1.
Loong Air
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Loong Air is a Chinese airline with its headquarters in the Loong Air Office Building on the property of Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport in Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Its main hub is in Hangzhou, approved by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, it started domestic services in 2013. On 25 September 2013, the signed a memorandum of understanding with Airbus for the purchase of 20 Airbus A320 twin-engined aircraft. The companys full name is Zhejiang Loong Airlines Co. Ltd and it was originally a cargo airline named CDI Cargo Airlines, which started services in 2012 with one Boeing 737-300F freighter. Loong Air serves the Chinese domestic market with Hangzhou as its hub and its first flight started on 29 December 2013 from Hangzhou to Chongqing and Hangzhou to Shenzhen. As of June 2015 Sources： The Loong Air fleet consists of the following aircraft, ** The airline has a letter of intent with Bombardier for the purchase of 20 C-Series CS100
2.
Oracle bone script
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The vast majority were found at the Yinxu site. They record pyromantic divinations of the last nine kings of the Shang dynasty, beginning with Wu Ding, whose accession is dated by different scholars at 1250 BCE or 1200 BCE. After the Shang were overthrown by the Zhou dynasty in c.1046 BCE, divining with milfoil became more common and it is also the oldest known member and ancestor of the Chinese family of scripts, preceding the bronzeware script. The term oracle bone was first coined by the American missionary Frank H. Chalfant in his 1906 book Early Chinese Writing, because turtle shells as well as bones were used, the oracle bone script is also sometimes called shell and bone script. As the majority of oracle bones bearing writing date to the late Shang dynasty and it is certain that Shang-lineage writing underwent a period of development before the Anyang oracle bone script, because of its mature nature. However, no significant quantity of clearly identifiable writing from before or during the early to middle Shang cultural period has been discovered, the oracle bone script of the late Shang appears pictographic, as does its contemporary, the Shang writing on bronzes. The earliest oracle bone script appears even more so than examples from late in the period, additionally, the writing of characters in vertical columns, from top to bottom, is for the most part carried over from the bamboo books to oracle bone inscriptions. The vertical columns of text in Chinese writing are traditionally ordered from right to left and this level of maturity clearly implies an earlier period of development of at least several hundred years. Compare, for instance, the third and fourth graphs in the row below, without careful research to compare these to later forms, one would probably not know that these represented 豕 shĭ swine and 犬 quǎn dog respectively. By the late Shang oracle bone script, the graphs had already evolved into a variety of mostly non-pictographic functions, phonetic loan graphs, semantic-phonetic compounds, and associative compounds were already common. Although it was a fully functional writing system, the oracle bone script was not fully standardized, a graph when inverted horizontally generally refers to the same word, and additional components are sometimes present without changing the meaning. These irregularities persisted until the standardization of the script in the Qin dynasty. Of the thousands of characters found from all the fragments so far. One reason for this is that components of certain oracle bone script characters may differ in later script forms, such differences may be accounted for by character simplification and/or by later generations misunderstanding the original graph, which had evolved beyond recognition. Another reason is that some characters exist only in oracle bone script, in such cases, context - when available - may be used to determine the possible meaning of the character. One good example is shown in the fragment below, labeled oracle bone script for Spring, the top left character in this image has no known modern Chinese counterpart. One of the better known characters however is shown directly beneath it looking like an isosceles triangle with a line cutting through the upper portion. This is the oracle bone script character for 王 wáng, the numbers of oracle bones with inscriptions contemporaneous with the end of Shang and the beginning of Zhou is relatively few in number compared with the entire corpus of Shang inscriptions
3.
Chinese bronze inscriptions
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Early bronze inscriptions were almost always cast, while later inscriptions were often engraved after the bronze was cast. The bronze inscriptions are one of the earliest scripts in the Chinese family of scripts, for the early Western Zhou to early Warring States period, the bulk of writing which has been unearthed has been in the form of bronze inscriptions. As a result, it is common to refer to the variety of scripts of this period as bronze script, the term usually includes bronze inscriptions of the preceding Shang dynasty as well. In addition, artistic scripts also emerged in the late Spring and Autumn to early Warring States, such as Bird Script, also called Bird Seal Script, and Worm Script. 寅 Yín in Four Different Scripts on Shang–Zhou bronzes Of the abundant Chinese ritual bronze artifacts extant today and these have been periodically unearthed ever since their creation, and have been systematically collected and studied since at least the Song dynasty. Examples, Of the 12,000 inscribed bronzes extant today, roughly 3,000 date from the Shang dynasty,6,000 from the Zhou dynasty, and the final 3,000 from the Qin and Han dynasties. As in the oracle bone script, characters could be written facing left or right, turned 90 degrees, for instance, and both represent the modern character xū 戌, while and are both hóu 侯 marquis. This was true of normal as well as extra complex identificational graphs, such as the hǔ 虎 tiger clan emblem at right and these inscriptions are almost all cast, and are relatively short and simple. Western Zhou dynasty characters basically continue from the Shang writing system, although most are not pictographs in function, the early Western Zhou bronze inscriptions have been described as more pictographic in flavor than those of subsequent periods. During the Western Zhou, many begin to show signs of simplification and linearization, with the result being a decrease in pictographic quality. Some flexibility in orientation of graphs continues in the Western Zhou, the graphs start to become slightly more uniform in structure, size and arrangement by the time of the third Zhou sovereign, King Kāng, and after the ninth, King Yì, this trend becomes more obvious. Some have used the term large seal to refer to the script of this period. This term dates back to the Han dynasty, when seal script, in the Eastern Zhou, the various states initially continued using the same forms as in the late Western Zhou. However, regional forms then began to diverge stylistically as early as the Spring and Autumn period, in the same areas, in the late Spring and Autumn to early Warring States, scripts which embellished basic structures with decorative forms such as birds or worms also appeared. Some bronzes of the period were incised in a rough, casual manner and it is thought that these reflected the popular writing of the time which coexisted with the formal script. Seals have been found from the Warring States period, mostly cast in bronze and these form an additional, valuable resource for the study of Chinese bronze inscriptions. It is also from this period that the first surviving bamboo, in the early Warring States period, typical bronze inscriptions were similar in content and length to those in the late Western Zhou to Spring and Autumn period. One of the most famous sets of bronzes ever discovered dates to the early Warring States, the total length of the inscriptions on this set was almost 2,800 characters
4.
Seal script
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Seal script is an ancient style of writing Chinese characters that was common throughout the latter half of the 1st millennium BC. It evolved organically out of the Zhou dynasty script, arising in the Warring State of Qin, there are two uses of the word seal script, the Large or Great Seal script and the lesser or Small Seal Script, the latter is also called simply seal script. The Large Seal script was originally a later, vague Han dynasty reference to writing of the Qin system similar to and it has also been used to refer to Western Zhou forms or even oracle bones as well. There were several different variants of seal script which developed in each kingdom independently during the warring state period and spring, the birds and worms script was used in the Kingdoms of Wu, Chu, and Yue. It was found on several artifacts including the Spear of Fuchai, on one side of the blade of Goujian, eight characters were written in an ancient script. The script was found to be the one called 鳥蟲文 birds and worms characters, initial analysis of the text deciphered six of the characters, 越王 and 自作用劍. As a southern state, Chu was close to the Wu-Yue influences, Chu produced broad bronze swords that were similar to Wuyue swords, but not as intricate. Chu also used the Birds and Worms style, which was borrowed by the Wu, the script of the Qin system had evolved organically from the Zhou script starting in the Spring and Autumn period. Beginning around the Warring States period, it became vertically elongated with a regular appearance and this was the period of maturation of Small Seal script, also called simply seal script. Through Chinese commentaries, it is known that Li Si compiled Cangjiepian and their form is characterized by being less rectangular and more squarish. The first known character dictionary was the 3rd century BC Erya, collated and bibliographed by Liu Xiang and his son Liu Xin, not long after, however, the Shuowen Jiezi, the lifework of Xu Shen, was written. Its 9,353 entries reproduce the standardized small-seal script variant for each entry, entries are categorized under 540 section headers. It has been anticipated that the Small Seal script will some day be encoded in Unicode, codepoints U+34000 to U+368FF have been tentatively allocated. Old Texts Phags-pa Chén Zhāoróng Research on the Qín Lineage of Writing, academia Sinica, Institute of History and Philology Monograph. Qin Yun Song, Big Seal Script Banner Script translation Richard Sears on seal script
5.
