1.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
2.
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
3.
Basketball
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Basketball is a non-contact team sport played on a rectangular court by two teams of five players each. The objective is to shoot a ball through a hoop 18 inches in diameter and 10 feet high that is mounted to a backboard at each end of the court. The game was invented in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket being defended by the opposition team during regular play. A field goal scores three points for the team if the player shoots from behind the three-point line. A team can also score via free throws, which are worth one point, the team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but additional time is mandated when the score is tied at the end of regulation. The ball can be advanced on the court by passing it to a teammate and it is a violation to lift, or drag, ones pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling. The game has many techniques for displaying skill—ball-handling, shooting, passing, dribbling, dunking, shot-blocking. The point guard directs the on court action of the team, implementing the coachs game plan, Basketball is one of the worlds most popular and widely viewed sports. Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to continental championships such as the Euroleague, the FIBA Basketball World Cup attracts the top national teams from around the world. Each continent hosts regional competitions for teams, like EuroBasket. The FIBA Womens Basketball World Cup features the top womens basketball teams from continental championships. The main North American league is the WNBA, whereas the EuroLeague Women has been dominated by teams from the Russian Womens Basketball Premier League, in early December 1891, Canadian Dr. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied, after rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot elevated track. Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball and these laces could cause bounce passes and dribbling to be unpredictable. Eventually a lace-free ball construction method was invented, and this change to the game was endorsed by Naismith, dribbling was not part of the original game except for the bounce pass to teammates. Passing the ball was the means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a part of the game around the 1950s
4.
Track and field
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Track and field is a sport which includes athletic contests established on the skills of running, jumping, and throwing. The name is derived from the sports venue, a stadium with an oval running track enclosing a grass field where the throwing and jumping events take place. Track and field is categorised under the sport of athletics, which also includes road running, cross country running. The foot racing events, which include sprints, middle- and long-distance events, the jumping and throwing events are won by the athlete who achieves the greatest distance or height. Regular jumping events include long jump, triple jump, high jump and pole vault, while the most common throwing events are shot put, javelin, discus and hammer. There are also combined events or multi events, such as the pentathlon consisting of five events, heptathlon consisting of seven events, in these, athletes participate in a combination of track and field events. Most track and field events are individual sports with a victor, the most prominent team events are relay races. Events are almost exclusively divided by gender, although both the mens and womens competitions are held at the same venue. It is one of the oldest sports, in ancient times, it was an event held in conjunction with festivals and sports meets such as the Ancient Olympic Games in Greece. The ancient Olympic Games began in the year 776 BC, when Koroibos, a cook from the city of Elis, won the stadium race. According to some traditions, this was the only athletic event of the games for the first 13 Olympic festivals. In modern times, the two most prestigious track and field competitions are athletics competition at the Olympic Games and the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. The International Association of Athletics Federations is the governing body. Records are kept of the best performances in specific events, at world and national levels, however, if athletes are deemed to have violated the events rules or regulations, they are disqualified from the competition and their marks are erased. In North America, the track and field may be used to refer to other athletics events, such as the marathon. The sport of track and field has its roots in human prehistory, Track and field-style events are among the oldest of all sporting competitions, as running, jumping and throwing are natural and universal forms of human physical expression. The first recorded examples of organized track and field events at a festival are the Ancient Olympic Games. At the first Games in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, only one event was contested, Track and field events were also present at the Panhellenic Games in Greece around this period, and they spread to Rome in Italy around 200 BC
5.
