that every province has a Communist Party of China provincial committee, the committee secretary is in effective charge of the province, rather than the nominal governor of the provincial government. The government of each province is nominally led by a provincial committee. The committee secretary is first-in-charge of the province, second-in-command is the governor of the provincial government, the Peoples Republic of China claims the island of Taiwan and its surrounding islets, including Penghu, as Taiwan Province. The territory is controlled by the Republic of China, a municipality or direct-controlled municipality is a higher level of city which is directly under the Chinese government, with status equal to that of the provinces. In practice, their status is higher than that of common provinces. The governor of each region is usually appointed from the respective minority ethnic group. A special administrative region is an autonomous and self-governing subnational subject of the Peoples Republic of China that is directly under the Central Peoples Government. Each SAR has an executive as head of the region. The regions government is not fully independent, as policy and military defence are the responsibility of the central government. Notes,1, as of 20102, per km23, km24, Abbreviation in the parentheses is informal 5, Since founding in 1949, however, the PRC has never controlled Taiwan. Taiwan currently administers Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, the subject of whether or not Taiwan is part of China is often debated, with no clear conclusion. The Ming Dynasty kept the system set up by the Yuan Dynasty, however. By the time of the establishment of the Qing Dynasty in 1644 there were 18 provinces, in addition, there was a zongdu, a general military inspector or governor general, for every two to three provinces. Outer regions of China were not divided into provinces, military leaders or generals oversaw Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, while vice-dutong and civilian leaders headed the leagues, a subdivision of Mongolia. The ambans supervised the administration of Tibet, in 1884 Xinjiang became a province, in 1907 Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang were made provinces as well
Province (PRC)
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Map comparing administrative divisions as drawn by the PRC and ROC.
Province (PRC)
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Provincial division 省份 Shěngfèn
16.
UNESCO
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
UNESCO
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UNESCO offices in
Brasília
UNESCO
–
UNESCO
UNESCO
–
UNESCO Institute for Water Education in
Delft
UNESCO
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The Garden of Peace, UNESCO headquarters, Paris. Donated by the Government of Japan, this garden was designed by American-Japanese sculptor artist Isamu Noguchi in 1958 and installed by Japanese gardener Toemon Sano.
17.
Temple of Confucius, Qufu
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The Temple of Confucius in Qufu, Shandong Province, is the largest and most renowned temple of Confucius in East Asia. Since 1994, the Temple of Confucius has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and those three sites are collectively known in Qufu as San Kong, i. e. Within two years after the death of Confucius, his house in Qufu was already consecrated as a temple by the Prince of Lu. In 205 BC, Emperor Gao of the Han Dynasty was the first emperor to offer sacrifices to the memory of Confucius in Qufu and he set an example for many emperors and high officials to follow. Later, emperors would visit Qufu after their enthronement or on important occasions such as a successful war, in total,12 different emperors paid 20 personal visits to Qufu to worship Confucius. About 100 others sent their deputies for 196 official visits, the original three-room house of Confucius was removed from the temple complex during a rebuilding undertaken in 611 AD. In 1012 and in 1094, during the Song Dynasty, the temple was extended into a design with three sections and four courtyards, around which more than 400 rooms were arranged. Fire and vandalism destroyed the temple in 1214, during the Jin Dynasty and it was restored to its former extent by the year 1302 during the Yuan Dynasty. Shortly thereafter, in 1331, the temple was framed in an enclosure wall modelled on the Imperial palace, after another devastation by fire in 1499, the temple was finally restored to its present scale. In 1724, yet another fire destroyed the main hall. The subsequent restoration was completed in 1730, many of the replacement sculptures were damaged and destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in 1966. In total, the Temple of Confucius has undergone 15 major renovations,31 large repairs, another main Confucius Temple was built in Quzhou by the southern branch of the Confucius family. The temple complex is among the largest in China, it covers an area of 16,000 square metres and has a total of 460 rooms. The main part of the consists of 9 courtyards arranged on a central axis. The first three courtyards have small gates and are planted with pine trees, they serve an introductory function. The first gate is named Lingxing Gate after a star in the Great Bear constellation, the buildings in the remaining courtyards form the heart of the complex. They are impressive structures with yellow roof-tiles and red-painted walls, they are surrounded by pine trees to create a color contrast with complementary colors. The hall covers an area of 54 by 34 m and stands less than 32 m tall
Temple of Confucius, Qufu
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UNESCO World Heritage Site
Temple of Confucius, Qufu
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Historical plan of the Temple of Confucius (1912)
Temple of Confucius, Qufu
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Lingxing Gate
Temple of Confucius, Qufu
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Dacheng Halls façade
18.
Kong Family Mansion
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The Kong Family Mansion was the historical residence of the direct descendants of Confucius in the City of Qufu, the hometown of Confucius in Shandong Province, China. The extant structures date from the Ming and Qing dynasties. From the mansion, the family tended to the Confucian sites in Qufu, the Kong family was in charge of conducting elaborate religious ceremonies on occasions such as plantings, harvests, honoring the dead, and birthdays. Today, the mansion is a museum and part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Temple and Cemetery of Confucius, the mansion is located immediately to the east of the Temple of Confucius to which it had been formerly connected. The layout of the mansion is traditionally Chinese and separates official spaces in the style of a Yamen in the front of the complex from the quarters in the rear. Besides the yamen and the quarters, the complex also contains an eastern. The eastern study was used by the Duke of Yansheng to meet official guests, the western study was used by the family for study, meals, and entertaining friends. In its present layout, the mansion comprises 152 buildings with 480 rooms and its tallest structure is the 4-story refuge tower that was designed as a shelter during an attack but was never used. The mansion houses an archive with about 60,000 documents related to the life in the mansion over a period of 400 years during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the first mansion for the Kong family of the Duke Yansheng was built in 1038 during the Song Dynasty. In 1377, the mansion was relocated and rebuilt under orders of the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty. In 1503, during the reign of the Hongzhi Emperor, the complex was expanded into three rows of buildings with 560 rooms and - like the neighboring Confucius Temple - nine courtyards. During the Qing Dynasty, the mansion underwent a renovation in 1838 only to be damaged in a fire 48 years later that destroyed the womens quarters in 1886. Even during the fire, men did not dare to enter the part of the mansion to fight the fire. The damaged portions of the mansion were rebuilt two years later, the cost of both these 19th-century renovations was covered by the emperor, despite these later renovations, the Kong Family Mansion remains the best preserved Ming-era residential complex of its size. The last head of the Kong family to live in the mansion was Kong Decheng, Kong Decheng fled to Chongqing because of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. He did not return to Qufu but moved on to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War, there is another Kong Family Mansion in Quzhou built by the southern branch of Confucius descendants. The major structures along the axis of the mansion are. The central courtyard is flanked to the east and west by former administrative office buildings
Kong Family Mansion
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UNESCO World Heritage Site
Kong Family Mansion
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Refuge tower of the mansion.
Kong Family Mansion
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Gate of Double Glory
Kong Family Mansion
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Drinking water outlet at the gate to the inner apartments
19.
