1.
Province of China
–
Provinces, formally provincial-level administrative divisions or first-level administrative divisions, are the highest-level Chinese administrative divisions. There are 34 such divisions, classified as 23 provinces, four municipalities, five autonomous regions, the Peoples Republic of China claims sovereignty over the territory administered by the Republic of China, claiming most of it as its Taiwan Province. The ROC also administers some offshore islands which form Fujian Province and these were part of an originally unified Fujian province, which since the stalemate of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 has been divided between the PRC and ROC. Note that every province has a Communist Party of China provincial committee, the committee secretary is in effective charge of the province, rather than the nominal governor of the provincial government. The government of each province is nominally led by a provincial committee. The committee secretary is first-in-charge of the province, second-in-command is the governor of the provincial government, the Peoples Republic of China claims the island of Taiwan and its surrounding islets, including Penghu, as Taiwan Province. The territory is controlled by the Republic of China, a municipality or direct-controlled municipality is a higher level of city which is directly under the Chinese government, with status equal to that of the provinces. In practice, their status is higher than that of common provinces. The governor of each region is usually appointed from the respective minority ethnic group. A special administrative region is an autonomous and self-governing subnational subject of the Peoples Republic of China that is directly under the Central Peoples Government. Each SAR has an executive as head of the region. The regions government is not fully independent, as policy and military defence are the responsibility of the central government. Notes,1, as of 20102, per km23, km24, Abbreviation in the parentheses is informal 5, Since founding in 1949, however, the PRC has never controlled Taiwan. Taiwan currently administers Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, the subject of whether or not Taiwan is part of China is often debated, with no clear conclusion. The Ming Dynasty kept the system set up by the Yuan Dynasty, however. By the time of the establishment of the Qing Dynasty in 1644 there were 18 provinces, in addition, there was a zongdu, a general military inspector or governor general, for every two to three provinces. Outer regions of China were not divided into provinces, military leaders or generals oversaw Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, while vice-dutong and civilian leaders headed the leagues, a subdivision of Mongolia. The ambans supervised the administration of Tibet, in 1884 Xinjiang became a province, in 1907 Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang were made provinces as well
Province of China
–
Map comparing administrative divisions as drawn by the PRC and ROC.
Province of China
–
Provincial division 省份 Shěngfèn
2.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
3.
Zhou (political division)
–
Zhou were historical political divisions of China. Formally established during the Han Dynasty, zhou continued to exist until the establishment of the Republic of China—a period of over 2000 years, zhou were also previously used in Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. The Tang Dynasty also established fǔ, zhou of special importance such as capitals, by the Ming and Qing, fǔ became predominant divisions within Chinese provinces. In modern China, zhou today exists only in the autonomous prefecture. However, zhou have left a mark on the place names of China, including the province of Guizhou and the major cities of Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Lanzhou. Zhou were first mentioned in ancient Chinese texts, notably the Yu Gong or Tribute of Yu, all agreed on the division of China into nine zhou, though they differed on their names and position. These zhou were geographical concepts, not administrative entities, the Han Dynasty was the first to formalize the zhou into actual administrative divisions by establishing 13 zhou all across China. Because these zhou were the largest divisions of the China at the time, after the Han Dynasty, however, the number of zhou began to increase. By the time of the Sui Dynasty, there were over a hundred zhou all across China, the Sui and Tang dynasties merged zhou with the next level down, the commanderies or jùn. The Tang also added another level on top, the circuit or dào, henceforth, zhou were lowered to second-level status, and the word becomes translated into English as prefecture. Thereafter, zhou continued to survive as second- or third-level political divisions until the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China abolished zhou altogether, leaving the word only in the names of cities such as Guangzhou and Hangzhou. The Peoples Republic of China recycled the name, using it to refer to the autonomous prefectures granted to various ethnicities, province Administrative divisions of the Peoples Republic of China
Zhou (political division)
–
Han Dynasty zhou in CE 189.
Zhou (political division)
–
A mid-Qing map of
Zhejiang Provinces, with all prefecture capitals indicated (杭州府
Hangzhou -fu, 温州府
Wenzhou -fu, 金华府
Jinhua -fu, etc.). South is on top.
4.
Guiyang
–
Guiyang is the capital of Guizhou province of Southwest China. It is located in the center of the province, situated on the east of the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau, and on the bank of the Nanming River. The city has an elevation of about 1,100 meters and it has an area of 8,034 square kilometers. During the 2010 census, its population was 4,324,561, Guiyang was a 7th-century military outpost under the Sui and Tang, when the area around it was known as Juzhou. It grew into a city named Shunyuan under the Mongolian Yuan dynasty sometime between their 1279 southwestern campaigns and 1283, by the time Guizhou became a full province in 1413, its capital at Guiyang was also known as Guizhou. It became a seat under the Ming and Qing. Guiyang grew rapidly during the development of the southwest that occurred after the Japanese invasion of China during World War II and it has also grown rapidly since Deng Xiaopings economic reforms reached it in the 1990s. Guiyang has a four-season, monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate, tempered by its low latitude and it has cool winters and moderate-temperature summers, the majority of the years 1,118 millimetres of precipitation occurs from May to July. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from 5.1 °C in January to 23.9 °C in July, rain is common throughout the year, with occasional flurries in winter. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 12 percent in January to 41 percent in August, average monthly relative humidity is consistently above 75% throughout the year. The moderate temperature together with other factors including air quality, wind speed, the entire Guiyang municipality currently consists of six districts, one county-level city and three counties. The districts are Nanming, Yunyan, Huaxi, Wudang, Baiyun, the county-city is Qingzhen and the counties are Kaiyang, Xifeng and Xiuwen. Guiyangs GDP, ¥249 billion Income per capita, ¥24,961 per year, per person Unemployment rate, less than 4% Guiyang is the economic, the GDP per capita was ¥46,108 in 2013. Wholesale operations include large regional produce, furniture, and industrial, wal-Marts southwest China regional vegetable and produce distribution center is located in Guiyang. There are many foreign brands implanted in Guiyang, such as McDonald, Burger King, H&M, Most of the time, they are located near the various shopping centers. The largest shopping centers are Hunter city plaza, Huaguoyuan Shopping Center, hydro-electric power generators are located along the citys main rivers including the Wu River. By 2007, the hydro electric plants supplied over 70 percent of the citys electricity. Coal is mined in the locality of Guiyang and Anshun, and there are large thermal generating plants at Guiyang and Duyun, a large iron and steel plant came into production in Guiyang in 1960, supplying the local machinery-manufacturing industry
Guiyang
–
An early-18th-century French map of Guiyang
Guiyang
–
Location of Guiyang City (yellow) in Guizhou and the PRC
Guiyang
–
People's Square, Guiyang
5.