Table tennis
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Table tennis, also known as ping pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball back and forth across a table using a small bat. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net, a point is scored when a player fails to return the ball within the rules. Play is fast and demands quick reactions, spinning the ball alters its trajectory and limits an opponents options, giving the hitter a great advantage. Table tennis is governed by the worldwide organization International Table Tennis Federation, ITTF currently includes 220 member associations. The table tennis rules are specified in the ITTF handbook. Table tennis has been an Olympic sport since 1988, with several event categories, from 1988 until 2004, these were mens singles, womens singles, mens doubles and womens doubles. Since 2008, an event has been played instead of the doubles. The sport originated in Victorian England, where it was played among the upper-class as a parlour game. It has been suggested that makeshift versions of the game were developed by British military officers in India in around 1860s or 1870s, who brought it back with them. A row of books stood up along the center of the table as a net and it had several different names, including whiff-whaff. The name ping-pong was in use before British manufacturer J. Jaques & Son Ltd trademarked it in 1901. The name ping-pong then came to describe the game played using the rather expensive Jaquess equipment, a similar situation arose in the United States, where Jaques sold the rights to the ping-pong name to Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers then enforced its trademark for the term in the 1920s making the various associations change their names to table tennis instead of the more common, but trademarked, term. The next major innovation was by James W. Gibb, a British enthusiast of table tennis, who discovered novelty celluloid balls on a trip to the US in 1901 and found them to be ideal for the game. This was followed by E. C. Goode who, in 1901, invented the modern version of the racket by fixing a sheet of pimpled, or stippled, rubber to the wooden blade. Table tennis was growing in popularity by 1901 to the extent that tournaments were being organized, books being written on the subject, in 1921, the Table Tennis Association was founded in Britain, and the International Table Tennis Federation followed in 1926. London hosted the first official World Championships in 1926, in 1933, the United States Table Tennis Association, now called USA Table Tennis, was formed. In the 1930s, Edgar Snow commented in Red Star Over China that the Communist forces in the Chinese Civil War had a passion for the English game of table tennis which he found bizarre
6.
Shooting sports
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A shooting sport is a competitive sport involving tests of proficiency using various types of guns, such as firearms and airguns. Shooting sports are categorized by the type of firearm, target, for similar reasons, concerned over poor marksmanship during the American Civil War, veteran Union officers Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate formed the National Rifle Association of America in 1871 for the purpose of promoting and encouraging rifle shooting on a scientific basis. In 1872, with help from New York state, a site on Long Island. Named Creedmoor, the range opened in 1872, and became the site of the first National Matches until New York politics forced the NRA to move the matches to Sea Girt, New Jersey. The popularity of the National Matches soon forced the event to be moved to its present, much larger location, Camp Perry. In 1903, the U. S. Congress created the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice, the NBPRP also participates in the National Matches at Camp Perry. In 1903, the NRA began to establish rifle clubs at all colleges, universities. By 1906, youth programs were in full swing with more than 200 boys competing in the National Matches, french pistol champion and founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, participated in many of these early competitions. This fact certainly contributed to the inclusion of five shooting events in the 1896 Olympics, over the years, the events have been changed a number of times in order to keep up with technology and social standards. The targets that formerly resembled humans or animals in their shape, at the same time, some events have been dropped and new ones have been added. The 2004 Olympics featured three shooting disciplines where athletes competed for 51 medals in 10 mens and 7 womens events—slightly fewer than the previous Olympic schedule, the Olympic Games continue to provide the shooting sports with its greatest public relations opportunity. The sport has always enjoyed the distinction of awarding the first medals of the Games, internationally, the International Shooting Sport Federation has oversight of all Olympic shooting events worldwide, while National Governing Bodies administer the sport within each country. Having originally established shooting as a sport in the USA. The NRA dutifully managed and financially supported international and conventional shooting sports for over 100 years until the formation of USA Shooting, modern competitive archery involves shooting arrows at a target for accuracy from a set distance or distances. A person who participates in archery is called an archer or a bowman—and a person who is fond of or an expert at archery is sometimes called a toxophilite. The most popular competitions worldwide are called target archery, another form, particularly popular in Europe and America, is field archery, which generally is shot at targets set at various distances in a wooded setting. There are also several other lesser-known and historical forms, as well as archery novelty games, note that the tournament rules vary from organization to organization
7.