Zhou Dynasty
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The Zhou dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang dynasty and preceded the Qin dynasty. This period of Chinese history produced what many consider the zenith of Chinese bronze-ware making, the dynasty also spans the period in which the written script evolved into its almost-modern form with the use of an archaic clerical script that emerged during the late Warring States period. He even received sacrifice as a harvest god, the term Hòujì was probably an hereditary title attached to a lineage. Jus son Liu, however, led his people to prosperity by restoring agriculture and settling them at a place called Bin, tai later led the clan from Bin to Zhou, an area in the Wei River valley of modern-day Qishan County. Taibo and Zhongyong had supposedly fled to the Yangtze delta. Jilis son Wen bribed his way out of imprisonment and moved the Zhou capital to Feng, the Zhou enfeoffed a member of the defeated Shang royal family as the Duke of Song, which was held by descendants of the Shang royal family until its end. This practice was referred to as Two Kings, Three Reverences, according to Nicholas Bodman, the Zhou appear to have spoken a language not basically different in vocabulary and syntax from that of the Shang. A recent study by David McCraw, using lexical statistics, reached the same conclusion, the Zhou emulated extensively Shang cultural practices, perhaps to legitimize their own rule, and became the successors to Shang culture. At the same time, the Zhou may also have connected to the Xirong, a broadly defined cultural group to the west of the Shang. According to the historian Li Feng, the term Rong during the Western Zhou period was used to designate political and military adversaries rather than cultural. The proto-Zhou were first located in the Shaanxi-Shanxi highland, where they absorbed elements from the Guangshe culture, King Liu moved his people to the lower Fen Valley and to the western bank of the Yellow River, where they resumed agriculture. His son Qing Jie, led the Zhou to the valley of the Jing River. They stayed there until Dan Fu moved again to the Wei Valley in order to avoid incursion by the Rongdi nomads. During this period, the Zhou mingled with the Qiang people, in all these stages, the advanced Shang bronze culture constantly imparted its influence on the Zhou. The Qi area was the region in all these influences would come to fruition. The contact among the proto-Zhou, the native Shaanxi Longshan, the Qiang, King Wu maintained the old capital for ceremonial purposes but constructed a new one for his palace and administration nearby at Hao. Although Wus early death left a young and inexperienced heir, the Duke of Zhou assisted his nephew King Cheng in consolidating royal power. Wary of the Duke of Zhous increasing power, the Three Guards, Zhou princes stationed on the eastern plain, to maintain Zhou authority over its greatly expanded territory and prevent other revolts, he set up the fengjian system
Zhou Dynasty
–
History of China
Zhou Dynasty
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Population concentration and boundaries of the Western Zhou dynasty (1050–771 BC) in China
Zhou Dynasty
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States of the Western Zhou dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
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A Western Zhou bronze gui vessel, c. 1000 BC
20.
Cultural Revolution
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The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement that took place in China from 1966 until 1976. The Revolution marked the return of Mao Zedong to a position of power after the Great Leap Forward, the movement paralyzed China politically and negatively affected the countrys economy and society to a significant degree. The Revolution was launched in May 1966, after Mao alleged that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society at large, to eliminate his rivals within the Communist Party of China, Mao insisted that these revisionists be removed through violent class struggle. Chinas youth responded to Maos appeal by forming Red Guard groups around the country, the movement spread into the military, urban workers, and the Communist Party leadership itself. It resulted in factional struggles in all walks of life. In the top leadership, it led to a purge of senior officials, most notably Liu Shaoqi. During the same period Maos personality cult grew to immense proportions, a large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed, Cultural and religious sites were ransacked. Mao officially declared the Cultural Revolution to have ended in 1969, after Maos death and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976, reformers led by Deng Xiaoping gradually began to dismantle the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution. In 1958, after Chinas first Five-Year Plan, Mao called for grassroots socialism in order to accelerate his plans for turning China into an industrialized state. In this spirit, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, established Peoples Communes in the countryside, many communities were assigned production of a single commodity—steel. Mao vowed to increase production to twice 1957 levels. The Great Leap was an economic failure, uneducated farmers attempted to produce steel on a massive scale, partially relying on backyard furnaces to achieve the production targets set by local cadres. The steel produced was low quality and largely useless, the Great Leap reduced harvest sizes and led to a decline in the production of most goods except substandard pig iron and steel. Furthermore, local authorities frequently exaggerated production numbers, hiding and intensifying the problem for several years, in the meantime, chaos in the collectives, bad weather, and exports of food necessary to secure hard currency resulted in the Great Chinese Famine. Food was in shortage, and production fell dramatically. The famine caused the deaths of millions of people, particularly in poorer inland regions, the Great Leaps failure reduced Maos prestige within the Party. Forced to take responsibility, in 1959, Mao resigned as the President of the Peoples Republic of China, Chinas de jure head of state
Cultural Revolution
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Cultural Revolution propaganda poster. It depicts Mao Zedong, above a group of soldiers from the
People's Liberation Army. The caption says, "The Chinese People's Liberation Army is the great school of Mao Zedong Thought."
Cultural Revolution
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The purge of General
Luo Ruiqing solidified the Army's loyalty to Mao
Cultural Revolution
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Red Guards on the cover of an elementary school textbook from
Guangxi
Cultural Revolution
–
Marshal
Lin Biao was constitutionally confirmed as Mao's successor in 1969
21.
Red Guards (China)
–
Red Guards were a fanatic student mass paramilitary social movement mobilized by Mao Zedong in 1966 and 1967, during the Cultural Revolution. First we will make China red from inside out and then we will help the people of other countries make the world red. And then the whole universe. The students believed that the criticism of the play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office was a political issue, the Red Guards were denounced as counter-revolutionaries and radicals by the school administration and fellow students, and were forced to secretly meet amongst the ruins of the Old Summer Palace. Nevertheless, Chairman Mao Zedong ordered that the manifesto of the Red Guards be broadcast on national radio and this action gave the Red Guards political legitimacy, and student groups quickly began to appear across China. Due to the factionalism already beginning to emerge in the Red Guard movement and these work groups were led by Zhang Chunqiao, head of Chinas Propaganda Department, and were the attempt by the Party to keep the movement under its control. In addition, these Party-backed rebel groups also attacked students with bad class backgrounds and these actions were all attempts by the CPC to preserve the existing state government and apparatus. Mao, concerned that these teams were hindering the course of the Cultural Revolution, dispatched Chen Boda, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng. In July 1966, Mao ordered the removal of the work teams. Mao expressed personal approval and support for the Red Guards in a letter to Tsinghua University Red Guards on 1 August 1966 and he gave the movement a more public boost at a massive rally on 18 August at Tiananmen Square. Mao appeared atop Tiananmen wearing a green military uniform, the type favored by Red Guards. He personally greeted 1,500 Red Guards and waved to 800,000 Red Guards, the rally was led by Chen Boda, and Lin Biao gave a keynote speech. Red Guard leaders led by Nie Yuanzi also gave speeches, a high school Red Guard put a red arm band enscribed with the characters for Red Guard on the Chairman, who stood for six hours. The 8-18 rally, as it was known, was the first of eight receptions the Chairman gave to Red Guards in Tienanmen in the fall of 1966 and it was this rally that signified the beginning of the Red Guards involvement in implementing the aims of the Cultural Revolution. A second rally, held on 31 August, was led by Kang Sheng, the last rally was held on 26 November 1966. The 11th Plenum of the CPC Central Committee had ratified the Sixteen Articles in August 1966 and it also highlighted the role students would be asked to play in the movement. After the 18 August rally, the Cultural Revolution Group directed the Red Guards to attack the Four Olds of Chinese society, for the rest of the year, Red Guards marched across China in a campaign to eradicate the Four Olds. Old books and art were destroyed, museums were ransacked, and streets were renamed with new names and adorned with pictures. Many famous temples, shrines, and other sites in Beijing were attacked
Red Guards (China)
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Red Guards (with "
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung " in hand) on the cover of an elementary school textbook from
Guangxi 1971
22.