Party chief of the Communist Party of China
–
In most cases, it is the de facto highest political office of its area of jurisdiction. The term can also be used for the position of Communist Party organizations in state-owned enterprises, universities, hospitals. In post-Cultural Revolution Chinese political theory, the Communist Party is responsible for the formulation of policies, at every level of jurisdiction, a government leader serves alongside the party secretary. For example, in the case of a province, the provincial Party Secretary is the de facto highest office, the Governor is usually the second-highest-ranking official in the partys Provincial Committee, and holds the concurrent title of Deputy Party Committee Secretary. A similar comparison can be made for municipal Party Secretaries and Mayors, there have been rare instances where both Party Secretary and Governor positions were held by the same person, though this is not the common practice since the end of the Cultural Revolution. The Party Secretary is usually assisted by numerous Deputy Party Secretaries, until the 1980s, the leading position of a local party organization was called the First Secretary, its deputy the Second Secretary. The local party organizations each had its own Secretariat with numerous secretaries, at the provincial level, the party chief is known as CPC Provincial Committee Secretary, while the corresponding government position is known as Governor. At the prefecture or municipal level, the party chief is known as CPC Municipal Committee Secretary, at the county level, the party chief is known as CPC County Committee Secretary, while the corresponding government position is known as the County Governor. At the township level, the party chief is known as CPC Township/town Committee Secretary, at the village level, the local party chief, known as the Village Party Branch Secretary heads a committee of around ten people to make executive decisions related to the village. The process is not entirely formal, and therefore the party chief at this level is not considered part of the Chinese civil service. In writing and the media, the CPC designation before the title is not used often because it is assumed that Provincial Committee Secretary refers to the Communist Party secretary. Generally, a top government official will also hold the first deputy party chief position, a Deputy Party Secretary assists in the work of the Party Secretary. In provincial and most prefecture-level jurisdictions, there are two deputy party chiefs, the higher-ranked deputy party chief is generally also concurrently the head of the government of the party committees area of jurisdiction. The other deputy party chief is known as the zhuanzhi fushuji, literally, generally, the zhuanzhi deputy party chief is also the head of the party school of any given jurisdiction. A Party Branch or Party Group exists in almost all institutions of state which are not formally part of the Communist Party organization and these include government organs, Peoples Congresses, ministries, provincial and municipal departments and so on. These organizations are created by mandate of a Party Committee, serve to ensure that the policy guidelines of the party is followed at each respective institution. The Party Branch Secretary or Party Group Secretary is an office from that of the Party Committee Secretary. They do not have the organization and bureaucracy that is commonplace with a Party Committee
Party chief of the Communist Party of China
–
China
6.
Han Chinese
–
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
Han Chinese
–
1983 Map of ethnolinguistic groups in
mainland China and
Taiwan (Han is in olive green)
Han Chinese
–
A female servant and male advisor dressed in
silk robes, ceramic figurines from the Western Han era
Han Chinese
–
Han Chinese man wears a
queue in compliance with Manchu custom during the Qing dynasty
Han Chinese
–
Zhang Zeduan 's painting
Along the River During the Qingming Festival captures the daily life of people from the Song period at the capital, Bianjing, today's
Kaifeng.
7.
Miao people
–
The Miao is an ethnic group recognized by the government of China as one of the 55 official minority groups. Miao is a Chinese term and does not reflect the self-designations of the component groups of people, which include Hmong, Hmub, Xong, and A-Hmao. Because of the given reasons, many Miao peoples cannot communicate with each other in their mother tongues. The Miao live primarily in southern Chinas mountains, in the provinces of Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Hainan, Guangdong, some members of the Miao sub-groups, most notably the Hmong people, have migrated out of China into Southeast Asia. Following the communist takeover of Laos in 1975, a group of Hmong refugees resettled in several Western nations, mainly in the United States, France. There has been a recent tendency by Hmong Americans to group all Miao peoples together under the term Hmong because of their disdain for the Chinese term Miao, the term Miao gained official status in 1949 as a minzu encompassing a group of linguistically-related ethnic minorities in Southwest China. Historically, the term Miao had been applied inconsistently to a variety of non-Han peoples, early Western writers used Chinese-based names in various transcriptions, Miao, Miao-tse, Miao-tsze, Meau, Meo, mo, miao-tseu etc. In Southeast Asian contexts words derived from the Chinese Miao took on a sense which was perceived as derogatory by the Hmong subgroup living in that region, in China, however, the term has no such context and is used by the Miao people themselves, of every group. The later prominence of Hmong people in the West has led to a situation where the entire Miao linguistic/cultural family is referred to as Hmong in English language sources. Following the recent increased interaction of Hmong in the West with Miao in China it is reported that some upwardly aspiring non-Hmong Miao have even begun to identify themselves as Hmong. However, most non-Hmong Miao in China are unfamiliar with the term as referring to their group and continue to use Miao. Though the Miao themselves use various self-designations, the Chinese traditionally classify them according to the most characteristic colour of the womens clothes.6 million. Outside of China, members of the Miao linguistic/cultural family sub-group or nations of the Hmong live in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Burma due to outward migrations starting in the 18th century. As a result of recent migrations in the aftermath of the Indochina and Vietnam Wars from 1949–75, many Hmong people now live in the United States, French Guiana, France, altogether, there are approximately 8 million speakers in the Miao language family. This language family, which consists of 6 languages and around 35 dialects belongs to the Hmong/Miao branch of the Hmong–Mien language family, there are about 1. 5–2 million Hmong in China. Note, The Miao areas of Sichuan province became part of the newly created Chongqing Municipality in 1997, most Miao currently live in China. Miao population growth in China,1953,2,510,0001964,2,780,0001982,5,030,0001990,7,390,0003,600,000 Miao, about half of the entire Chinese Miao population, were in Guizhou in 1990. There are 2,000,000 Hmong spread throughout northern Vietnam, Laos, Burma,174,000 live in Thailand, where they are one of the six main hill tribes
Miao people
–
Headdress of the Long-horn Miao—one of the small branches of Miao living in the 12 villages near
Zhijin County (织金县),
Guizhou Province of China
Miao people
–
Miao musicians from the Langde Miao Ethnic Village,
Guizhou.