Shinjitai
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Shinjitai are the forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in shinjitai are also found in simplified Chinese, shinjitai were created by reducing the number of strokes in kyūjitai, unsimplified kanji equivalent to Traditional Chinese characters, also called seiji. There have been a few stages of simplifications made since the 1950s, the following forms were established as a result of the postwar character reforms. However, they were not completely created anew, as many were based on widely used handwritten abbreviations from the prewar era, due to the complexity of kanji, many abbreviations were used in handwriting, whose status rose to become official characters in the postwar reforms. Attention was paid to the balance of the characters in their new form. In almost all cases, characters in the new standard have fewer strokes than old forms, though in a few cases they have the same number, the most radical simplification was 廳→庁, removing 20 strokes. For example, the character 擧 was simplified as 挙, but the character 欅 which also contained 擧, simplified forms of hyōgaiji do exist, and are referred to as extended shinjitai. However, they are unofficial, a position reiterated in the National Language Council’s 2000 report on Characters Not Listed in the Jōyō Kanji Table, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper is thorough in its simplification of hyōgaiji, and its in-house simplifications are called Asahi characters. For example, 痙攣 is simplified following the model of 經→経 and this is also said to have been done because in the age of typewriter-based printing, more complicated kanji could not be clearly printed. Cursive script and semi-cursive script forms of kanji were adopted as shinjitai, examples include, 圖→図 觀→観 示 →礻 晝→昼 The aforementioned 门 handwritten simplification also originated from semi-cursive, but is not generally accepted in official Japanese writing. Characters in which there were two or more variants were standardized under one form, the character 島 also had the variant forms 嶋 and 嶌, but the 島 form became standard. The 辶 radical was once printed with two dots but was written one, so the written form with one dot became standard. The upper 丷 portion of the characters 半, 尊, and 平 was once printed as 八 and written 丷, Characters of the keisei monji group each contain a semantic part and a phonetic part. The choice was made to swap the phonetic parts with homophones which had fewer strokes, for example, 圍 was changed to 囲, because 韋 and 井 were homophones. Other simplifications of this method include 竊→窃, 廳→庁, 擔→担, there are also colloquial handwritten simplifications based on this model, in which various non-kanji symbols are used as onpu, for example 魔, 慶, 藤, and 機. In some cases, a character was replaced with a simpler character which neither had graphical resemblance, nor was homophonic. Examples include 登 → 正 and 登 → 丁, some kanji were simplified by removing entire components. Firstly, only a group of characters was simplified, with many characters outside this group retaining their earlier form
6.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
7.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
8.
Standard Chinese
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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
9.
Pinyin
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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
10.
Wu Chinese
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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
11.
Cantonese
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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
12.
Jyutping
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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
13.
Southern Min
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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
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Taiwanese Romanization System
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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
15.
Old Chinese
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Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BC, bronze inscriptions became plentiful during the following Zhou dynasty. The latter part of the Zhou period saw a flowering of literature, including works such as the Analects, the Mencius. These works served as models for Literary Chinese, which remained the standard until the early twentieth century, thus preserving the vocabulary. Old Chinese was written with a form of Chinese characters. Although the script is not alphabetic, most characters were created by adapting a character for a similar-sounding word. Most recent reconstructions also describe Old Chinese as a language without tones, but having consonant clusters at the end of the syllable, most researchers trace the core vocabulary of Old Chinese to Sino-Tibetan, with much early borrowing from neighbouring languages. During the Zhou period, the originally monosyllabic vocabulary was augmented with polysyllabic words formed by compounding, several derivational affixes have also been identified. However the language lacked inflection, and indicated grammatical relationships using word order, the earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at the Yinxu site near modern Anyang identified as the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1250 BC. These are the bones, short inscriptions carved on tortoise plastrons and ox scapulae for divinatory purposes. The language written is undoubtedly an early form of Chinese, but is difficult to due to the limited subject matter. Only half of the 4,000 characters used have been identified with certainty, little is known about the grammar of this language, but it seems much less reliant on grammatical particles than Classical Chinese. From early in the Western Zhou period, around 1000 BC, even longer pre-Classical texts on a wide range of subjects have also been transmitted through the literary tradition. The oldest parts of the Book of Documents, the Classic of Poetry and the I Ching also date from the early Zhou period, a greater proportion of this more varied vocabulary has been identified than for the oracular period. The four centuries preceding the unification of China in 221 BC constitute the Chinese classical period in the strict sense, there are many bronze inscriptions from this period, but they are vastly outweighed by a rich literature written in ink on bamboo and wooden slips and silk. Although these are perishable materials, and many books were destroyed in the burning of books and burying of scholars in the Qin dynasty, other texts have been transmitted as copies. Such works from this period as the Analects, the Classic of Filial Piety, the Mencius, the Classical Chinese of such works formed the basis of Literary Chinese, which remained the written standard until the early twentieth century. Each character of the script represented a single Old Chinese word, most scholars believe that these words were monosyllabic, though some have recently suggested that a minority of them had minor presyllables
16.
Reconstructions of Old Chinese
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Several authors have produced reconstructions of Old Chinese phonology, beginning with the Swedish sinologist Bernard Karlgren in the 1940s and continuing to the present day. Although the various notations appear to be different, they correspond with each other on most points. By the 1970s, it was agreed that Old Chinese had fewer points of articulation than Middle Chinese, a set of voiceless sonorants. Since the 1990s, most authors have agreed on a six-vowel system, several other kinds of evidence are less comprehensive, but provide valuable clues. These include Min dialects, early Chinese transcriptions of foreign names, Middle Chinese, or more precisely Early Middle Chinese, is the phonological system of the Qieyun, a rhyme dictionary published in 601, with many revisions and expansions over the following centuries. These dictionaries indicated pronunciation by dividing a syllable into an initial consonant, according to its preface, the Qieyun did not reflect a single contemporary dialect, but incorporated distinctions made in different parts of China at the time. The fact that the Qieyun system contains more distinctions than any single form of speech means that it retains additional information about the history of the language. The large number of initials and finals are unevenly distributed, suggesting hypotheses about earlier forms of Chinese, often characters sharing a phonetic element are still pronounced alike, as in the character 中, which was adapted to write the words chōng and zhōng. In other cases the words in a series have very different sounds both in Middle Chinese and in modern varieties. Since the sounds are assumed to have been similar at the time the characters were chosen, the first systematic study of the structure of Chinese characters was Xu Shens Shuowen Jiezi. The Shuowen was mostly based on the seal script standardized in the Qin dynasty. Earlier characters from bones and Zhou bronze inscriptions often reveal relationships that were obscured in later forms. Rhyme has been a consistent feature of Chinese poetry, while much old poetry still rhymes in modern varieties of Chinese, Chinese scholars have long noted exceptions. This was attributed to lax rhyming practice of early poets until the late-Ming dynasty scholar Chen Di argued that a former consistency had been obscured by sound change and this implied that the rhyming practice of ancient poets recorded information about their pronunciation. Scholars have studied various bodies of poetry to identify classes of rhyming words at different periods, the oldest such collection is the Shijing, containing songs ranging from the 10th to 7th centuries BC. The systematic study of Old Chinese rhymes began in the 17th century, gus analysis was refined by Qing dynasty philologists, steadily increasing the number of rhyme groups. A final revision by Wang Li in the 1930s produced the set of 31 rhyme groups. The Min dialects are believed to have split off before the Middle Chinese stage, for example, the following dental initials have been identified in reconstructed proto-Min, Other points of articulation show similar distinctions within stops and nasals
17.