Beijing Normal University
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Beijing Normal University, colloquially known as 北师大 or Beishida, is a public research university located in Beijing, China, with strong emphasis on basic disciplines of humanities and sciences. It is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China, the term reflects BNUs heritage as a former unit of the Imperial University of Peking dedicated to training schoolteachers. Professor Qi Dong, a scholar in Developmental Psychology was appointed as the President since July,2012. After the Republic of China was established, the Imperial Capital School of Supreme Teacher Training was renamed Peking Normal College in 1912, the college had its first graduate programs in 1920 and began to recruit female students in 1921. In 1923 it was renamed again as Peking Normal University, the Peking Women’s College of Education merged into Peking Normal University in 1931. When the communists established the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, the capital of Peking was renamed Beijing, during a national initiative of university rearrangement in 1952, Fu Jen Catholic University merged with Beijing Normal University. In 1954, it moved from Hepingmen campus to the established campus at Beitaipingzhuang. The New York Times once described it as one of the most progressive institutions in China, the university was chosen as a Project 211 institution in 1996. During its centennial celebration in 2002, an asteroid discovered in 1996 was named after the university as 8050 Beishida, the university also lays distinct emphasis on educational equality. So far the university has altogether 55 undergraduate degree programs,162 master programs, furthermore, the university has an institute for Proteomics which is the only one established in universities by Ministry of Education. Besides, the university has established a Science Park which covers an area of 6 hectares, the university has an annual research funding in sciences of over RMB100 Million. In 2010,150 projects were funded by the National Natural Science Foundation, the research funding in humanities and social sciences has increased rapidly in the recent five years with RMB150 Million in total, which tops the third place nationally. Since 2002 the annual increase has been over RMB30 Million, as a university strong in basic theory and research, it is fairly fruitful in fund raising for humanities and social sciences. Beijing Normal University is also among the earliest institutions to recruit international students, a most prestigious program is Princeton in Beijing. Regarding international co-operation, the Beijing Normal University is part of a university consortium that offers a Erasmus+ Joint masters degree, the current campus was built in 1954. It is located in northwest downtown Beijing in Haidian district, between the second and third ring roads, and is the closest among all Haidian universities to Tiananmen Square, the campus hosted the U. S. Olympic Team during 2008 Beijing Olympics. S. He was a student studying Mandarin in 1982 as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. Weidong Li, professor of astronomy, the first Chinese astronomer to discover a supernovae since 1054 A. D. Kirsten Gillibrand, attended as an undergraduate in Dartmouth Colleges FSP program
Beijing Normal University
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National Peking Normal University, in 1920s
Beijing Normal University
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Beijing Normal University
Beijing Normal University
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Campus
Beijing Normal University
–
Mu Duo Gilded Bell
23.
Duke Yansheng
–
The Duke of Yansheng, literally Duke Overflowing with Sagacity, sometimes translated as Holy Duke of Yen, was a Chinese title of nobility. It was originally created as a title in the Western Han dynasty for a direct descendant of Confucius. Kong Zongyuan, a 46th-generation descendant of Confucius, became the first person to hold the title Duke Yansheng, the dukes enjoyed privileges that other nobles were denied, such as the right to tax their domain in Qufu while being exempt from imperial taxes. Their dukedom had its own system and the legal capacity to mete out capital punishment. This political office is not only hereditary, but also had the same ranking, in 2008, with permission from the Kong family, the political office became an unpaid one which is purely ceremonial in nature. It is currently held by Kung Tsui-chang, a 79th-generation descendant of Confucius, the tombs of the Dukes Yansheng of the Ming and Qing dynasties are located at the Cemetery of Confucius in Qufu, Shandong. Kong Qiu, better known as Confucius, was a teacher, politician and philosopher of the State of Lu in the Spring and he was a descendant of the royal family of the Shang dynasty through the dukes of the State of Song. During the reign of Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty, Kong Fu, a descendant of Confucius, was awarded the title Lord Wentong of Lu. In 190 BCE, Emperor Gao of the Han dynasty awarded the title Lord Fengsi to Kong Teng, Kong Fus younger brother, during the reign of Emperor Yuan, Kong Ba, a 13th-generation descendant of Confucius, was granted the title Lord Baocheng. In addition, the income gained from the 800 taxable households in Kong Bas fief were used to finance the worshipping of Confucius, Kong Ba also instructed his eldest son, Kong Fu, to return to their ancestral home to serve as a sacrificial official to their ancestor. The title Marquis Yinshaojia was conferred on Kong Ji, a 14th-generation di descendant of Confucius, the emperor also allowed Kong Ji to perform ritual sacrifices to Cheng Tang, the first king of the Shang dynasty, and granted him the er wang san ke ceremonial privilege. During the reign of Emperor Ping, granted the title Marquis Baocheng to Kong Jun, Emperor Ming awarded Kong Juan, an 18th-generation descendant of Confucius, the title Marquis of Bao Village. Emperor An gave the title Marquis of Fengsheng Village to Kong Yao, the title of Duke of Song and Duke Who Continues and Honours the Yin were bestowed upon Kong An (孔安 by the Eastern Han dynasty because he was part of the Shang dynastys legacy. This branch of the Confucius family was a branch from the line that held the title of Marquis of Fengsheng village. This practice was referred to as 二王三恪, during the Three Kingdoms period, the state of Cao Wei renamed the title Marquis Baocheng to Marquis Zongsheng. The Jin and Liu Song dynasties changed the title to Marquis of Fengsheng Village, the Northern Wei dynasty changed the title to Marquis Chongsheng while the Northern Qi dynasty called it Marquis Gongsheng. Under the Northern Zhou dynasty, the title was promoted from a title to a ducal title. In the Sui dynasty, Emperor Wen awarded the title Duke of Zou to Confuciuss descendants, during the early Tang dynasty, the title was renamed to Marquis Baosheng
Duke Yansheng
–
The
spirit way of Kong Yanjin, the 59th-generation senior-line direct descendant of Confucius and Duke Yansheng, in the
Cemetery of Confucius,
Qufu
24.
Yan Hui (disciple of Confucius)
–
Yan Hui was the favorite disciple of Confucius and one of the most revered figures of Confucianism. He is venerated in Confucian temples as one of the Four Sages, Yan Hui is also known by his courtesy name Ziyuan, and as Yan Yuan, a combination of his surname and courtesy name. He is also referred to as Master Yan or Yanzi. Yan Hui was a native of State of Lu, and was the son of Yan Wuyou, Yan Hui was about 30 years younger than Confucius, and became a student of the Master at a young age. Yan Hui was Confucius favorite disciple, after I got Yan Hui, Confucius remarked, the disciples came closer to me. We are told that once, when he found himself on the Nang hill with Yan Hui, Zilu, and Zigong, Confucius asked them to him their different aims. Zilu began, and when he had done, the master said, Zigong followed, on whose words the judgment was, They show your discriminating eloquence. At last came Yan Hui, who said, I should like to find an intelligent king and they should send forth their flocks without fear into the plains and forests. There should be no sunderings of families, no widows or widowers, for a thousand years there would be no calamity of war. Yu would have no opportunity to display his bravery, or Tsze to display his oratory, the master pronounced, How admirable is this virtue. When Yan Hui was twenty-nine, his hair was all white, after the death of Yan Hui, Confucius lamented, Heaven has bereft me. When told by students that he was showing excessive grief. Well, for whom would I show excessive grief if not for this man, even years later, Confucius would say that no other student could take Yan Huis place, so gifted and dedicated Yan Hui had been. Yan Hui, along with Confucius himself, was venerated by the first emperor of the Han dynasty, the title which he now has in the sacrificial Canon -- Continuator of the Sage -- was conferred in the ninth year of the Jiajing era, A. D.1530. Almost all the present sacrificial titles of the worthies in the Temple of Confucius were fixed at that time, Yan Huis place is the first of the Four Assessors, on the east of Confucius. The Sui dynasty era official scholar Yan Zhitui composed the 顏氏家訓 Yanshi Jiaxun and his clan was considered as part of the nobility. He lived in the Northern Qi and Liang dynasty, the devastation of the north during the Western Jins collapse caused the southward journey of Yan Han, who was mentioned in the Guan wo sheng fu by Yan Zhitui. Yan Silu was the son of Yan Zhitui, the Book of Northern Qi mentions Yan Zhitui
Yan Hui (disciple of Confucius)
–
Yan Hui
Yan Hui (disciple of Confucius)
–
Statue of Yan Hui in the temple dedicated to him in
Qufu,
Shandong province
Yan Hui (disciple of Confucius)
–
Fusheng Hall, the main sanctuary of the
Temple of Yan Hui in
Qufu,
Shandong province
25.