Miao people
–
Miao girls also from Lang De,
Guizhou, awaiting their turn to perform.
Miao people
–
Young Miao woman in
Yangshuo County.
8.
Buyei people
–
The Bouyei are an ethnic group living in southern mainland China. Numbering 2.5 million, they are the 11th largest of the 56 ethnic groups recognized by the Peoples Republic of China. Some Bouyei also live in Vietnam, where they are one of that nations 54 officially recognized ethnic groups, despite the Chinese considering them a separate group, they consider themselves Zhuang. The Bouyei live in semi-tropical, high-altitude forests of Guizhou province, as well as in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, the Bouyei consist of various subgroups. Below are their autonyms written in the International Phonetic Alphabet with numerical Chao tones, there is a dialect continuum between these two. The Bouyei are the native Tai peoples of the plains of Guizhou and they are one of the oldest peoples of China, living in the area for more than 2,000 years. During the Nanlong Rebellion of 1797, the Bouyei underwent a strong repression that caused many of them to emigrate to faraway Vietnam, List of ethnic groups in China List of ethnic groups in Vietnam Yù Cuìróng 喻翠容, Bùyīyǔ jiǎnzhì 布依语简志. Wú Qǐlù 吴启禄, Bùyī-Hàn cídiǎn 布依汉词典, ISBN 7-105-04965-0, the Bouyei ethnic minority Buxqyaix Qyusmail – 布依在线 僚人全民概况 Bouyei language page 布依族网论坛 Map share of ethnic by county of China
Buyei people
–
Bouyei minority Shitou village, west Guizhou
Buyei people
–
A Bouyei woman in front of her house
9.
Dong people
–
Dong, a Kam–Sui people of southern China, are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the Peoples Republic of China. They are famed for their native-bred Kam Sweet Rice, carpentry skills, the Kam people live mostly in eastern Guizhou, western Hunan, and northern Guangxi in China. Small pockets of Kam speakers are found in Tuyên Quang Province in Vietnam, the Kam are thought to be the modern-day descendants of the ancient Liáo peoples who occupied much of southern China. Kam legends generally maintain that the ancestors of the Kam migrated from the east, according to the migration legends of the Southern Kam people, their ancestors came from Guangzhou, Guangdong and Wuzhou, Guangxi. The Northern Kam maintain that their ancestors fled Zhejiang and Fujian because of locust swarms, many Kam rebellions took place during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but none were successful in the long run. Although the Kam and Han Chinese peoples generally get along well today, today, many Kam are assimilating into mainstream Chinese society as rural Kam move into urban areas, resulting in intermarriage with the Han Chinese and the loss of the Kam language. The Kam language is a Tai–Kadai language, ethnologue distinguishes between two Kam languages, with the codes kmc for Southern Kam and doc for Northern Kam. Sui, Maonan, and Mulao are the languages most closely related to Kam, the Kam people sometimes use Chinese characters to represent the sounds of Kam words. A Latin alphabet was developed in 1958, but it is not much in use due to a lack of printed material, the Kam Grand Choir has been listed by UNESCO as a world-class intangible cultural heritage since 2009. Kam choral songs include songs, narratives, and childrens songs. One-part songs can be sung by one or many people, two famous Kam playwrights are Wu Wencai, author of Mei Liangyu, and Zhang Honggan. Kam oral literature contains an array of legends and folk tales. Many of these tales are about the leaders of past uprisings. Celebrated leaders include, Xing Ni - An ancient figure, whose legend dates possibly from the Tang Dynasty, Wu Mian - Leader of a 1378 rebellion during the Ming Dynasty due to drought and famine. Lin Kuan - Led a 1397 rebellion but was later executed, Popular among the Northern Kam and is commemorated by an ancient tree. Wu Jinyin - Wu revolted in the 1740 to resist grain taxes, Popular folk tales are listed below. They can be found in The Kam People of China by D. Norman Geary, village elders were traditionally the village leaders, although the government replaced these elders with village heads from 1911 to 1949. Kam society was also traditionally matriarchal, as can be evidenced by the cult of the goddess Sa Sui, before the advent of the Han Chinese, the Kam had no surnames, instead distinguishing each other by their fathers names
Dong people
–
Ethnic Kam women and man in holiday dresses.
Liping County, Guizhou, China.
Dong people
Dong people
Dong people
10.