Xiangqi
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Xiangqi, also called Chinese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular games in China. Besides China and areas with significant ethnic Chinese communities, xiangqi is also a pastime in Vietnam. The game represents a battle between two armies, with the object of capturing the enemys general, Xiangqi is played on a board nine lines wide and ten lines long. As in the game Go, the pieces are placed on the intersections, the vertical lines are known as files, and the horizontal lines are known as ranks. Each of these areas is known as 宮 gōng, a palace or fortress, dividing the two opposing sides, between the fifth and sixth ranks, is 河 hé, the river. The river is marked with the phrases 楚河 chǔ hé, meaning Chu River, and 漢界, hàn jiè, meaning Han border. The starting points of the soldiers and cannons are usually, but not always, the pieces start in the position shown in the diagram above. Which player moves first has varied throughout history and from one part of China to another, different xiangqi books advise either that the black or red side moves first. Some books refer to the two sides as north and south, which corresponds to which color also varies from source to source. Generally, Red moves first in most modern tournaments, Each player in turn moves one piece from the point it occupies to another point. Pieces are generally not permitted to move through a point occupied by another piece, a piece can be moved onto a point occupied by an enemy piece, in which case the enemy piece is captured and removed from the board. A player cannot capture one of his own pieces, pieces are never promoted, although the soldier is able to move sideways after it crosses the river. Almost all pieces capture using their normal moves, while the cannon has a special capture move described below, the game ends when one player captures the others general. When the general is in danger of being captured by the player on his next move, the enemy player has delivered a check. If the generals player can make no move to prevent the generals capture, unlike chess, in which a player unable to move a piece is stalemated, in xiangqi, a player with no legal moves left loses. In xiangqi, a player—often with material or positional disadvantage—may attempt to check or chase pieces in a way such that the fall in a cycle. The side that perpetually chases any one unprotected piece with one or more pieces, excluding generals and soldiers, if one side perpetually checks and the other side perpetually chases, the checking side has to stop or be ruled to have lost
8.
Tai chi
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T‘ai-chi is an internal Chinese martial art 武术 practiced for both its defense training and its health benefits. As a result, a multitude of training forms exist, both traditional and modern, which correspond to those aims with differing emphasis, some training forms of t‘ai-chi ch‘üan are especially known for being practiced with relatively slow movements. Today, t‘ai-chi ch‘üan has spread worldwide, most modern styles of t‘ai-chi ch‘üan trace their development to at least one of the five traditional schools, Chen, Yang, Wu, Wu, and Sun. All of the former, in turn, trace their origins to Chen Village. T‘ai-chi ch‘üan theory and practice evolved in agreement with many Chinese philosophical principles, t‘ai-chi ch‘üan training involves five elements, taolu, neigong and qigong, tuishou and sanshou. While t‘ai-chi ch‘üan is typified by some for its slow movements, some traditional schools of t‘ai-chi teach partner exercises known as tuishou, and martial applications of the postures of different forms. In China, t‘ai-chi ch‘üan is categorized under the Wudang grouping of Chinese martial arts—that is, medical studies of t‘ai-chi support its effectiveness as an alternative exercise and a form of martial arts therapy. It is purported that focusing the mind solely on the movements of the form helps to bring about a state of mental calm, some other forms of martial arts require students to wear a uniform during practice. In general, t‘ai-chi ch‘üan schools do not require a uniform, the slow, repetitive work involved in the process of learning how that leverage is generated gently and measurably increases, opens the internal circulation. T‘ai-chi ch‘üans health training, therefore, concentrates on relieving the effects of stress on the body. For those focused on t‘ai-chi ch‘üans martial application, good physical fitness is an important step towards effective self-defense, Martial art, The ability to use t‘ai-chi ch‘üan as a form of self-defense in combat is the test of a students understanding of the art. T‘ai-chi ch‘üan is the study of change in response to outside forces. The use of t‘ai-chi ch‘üan as an art is quite challenging. Westerners often shorten this name to t‘ai chi and this shortened name is the same as that of the t‘ai-chi philosophy, sometimes causing confusion of the two. The chi in the name of the art may also be mistaken for ch‘i. The Wade-Giles form and its variations remain the most popular spelling today, however, most Chinese, including many professional practitioners, masters, and martial arts bodies, use the Pinyin. From a modern perspective, when tracing t‘ai-chi ch‘üans formative influences to Taoist and Buddhist monasteries. Nevertheless, some traditional schools claim that t‘ai-chi ch‘üan has a connection to
9.