Metre
–
The metre or meter, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units. The metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 seconds, the metre was originally defined in 1793 as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. In 1799, it was redefined in terms of a metre bar. In 1960, the metre was redefined in terms of a number of wavelengths of a certain emission line of krypton-86. In 1983, the current definition was adopted, the imperial inch is defined as 0.0254 metres. One metre is about 3 3⁄8 inches longer than a yard, Metre is the standard spelling of the metric unit for length in nearly all English-speaking nations except the United States and the Philippines, which use meter. Measuring devices are spelled -meter in all variants of English, the suffix -meter has the same Greek origin as the unit of length. This range of uses is found in Latin, French, English. Thus calls for measurement and moderation. In 1668 the English cleric and philosopher John Wilkins proposed in an essay a decimal-based unit of length, as a result of the French Revolution, the French Academy of Sciences charged a commission with determining a single scale for all measures. In 1668, Wilkins proposed using Christopher Wrens suggestion of defining the metre using a pendulum with a length which produced a half-period of one second, christiaan Huygens had observed that length to be 38 Rijnland inches or 39.26 English inches. This is the equivalent of what is now known to be 997 mm, no official action was taken regarding this suggestion. In the 18th century, there were two approaches to the definition of the unit of length. One favoured Wilkins approach, to define the metre in terms of the length of a pendulum which produced a half-period of one second. The other approach was to define the metre as one ten-millionth of the length of a quadrant along the Earths meridian, that is, the distance from the Equator to the North Pole. This means that the quadrant would have defined as exactly 10000000 metres at that time. To establish a universally accepted foundation for the definition of the metre, more measurements of this meridian were needed. This portion of the meridian, assumed to be the length as the Paris meridian, was to serve as the basis for the length of the half meridian connecting the North Pole with the Equator
Metre
–
Belfry, Dunkirk —the northern end of the meridian arc
Metre
Metre
–
Fortress of Montjuïc —the southerly end of the meridian arc
Metre
–
Creating the metre-alloy in 1874 at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. Present Henri Tresca, George Matthey, Saint-Claire Deville and Debray
26.
Paifang
–
A Paifang, also known as a pailou, is a traditional style of Chinese architectural arch or gateway structure that is related to the Indian Torana from which it is derived. The word paifang was originally a term for the top two levels of administrative division and subdivisions of ancient Chinese cities. The largest division within a city in ancient China was a fang, each fang was enclosed by walls or fences, and the gates of these enclosures were shut and guarded every night. Each fang was further divided into several pai, which is equivalent to a current day community, each pai, in turn, contained an area including several hutongs. This system of administrative division and subdivision reached an elaborate level during the Tang dynasty. For example, during the Ming dynasty, Beijing was divided into a total of 36 fangs, during the Tang dynasty, it was called a wutoumen, because the top of the two posts were painted black. A wutoumen was reserved for officials of rank 6 or higher, the construction of wutomen was standardized in the Yingzao Fashi of the mid Song dynasty. It consisted of two posts and a beam forming a frame and two doors. Paifangs come in a number of forms, one form involves placing wooden pillars onto stone bases, which are bound together with wooden beams. Another form is in the Han dynasty style, and is two matching towers, such as in Beihai, outside of China, the paifang has long been the symbol of Chinatowns. The largest outside of China can be found at Washington D. C. s Chinatown, in the past, Chastity Paifangs were given to widows who remained unmarried till death, praising what was seen as loyalty to their deceased husbands. Chinese architecture Chinese culture Chinatown Torana Torii Hongsalmun Ruins of St. Pauls Cathedral, Macao Triumphal arch
Paifang
–
Paifang in
Shunfengshan Park,
Shunde,
Foshan
Paifang
–
A decorated paifang in
Shanghai
Paifang
–
Dongsi, an intersection in
Beijing, had four paifangs in the 1920s.
Paifang
–
A paifang photographed in
Gansu Province (1933).
27.
Cupressaceae
–
Cupressaceae is a conifer family, the cypress family, with worldwide distribution. The family includes 27–30 genera, which include the junipers and redwoods and they are monoecious, subdioecious or dioecious trees and shrubs 1–116 m tall. The bark of trees is commonly orange- to red- brown and of stringy texture, often flaking or peeling in vertical strips. The leaves are arranged spirally, in decussate pairs or in decussate whorls of three or four, depending on the genus. On young plants, the leaves are needle-like, becoming small and scale-like on mature plants of genera, some genera. Most are evergreen with the leaves persisting 2–10 years, but three genera are deciduous or include deciduous species, the seed cones are either woody, leathery, or berry-like and fleshy, with one to several ovules per scale. The bract scale and ovuliferous scale are fused together except at the apex, as with the foliage, the cone scales are arranged spirally, decussate or whorled, depending on the genus. The seedlings usually have two cotyledons, but in some species up to six, despite the wide overall distribution, many genera and species show very restricted relictual distributions, and many are endangered species. The one exception in the former Taxodiaceae is the genus Sciadopitys, which is distinct from the rest of the Cupressaceae. Many of the species are important timber sources, especially in the genera Calocedrus, Chamaecyparis, Cryptomeria, Cunninghamia, Cupressus, Sequoia, Taxodium and these and several other genera are also important in horticulture. Junipers are among the most important evergreen shrubs, groundcovers and small trees, with hundreds of cultivars selected, including plants with blue, grey. Chamaecyparis and Thuja also provide hundreds of dwarf cultivars as well as trees, including Lawsons cypress, dawn redwood is widely planted as an ornamental tree because of its excellent horticultural qualities, rapid growth and status as a living fossil. Giant sequoia is an ornamental tree and is occasionally grown for timber. Giant sequoia, Leyland cypress, and Arizona cypress are grown to an extent as Christmas trees. Sugi is the tree of Japan, and Ahuehuete the national tree of Mexico. Coast redwood and giant sequoia were jointly designated the tree of California and are famous California tourist attractions. Redwood National and State Parks and several parks including Giant Sequoia National Monument protect almost half the remaining stands of Coast Redwoods, bald cypress is the state tree of Louisiana. Bald cypress, often festooned with Spanish moss, of southern swamps are another tourist attraction and they can be seen at Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida
Cupressaceae
–
Cupressaceae
Cupressaceae
–
Fallen foliage sprays (
cladoptosis) of Metasequoia
Cupressaceae
–
Tetraclinis cones
Cupressaceae
–
Juniperus bermudiana was the key to
Bermuda 's shipbuilding industry, and used in building houses, and in furniture. It also comprised the habitat for other endemic and native species, and provided Bermudians with shelter from wind and sun.
28.