Tujia people
–
The Tujia, with a total population of over 8 million, is the 8th largest ethnic minority in the Peoples Republic of China. They live in the Wuling Mountains, straddling the borders of Hunan, Hubei and Guizhou Provinces. The endonym Bizika means native dwellers, in Chinese, Tujia means also local, as distinguished from the Hakka whose name implies wandering. The Ba Kingdom reached the zenith of its power between 600 BC and 400 BC but was destroyed by the Qin in 316 BC. After being referred to by a succession of different names in ancient documents. The Tujia tusi chieftains reached the zenith of their power under the Ming Dynasty and they achieved this through their reputation as providers of fierce, highly disciplined fighting men, who were employed by the emperor to suppress revolts by other minorities. On numerous occasions, they helped defend China against outside invaders. The Manchus invaded and conquered the Ming in 1644 and established the Great Qing Empire, ever suspicious of local rulers, the Qing emperors always tried to replace Han officials with Manchu officials wherever they could. In the early 18th century, the Qing court finally felt secure enough to direct control over minority areas as well. This process, known as gaituguiliu, was carried out throughout south-west China gradually and, in general, the court adopted a carrot-and-stick approach of lavish pensions for compliant chieftains, coupled with a huge show of military force on the borders of their territories. Most of the Tujia areas returned to control during the period 1728-1735. With the weakening of central Qing rule, numerous large-scale uprisings occurred culminating in the Taiping Rebellion which affected the area badly, following the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the Tujia found themselves caught between various competing warlords. More and more land was given over to the cultivation of high-earning opium at the insistence of wealthy landlords, after the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, Tujia areas came under Communist control, and banditry was rapidly eradicated. The Great Leap Forward led to famine in Tujia communities. The Tujia were officially recognised as one of the 55 ethnic minorities in January 1957, State Councillor Dai Bingguo, one of Chinas top officials on foreign policy, is the most prominent Tujia in the Chinese government. Today, traditional Tujia customs can only be found in the most remote areas and they are also famous for their richly-patterned brocade, known as xilankapu, a product that in earlier days regularly figured in their tribute payments to the Chinese court. Regarding religion, most of the Tujia worship a white tiger totem, Tujia is a Tibeto-Burman language and is usually considered an isolate within this group, although it has grammatical and phonological similarities with Yi. Today there are at most 70,000 native speakers of the Tujia language, most of live in the northern parts Xiangxi Tujia
Tujia people
–
Tujia village in current-day
Yichang
Tujia people
–
China (
Hunan ·
Hubei ·
Guizhou ·
Chongqing)
Tujia people
–
Furong, an ancient town located in
Yongshun County of
Xiangxi, Hunan
11.
Yi people
–
The Yi or Lolo people are an ethnic group in China, Vietnam, and Thailand. Numbering 8 million, they are the seventh largest of the 55 ethnic minority officially recognized by the Peoples Republic of China. They live primarily in areas of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou. As of 1999, there were 3,300 Lô Lô people living in Hà Giang, Cao Bằng, the Yi speak various Loloish languages, Sino-Tibetan languages closely related to Burmese. The prestige variety is Nuosu, which is written in the Yi script. Of the more than 8 million Yi people, over 4.5 million live in Yunnan Province,2.5 million live in southern Sichuan Province, and 1 million live in the northwest corner of Guizhou Province. Nearly all the Yi live in areas, often carving out their existence on the sides of steep mountain slopes far from the cities of China. The altitudinal differences of the Yi areas directly affect the climate and these striking differences are the basis of the old saying that The weather is different a few miles away in the Yi area. Yi populations in different areas are different from one another. The appellations of Nuosu, Nasu, Nesu, Nisu, and other names are considered derivatives of the original autonym “ꆀ” appended with the suffix -su. The name Sani is also a variety of this group, further, it is widely believed that the Chinese names 夷 and 彝 were derived from Ni. The appellations of Lolo, Lolopu, etc. are related to the Yi people’s worship of the tiger, lo is also the basis for the Chinese exonym Luóluó 猓猓, 倮倮, or 罗罗. The original character 猓, with the dog radical 犭and a guǒ 果 phonetic, was a graphic pejorative, languages reforms in the PRC replaced the 猓 character in Luóluó twice. First by Luó 倮, with the human radical 亻and the same phonetic, but that was a variant for luǒ 裸 naked. Paul K. Benedict noted, a leading Chinese linguist, has remarked that the name Lolo is offensive only when written with the dog radical and this group includes various other appellations of different groups of Yi. Some of them may be of other groups but are recognised as Yi by the Chinese. The Pu may be relevant to an ancient ethnic group Pu, in the legends of the northern Yi, the Yi people conquered Pu and its territory in the northeastern part of the modern Liangshan. Some scholars believe that the Yi are descended from the ancient Qiang people of todays western China and they migrated from southeastern Tibet through Sichuan and into the Yunnan Province, where their largest populations can be found today
Yi people
–
Alternative names: Nuosu and dozens of others
Yi people
–
A Yi woman in traditional dress
Yi people
–
A Yi woman of
Butuo County of
Sichuan Province
Yi people
–
A Yi woman of
Shiping County of
Yunan Province
12.