Wushu (sport)
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Wushu is both an exhibition and a full-contact sport derived from traditional Chinese martial arts. The term wushu is Chinese for martial arts, competitive wushu is composed of two disciplines, taolu and sanda. Taolu involves martial art patterns and maneuvers for which competitors are judged, the forms comprise basic movements based on aggregate categories of traditional Chinese martial art styles and can be changed for competitions to highlight ones strengths. Competitive forms have time limits that can range from 1 minute,20 seconds for some styles to over five minutes for internal styles. Modern wushu competitors are increasingly training in techniques such as 540-, 720-. Sanda is a modern fighting method and sport influenced by traditional Chinese boxing, Chinese wrestling methods called Shuai jiao and it has all the combat aspects of wushu. Sanda appears much like Kickboxing or Muay Thai, but includes many more grappling techniques, Sanda fighting competitions are often held alongside taolu or form competitions. In 1958, the government established the All-China Wushu Association as an organization to regulate martial arts training. The Chinese State Commission for Physical Culture and Sports took the lead in creating standardized forms for most of the major arts, during this period, a national Wushu system that included standard forms, teaching curriculum, and instructor grading was established. Wushu was introduced at both the school and university level. This new system seeks to incorporate elements from all styles. Stylistic concepts such as hard, soft, internal, external, as well as based on schools such as Shaolin, Taiji, Wudang. Wushu became the government sponsored standard for the training in arts in China. The push for standardization continued leading to widespread adaptation, in 1979, the State Commission for Physical Culture and Sports created a special task force to teaching and practice of Wushu. In 1986, the Chinese National Research Institute of Wushu was established as the authority for the research. Changing government policies and attitudes towards sports in general lead to the closing of the State Sports Commission in 1998 and this closure is viewed as an attempt to partially de-politicize organized sports and move Chinese sport policies towards a more market-driven approach. As a result of these changing sociological factors within China, both styles and modern Wushu approaches are being promoted by the International Wushu Federation. Wushu events are performed using compulsory or individual routines in competition, compulsory routines are those routines that have been already created for the athlete, resulting in each athlete performing basically the same set
10.
Dragon boat
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A dragon boat is a human-powered watercraft. They were traditionally made in the Pearl River Delta region of Chinas southern Guangdong Province out of wood to various designs. In other parts of China, different kinds of wood are used to build these traditional watercraft and it is one of a family of traditional paddled long boats found throughout Asia, Africa, the Pacific islands and also Puerto Rico. Currently, boats are being made for competitive purposes out of fiber and other lightweight materials. But the history of boats in competition reaches as far back as the same era as the original games of Olympia in ancient Greece. Both dragon boat racing and the ancient Olympiad included aspects of religious observances, for competition events, dragon boats are generally rigged with decorative Chinese dragon heads and tails. At other times, decorative regalia is usually removed, although the drum often remains aboard for drummers to practice, Dragon boat races were traditionally held as part of the annual Duanwu Festival or Duen Ng observance in China. Not understanding the significance of Duanwu, 19th-century European observers of the racing ritual referred to the spectacle as a boat festival. This is the term that has known in the West. Duanwu is reckoned annually in accordance with the calendar system of China. In December 2007, the government of the Peoples Republic of China added Duanwu, along with Qingming and Mid-Autumn festivals. The celebration was an important part of the ancient Chinese agricultural society, Dragon boat racing was historically situated in the Chinese subcontinents southern-central rice bowl, where there were rice paddies, so were there dragon boats. Of the twelve animals which make up the traditional Chinese zodiac, all the rest are non-mythical animals, yet all twelve of the zodiac creatures were well known to members of ancient Chinese agrarian communities. Dragons were traditionally believed to be the rulers of water on earth, rivers, lakes, and seas, they also were thought to dominate the waters of the heavens, clouds, mists, and rains. There are earth dragons, mountain dragons, and sky or celestial dragons in Chinese tradition, mythical dragons and serpents are also found widely in many cultures around the world. Traditional dragon boat racing, in China, coincides with the 5th day of the 5th Chinese lunar month, the Summer Solstice occurs around 21 June and is the reason why Chinese refer to their festival as Duan Wu or Duen Ng. Both the sun and the dragon are considered to be male, the sun and the dragon are at their most potent during this time of the year, so cause for observing this through ritual celebrations such as dragon boat racing. It is also the time of farming year when rice seedlings must be transplanted in their paddy fields, Wu or Ng refers to the sun at its highest position in the sky during the day, the meridian of high noon