Legendary creature
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A legendary creature is an animal or part human described in non-historical stories that sometimes involve the supernatural. In the classical era, monstrous creatures such as the Cyclops, other creatures, such as the unicorn, were claimed in accounts of natural history by various scholars of antiquity. Some legendary creatures have their origin in traditional mythology and were believed to be creatures, for example dragons, griffins. Others were based on real encounters, originating in garbled accounts of travelers tales, such as the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, a variety of mythical animals appear in the art and stories of the Classical era. For example in the Odyssey, monstrous creatures include the Cyclops, Scylla, in other tales there appear the Medusa to be defeated by Perseus, the Minotaur to be destroyed by Theseus, and the Hydra to be killed by Heracles, while Aeneas battles with the harpies. These monsters thus have the function of emphasising the greatness of the heroes involved. Some classical era creatures, such as the centaur, chimaera, Triton, similarly, sphinxes appear as winged lions in Indian art. In Medieval art, animals, both real and mythical, played important roles and these included decorative forms as in Medieval jewellery, sometimes with their limbs intricately interlaced. Animal forms were used to add humour or majesty to objects, in Christian art, animals carried symbolic meanings, where for example the lamb symbolised Christ, a dove indicated the Holy Spirit, and the classical griffin represented a guardian of the dead. Medieval bestiaries included animals regardless of reality, the basilisk represented the devil. One function of animals in the Middle Ages was allegory. Unicorns, for example, were described as swift and unable to be caught by traditional methods. It was believed that the way for one to catch this beast was to lead a virgin to its dwelling. Then, the unicorn was supposed to leap into her lap and go to sleep, in terms of symbolism, the unicorn was a metaphor for Christ. Unicorns represented the idea of innocence and purity, in the King James Bible, Psalm 92,10 states, My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn. This is because the translators of the King James erroneously translated the Hebrew word reem as unicorn, later versions translate this as wild ox. The unicorn’s small size signifies the humility of Christ, another common legendary creature which served allegorical functions within the Middle Ages was the dragon. Dragons were identified with serpents, though their attributes were greatly intensified, the dragon was supposed to have been larger than all other animals
18.
Chinese mythology
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Chinese mythology includes creation myths and legends, such as myths concerning the founding of Chinese culture and the Chinese state. As in many mythologies, Chinese mythology has in the past been believed to be, at least in part. Some myths are widely shared across multiple ethnic groups, but may exist as versions with some differences, historians have written evidence of Chinese mythological symbolism from the 12th century BC in the Oracle bone script. Legends were passed down for over a thousand years before being written in such as Classic of Mountains. Other myths continued to be passed down through oral traditions like theater, imperial historical documents and philosophical canons such as Book of Rites, Records of the Grand Historian, Book of Documents, and Lüshi Chunqiu all contain Chinese myths. Some myths survive in theatrical or literary formats as plays or novels, books in the shenmo genre of vernacular fiction revolve around gods and monsters. Examples include, Shangdi, also sometimes Huángtiān Dàdì, appeared as early as the Shang dynasty, in later eras, he was more commonly referred to as Huángtiān Shàngdì. The use of Huángtiān Dàdì refers to the Jade Emperor and Tian, Yu Di appeared in literature after the establishment of Taoism in China, his appearance as Yu Huang dates back to beyond the times of Yellow Emperor, Nüwa, or Fuxi. Tian appeared in literature c.700 BC, possibly earlier as dating depends on the date of the Shujing, there are no creation-oriented narratives for Tian. The qualities of Tian and Shangdi appear to have merged in later literature and are now worshiped as one entity in, for example, the extent of the distinction between Tian and Shangdi is debated. Nüwa appeared in no earlier than c.350 BC. Her companion, Fuxi, was her brother and husband and they are sometimes worshiped as the ultimate ancestor of all humankind, and are often represented as half-snake, half-humans. It is sometimes believed that Nüwa molded humans from clay for companionship and she repaired the sky after Gong Gong damaged the pillar supporting the heavens. Pangu, written about by Taoist author Xu Zheng c.200 AD, was claimed to be the first sentient being and creator, “making the heavens and these legendary rulers ruled between c.2850 BC to 2205 BC, before the Xia dynasty. The list of names comprising the Three August Ones and Five Emperors vary widely among sources, Emperor Ku, great-grandson of the Huang Emperor and nephew of Zhuanxu. Yao, son of Ku, Yaos elder brother succeeded Ku, Shun, successor of Yao, who passed over his own son and made Shun his successor because of Shuns ability and morality. These rulers are generally regarded as morally upright and benevolent, examples to be emulated by latter day kings, historically, when Qin Shi Huang united China in 221 BC, he felt that his achievements had surpassed those of all the rulers who had gone before him. He combined the ancient titles of Huáng and Dì to create a new title, Huángdì, Shun passed on his place as emperor to Yu the Great
19.
Chinese folklore
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Chinese folklore encompasses the folklore of China, and includes songs, poetry, dances, puppetry, and tales. It often tells stories of human nature, historical or legendary events, love, the main influences on Chinese folk tales have been Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. Some folktales may have arrived from India along with Buddhism, others have no known western counterparts, Chinese folktales include a vast variety of forms such as myths, legends, fables, etc. A number of collections of tales, such as Pu Songlings Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. Chinese folklore has provided inspiration for Chinese writers and poets for centuries, folk songs which were originally partnered with dance and other styles of performing arts, provided inspiration for courtly poetry. Classical fiction began in the Han Dynasty and was modeled after oral traditions, while Yuan, Chinese folklore has provided inspiration for visual imagery by Chinese weavers, painters and watercolorists, florists. One of the most striking examples is a funerary banner that contains a number of stories from early China. Modern iterations of traditional Chinese stories can be found internationally as well as in native Chinese literature, laurence Yeps The Magic Paintbrush, Maxine Hong Kingstons The Woman Warrior, and Walt Disney Pictures Mulan all borrow from Chinese folklore traditions. The Classic of Poetry, the earliest known Chinese collection of poetry, contains 160 folk songs in addition to courtly songs and hymns. One tradition holds that Confucius himself collected these songs, while another says that an emperor compiled them as a means to gauge the mood of the people and the effectiveness of his rule. It is believed that Confucius did encourage his followers to study the songs contained in the Classic of Poetry, helping to secure the Classic of Poetrys place among the Five Classics. Around the 1910s, Chinese folklore began to gain popularity as an area of study with the beginnings of the movement to formally adopt Vernacular Chinese as the language of education, when writers neglected these sources, they lost touch with the people of the nation. A new emphasis on the study of folklore, Hu concluded, a rising sense of national identity was also partially responsible for spurring the new interest in traditional folklore. Some folklore enthusiasts also hoped to further social reforms by their work, to help improve the condition of the Chinese people, it was believed, it was necessary to understand their ideas, beliefs, and customs. Pre-Communist and Communist thinkers were especially energetic in this belief, in the time leading up to the founding of the Communist Party of China, many folk songs and stories were collected by Communist thinkers and scholars. Some folk tales and folk plays that exist today may in fact have been written by Communist authors to emphasise particular social morals. Chinese literature Chinese mythology Dance of China Music of China Lou Tsu-kuang, Asian Folklore, Women of China, Women in Chinese Folklore
20.
Bixi
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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
21.
Chiwen
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Chiwen is a chinese dragon, and one of the 9 sons of the dragon in Chinese mythology. He is depicted in imperial roof decorations and other ornamental motifs in traditional Chinese architecture and this Chinese dragon name chiwen 螭吻 compounds chi 螭 hornless dragon, young dragon and wen 吻 mouth, lips, kiss. Chishou 螭首 and Chitou 螭頭 are related architectural ornaments or waterspouts, chiwen and Chishou are not the character in chinese mythology. Chiwen 螭吻 is alternatively written chiwen 鴟吻, using the homophonous Chinese character chi 鴟 owl, sparrowhawk, the chiwei 鴟尾 and chimeng 鴟甍 are additional birdlike roof decorations. The chiwen is listed second or third among the Long sheng jiuzi 龍生九子, Nine Dragons, each one of those creatures have a protective function. The Nine dragon are also used in place names, such as Kowloon, in Hong Kong. According to the Ming Dynasty Wuzazu 五雜俎, The chi-wen, which like swallowing, are placed on both ends of the ridgepoles of roofs, welch describes chiwen as the dragon who likes to swallow things. This is the fish-like, hornless dragon with a very truncated body and large and his presence on roofs is also said to guard against fires. This dragon is found on the roofs of traditional Chinese homes today. In Fengshui theory, a chiwen or chiwei supposedly protects against not only fire, the Japanese language borrowed these names for architectural roof decorations as Sino-Japanese vocabulary. Shibi 鴟尾 ornamental roof-ridge tile is more used than chifun 螭吻 or shifun 鴟吻. In Japanese mythology, the Shachihoko 鯱 a mythical fish with a carps arched tail, tigers head and this 鯱 is a kokuji Chinese character invented in Japan that can also be read shachi for orca. The Dragon in China and Japan, partial text available on Google Books. The Nine Dragon Scroll, The Circle of the Dragon
22.