Sui people
–
The Sui people, also spelled as Shui people, are an ethnic group living mostly in Guizhou Province, China. They are counted as one of the 56 ethnic groups recognized by the Peoples Republic of China. The Sui are descended from the ancient Baiyue peoples, who had inhabited southern China before the Han dynasty, the name Sui, which means water in Chinese, was adopted during the Ming Dynasty. Today, 93% of all Sui people reside in Guizhou, China, to the south,10,000 Sui live around Yingdong village in Rongshui County, Guangxi. Small pockets of Sui people also live in Fuyang and Yiliang Counties, additionally, there are 120 Sui living in Hồng Quang District, Tuyên Quang Province, northern Vietnam who are the descendants of Sui people who had left Sandu County 8 generations ago. The Sui are organized around family clans, villages usually have a few hundred inhabitants, most of whom have the same family name. Traditional Sui houses are made of fir or pine, although today the houses are increasingly made with bricks. There are three types of traditional Sui housing, ɣaan2 faaŋ1 - The ganlan stilted house, which has two or three stories. The second floor is used for the living quarters whereas the first floor is used primarily as a stable, ɣaan2 hum5 - The ground house, which has one story. The split level house - a hanging foot building called diaojiaolou in Chinese, if a woman is widowed, she covers her hair with a fabric of white color for three years. The Sui possess a lunar calendar that is initiated in the lunar month. Their funeral services are elaborate and long ceremonies where animal sacrifices are carried out in honor of the dead, except for fish, Sui villagers usually refrain from eating meat after the death of a person. The staple food of the Sui people is glutinous rice, supplementary grains and tubers include corn, wheat, barley, millet, and sweet potatoes. Rice is either steamed in a steamer or cooked in a covered pot over a low fire. Popular rice-based dishes include ʔjut7 and cooked rice with chrysanthemum. Sui women also give glutinous rice to relatives when visiting them, fish is one of the most important sources of food. Like the Dong people, many Sui raise carp in village fishponds, a popular dish consumed during the summer is a kind of sour broth called lu5 hum3. Sui families also regularly hold communal hot pots, kippered fish, kippered meat, and the meat of suckling pigs are also popular
Sui people
–
Bracelet worn by the Sui people
13.
Southwestern Mandarin
–
Some forms of Southwest Mandarin are not entirely mutually intelligible with Standard Mandarin Chinese or other forms of Mandarin. Varieties of Southwestern Mandarin are spoken by roughly 200 million people, if removed from the larger Mandarin Chinese group, it would have the 8th-most native speakers in the world, behind Mandarin itself, Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Arabic and Bengali. Modern Southwestern Mandarin was formed by the waves of immigrants brought to the regions during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, because of this comparatively recent move, these dialects show more similarity to modern Standard Mandarin than to other varieties of Chinese like Cantonese or Hokkien. The Chengdu-Chongqing and Hubei dialects are believed to reflect aspects of the Mandarin lingua franca spoken during the Ming Dynasty, however, some scholars believe its origins may be more similar to Lower Yangtze Mandarin. Southwestern Mandarin is the language in the Kokang district in Northern Myanmar. Southwestern Mandarin is also one of two languages of the Wa State, an unrecognised autonomous state within Myanmar, alongside Wa language. Because Wa has no form, Chinese is the official working language of the Wa State government. Some of its speakers live in Thailand and it is also spoken in parts of Northern Vietnam. Ethnic minorities in Vietnams Lao Cai Province used to speak Southwestern Mandarin to each other when their languages were not mutually intelligible, Southwestern Mandarin is also used between different ethnic minorities in Yunnan. Most Southwestern Mandarin dialects have, like Standard Mandarin, only retained four of the eight tones of Middle Chinese. However, the tone has completely merged with the light-level tone in most Southwestern dialects. Southwestern Mandarin dialects do not possess the retroflex consonants of Standard Mandarin, most have lost the distinction between the nasal consonant /n/ and the lateral consonant /l/ and the nasal finals /-n/ and /-ŋ/. For example, the sounds la and na are generally indistinguishable, as well as the sounds fen, some varieties also lack a distinction between the labiodental sound /f/ and the glottal /h/
Southwestern Mandarin
–
Southwestern Mandarin, excluding New Xiang
14.
Gross domestic product
–
Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
Gross domestic product
–
Selection of GDP PPP data (top 10 countries and blocks) in no particular order
15.
Renminbi
–
The renminbi /ˌrɛnmɪnˈbiː/ is the official currency of the Peoples Republic of China. The yuan is the unit of the renminbi, but is also used to refer to the Chinese currency in general. The distinction between the terms renminbi and yuan is similar to that between sterling and pound, which refer to the British currency and its primary unit. One yuan is subdivided into 10 jiao, and a jiao in turn is subdivided into 10 fen, the ISO code for renminbi is CNY, or also CNH when traded in off-shore markets such as Hong Kong. The currency is often abbreviated RMB, or indicated by the yuan sign ¥, in Chinese texts the currency may also be indicated with the Chinese character for the yuan, 圆. The renminbi is legal tender in mainland China, but not in Hong Kong or Macau, renminbi is sometimes accepted in Hong Kong and Macau, and are easily exchanged in the two territories, with banks in Hong Kong allowing people to maintain accounts in RMB. The currency is issued by the Peoples Bank of China, the authority of China. Until 2005, the value of the renminbi was pegged to the US dollar and it has previously been claimed that the renminbis official exchange rate was undervalued by as much as 37. 5% against its purchasing power parity. Since 2006, the exchange rate has been allowed to float in a narrow margin around a fixed base rate determined with reference to a basket of world currencies. The Chinese government has announced that it gradually increase the flexibility of the exchange rate. As a result of the rapid internationalization of the renminbi, it became the worlds 8th most traded currency in 2013, and 5th in 2015. On 1 October 2016, the RMB became the first emerging market currency to be included in the IMFs special drawing rights basket, a variety of currencies circulated in China during the Republic of China era, most of which were denominated in the unit yuán. Each was distinguished by a name, such as the fabi, the gold yuan. During the era of the economy, the value of the renminbi was set to unrealistic values in exchange with western currency. The unrealistic levels at which exchange rates were pegged led to a black market in currency transactions. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, China worked to make the RMB more convertible, through the use of swap centres, the exchange rate was brought to realistic levels and the dual track currency system was abolished. As of 2013, the renminbi is convertible on current accounts, the ultimate goal has been to make the RMB fully convertible. From 1949 until the late 1970s, the state fixed Chinas exchange rate at a highly overvalued level as part of the countrys import -substitution strategy
Renminbi
–
Renminbi banknotes of the 2005 series
Renminbi
–
"People's Bank of China Ten Yuan" written in 5 different languages. From top to bottom and left to right:
Mandarin pinyin,
Mongolian,
Tibetan,
Uyghur, and
Zhuang languages.