Pine
–
A pine is any conifer in the genus Pinus, /ˈpiːnuːs/, of the family Pinaceae. Pinus is the genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The Plant List compiled by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accepts 126 species names of pines as current, together with 35 unresolved species, the modern English name pine derives from Latin pinus, which some have traced to the Indo-European base *pīt- ‘resin’. Before the 19th century, pines were often referred to as firs, the genus is divided into three subgenera, which can be distinguished by cone, seed, and leaf characters, Pinus subg. Pinus, the yellow, or hard pine group, generally harder wood. Ducampopinus, the foxtail or pinyon group Pinus subg, strobus, the white, or soft pine group, generally with softer wood and five needles per fascicle Most regions of the Northern Hemisphere host some native species of pines. One species crosses the equator in Sumatra to 2°S, in North America, various species occur in regions at latitudes from as far north as 66°N to as far south as 12°N. Various species have been introduced to temperate and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, where they are grown as timber or cultivated as ornamental plants in parks, a number of such introduced species have become invasive and threaten native ecosystems. Pine trees are evergreen, coniferous trees growing 3–80 m tall. The smallest are Siberian dwarf pine and Potosi pinyon, and the tallest is a 81.79 m tall ponderosa pine located in southern Oregons Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, the bark of most pines is thick and scaly, but some species have thin, flaky bark. The branches are produced in regular pseudo whorls, actually a very tight spiral, the spiral growth of branches, needles, and cone scales are arranged in Fibonacci number ratios. The new spring shoots are sometimes called candles, they are covered in brown or whitish bud scales and point upward at first, then turn green. These candles offer foresters a means to evaluate fertility of the soil, pines are long-lived, and typically reach ages of 100–1,000 years, some even more. The longest-lived is the Great Basin bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva, one individual of this species, dubbed Methuselah, is one of the worlds oldest living organisms at around 4,600 years old. This tree can be found in the White Mountains of California, an older tree, now cut down, was dated at 4,900 years old. It was discovered in a grove beneath Wheeler Peak and it is now known as Prometheus after the Greek immortal, pines have four types of leaf, Seed leaves on seedlings, born in a whorl of 4–24. Juvenile leaves, which follow immediately on seedlings and young plants, 2–6 cm long, single, green or often blue-green and these are produced for six months to five years, rarely longer. Scale leaves, similar to bud scales, small, brown and non-photosynthetic, needles, the adult leaves, are green and bundled in clusters called fascicles
Pine
–
Pine tree
Pine
–
A
Khasi pine in
Benguet, Philippines
Pine
–
Huangshan pine (Pinus hwangshanensis),
Anhui, China
Pine
–
Ancient
Pinus longaeva,
Nevada, USA
29.
Hectare
–
The hectare is an SI accepted metric system unit of area equal to 100 ares and primarily used in the measurement of land as a metric replacement for the imperial acre. An acre is about 0.405 hectare and one hectare contains about 2.47 acres, in 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1⁄100 km2. When the metric system was further rationalised in 1960, resulting in the International System of Units, the are was not included as a recognised unit. The hectare, however, remains as a non-SI unit accepted for use with the SI units, the metric system of measurement was first given a legal basis in 1795 by the French Revolutionary government. At the first meeting of the CGPM in 1889 when a new standard metre, manufactured by Johnson Matthey & Co of London was adopted, in 1960, when the metric system was updated as the International System of Units, the are did not receive international recognition. The units that were catalogued replicated the recommendations of the CGPM, many farmers, especially older ones, still use the acre for everyday calculations, and convert to hectares only for official paperwork. Farm fields can have long histories which are resistant to change, with names such as the six acre field stretching back hundreds of years. The names centiare, deciare, decare and hectare are derived by adding the standard metric prefixes to the base unit of area. The centiare is a synonym for one square metre, the deciare is ten square metres. The are is a unit of area, equal to 100 square metres and it was defined by older forms of the metric system, but is now outside of the modern International System of Units. It is commonly used to measure real estate, in particular in Indonesia, India, and in French-, Portuguese-, Slovakian-, Serbian-, Czech-, Polish-, Dutch-, in Russia and other former Soviet Union states, the are is called sotka. It is used to describe the size of suburban dacha or allotment garden plots or small city parks where the hectare would be too large, the decare is derived from deka, the prefix for 10 and are, and is equal to 10 ares or 1000 square metres. It is used in Norway and in the former Ottoman areas of the Middle East, the hectare, although not strictly a unit of SI, is the only named unit of area that is accepted for use within the SI. The United Kingdom, United States, Burma, and to some extent Canada instead use the acre, others, such as South Africa, published conversion factors which were to be used particularly when preparing consolidation diagrams by compilation. In many countries, metrication redefined or clarified existing measures in terms of metric units, non-SI units accepted for use with the International System of Units
Hectare
–
Trafalgar Square has an area of about one hectare.
Hectare
–
Definition of a hectare and of an are.
Hectare
–
Waikato Stadium – Hamilton, New Zealand
Hectare
–
The Statue of Liberty –
New York Harbor
30.
Axe
–
An axe is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has many forms and specialised uses but generally consists of an axe head with a handle, before the modern axe, the stone-age hand axe was used from 1.5 million years BP without a handle. It was later fastened to a wooden handle, the earliest examples of handled axes have heads of stone with some form of wooden handle attached in a method to suit the available materials and use. Axes made of copper, bronze, iron, and steel appeared as these technologies developed, axes are usually composed of a head and a handle. The axe is an example of a machine, as it is a type of wedge. This reduces the effort needed by the wood chopper and it splits the wood into two parts by the pressure concentration at the blade. The handle of the axe also acts as a lever allowing the user to increase the force at the cutting edge—not using the length of the handle is known as choking the axe. For fine chopping using an axe this sometimes is a positive effect. Generally, cutting axes have a shallow angle, whereas splitting axes have a deeper angle. Most axes are double bevelled, i. e, less common today, they were once an integral part of a joiner and carpenters tool kit, not just a tool for use in forestry. A tool of similar origin is the billhook, however, in France and Holland the billhook often replaced the axe as a joiners bench tool. Most modern axes have heads and wooden handles, typically hickory in the US and ash in Europe and Asia. Modern axes are specialised by use, size, and form, hafted axes with short handles designed for use with one hand are often called hand axes but the term hand axe refers to axes without handles as well. Hatchets tend to be small hafted axes often with a hammer on the back side, as easy-to-make weapons, axes have frequently been used in combat. Initially axes were tools of stone called hand axes, used without handles, axes made with ground cutting edges are known since the Neolithic period ending 4,000 to 2,000 BC. The first true hafted axes are known from the Mesolithic period, few wooden hafts have been found from this period, but it seems that the axe was normally hafted by wedging. Birch-tar and raw-hide lashings were used to fix the blade, the antler was hollowed out at one end to create a socket for the axehead. The antler sheath was then either perforated and a handle inserted into it or set in a made in the handle instead
Axe
–
Double and single bit felling axes
Axe
–
A hoard of
bronze socketed axes from the
Bronze Age found in modern Germany. This was the top tool of the period, and also seems to have been used as a store of value
Axe
–
Roman axe in an ancient Roman relief in
Brescia,
Italy
Axe
–
Hand axes from Swanscombe at the
British Museum that belongs to
Swanscombe Man who lived 200,000–300,000 years ago
31.
Song Dynasty
–
The Song dynasty was an era of Chinese history that began in 960 and continued until 1279. It succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, coincided with the Liao and Western Xia dynasties and it was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money nationally and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first known use of gunpowder, as well as the first discernment of true north using a compass, the Song dynasty is divided into two distinct periods, Northern and Southern. During the Northern Song, the Song capital was in the city of Bianjing. The Southern Song refers to the period after the Song lost control of its half to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars. During this time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangtze, the Southern Song dynasty considerably bolstered its naval strength to defend its waters and land borders and to conduct maritime missions abroad. To repel the Jin, and later the Mongols, the Song developed revolutionary new military technology augmented by the use of gunpowder, in 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, who took control of northern China, maintaining uneasy relations with the Southern Song. Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and his younger brother Kublai Khan was proclaimed the new Great Khan, though his claim was only partially recognized by the Mongols in the west. In 1271, Kublai Khan was proclaimed the Emperor of China, after two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khans armies conquered the Song dynasty in 1279. The Mongol invasion led to a reunification under the Yuan dynasty, the population of China doubled in size during the 10th and 11th centuries. The Northern Song census recorded a population of roughly 50 million, much like the Han and this data is found in the Standard Histories. However, it is estimated that the Northern Song had a population of some 100 million people and this dramatic increase of population fomented an economic revolution in pre-modern China. The expansion of the population, growth of cities, and the emergence of a national economy led to the withdrawal of the central government from direct involvement in economic affairs. The lower gentry assumed a role in grassroots administration and local affairs. Appointed officials in county and provincial centers relied upon the gentry for their services, sponsorship. Social life during the Song was vibrant, citizens gathered to view and trade precious artworks, the populace intermingled at public festivals and private clubs, and cities had lively entertainment quarters. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the expansion of woodblock printing. Technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished over the course of the Song, although the institution of the civil service examinations had existed since the Sui dynasty, it became much more prominent in the Song period
Song Dynasty
–
History of China
Song Dynasty
–
Northern Song in 1111
Song Dynasty
–
Emperor Taizu of Song (r. 960–976), a court portrait painting
Song Dynasty
–
Pillow, sandstone with white and brown slip black, incised decoration, Northern Song dynasty, 12th century
32.