Snake
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Snakes are elongated, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales, many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads with their highly mobile jaws. To accommodate their bodies, snakes paired organs appear one in front of the other instead of side by side. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of claws on either side of the cloaca. Additionally, sea snakes are widespread throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans, more than 20 families are currently recognized, comprising about 500 genera and about 3,400 species. They range in size from the tiny,10.4 cm -long thread snake to the reticulated python of 6.95 meters in length, the fossil species Titanoboa cerrejonensis was 12.8 meters long. Snakes are thought to have evolved from either burrowing or aquatic lizards, perhaps during the Jurassic period, the diversity of modern snakes appeared during the Paleocene period. The oldest preserved descriptions of snakes can be found in the Brooklyn Papyrus, most species are nonvenomous and those that have venom use it primarily to kill and subdue prey rather than for self-defense. Some possess venom potent enough to cause injury or death to humans. Nonvenomous snakes either swallow prey alive or kill by constriction, the word ousted adder, as adder went on to narrow in meaning, though in Old English næddre was the general word for snake. The other term, serpent, is from French, ultimately from Indo-European *serp-, the fossil record of snakes is relatively poor because snake skeletons are typically small and fragile making fossilization uncommon. Fossils readily identifiable as snakes first appear in the record during the Cretaceous period. The earliest known snake fossils come from the marine simoliophiids. Based on comparative anatomy, there is consensus that snakes descended from lizards, pythons and boas—primitive groups among modern snakes—have vestigial hind limbs, tiny, clawed digits known as anal spurs, which are used to grasp during mating. The families Leptotyphlopidae and Typhlopidae also possess remnants of the pelvic girdle, front limbs are nonexistent in all known snakes. This is caused by the evolution of Hox genes, controlling limb morphogenesis, the axial skeleton of the snakes’ common ancestor, like most other tetrapods, had regional specializations consisting of cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral, and caudal vertebrae. Early in snake evolution, the Hox gene expression in the axial skeleton responsible for the development of the thorax became dominant, as a result, the vertebrae anterior to the hindlimb buds all have the same thoracic-like identity. In other words, most of a skeleton is an extremely extended thorax
23.
Dragon
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A dragon is a legendary creature, typically scaled or fire-spewing and with serpentine, reptilian or avian traits, that features in the myths of many cultures around world. The two most well-known cultural traditions of dragon are The European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Balkans, most are depicted as reptilian creatures with animal-level intelligence, and are uniquely six-limbed. The Chinese dragon, with counterparts in Japan, Korea and other East Asian, most are depicted as serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence, and are quadrupeds. The two traditions may have evolved separately, but have influenced each other to a certain extent, the English word dragon and Latin word draco derives from Greek δράκων, dragon, serpent of huge size, water-snake. The Greek and Latin term referred to any great serpent, not necessarily mythological, a dragon is a mythological representation of a reptile. In antiquity, dragons were mostly envisaged as serpents, but since the Middle Ages, it has become common to them with legs. Dragons are usually shown in modern times with a body like a huge lizard, the European dragon has bat-like wings growing from its back. A dragon-like creature with wings but only a pair of legs is known as a wyvern. The association of the serpent with a monstrous opponent overcome by a deity has its roots in the mythology of the Ancient Near East, including Canaanite, Hittite. Humbaba, the fire-breathing dragon-fanged beast first described in the Epic of Gilgamesh, is described as a dragon with Gilgamesh playing the part of dragon-slayer. The folk-lore motif of the dragon guarding gold may have come from earlier Bronze Age customs of introducing serpents to village granaries to deter rats or mice. Although dragons occur in many legends around the world, different cultures have varying stories about monsters that have been grouped together under the dragon label, some dragons are said to breathe fire or to be poisonous, such as in the Old English poem Beowulf. They are commonly portrayed as serpentine or reptilian, hatching from eggs and they are sometimes portrayed as hoarding treasure. Some myths portray them with a row of dorsal spines, European dragons are more often winged, while Chinese dragons resemble large snakes. Dragons can have a number of legs, none, two, four, or more when it comes to early European literature. Dragons are often held to have spiritual significance in various religions. In many Asian cultures, dragons were, and in some still are, revered as representative of the primal forces of nature, religion. They are associated with wisdom—often said to be wiser than humans—and longevity and they are commonly said to possess some form of magic or other supernatural power, and are often associated with wells, rain, and rivers
24.
Emperor of China
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The emperor was also referred to as the Son of Heaven, a title that predates the Qin unification and recognized as the ruler of all under heaven. In practice not every Emperor held supreme power in China, although this was usually the case, Emperors from the same family are classified in historical periods known as dynasties. During the Yuan and Qing dynasties China was ruled by ethnic Mongols, the orthodox historical view sees these as non-native dynasties that became sinicized, though some recent scholars argue that the interaction between politics and ethnicity was far more complex. Nevertheless, in both cases these rulers claimed the Mandate of Heaven to assume the role of traditional Confucian emperors in order to rule over China proper and he called himself Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor. In the 3rd century BC, the two titles had not previously been used together, on that account, some modern scholars translate the title as thearch. On occasion, the father of the emperor was still alive. Such an emperor was titled the Tai Shang Huang, the Grand Imperial Sire, the practice was initiated by the First Emperor, who gave the title as a posthumous name to his own father. Liu Bang, who established the Han dynasty, was the first to become emperor while his father yet lived and it was said he granted the title during his fathers life because he would not be bowed to by his own father, a commoner. Owing to political fragmentation, over the centuries, it has not been uncommon to have numerous claimants to the title of Emperor of All China, the Chinese political concept of the Mandate of Heaven essentially legitimized those claimants who emerged victorious. Thus, Kublai Khan was simultaneously Khagan of the Mongols and Emperor of China, on one count, from the Qin dynasty to the Qing dynasty, there were 557 emperors including the rulers of minor states. The Emperors words were considered sacred edicts and his written proclamations directives from above, in theory, the Emperors orders were to be obeyed immediately. He was elevated above all commoners, nobility and members of the Imperial family, addresses to the Emperor were always to be formal and self-deprecatory, even by the closest of family members. In practice, however, the power of the emperor varied between different emperors and different dynasties and these emperors ruled as absolute monarchs throughout their reign, maintaining a centralized grip on the country. During the Song dynasty, the power was significantly overshadowed by the power of the chancellor. The emperors position, unless deposed in a rebellion, was always hereditary, as a result, many emperors ascended the throne while still children. During these minorities, the Empress Dowager would possess significant power, where Empresses Dowager were too weak to assume power, court officials often seized control. Court eunuchs had a significant role in the structure, as emperors often relied on a few of them as confidants. In a few places, eunuchs wielded vast power, one of the most powerful eunuchs in Chinese history was Wei Zhongxian during the Ming dynasty, occasionally, other nobles seized power as regents
25.