Renminbi
–
On November 24, 2010,
Vladimir Putin announces that Russia's bilateral trade with China will be settled in
ruble and
yuan, instead of
U.S. dollars.
Renminbi
–
On October 15, 2013, the
British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announces that the
pound sterling and the renminbi will be traded directly in
London and
Shanghai.
16.
List of Chinese administrative divisions by GDP
–
The article lists Chinas province-level divisions by gross domestic product. Each provinces GDP is listed in both the national currency renminbi, and at nominal US dollar values according to annual average exchange rates, Historical figures and rankings, including purchasing power parity figures, are also given for main years since 1978. Figures for Hong Kong and Macau, which are administrative regions of the PRC. All the CN¥ figures are from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, annual PPP rates are taken from the International Monetary Funds World Economic Outlook databases. The tables below list Chinas provinces and territories by their estimated GDP in main fiscal years since 1978 and their respective ranks and shares of Chinas total GDP are also shown. GDP figures for Hong Kong and Macau SARs are given in both US dollars and in their local currencies. PPP figures are given in Intl, dollars, to enable easy comparison, the following lists Taiwan Area Historical GDP. This is a list of the administrative divisions of Mainland China in order of their total gross domestic product. Currency figures are given in millions,1 USD nominally converts to 6.23 CNY according to the average 2013 exchange rate, and to 3.7603 by purchasing power parity. The Hong Kong and Macau GDP figures are given in US dollars based on purchasing power parity, currency data is based on IMF WEO figures. For the 2013 figures, nominal GDP comparisons are given between each province and sovereign countries with similar GDPs, equivalent countries are listed for both the current and previous year
List of Chinese administrative divisions by GDP
–
Map of China's province-level divisions by GDP (in billions of currency units), according to 2014
National Bureau of Statistics figures
17.
Human Development Index
–
The Human Development Index is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores higher HDI when the lifespan is higher, the level is higher. The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, while the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that the IHDI is the actual level of human development, and the HDI can be viewed as an index of potential human development. The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the Human Development Reports Office of the United Nations Development Programme, nobel laureate Amartya Sen, utilized Haqs work in his own work on human capabilities. The following three indices are used,1, Life Expectancy Index = LE −2085 −20 LEI is 1 when Life expectancy at birth is 85 and 0 when Life expectancy at birth is 20. Education Index = MYSI + EYSI22.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index = MYS15 Fifteen is the maximum of this indicator for 2025. 2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index = EYS18 Eighteen is equivalent to achieving a degree in most countries. Income Index = ln − ln ln − ln II is 1 when GNI per capita is $75,000 and 0 when GNI per capita is $100. Finally, the HDI is the mean of the previous three normalized indices, HDI = LEI ⋅ EI ⋅ II3. Standard of living, as indicated by the logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity. This methodology was used by the UNDP until their 2011 report, the formula defining the HDI is promulgated by the United Nations Development Programme. The 2016 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on March 21,2017, below is the list of the very high human development countries, = increase. The number in brackets represents the number of ranks the country has climbed relative to the ranking in the 2015 report, the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index is a measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account. The rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data. Countries in the top quartile of HDI with a missing IHDI, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Brunei, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Andorra, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait. The 2015 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on December 14,2015, below is the list of the very high human development countries, = increase. The number in brackets represents the number of ranks the country has climbed relative to the ranking in the 2014 report, the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index is a measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account. Note, The green arrows, red arrows, and blue dashes represent changes in rank, the rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data
Human Development Index
–
Mahbub ul Haq
Human Development Index
–
Amartya Sen
18.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
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
Simplified Chinese characters
–
Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters
–
The slogan 战无不胜的毛泽东思想万岁 (Zhàn wúbù shèng de Máo Zédōng sīxiǎng wànsuì; Long live the invincible
Mao Zedong Thought) on
Xinhua Gate in Beijing.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
The first batch of Simplified Characters introduced in 1935 consisted of 324 characters.
19.
Traditional Chinese characters
–
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
Traditional Chinese characters
–
Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese characters
–
Job announcement in a Filipino Chinese daily newspaper written in Traditional Chinese characters.
Traditional Chinese characters
–
A Series of Reading workbook in Traditional Chinese used in some Elementary schools in the Philippines.
20.
Standard Chinese
–
Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
Standard Chinese
–
A poster outside of high school in
Yangzhou urges people to speak Putonghua
Standard Chinese
–
Zhongguo Guanhua (中国官话/中國官話), or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by
Étienne Fourmont (with
Arcadio Huang) in 1742
21.
Hanyu Pinyin
–
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
Hanyu Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Hanyu Pinyin
–
In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
22.
Bopomofo
–
Zhuyin fuhao, Zhuyin or Bopomofo is a system of phonetic notation for the transcription of spoken Chinese, particularly the Mandarin dialect. The first two are traditional terms, whereas Bopomofo is the term, also used by the ISO. Consisting of 37 characters and four marks, it transcribes all possible sounds in Mandarin. Zhuyin was introduced in China by the Republican Government in the 1910s and used alongside the Wade-Giles system, the Wade system was replaced by Hanyu Pinyin in 1958 by the Government of the Peoples Republic of China, and at the International Organization for Standardization in 1982. The informal name Bopomofo is derived from the first four syllables in the ordering of available syllables in Mandarin Chinese. The four Bopomofo characters that correspond to these syllables are placed first in a list of these characters. The same sequence is used by other speakers of Chinese to refer to other phonetic systems. The original formal name of the system was Guóyīn Zìmǔ and Zhùyīn Zìmǔ and it was later renamed Zhùyīn Fúhào, meaning phonetic symbols. In official documents, Zhuyin is occasionally called Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I, in English translations, the system is often also called either Chu-yin or the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols. A romanized phonetic system was released in 1984 as Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II, the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, led by Wu Zhihui from 1912 to 1913, created a system called Zhuyin Zimu, which was based on Zhang Binglins shorthand. A draft was released on July 11,1913, by the Republic of China National Ministry of Education and it was later renamed first Guoyin Zimu and then, in April 1930, Zhuyin Fuhao. The last renaming addressed fears that the system might independently replace Chinese characters. Zhuyin remains the predominant phonetic system in teaching reading and writing in school in Taiwan. It is also one of the most popular ways to enter Chinese characters into computers and smartphones, in elementary school, particularly in the lower years, Chinese characters in textbooks are often annotated with Zhuyin as ruby characters as an aid to learning. Additionally, one newspaper in Taiwan, the Mandarin Daily News. In teaching Mandarin, Taiwan institutions and some communities use Zhuyin as a learning tool. The Zhuyin characters were created by Zhang Binglin, and taken mainly from regularised forms of ancient Chinese characters, the modern readings of which contain the sound that each letter represents. It is to be noted that the first consonants are articulated from the front of the mouth to the back, /b/, /p/, /m/, /f/, /d/, /t/, /n/, Zhuyin is written in the same stroke order rule as Chinese characters
Bopomofo
–
An example of a Zhuyin keypad for Taiwan.