Jin Dynasty (1115-1234)
–
The Jin dynasty, officially known as the Great Jin, lasted from 1115 to 1234 as one of the last dynasties in Chinese history to predate the Mongol invasion of China. It is also called the Jurchen dynasty or the Jurchen Jin. After vanquishing the Liao, the Jin launched an over hundred-year war against the Song dynasty, over the course of their rule, the Jurchens of Jin quickly adapted to Chinese customs, and even fortified the Great Wall against the rising Mongols. Domestically, the Jin oversaw a number of cultural and technological advancements, such as the development of gunpowder, in 1234 Jin succumbed to Mongol conquest. The Jin dynasty was known as the Great Jin at that time. Furthermore, the Jin emperors referred to their state as Zhongguo like some other non-Han dynasties, non-Han rulers expanded the definition of China to include non-Han peoples in addition to Han people whenever they ruled China. Jin documents indicate that the usage of China by dynasties to refer to themselves began earlier than previously thought, the Jin dynasty was created in modern Jilin and Heilongjiang by the Jurchen tribal chieftain Aguda in 1115. According to tradition, Aguda was a descendant of Hanpu, Aguda adopted the term for gold as the name of his state, itself a translation of Anchuhu River, which meant golden in Jurchen. This river known as Alachuke in Chinese, was a tributary of the Songhua River east of Harbin, the Jurchens early rival was the Khitan-led Liao dynasty, which had held sway over modern north and northeast China and Mongolia, for several centuries. In 1121, the Jurchens entered into the Alliance Conducted at Sea with the Han Chinese-led Northern Song dynasty, while the Song armies faltered, the Jurchens succeeded in driving the Liao to Central Asia. In 1125, after the death of Aguda, the Jin dynasty broke its alliance with the Song dynasty, the Jurchens were supported by the anti-Song, Beijing-based noble Han clans. The Han Chinese who worked for the Liao were viewed as enemies by the Song dynasty. Song Han Chinese also defected to the Jin, the peace treaty was formally ratified on 11 October 1142 when a Jin envoy visited the Song court. After taking over Northern China, the Jin dynasty became increasingly sinicised, about three million people, half of them Jurchens, migrated south into northern China over two decades, and this minority governed about 30 million people. The Jurchens were given grants and organised into hereditary military units,300 households formed a mouke. Many married Han Chinese, although the ban on Jurchen nobles marrying Han Chinese was not lifted until 1191, after Emperor Taizong died in 1135, the next three Jin emperors were grandsons of Aguda by three different princes. Emperor Xizong studied the classics and wrote Chinese poetry and he adopted Han Chinese cultural traditions, but the Jurchen nobles had the top positions. Later in life, Emperor Xizong became an alcoholic and executed many officials for criticising him and he also had Jurchen leaders who opposed him murdered, even those in the Wanyan clan
Jin Dynasty (1115-1234)
–
History of China
Jin Dynasty (1115-1234)
–
Jin dynasty (blue) circa 1141
Jin Dynasty (1115-1234)
–
China, 1142
Jin Dynasty (1115-1234)
–
Jade ornament with flower design, Jin dynasty,
Shanghai Museum.
33.
Yuan Dynasty
–
The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was the empire or ruling dynasty of China established by Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongolian Borjigin clan. His realm was, by point, isolated from the other khanates and controlled most of present-day China and its surrounding areas. Some of the Mongolian Emperors of the Yuan mastered the Chinese language, while others used their native language. The Yuan dynasty is considered both a successor to the Mongol Empire and an imperial Chinese dynasty and it was the khanate ruled by the successors of Möngke Khan after the division of the Mongol Empire. In official Chinese histories, the Yuan dynasty bore the Mandate of Heaven, following the Song dynasty, the dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, yet he placed his grandfather Genghis Khan on the imperial records as the official founder of the dynasty as Taizu. In addition to Emperor of China, Kublai Khan also claimed the title of Great Khan, supreme over the other khanates, the Chagatai, the Golden Horde. As such, the Yuan was also referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan. However, while the claim of supremacy by the Yuan emperors was at times recognized by the khans, their subservience was nominal. In 1271, Kublai Khan imposed the name Great Yuan, establishing the Yuan dynasty, dà Yuán is from the clause 大哉乾元 in the Commentaries on the Classic of Changes section regarding Qián. The counterpart in Mongolian language was Dai Ön Ulus, also rendered as Ikh Yuan Üls or Yekhe Yuan Ulus, in Mongolian, Dai Ön is often used in conjunction with the Yeke Mongghul Ulus, resulting in Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus, meaning Great Mongol State. Nevertheless, both terms can refer to the khanate within the Mongol Empire directly ruled by Great Khans before the actual establishment of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan in 1271. Genghis Khan united the Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppes and he and his successors expanded the Mongol empire across Asia. Under the reign of Genghis third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynasty in 1234, Ögedei offered his nephew Kublai a position in Xingzhou, Hebei. Kublai was unable to read Chinese but had several Han Chinese teachers attached to him since his early years by his mother Sorghaghtani and he sought the counsel of Chinese Buddhist and Confucian advisers. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedeis son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251 and he granted his brother Kublai control over Mongol held territories in China. Kublai built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals and he adopted as his capital city Kaiping in Inner Mongolia, later renamed Shangdu. Many Han Chinese and Khitan defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin, two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima, and the Khitan Xiao Zhala defected and commanded the 3 Tumens in the Mongol army. Liu Heima and Shi Tianze served Ogödei Khan, Liu Heima and Shi Tianxiang led armies against Western Xia for the Mongols
Yuan Dynasty
–
History of China
Yuan Dynasty
–
Yuan dynasty circa 1294
Yuan Dynasty
–
Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty
Yuan Dynasty
–
Painting of a 14th-century Yuan dynasty
junk
34.
Ming Dynasty
–
The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – then known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352. In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
Ming Dynasty
–
History of China
Ming Dynasty
–
Ming China around 1580
Ming Dynasty
–
A
cannon from the
Huolongjing, compiled by
Jiao Yu and
Liu Bowen before the latter's death in 1375.
Ming Dynasty
–
Portrait of the
Hongwu Emperor (ruled in 1368–98)
35.
Qing Dynasty
–
It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
Qing Dynasty
–
History of China
Qing Dynasty
–
Flag (1889–1912)
Qing Dynasty
–
An Italian map showing the "Kingdom of the
Nüzhen " or the "
Jin Tartars", who "have occupied and are at present ruling China", north of
Liaodong and
Korea, published in 1682
Qing Dynasty
–
Qing era brush container
36.
Republic of China
–
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
Republic of China
–
A young
Tsou man
Republic of China
–
Flag
Republic of China
–
Overview of
Fort Zeelandia, painted around 1635
Republic of China
–
Japanese colonial soldiers march Taiwanese captured after the
Tapani Incident from the
Tainan jail to court, 1915.
37.
PRC
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
PRC
–
Yinxu, ruins of an ancient
palace dating from the
Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)
PRC
–
Flag
PRC
–
Some of the thousands of life-size
Terracotta Warriors of the
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
PRC
–
The
Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the
Chinese interior from incursions by
nomadic pastoralists of the northern
steppes.
38.