Relief
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Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise, to create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. What is actually performed when a relief is cut in from a surface of stone or wood is a lowering of the field. The technique involves considerable chiselling away of the background, which is a time-consuming exercise. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mâché the form can be just added to or raised up from the background, and monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting. There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the form from the field. There is also sunk relief, which was restricted to Ancient Egypt. However the distinction between high relief and low relief is the clearest and most important, and these two are generally the only used to discuss most work. Hyphens may or may not be used in all these terms, works in the technique are described as in relief, and, especially in monumental sculpture, the work itself is a relief. Reliefs are common throughout the world on the walls of buildings and a variety of settings. Relief is more suitable for depicting complicated subjects with figures and very active poses, such as battles. Most ancient architectural reliefs were painted, which helped to define forms in low relief. Rock reliefs are carved into solid rock in the open air. This type is found in cultures, in particular those of the Ancient Near East and Buddhist countries. A stele is a standing stone, many of these carry reliefs. The distinction between high and low relief is somewhat subjective, and the two are often combined in a single work. In particular, most later high reliefs contain sections in low relief, a low relief or bas-relief is a projecting image with a shallow overall depth, for example used on coins, on which all images are in low relief. Other versions distort depth much less and it is a technique which requires less work, and is therefore cheaper to produce, as less of the background needs to be removed in a carving, or less modelling is required
26.
Forbidden City
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The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty—the years 1420 to 1912. It is located in the center of Beijing, China, and it served as the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government for almost 500 years. Constructed from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings, the palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, part of the museums former collection is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War. With over 14.6 million annual visitors, the Palace Museum is the most visited art museum in the world, the common English name, the Forbidden City, is a translation of the Chinese name Zijin Cheng. The name Zijin Cheng first formally appeared in 1576, another English name of similar origin is Forbidden Palace. The name Zijin Cheng is a name with significance on many levels, zi, or Purple, refers to the North Star, which in ancient China was called the Ziwei Star, and in traditional Chinese astrology was the heavenly abode of the Celestial Emperor. The surrounding celestial region, the Ziwei Enclosure, was the realm of the Celestial Emperor, the Forbidden City, as the residence of the terrestrial emperor, was its earthly counterpart. Jin, or Forbidden, referred to the fact no one could enter or leave the palace without the emperors permission. Today, the site is most commonly known in Chinese as Gùgōng, the museum which is based in these buildings is known as the Palace Museum. When Hongwu Emperors son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, construction lasted 14 years and required more than a million workers. Material used include whole logs of precious Phoebe zhennan wood found in the jungles of south-western China, the floors of major halls were paved with golden bricks, specially baked paving bricks from Suzhou. From 1420 to 1644, the Forbidden City was the seat of the Ming dynasty, in April 1644, it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun dynasty. He soon fled before the armies of former Ming general Wu Sangui and Manchu forces. By October, the Manchus had achieved supremacy in northern China, the Qing rulers changed the names on some of the principal buildings, to emphasise Harmony rather than Supremacy, made the name plates bilingual, and introduced Shamanist elements to the palace. In 1860, during the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces took control of the Forbidden City, in 1900 Empress Dowager Cixi fled from the Forbidden City during the Boxer Rebellion, leaving it to be occupied by forces of the treaty powers until the following year. Under an agreement with the new Republic of China government, Puyi remained in the Inner Court, while the Outer Court was given over to public use, the Palace Museum was then established in the Forbidden City in 1925
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Yongle Emperor
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The Yongle Emperor, personal name Zhu Di, was the third emperor of the Ming dynasty in China, reigning from 1402 to 1424. Zhu Di was the son of the Hongwu Emperor, the founder of the Ming dynasty. He was originally enfeoffed as the Prince of Yan in May 1370, amid the continuing struggle against the Mongols of the Northern Yuan dynasty, Zhu Di consolidated his own power and eliminated rivals such as the general Lan Yu. In 1402, he overthrew his nephew and occupied the imperial capital, Nanjing, after which he was proclaimed Emperor and adopted the era name Yongle. Eager to establish his own legitimacy, Zhu Di voided the Jianwen Emperors reign and established a wide-ranging effort to destroy or falsify records concerning his childhood and this included a massive purge of the Confucian scholars in Nanjing and grants of extraordinary extralegal authority to the eunuch secret police. One favorite was Zheng He, who employed his authority to launch major voyages of exploration into the South Pacific, the difficulties in Nanjing also led the Yongle Emperor to re-establish Beiping as the new imperial capital. He repaired and reopened the Grand Canal and, between 1406 and 1420, directed the construction of the Forbidden City and he was also responsible for the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, considered one of the wonders of the world before its destruction by the Taiping rebels in 1856. These scholars completed the monumental Yongle Encyclopedia during his reign, the Yongle Emperor died while personally leading a military campaign against the Mongols. He was buried in the Changling Tomb, the central and largest mausoleum of the Ming Dynasty Tombs located north of Beijing, the Yongle Emperor was born Zhu Di on 2 May 1360, the fourth son of the new leader of the central Red Turbans, Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang would later rise to become the Hongwu Emperor, the first emperor of the Ming dynasty, according to surviving Ming historical records, Zhu Dis mother was the Hongwu Emperors primary consort, Empress Ma, the view Zhu Di himself maintained. Zhu Di grew up as a prince in a loving, caring environment and his father supplied nothing but the best education and, trusting them alone, reestablished the old feudal principalities for his many sons. Similarly, when the Hongwu Emperor sent large forces to the north, the Hongwu Emperor was long-lived and survived his first heir, Zhu Biao, the Crown Prince. He worried about his succession and issued a series of instructions for his family. These instructions made it clear that the rule would pass only to children from the primary consort, excluding the Prince of Yan in favour of Zhu Yunwen. When the Hongwu Emperor died on 24 June 1398, Zhu Yunwen succeeded his grandfather as the Jianwen Emperor, in direct violation of the dynastic instructions, the Prince of Yan attempted to mourn his father in Nanjing, bringing a large armed guard with him. The imperial army was able to him at Huaian and. Faced with certain hostility, Zhu Di pretended to fall ill, in the first year, Zhu Di survived the initial assaults by superior forces under Geng Bingwen and Li Jinglong thanks to superior tactics and capable Mongol auxiliaries. By 1402, he knew enough to be able to avoid the main hosts of the army while sacking Xuzhou, Suzhou
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Proverb
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A proverb is a simple and concrete saying, popularly known and repeated, that expresses a truth based on common sense or experience. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim, Proverbs fall into the category of formulaic language. Proverbs are often borrowed from languages and cultures, and sometimes come down to the present through more than one language. Both the Bible and medieval Latin have played a role in distributing proverbs across Europe. Mieder has concluded that cultures that treat the Bible as their major spiritual book contain between three hundred and five hundred proverbs that stem from the Bible, however, almost every culture has examples of its own unique proverbs. Defining a “proverb” is a difficult task, Proverb scholars often quote Archer Taylor’s classic “The definition of a proverb is too difficult to repay the undertaking. An incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that one is not, hence no definition will enable us to identify positively a sentence as proverbial”. Another common definition is from Lord John Russell “A proverb is the wit of one, Alan Dundes, however, rejects including such sayings among truly proverbs, “Are weather proverbs proverbs. The definition of “proverb” has also changed over the years. For example, the following was labeled “A Yorkshire proverb” in 1883, in other languages and cultures, the definition of “proverb” also differs from English. In the Chumburung language of Ghana, aŋase are literal proverbs and akpare are metaphoric ones. ”Among the Bini of Nigeria, the first relates to historical events, the second relates to current events, and the third was “linguistic ornamentation in formal discourse”. Among the Balochi of Pakistan and Afghanistan, there is a word batal for ordinary proverbs, There are also language communities that combine proverbs and riddles in some sayings, leading some scholars to create the label proverb riddles. Haste makes waste A stitch in time saves nine Ignorance is bliss Mustnt cry over spilled milk and you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him drink and those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, fortune favours the bold Well begun is half done. A little learning is a dangerous thing A rolling stone gathers no moss and it aint over till the fat lady sings It is better to be smarter than you appear than to appear smarter than you are. Good things come to those who wait, a poor workman blames his tools. A dog is a mans best friend, an apple a day keeps the doctor away If the shoe fits, wear it