Bopomofo
–
Table showing Zhuyin in
Gwoyeu Romatzyh.
23.
Wu Chinese
–
Wu is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese primarily spoken in the whole city of Shanghai, Zhejiang province, southern Jiangsu province and bordering areas. Major Wu varieties include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Wenzhou/Oujiang, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Wu speakers, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Lu Xun and Cai Yuanpei, occupied positions of great importance in modern Chinese culture and politics. Wu can also be found being used in Shaoxing opera, which is only in national popularity to Peking opera, as well as in the performances of the popular entertainer. Wu is also spoken in a number of diaspora communities, with significant centers of immigration originating from Shanghai, Qingtian. Suzhou has traditionally been the center of Wu and was likely the first place the distinct variety of Sinitic known as Wu developed. Suzhou dialect is considered to be the most linguistically representative of the family. Due to the influence of Shanghainese, Wu as a whole is incorrectly labelled in English as simply, Shanghainese, among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech, Ngu nung nioe ngiu, Wu varieties have the largest vowel quality inventories in the world. The Jinhui dialect spoken in Shanghais Fengxian District has 20 vowel qualities, Wu Chinese, along with Min, is also of great significance to historical linguists due to their retention of many ancient features. These two languages have proven pivotal in determining the history of the Chinese languages. More pressing concerns of the present are those of language preservation, however, many analysts believe that a stable state of diglossia will endure for at least several generations if not indefinitely. Saying one speaks Wu is akin to saying one speaks a Romance language and it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Hochdeutsch. They do this by affixing 話 Wo to their locations endonym, for example, 溫州話 Wēnzhōuhuà is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話 xiánhuà is also common and more typical of the Taihu division, Wu, the formal name and standard reference in dialectology literature. Northern Wu, Wu typically spoken in the north of Zhejiang and it by default includes the Xuanzhou division in Anhui as well, however this division is often neglected in Northern Wu discussions. Southern Wu, Wu spoken in southern Zhejiang and periphery, comprising the Oujiang, Wuzhou, Western Wu, A term gaining in usage as a synonym for the Xuanzhou division and modeled after the previous two terms since the Xuanzhou division is less representative of Northern Wu. Shanghainese, is also a common name, used because Shanghai is the most well-known city in the Wu-speaking region. The term Shanghainese is never used by linguists to refer to anything
Wu Chinese
–
Wu (Wú Yǔ) written in
Chinese characters
24.
Cantonese
–
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
Cantonese
–
Street in
Chinatown, San Francisco. Cantonese has traditionally been the dominant Chinese variant among Chinese populations in the Western world.
Cantonese
–
Gwóngdūng Wah / gwong 2 dung 1 waa 6 (Cantonese) written in
traditional Chinese (left) and
simplified Chinese (right) characters
Cantonese
–
Chinese dictionary from Tang dynasty. Modern Cantonese pronunciation is more similar to Middle Chinese from this era than other Chinese varieties.
25.
Jyutping
–
Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
Jyutping
–
Jyutping Romanization.
26.
Southern Min
–
Southern Min, or Minnan, is a branch of Min Chinese spoken in certain parts of China including southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and southern Zhejiang, and in Taiwan. The Min Nan dialects are spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to Hokkien, including Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien, the Southern Min dialect group also includes Teochew, though Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with Hokkien. Hainanese is not mutually intellgible with other Southern Min and is considered a separate branch of Min. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Pu-Xian Min, any other Min branch, Hakka, Cantonese, Shanghainese or Mandarin. Southern Min dialects are spoken in the part of Fujian. The variant spoken in Leizhou, Guangdong as well as Hainan is Hainanese and is not mutually intelligible with other Southern Min or Teochew, Hainanese is classified in some schemes as part of Southern Min and in other schemes as separate. Puxian Min was originally based on the Quanzhou dialect, but over time became heavily influenced by Eastern Min, eventually losing intellegility with Minnan. A forms of Southern Min spoken in Taiwan, collectively known as Taiwanese, Southern Min is a first language for most of the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklo speak Southern Min fluently, there are many Southern Min speakers also among Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese immigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present-day Malaysia and Singapore. In general, Southern Min from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and speak Teochew language, the variant of Southern Min from that region. Southern Min-speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore, with the largest group being Hokkien, despite the similarities the two groups are rarely seen as part of the same Minnan Chinese subgroups. The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou, the variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Those Southern Min variants that are known as Hokkien in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants. The variants of Southern Min in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province are known as Teochew or Chaozhou. Teochew is of importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra. The Philippines variant is mostly from the Quanzhou area as most of their forefathers are from the aforementioned area, the Southern Min language variant spoken around Shanwei and Haifeng differs markedly from Teochew and may represent a later migration from Zhangzhou
Southern Min
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Koa-a books, Min Nan written in Chinese characters
Southern Min
–
Distribution of Southern Min.