Spirit way
–
A spirit way is the ornate road leading to a Chinese tomb of a major dignitary. The term is sometimes translated as spirit road, spirit path or sacred way. The spirit way is lined on both sides by a succession of statues, pillars, and stelae, the statues along the spirit way depict real and mythical animals, as well as civilian and military officials. Spirit ways were a feature of tombs by the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty. This layout, with few exceptions, has persisted since then through the history of the spirit road. A characteristic feature of an East Han spirit road were monumental towers, the feline-based fantastic creatures were known under a variety of names, among which the most common were tianlu, bixie and qilin. As in later dynasties, the creatures were facing the road, as on the later spirit ways, the stone animals on the Eastern Han spirit roads must have been followed by human statues, but very few of those have survived. A pair of well-preserved stone officials from that period are now kept at the Temple of Confucius, the coffin was lowered into the grave on ropes passed through holes made in each slab. After the burial, those wooden slabs would be placed upright on top of the tomb, in reminder of that old custom, early spirit way stelae have a round hole in the middle of their upper parts. The fall of the Han Empire was followed by a period of upheaval, the Wei and Western Jin rulers seemed to have frowned upon funeral art extravagance of the fallen Han Dynasty, generally shunning above-ground statuary at their tomb sites. Around thirty of their tomb statuary groups, in degrees of preservation, are known to modern researchers. They are located primarily in the eastern and southeastern suburbs of Nanjing and in Danyang, the Southern Dynasties regimes, with their smaller economic base than the mighty Han, did not create as numerous and as grandiose funeral ensembles as the Qin and Han. The use of spirit ways under these dynasties was limited to emperors, the new Buddhist and Daoist currents in the spiritual life of south China greatly influenced the art of sculpture as well. The newly reinterpreted feng shui principles called more attention to orienting the tomb with respect to the terrain than to the strict north-south axis. A typical Southern Dynasties spirit way was quite short and included a pair of giant winged felines, a pair of columns, and these felines, whom connoisseurs called the most noble creatures to guard any tomb in Asia came in two varieties. While both fantastic species must have derived from the Han era animal statuary, experts distinguish the twos pedigrees. The stocky bixie is thought to have evolved from the statues of Han-era tombs in Sichuan and Shandong, however. It is not clear any more what the symbolism of the tongue was, it has been variously interpreted as a prayer for rain
Spirit way
–
Spirit way at the
Ming Dynasty Tombs outside of Beijing.
Spirit way
–
Two of
Xiao Xiu 's stele-bearing turtles, and the base of one of the two columns
Spirit way
–
A bixie from the tomb of Xiao Jing (
Liang Dynasty)
Spirit way
–
A qilin from the Yongning Tomb of the
Emperor Wen of Chen
39.
Bixi (tortoise)
–
Bixi or Bi Xi, is a figure from Chinese mythology. One of the 9 sons of the Dragon King, he is depicted as a dragon with the shell of a turtle and they are also used at the bases of bridges and archways. Sculptures of Bixi are traditionally rubbed for good luck, which can cause conservation issues and they can be found throughout East Asia in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia, and even the Russian Far East. The tradition of tortoise-mounted stelae originated no later than early 3rd century, according to the 1957 survey by Chêng Tê-kun, the earliest extant tortoise-borne stele is thought to be the one at the tomb of Fan Min, in Lushan County, Yaan, Sichuan. Victor Segalen had earlier identified the stele as a Han dynasty monument, present-day authors agree, the bixi tradition flourished during the Ming and Qing dynasties. He tightened the rules in 1396, leaving only the highest nobility, the type of dragons crowning the tortoise-born stele, and the type and number of other statuary at the tomb site, were prescribed by the same regulations as well. At the Hongwu Emperors own mausoleum, a huge bixi holding the so-called Shengde stele welcomes visitors at the Sifangcheng pavilion at the entrance of the mausoleum complex. The Hongwu Emperors tortoise tradition was continued by the later Ming and Qing emperors, occasionally, a foreign head of state was honored with a bixi as well, as it happened to the sultan of Brunei Abdul Majid Hassan, who died during his visit to China in 1408. The sultans grave, with a suitably royal bixi-based monument, was discovered in Yuhuatai District south of Nanjing in 1958, after an ancient Christian stele was unearthed in Xian in 1625, it, too, was put on the back of a tortoise. In 1907, this so-called Nestorian Stele was moved to the Stele Forest Museum along with its tortoise and these days, long-lost bixi continue to be unearthed during archaeological excavations nad construction work. Among the most remarkable finds is the discovery of a huge 1200-year-old in Zhengding in June 2006, the stone turtle is 8.4 m long,3.2 m wide, and 2.6 m tall, and weighs 107 tons. It has since moved to Zhengdings Kaiyuan Temple. The concept of a tortoise-borne, dragon-crowned stele was early adopted by Chinas northern neighbors and it is now in the provincial capital, Tsetserleg. Among them, the most accessible one is probably Bayanchur Khans s Terhin-Gol stele, later, the Jurchen Jin dynasty and the Mongol Yuan dynasty erected tortoise-based monuments as well, some of which have been preserved in Russias Ussuriysk and Mongolias Karakorum. In Japan, this form of tortoise-supported stele is primarily at the graves of prominent Kamakura period figures. Another large collection of tortoise-borne stelae, spanning 17th through 19th centuries, otherwise, the form does not seem to have been particularly popular in earlier or later times. In Korea, tortoise-borne stelae are known already during the Three Kingdoms of Korea period, monuments of this type have been preserved from the later Goryeo dynasty as well, such as the Stele of Bongseon Honggyeongsa. Vietnam also has a tradition of tortoise-born stelae, where they commemorate emperor Lê Lợi as well as the graduates of the Confucian academy at Hanois Temple of Literature
Bixi (tortoise)
–
The
Harvard Bixi, donated by its
Chinese alumni
Bixi (tortoise)
–
A dragon-headed bixi with a stele in memory of the
Qianlong Emperor 's rebuilding of the Chinese Bridge
Bixi (tortoise)
–
A modern (1995) monument in Beijing
Bixi (tortoise)
–
The Vinh Lang stele from
Lê Lợi 's mausoleum, erected in the 6th year of Thuận Thiên reign (1433)
40.
Tumulus
–
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or kurgans, a cairn, which is a mound of stones built for various purposes, may also originally have been a tumulus. Tumuli are often categorised according to their external apparent shape, in this respect, a long barrow is a long tumulus, usually constructed on top of several burials, such as passage graves. A round barrow is a tumulus, also commonly constructed on top of burials. The internal structure and architecture of both long and round barrows has a range, the categorization only refers to the external apparent shape. The method of inhumation may involve a dolmen, a cist, a mortuary enclosure, examples of barrows include Duggleby Howe and Maeshowe. The funeral of Patroclus is described in book 23 of the Iliad, Patroclus is burned on a pyre, and his bones are collected into a golden urn in two layers of fat. The barrow is built on the location of the pyre, achilles then sponsors funeral games, consisting of a chariot race, boxing, wrestling, running, a duel between two champions to the first blood, discus throwing, archery and spear throwing. Beowulfs body is taken to Hronesness, where it is burned on a funeral pyre, during cremation, the Geats lament the death of their lord, a widows lament being mentioned in particular, singing dirges as they circumambulate the barrow. Afterwards, a mound is built on top of a hill, overlooking the sea, a band of twelve of the best warriors ride around the barrow, singing dirges in praise of their lord. Parallels have also drawn to the account of Attilas burial in Jordanes Getica. Jordanes tells that as Attilas body was lying in state, the best horsemen of the Huns circled it, as in circus games. An Old Irish Life of Columcille reports that every funeral procession halted at a mound called Eala, whereupon the corpse was laid, archaeologists often classify tumuli according to their location, form, and date of construction. Some British types are listed below, Bank barrow Bell barrow Bowl barrow D-shaped barrow - round barrow with a flat edge at one side often defined by stone slabs. Disc barrow Fancy barrow - generic term for any Bronze Age barrows more elaborate than a hemispherical shape. Long barrow Oval barrow - a Neolithic long barrow consisting of an elliptical, platform barrow - The least common of the recognised types of round barrow, consisting of a flat, wide circular mound that may be surrounded by a ditch. They occur widely across southern England with a concentration in East and West Sussex. Pond barrow - a barrow consisting of a circular depression, surrounded by a bank running around the rim of the depression
Tumulus
–
The
Royal mounds of
Gamla Uppsala in
Sweden from the fifth and the sixth centuries, originally, the site had 2000 to 3000 tumuli, but due to quarrying and agriculture only 250 remain
Tumulus
–
La Cambe German war cemetery
Tumulus
–
One of the
Hallstatt culture -era tumuli in the
Sulm valley necropolis
Tumulus
–
Burial of
Oleg of Novgorod in a tumulus in 912. Painting by
Viktor Vasnetsov
41.