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Chengyu
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Chengyu are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expression, most of which consist of four characters. Chengyu were widely used in Classical Chinese and are common in vernacular Chinese writing. According to the most stringent definition, there are about 5,000 chengyu in the Chinese language and they are often referred to as Chinese idioms or four-character idioms, however, they are not the only idioms in Chinese. Chengyu are mostly derived from ancient literature, as such, chengyu do not follow the usual grammatical structure and syntax of the modern Chinese spoken language, and are instead highly compact and synthetic. Often the four characters reflect the moral behind the story rather than the story itself and he won the battle because of this no-retreat strategy. Similar phrases are known in the West, such as burning bridges or Crossing the Rubicon and this particular idiom cannot be used in a losing scenario because the story behind it does not describe a failure. It is an idiom that has a meaning that implies suspicious situations. It is derived from an excerpt from a Han era poem, the literal meaning of the idiom is impossible to understand without the background knowledge of the origin of the phrase. However, some such as wind from an empty cave. Wind from an empty cave is now mistakenly used to describe rumors without source when the actual meaning is the opposite. It used to describe rumors with actual, solid sources or reasons, bare-faced facing the emperor is now misused to describe beauty that doesnt require make-up, e. g. when entering court. Its original meaning is to be confident in ones true look, however, that is not to say that all chengyu are born of an often-told fable. Indeed, chengyu which are free of metaphorical nuances pervade amidst the otherwise contextually driven aspect of written vernacular Chinese, an example of this is speaking, yet without trust, referring to an individual who cannot be trusted despite what he says, an essentially deceitful person. Its archaic nature is only betrayed by the use of the character yán as a verb. Many Chinese idioms have their English equivalents, for example, 冰山一角 and the tip of the iceberg share both their literal and idiomatic meanings, while 言不由衷 and to speak with ones tongue in ones cheek share idiomatic meanings. Chinese idioms can also serve as a guide through Chinese culture, chengyu teach about motifs that were previously common in Chinese literature and culture. For example, idioms with nature motifs – e. g. mountains, water, works considered masterpieces of Chinese literature – such as the Four Great Classical Novels – serve as the source for many idioms, which in turn condense and retell the story. The following three examples show that the meaning of the idiom can be different by only changing one character
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Liu Bang
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Emperor Gaozu of Han, born Liu Bang, was the founder and first emperor of the Han dynasty, reigning from 202 –195 BC. He was one of the few dynasty founders in Chinese history with humble origin from the peasant class, before coming to power, Liu Bang initially served as a minor patrol officer for the Qin dynasty in his hometown Pei County, within the conquered state of Chu. With the First Emperors death and the Qin Empires subsequent political chaos, Liu Bang renounced his government position and he won the race against fellow rebel leader Xiang Yu to invade the Qin heartland and forced the surrender of the last Qin emperor in 206 BC. Within the year, Liu Bang broke out with his army and conquered the Three Qins, in 202 BC, Liu Bang emerged victorious following the Battle of Gaixia, unified most of China under his control, and established the Han dynasty with himself as the founding emperor. During his reign, Liu Bang reduced taxes and corvée, promoted Confucianism and he also initiated the policy of heqin to maintain a de jure peace between the Han Empire and the Xiongnu after losing the Battle of Baideng in 200 BC. He died in 195 BC and was succeeded by his son, in imperial Han myth, Liu Bang was a descendant of the mythical Emperor Yao, who descended from the Yellow Emperor. It is a practice among many ancient Chinese noble families to claim descent from the mythical Yellow Emperor. Liu Bang was born to a peasant family in Fenyu Village, Zhongyang Township and his parents names were not recorded in history, they were simply referred to as Liu Taigong and Liu Ao. According to legend, before Liu Bangs birth, his mother was caught in a rainstorm, at that moment, lightning struck and the sky darkened. Liu Bangs father went to fetch his wife home and saw a dragon hovering above her and she became pregnant and later gave birth to Liu Bang. The young Liu Bang was outspoken, charismatic and of great generosity, Liu Bang persisted in his idling ways and depended on his brothers family for food and lodging. When he grew older, he became a friend and live-in companion of a former retainer of Lord Xinling named Zhang Er. After Qin dynasty conquered Chu, Zhang Er went into hiding and he nevertheless forged close relationships with most of the local county bureaucrats, and earned himself a small reputation in the district. Liu Bang was once sent for statute labour in the capital Xianyang, awed by the majestic sight of the royal convoy, he exclaimed, Wow, this is how a great man should be. One day, Lü Wen, a wealthy and influential gentry from Shanfu County who had moved to Pei County, was putting on a feast to host the local elites. Xiao He, who was in charge of helping Lü Wen collect gifts from the visitors, Liu Bang went there without bringing any money and said, I offer 10,000 coins. Lü Wen chatted with Liu Bang, and said, I used to predict fortunes for many people and he then offered his daughter Lü Zhis hand in marriage to Liu Bang. After they were wed, Lü Zhi bore Liu Bang a son Liu Ying, Liu Bang was tasked with escorting a group of convicts to Mount Li to build the First Emperors mausoleum
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Tang dynasty
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The Tang dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It is generally regarded as a point in Chinese civilization. Its territory, acquired through the campaigns of its early rulers, rivaled that of the Han dynasty. The dynasty was founded by the Lǐ family, who seized power during the decline, the dynasty was briefly interrupted when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Second Zhou dynasty and becoming the only Chinese empress regnant. In two censuses of the 7th and 8th centuries, the Tang records estimated the population by number of registered households at about 50 million people. Various kingdoms and states paid tribute to the Tang court, while the Tang also conquered or subdued several regions which it controlled through a protectorate system. Besides political hegemony, the Tang also exerted a powerful influence over neighboring states such as those in Korea, Japan. Like the previous Sui dynasty, the Tang dynasty maintained a service system by recruiting scholar-officials through standardized examinations and recommendations to office. This civil order was undermined by the rise of military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century. Chinese culture flourished and further matured during the Tang era, it is considered the greatest age for Chinese poetry. Two of Chinas most famous poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, belonged to this age, as did many famous painters such as Han Gan, Zhang Xuan, there was a rich variety of historical literature compiled by scholars, as well as encyclopedias and geographical works. The adoption of the title Tängri Qaghan by the Tang Emperor Taizong in addition to his title as emperor was eastern Asias first simultaneous kingship, there were many notable innovations during the Tang, including the development of woodblock printing. Buddhism became an influence in Chinese culture, with native Chinese sects gaining prominence. However, Buddhism would later be persecuted by the state, subsequently declining in influence, although the dynasty and central government were in decline by the 9th century, art and culture continued to flourish. This family was known as the Longxi Li lineage, which includes the Tang poet Li Bai, the Tang Emperors also had Xianbei maternal ancestry, from Emperor Gaozu of Tangs Xianbei mother Duchess Dugu. He had prestige and military experience, and was a first cousin of Emperor Yang of Sui, Li Yuan rose in rebellion in 617, along with his son and his equally militant daughter Princess Pingyang, who raised and commanded her own troops. In winter 617, Li Yuan occupied Changan, relegated Emperor Yang to the position of Taishang Huang or retired emperor, and acted as regent to the puppet child-emperor, Emperor Gong of Sui. On the news of Emperor Yangs murder by General Yuwen Huaji on June 18,618, Li Yuan declared himself the emperor of a new dynasty, the Tang
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Yuan dynasty
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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
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Son of Heaven
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The Son of Heaven is a universal emperor who rules tianxia comprising all under heaven which translates from the ancient Chinese into English as ruler of the whole world. The title Son of Heaven comes from the Mandate of Heaven and they declared that Heaven had revoked the mandate from the Shang and given it to the Zhou in retaliation for Shang corruption and misrule. Heaven bestowed the mandate to whomever was best fit to rule, the title held the emperor responsible for the prosperity and security of his people through the threat of losing the mandate. The ancient Han Chinese imperial title of tianzi was later adopted by the Emperor of Japan during the Asuka period, Japan sent diplomatic missions to China, then under the rule of the Sui dynasty, forming cultural and commercial ties. The Yamato state modeled their government after the Confucian imperial bureaucracy, a mission in 607 delivered a message that greeted the Sui emperor by saying that the Son of Heaven in the land where the sun rises. To the Son of Heaven in the land where the sun sets, the Japanese title was less conditional than its Chinese counterpart. There was no divine mandate that punished the emperor for failing to rule justly, the right to rule of the Japanese emperor, descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu, was absolute. The Vietnamese title Thiên tử was more similar to the Chinese Son of Heaven, a divine mandate gave the Vietnamese emperor the right to rule, but it was based on his ability to govern and not his lineage. The Son of Heaven was often one of several titles adopted by East Asian monarchs, Emperor Taizong of Tang held the Chinese Son of Heaven title and the Central Asian title of Tengeri Qaghan, which he gained after defeating the Tujue. Japanese monarchs employed the title of tennō, a name that also appeals to the connection to Heaven. Tian / Shangdi Heaven worship All Under Heaven Emperor of China Tian Kehan Sinocentrism Celestial Empire Imperial Chinese tributary system Pax Sinica Beasley, the Japanese Experience, A Short History of Japan. The Evolution of Government in China, heritage of China, Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese Civilization. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan, The Tenmu Dynasty, 650–800. H. J. Van Derven, ed. Warfare in Chinese History, vietnam and the Chinese Model, A Comparative Study of Vietnamese and Chinese Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