27.
Hokkien
–
Hokkien /hɒˈkiɛn/ is a group of Southern Min dialects spoken throughout Southeastern China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and by other overseas Chinese. Hokkien originated in southern Fujian, the Min-speaking province and it is closely related to Teochew, though there is limited mutual intelligibility, and is somewhat more distantly related to Hainanese and Leizhou dialect. Besides Hokkien, there are also other Min and Hakka dialects in Fujian province, the term Hokkien is etymologically derived from the Southern Min pronunciation for Fujian, the province from which the language hails. The variety is known by other terms such as the more general Min Nan or Southern Min. Fujianese and Fukienese are also used, although they are somewhat imprecise, the term Hokkien is not usually used in Mainland China or Taiwan. Conversely Hokkien is the name in Southeast Asia in both English, Chinese or other languages. Speakers of Hokkien, particularly those in Southeast Asia, typically refer to Hokkien as a dialect, people in Taiwan most often refer to Hokkien as the Taiwanese language, with Minnan and Holo also being used and 福建話 is not as common. Hokkien originated in the area of Fujian province, an important center for trade and migration. The major pole of Hokkien varieties outside of Fujian is Taiwan, the Taiwanese version mostly have origins with the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou variants, but since then, the Amoy dialect is becoming the modern prestige standard for the language. There are many Hokkien speakers among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia as well as in the United States, many ethnic Han Chinese emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present day Malaysia and Singapore. Many of the Hokkien dialects of this region are similar to Taiwanese and Amoynese. Hokkien is reportedly the native language of up to 80% of the Chinese people in the Philippines, Hokkien speakers form the largest group of overseas Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines. Southern and part of western Fujian is home to four principal Hokkien dialects, Chinchew, Amoy, Chiangchew and Longyan, originating from the cities of Quanzhou, Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Longyan. As Xiamen is the city of southern Fujian, Amoy is considered the most important, or even the prestige dialect. It is a hybrid of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, same as Amoy dialect, the varieties of Hokkien spoken in Taiwan are hybrids of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, and are collectively known as Taiwanese Hokkien or just Taiwanese. Used by a majority of the population, it bears much importance from a socio-political perspective, the varieties of Hokkien in Southeast Asia originate from these dialects. The Singaporeans, Southern Malaysians and people in Indonesias Riau and surrounding islands variant is from the Quanzhou area and they speak a distinct form of Quanzhou Hokkien called Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien. Among ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Penang, and other states in Northern Malaysia and Medan, with areas in North Sumatra, Indonesia
Hokkien
–
Distribution of Min Nan dialects. Hokkien is dark green.
28.
China
–
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
China
–
Yinxu, ruins of an ancient
palace dating from the
Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)
China
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Flag
China
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Some of the thousands of life-size
Terracotta Warriors of the
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
China
–
The
Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the
Chinese interior from incursions by
nomadic pastoralists of the northern
steppes.
29.
Yao people
–
The Yao people is a government classification for various minorities in China and Vietnam. They are one of the 55 officially recognised ethnic minorities in China and reside in the terrain of the southwest. They also form one of the 54 ethnic groups officially recognised by Vietnam, in the last census in 2000, they numbered 2,637,421 in China and roughly 470,000 in Vietnam. The origins of the Yao can be traced back 2000 years starting in Hunan, the Yao and Hmong were among the rebels during the Miao Rebellions against the Ming dynasty. As the Han Chinese expanded into South China, the Yao retreated into the highlands between Hunan and Guizhou to the north and Guangdong and Guangxi to the south, and stretching into eastern Yunnan, around 1890, the Guangdong government started taking action against Yao in northwestern Guangdong. During the Laotian Civil War, Yao tribes of Laos had a relationship with U. S. forces and were dubbed to be an efficient friendly force. They fought in favour of government against the communists and this relationship caused the new communist Laotian government to target Yao tribal groups for revenge once the war was over. This triggered further immigration into Thailand, where the tribes would be put into camps along the Thailand-Laos border, after obtaining refugee status from the Thai government and with the help of the United Nations, many Yao people were able to obtain sponsorship into the United States. Most of the Yao who have immigrated to the United States have settled along the Western part of the U. S, see Mien American for those identified as Mien. Yao society is patrilineal, with sons inheriting from their fathers. Marriage between first cousins is common, the Yao people have been farmers for over a thousand years, mostly rice cultivation through plowing, although a few practice slash-and-burn agriculture. Where the Yao live nearby forested regions, they engage in hunting. During the Southern Song, an imperial Chinese observer, Zhou Qufei, the Yao celebrate their Pan Wang festival annually on the sixteenth day of the tenth lunar month. The festival celebrates the mythical story of the Yao people. Daoism has historically been important to the Yao, jinag Yingliang, in a 1948 study, argued that Yao religion was characterized by a process of Han Chinese-influenced Daoisation, the endurance of pre-Daoist folk religion, and some Buddhist beliefs. The description of Yao region is similar to the definition of Chinese folk religion as described by Arthur Wolf and Steve Sangren. Scholar Zhang Youjun takes issue with claims of strong Buddhist influence on the Yao, arguing that although Yao ritual texts contain Buddhist expression, there are several distinct groups within the Yao nationality, and they speak several different languages, The Iu Mien comprise 70% of the Yao population. There are around 60,000 Yao in northern Thailand, where they are one of the six main hill tribes, the lowland-living Lanten of Laos, who speak Kim Mun, and the highland-living Iu Mien of Laos are two different Yao groups
Yao people
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A Yao woman, Tiantouzhai, Longji Terraces, China, November 2010
Yao people
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The back of a child in China in a Yao costume
Yao people
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A red Yao woman in Vietnam
Yao people
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Red Yao Village Chief
.svg)