Zengzi
–
Zengzi, born Zeng Shen or Zeng Can, courtesy name Ziyu, was an influential Chinese philosopher and disciple of Confucius. He later taught Zisi, the grandson of Confucius, who was in turn the teacher of Mencius, thus beginning a line of transmitters of orthodox Confucian traditions and he is revered as one of the Four Sages of Confucianism. Zeng Shen was 46 years younger than Confucius and he was a native of South Wu City in the State of Lu, and was the son of Zeng Dian, one of the earliest disciples of Confucius. When he was sixteen, he was sent by his father to study under Confucius, confucians later considered him to be his second most senior student, after Yan Hui. Duanmu Ci said of him, There is no subject which he has not studied, before great men he draws himself up in the pride of self-respect. His eyebrows are those of longevity and he was noted for his filial piety, and after the death of his parents he could not read the rites of mourning without being led to think of them and being moved to tears. He composed ten books, compiled in the Rites of the Elder Dai and he was said to have composed and/or edited the Classic of Filial Piety under the direction of Confucius. He was also associated with transmission of the Great Learning and he was first associated with the sacrifices to Confucius in 668 AD, but in 1267 he was advanced to be one of Confucius Four Assessors. His title, Exhibitor of the Fundamental Principles of the Sage, dates from the reign of the Jiajing Emperor, when he was associated with Yan Hui. Zengzi established his own school, and taught Zisi, the grandson of Confucius, along with Yan Hui, Zisi, and Mencius, Zengzi is considered to be one of the Four Sages of Confucianism. Zeng Shen was known for his filial piety, after the deaths of his parents, he was unable to read the rites of mourning without bursting into tears. A famous legend about Zeng Shen, called Nie Chi Tong Xin, is included in the influential Yuan dynasty text The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars, in the story, Zeng Shen was one day out gathering firewood, when some visitors unexpectedly showed up at his home. His mother bit her finger, and Zeng felt a pain in his heart. He immediately knew his mother needed him and rushed home, in 1452 the title Wujing Boshi was bestowed upon the descendants of Zengzi and other Confucian sages such as Mencius, Yan Hui, Zhou Dunyi, and Zhu Xi. The Confucian Analects, the Great Learning & the Doctrine of the Mean, 曾氏宗親網 Website on the Zeng family
Zengzi
–
Statue of Zengzi (right) and his mother
42.
Mencius
–
Mencius or Mengzi was a Chinese philosopher who is the most famous Confucian after Confucius himself. He was an itinerant Chinese philosopher and sage, and one of the interpreters of Confucianism. Supposedly, he was a pupil of Confucius grandson, Zisi, like Confucius, according to legend, he travelled throughout China for forty years to offer advice to rulers for reform. During the Warring States period, Mencius served as an official and he expressed his filial devotion when he took three years leave of absence from his official duties for Qi to mourn his mothers death. Disappointed at his failure to effect changes in his contemporary world, Mencius is buried in the Mencius Cemetery, which is located 12 km to the northeast of Zouchengs central urban area. A stele carried by a giant stone tortoise and crowned with dragons stands in front of his grave, Menciuss mother is often held up as an exemplary female figure in Chinese culture. As an expression, the idiom refers to the importance of finding the environment for raising children. Menciuss father died when he was very young and his mother Zhǎng raised her son alone. At first they lived by a cemetery, where the mother found her son imitating the paid mourners in funeral processions, therefore, the mother decided to move. The next house was near a market in the town, there the boy began to imitate the cries of merchants. So the mother moved to a next to a school. Inspired by the scholars and students, Mencius began to study and his mother decided to remain, and Mencius became a scholar. Another story further illustrates the emphasis that Menciuss mother placed on her sons education, as the story goes, once when Mencius was young, he was truant from school. His mother responded to his apparent disregard for his education by taking up a pair of scissors and this was intended to illustrate that one cannot stop a task midway, and her example inspired Mencius to diligence in his studies. There is another legend about his mother and his wife, involving a time when his wife was at home alone and was discovered by Mencius not to be sitting properly, Mencius thought his wife had violated a rite, and demanded a divorce. She is one of 125 women of which biographies have been included in the Lienü zhuan, Duke Huan of Lus son through Qingfu was the ancestor of Mencius. He was descended from Duke Yang of the State of Lu 魯煬公 Duke Yang was the son of Bo Qin, the genealogy is found in the Mencius family tree. Mencius descendants lived in Zoucheng in the Mencius Family Mansion, where the Mencius Temple was also built, Meng Haoran and Meng Jiao were descendants of Mencius who lived during the Tang dynasty
Mencius
–
Mencius, from Myths and Legends of China, 1922 by E. T. C. Werner
Mencius
–
An image of Mencius in the sanctuary of the Mencius Temple, Zoucheng
Mencius
–
A
Yuan Dynasty turtle with a stele honoring Mencius
43.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
International Standard Book Number
–
A 13-digit ISBN, 978-3-16-148410-0, as represented by an
EAN-13 bar code
44.
Wayback Machine
–
The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
Wayback Machine
–
Wayback Machine
45.
List of World Heritage Sites in China
–
This is a list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in China. China has 50, ranking second in the world, China ratified The Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage on 12 December 1985. These sites comprise some of the most essential part of Chinas valuable, in addition, there are also several Chinese documents inscribed in UNESCOs list Memory of the World, which registers the worlds documentary heritage. Furthermore, China has a rich cultural heritage, with several of them inscribed on UNESCOs list of Masterpieces of the Oral. Following is a map of the World Heritage Sites in China
List of World Heritage Sites in China
List of World Heritage Sites in China
List of World Heritage Sites in China
List of World Heritage Sites in China
46.
Classical Gardens of Suzhou
–
The Classical Gardens of Suzhou are a group of gardens in Suzhou region, Jiangsu province which have been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. According to UNESCO, the gardens of Suzhou represent the development of Chinese landscape garden design over more than two years, and they are the most refined form of garden art. These landscape gardens flourished in the mid-Ming to early-Qing dynasties, resulting in as much as 200 private gardens, today, there are 69 preserved gardens in Suzhou, and all of them are designated as protected National Heritage Sites. Famous Suzhou garden designers include Zhang Liang, Ji Cheng, Ge Yuliang, the site is monitored following a comprehensive monitoring plan and there is provision for both the routine maintenance and programmed conservation projects for all of the gardens. The Suzhou Municipal Administrative Bureau of Gardens is responsible for this, Chinese garden Classical Gardens of Suzhou - UNESCO World Heritage
Classical Gardens of Suzhou
–
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Classical Gardens of Suzhou
–
Humble Administrator's Garden (拙政园/拙政園; Zhuōzhèng Yuán)
Classical Gardens of Suzhou
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Lingering Garden (留园/留園; Liú Yuán)
Classical Gardens of Suzhou
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Master of the Nets Garden (网师园/網師園; Wǎngshī Yuán)
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