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Qing dynasty
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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
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Flag of the Qing dynasty
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It became the first national flag of China and is usually referred to as the Yellow Dragon Flag. Ruling China from 1644 until the overthrow of the monarchy during the Xinhai Revolution, between 1889 and 1912, the dynasty represented itself with the dragon flag. Throughout the history of Chinas imperial dynasties, yellow was considered the color of successive Chinese emperors. The legendary first emperor of China was known as the Yellow Emperor, members of the imperial family of China at that time were the only ones allowed to display the color yellow in buildings and on garments. The Emperor of China usually used a Chinese dragon as a symbol of his imperial power, generally, a five-clawed dragon was used for emperors only. In Chinese culture, a pearl is shown on top of the dragons head. The pearl is associated with wealth, good luck, and prosperity, the design of the flag was largely based on the Plain Yellow Banner of the Eight Banners. The Arrow Incident of 1856 occurred as a result of Chinese civilian vessels flying foreign flags as the Qing dynasty had no flag at the time. In 1862, sailors from the Chinese and British navies clashed at Wuhan on the Yangtze River. The triangular version of the dragon flag was restricted to naval and governmental use only, no civilian ships were permitted to fly the yellow pennant. However, on some occasions and at international exhibitions, this flag was used to represent China. As a result, he petitioned the court for permission. Seeing Western countries flying national flags on official occasions, Li Hongzhang also asked Empress Dowager Cixi to select a flag for the Qing dynasty. Among the proposals for use of the Ba gua flag, the Yellow dragon flag, in 1888, the imperial court promulgated the naval flag as the Qing national flag. Also, mustard yellow was used in the flag of Manchukuo in deference to the Qing dynasty, the blue dragon was featured in the Twelve Symbols national emblem, which was the state emblem of China from 1913-1928. Navy of Qing dynasty Navy of Qing dynasty adopted the flag in the canton of naval flags in 1909. Chinese Eastern Railway Flag of Chinese Eastern Railway adopted a combination of Qing dynasty, the flag was not updated until 1915. Flag of Bhutan Media related to Flags of the Qing Dynasty at Wikimedia Commons
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China
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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
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Taiwan
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Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. Neighbours include China to the west, Japan to the northeast, Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations, and the one with the largest economy. The island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, was inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before the 17th century. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty, following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROCs loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, in the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage, Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, the PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refused diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC, the PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible. There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, the former name Formosa dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means beautiful island. The name Formosa eventually replaced all others in European literature and was in use in English in the early 20th century. This name was adopted into the Chinese vernacular as the name of the sandbar. The modern word Taiwan is derived from this usage, which is seen in forms in Chinese historical records. Use of the current Chinese name was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture, through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as Taiwan. The official name of the state is the Republic of China and it was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when it lost its seat to the Peoples Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become known as Taiwan. In some contexts, especially ones from the ROC government
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Hong Kong
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Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the Pearl River Delta of East Asia. Macau lies across the delta to the west, and the Chinese province of Guangdong borders the territory to the north. With a total area of 1,106 square kilometres. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during World War II until British control resumed in 1945, under the principle of one country, two systems, Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative, in addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of appropriate fields. Hong Kong is one of the worlds most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the worlds most competitive and freest economic entity. As the worlds 8th largest trading entity, its legal tender, Hong Kongs tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by simple taxation with a competitive level of corporate tax and supported by its independent judiciary system. However, while Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and it has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the worlds longest life expectancy. Over 90% of the population use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring areas of Mainland China. Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island, before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour, literally means Little Hong Kong)—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was a point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen. Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time, fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbours fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour, the name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric. As of 1997, its name is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China. This is the title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law. Hong Kong has carried many nicknames, the most famous among those is the Pearl of the Orient, which reflected the impressive nightscape of the citys light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour
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Emblem of Hong Kong
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The emblem features the same design elements as the regional Flag of Hong Kong in a circular setting. The outer white ring is shown with the caption of the name of the territory in Traditional Chinese. The colonial badge was in use since 1843 in one version or another until it was replaced by the coat of arms granted in 1959, throughout several revisions, the idea of the badge remained. It depicted three merchants and a pile of cargo on a wharf on the left in the foreground, in the background there was a square-rigged ship and a Chinese junk in the harbour backed by conical hills. Above was the arms of the United Kingdom. The arms had been in use in Colonial Hong Kong since it was granted on 21 January 1959, the use of the arms by the Hong Kong Government ended in 1997, when it was replaced by the regional emblem. The arms featured two traditional Chinese junks facing each other, and on a red embattled chief a golden naval crown, the crest was a crowned lion holding a pearl, and the supporters were a crowned British lion and a Chinese dragon. The shield and supporters stood on a compartment, consisting of an island, the two junks symbolise the importance of Eastern-type of trade on the sea surrounding the colony. In the crest, the pearl held by the lion indicates the small and it also recalls the romanticised phrase Pearl of the Orient referring to Hong Kong. The lion and dragon supporters show the British and Chinese connections of Hong Kong, the island symbolises the beginning of the colony as an island and represents the maritime and hilly geography of Hong Kong. The small lion standing on the crest alone had featured on the reverse of Hong Kong coinage before the introduction of the Bauhinia design in preparation for the transfer of sovereignty in 1997. The colonial arms has been adopted by a called the Hong Kong Autonomy Movement as their flag for Hong Kong autonomy. The flag features the old coat of arms against a blue background, the HKAM felt that supporters of Hong Kong autonomy from China needed a symbol around which they could rally. The flag imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong after the handover was inappropriate, as was the old flag under the British, the old coat of arms was chosen because it is easily recognisable by people in Hong Kong as representing Hong Kong albeit under the British. During British rule, the coat of arms were displayed by Government House, the Legislative Council, most courts, the arms were also in use by aircraft of the Government Flying Service. The modern emblem came into use on 1 July 1997, after Hong Kongs transfer of sovereignty from the United Kingdom to the Peoples Republic of China, the Regional Emblem of the Hong Kong is round in shape. It bears a red edge, an outer ring marked with scripts. The swaying bauhinia design at the centre of the ring of the emblem is white in colour
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Brand Hong Kong
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Brand Hong Kong, or, was launched in 2001 as a government program designed to promote Hong Kong as Asia’s World City. In 2010, following a review and public engagement exercise, BrandHK was updated, incorporating changes to its visual identity, core values, attributes. The idea of “branding” Hong Kong originated in 1997, when attention was focused on the handover of Hong Kong to China. The handover led to concerns over Hong Kongs ability to remain as a financial center as well as a global city. The decision to develop BrandHK was finally taken by the Government of Hong Kong in 2000, the government review of 2008-09 was undertaken to identify changes that had taken place in and around the city since 2001, and to incorporate those changes into the brand. Upon unveiling of the new-style ribbon logo in 2010, it was criticized that the fees paid to the company could not be justified by the limited updates to the logo. The original image design incorporated the Chinese characters for Hong Kong 香港 as well as the citys initial HK, in 2010, following a Government review, the dragon logo was updated, making the dragon head smaller and incorporating three streak of ribbons behind the dragons head
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European dragon
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European dragons are legendary creatures in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe. Some depictions show dragons with feathered wings, crests, ear frills, fiery manes, ivory spikes running down its spine, others have no legs or multiple heads. In folktales, dragons blood often contains magical properties, keeping them alive for longer or giving them magical power, for example, in the opera Siegfried, dragons blood allows Siegfried to understand the language of the Forest Bird. The typical dragon protects a cavern or castle filled with gold, an evil dragon is often associated with a great hero who tries to slay it, and a good one is said to give wise advice. Though a winged creature, the dragon is generally to be found in its underground lair, possibly, the dragons of European and Mid-Eastern mythology stem from the cult of snakes found in religions throughout the world. Dragon is derived from the Latin word draco, as in the constellation, Draco, roman dragons evolved from serpentine Greek ones, combined with the dragons of the Near East, in the mix that characterized the hybrid Greek/Eastern Hellenistic culture. From Babylon, the muš-ḫuššu was a representation of a Near Eastern dragon. Johns Book of Revelation—Greek literature, not Roman—describes Satan as a dragon, flaming red, with seven heads. Much of Johns literary inspiration is late Hebrew and Greek, with the jaws facing into the wind, the silken body inflated and rippled, resembling a windsock. Several vague incarnations of evil in the Old Testament were given the translation draco in Jeromes Vulgate, to changes in meaning. Dragons in Greek mythology often guard treasure such as Ladon, a hundred headed dragon which guarded the tree of Herdias until he was slain by Heracles, likewise Python guarded the oracle of Delphi until he was likewise slain by Apollo out of revenge for Python tormenting his mother. The Lerneaen Hydra, a multiple headed serpentine swamp monster is said to be a dragon, being killed by Heracles later, but the matter if hes a true dragon or not is still over controversy. Dragons are usually shown in modern times with a body like a huge lizard and this traces back to the continental dragon, commonly referred to as a fire-breathing dragon. The continental, like many other European dragons, has bat-like wings growing from its back and it has been speculated that accounts of spitting cobras may be the origin of the myths of continental dragons. In Western folklore, dragons are usually portrayed as evil, with the mainly in Asturian and Welsh folklore. This is in contrast to Asian dragons, who are depicted as more benevolent creatures. In the modern period, the European dragon is depicted as a huge fire-breathing, scaly and horned lizard-like creature, with wings. It is sometimes shown with feathered wings, crests, fiery manes, ivory spikes running down its spine, Dragons blood often has magical properties, for example, in the opera Siegfried it let Siegfried understand the language of the Forest Bird
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2008 Summer Olympics
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A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events. China became the 22nd nation to host the Olympic Games and the 18th to hold a Summer Olympic Games. It was the time that the Summer Olympic Games were held in East Asia and Asia, after Tokyo, Japan, in 1964 and Seoul, South Korea. Beijing was awarded the Games over four competitors on 13 July 2001, the Government of the Peoples Republic of China promoted the Games and invested heavily in new facilities and transportation systems. A total of 37 venues were used to host the events, the official logo of these Olympic Games, titled Dancing Beijing, refers to the host city by featuring a stylized calligraphic character jīng. The Games were the second most watched Olympics in history, attracting 4.7 billion viewers worldwide, there were 43 world records and 132 Olympic records set at the 2008 Summer Olympics. An unprecedented 86 countries won at least one medal during the Games, Chinese athletes won the most gold medals with 51, and with 100 medals in total became only the 7th different Olympic team to top an overall medal tally. The United States won the most total medals with 110, the games were deemed highly successful with the rising standard of competition among nations across the world. Beijing was elected as the host city for the 2008 Summer Olympics on 13 July 2001, during the 112th IOC Session in Moscow, defeating bids from Toronto, Paris, Istanbul, and Osaka. Prior to the session, five other cities had submitted bids to the IOC, after the first round of voting, Beijing held a significant lead over the other four candidates. Osaka received only six votes and was eliminated, in the second round, Beijing was supported by a majority of voters, eliminating the need for subsequent rounds. Torontos bid was their 5th failure since 1960, the size of China, its increased enforcement of doping controls, and sympathy concerning its loss of the 2000 Summer Olympics to Sydney were all factors in the decision. Eight years earlier, Beijing had led every round of voting for the 2000 Summer Olympics before losing to Sydney by two votes in the final round. Human rights concerns expressed by Amnesty International and politicians in both Europe and the United States were considered by the delegates, according to IOC Executive Director François Carrard, Carrard and others suggested that the selection might lead to improvements in human rights in China. In addition, a number of IOC delegates who had formerly been athletes expressed concern about heat and air quality during the Games, China outlined plans to address these environmental concerns in its bid application. The Oxford Olympics Study 2016 estimates the outturn cost of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics at USD6.8 billion in 2015-dollars and this includes sports-related costs only, that is, operational costs incurred by the organizing committee for the purpose of staging the Games, e. g. The Beijing Olympics cost of USD6.8 billion compares with costs of USD4.6 billion for Rio 2016, average cost for the Summer Games since 1960 is USD5.2 billion. They went on to claim that revenues from the Games would exceed the original target of $16 million
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Han Chinese
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The Han Chinese, Han people or simply Han are an ethnic group native to East Asia. They constitute approximately 92% of the population of China, 95% of Taiwan, 76% of Singapore, 23% of Malaysia, Han Chinese are the worlds largest ethnic group with over 1.3 billion people. Similarly, the Chinese language also came to be named the Han language ever since, in the Oxford Dictionary, the Han are defined as The dominant ethnic group in China. In the Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania, the Han are called the dominant population in China, as well as in Taiwan, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the Han are the Chinese peoples especially as distinguished from non-Chinese elements in the population. The name Hanzhong, in turn, was derived from the Han River, which flows through the regions plains. The river, in turn, derives its name from such as Tianhan, Yinhan, Xinghan or Yunhan, all ancient Chinese poetic nicknames for the Milky Way. This gave rise to a commonly used nowadays by overseas Chinese for ethnic identity – Huaren. The term is used in conversation and is also an element in the Cantonese word for Chinatown. The vast majority of Han Chinese – over 1.2 billion of them – live in areas under the jurisdiction of the Peoples Republic of China, where they constitute about 92% of its population. Han Chinese also constitute the majority in both of the administrative regions of the PRC—about 95% and 96% of the population of Hong Kong and Macau. There are over 22 million Han Chinese in Taiwan, they began migrating from the coastal provinces of mainland China to Taiwan during the 13th to 17th century. At first, these migrants chose to settle in locations that bore a resemblance to the areas they had left behind in mainland China, hoklo immigrants from Quanzhou settled in coastal regions, and those from Zhangzhou tended to gather on inland plains, while the Hakka inhabited hilly areas. Clashes between these groups over land, water, and cultural differences led to the relocation of some communities, of about 40 million overseas Chinese worldwide, nearly 30 million live in Southeast Asia. They are collectively called Nanyang Chinese, according to a population genetic study, Singapore is the country with the biggest proportion of Hans in Southeast Asia. Up until the past few decades, overseas Han communities originated predominantly from areas in southern China, christmas Island has a Chinese majority at 70%, large Chinese populations also live in Malaysia and Thailand. Prior to the 1965 split, Malaysia and Singapore used to have the largest overseas Chinese population in the world and this position has since been taken by Thailand. The prehistory of the Han ethnic group is closely intertwined with both records and mythology. Han Chinese trace their ancestry from a confederation of late neolithic/early bronze-age agricultural tribes that lived along the Guanzhong, the Yellow Emperor is traditionally credited to have united with the neighbouring Shennong tribes after defeating their leader, Flame Emperor, at the Battle of Banquan
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Quotations related to Chinese dragon at Wikiquote
