1.
Old Bund
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The Old Bund, also known as the North Riverbank, is a waterfront area in Jiangbei District, Ningbo. The Old Bund is on the bank of the Yong River. It was the site of the Port of Ningbo since 1840s till late 1990s, the North Riverbank was the result of Treaty of Nanking, and witnessed the initiation and development of Ningbo Commercial Group. The Old Bund sat piers of the Port of Ningbo, the trading tracked back forth to 1842 when the Sino-Britain Treaty of Nanking was signed, and Ningbo was thereafter a trading port. Ever since the westerners came to Ningbo, however, ships could not make to the ancient port, and therefore the North Riverbank came into being. In 1844, Ningbo was officially opened as a trading port, the North Riverbank became the first Bund in China,20 years before The Bund of Shanghai. Western modern facilities and buildings were built along the North Riverbank ever since, however, the Port of Shanghai caught up later, and the importance of the Port of Ningbo decreased. In 1927, the Chinese government regained the administration of the Old Bund, there are 54 historic sites on the Old Bund. The followings are some of the historic sites, Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level. Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at Ningbo Municipal Level, Jiangbei Police Station, The Hongchangyuan, The Zhus, Ningbo Museum of Art Urban planning exhibition center of Ningbo Bridge of the Bund
2.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
3.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
4.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
5.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
6.
Wu Chinese
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Wu is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese primarily spoken in the whole city of Shanghai, Zhejiang province, southern Jiangsu province and bordering areas. Major Wu varieties include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Wenzhou/Oujiang, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Wu speakers, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Lu Xun and Cai Yuanpei, occupied positions of great importance in modern Chinese culture and politics. Wu can also be found being used in Shaoxing opera, which is only in national popularity to Peking opera, as well as in the performances of the popular entertainer. Wu is also spoken in a number of diaspora communities, with significant centers of immigration originating from Shanghai, Qingtian. Suzhou has traditionally been the center of Wu and was likely the first place the distinct variety of Sinitic known as Wu developed. Suzhou dialect is considered to be the most linguistically representative of the family. Due to the influence of Shanghainese, Wu as a whole is incorrectly labelled in English as simply, Shanghainese, among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech, Ngu nung nioe ngiu, Wu varieties have the largest vowel quality inventories in the world. The Jinhui dialect spoken in Shanghais Fengxian District has 20 vowel qualities, Wu Chinese, along with Min, is also of great significance to historical linguists due to their retention of many ancient features. These two languages have proven pivotal in determining the history of the Chinese languages. More pressing concerns of the present are those of language preservation, however, many analysts believe that a stable state of diglossia will endure for at least several generations if not indefinitely. Saying one speaks Wu is akin to saying one speaks a Romance language and it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Hochdeutsch. They do this by affixing 話 Wo to their locations endonym, for example, 溫州話 Wēnzhōuhuà is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話 xiánhuà is also common and more typical of the Taihu division, Wu, the formal name and standard reference in dialectology literature. Northern Wu, Wu typically spoken in the north of Zhejiang and it by default includes the Xuanzhou division in Anhui as well, however this division is often neglected in Northern Wu discussions. Southern Wu, Wu spoken in southern Zhejiang and periphery, comprising the Oujiang, Wuzhou, Western Wu, A term gaining in usage as a synonym for the Xuanzhou division and modeled after the previous two terms since the Xuanzhou division is less representative of Northern Wu. Shanghainese, is also a common name, used because Shanghai is the most well-known city in the Wu-speaking region. The term Shanghainese is never used by linguists to refer to anything
7.
Shanghainese
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The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, Hu language or Hu dialect, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family, in English, Shanghainese sometimes refers to all Wu languages, variants and dialects, although they are only partially intelligible with one another. Shanghainese proper is a language of Taihu Wu, it contains vocabulary and expressions from the entire Taihu Wu area of southern Jiangsu. With nearly 14 million speakers, Shanghainese is also the largest single form of Wu Chinese and it serves as the lingua franca of the entire Yangtze River Delta region. Shanghainese is rich in vowels and in consonants, like other Taihu Wu dialects, Shanghainese has voiced initials. Neither Cantonese nor Mandarin has voiced initial stops or affricates, the Shanghainese tonal system is also significantly different from other Chinese varieties, sharing more similarities with the Japanese pitch accent. Shanghainese has two level tonal contrasts, while Cantonese and Mandarin are typical of contour tonal languages, Shanghai did not become a regional center of commerce until it was opened to foreign investment during the late Qing dynasty. Consequently, languages and dialects spoken around Shanghai had long been subordinate to those spoken around Jiaxing, in the late 19th century, most vocabulary of the Shanghai region had been a hybrid between Southern Jiangsu and Ningbonese. It underwent sustained growth that reached a hiatus in the 1930s during the Republican era, after 1949, the government imposed Mandarin as the official language of the whole nation of China. The dominance and influence of Shanghainese began to wane slightly, especially since Chinese economic reform began in 1978, Shanghai became home to a great number of migrants from all over the country. Due to the prominence of Mandarin, learning Shanghainese was no longer necessary for migrants. However, Shanghainese remained a vital part of the citys culture. In the 1990s, it was common for local radio. In 1995, the TV series Sinful Debt featured extensive Shanghainese dialogues, the Shanghainese TV series Lao Niang Jiu was broadcast from 1995 to 2007 and received tremendous popularity among Shanghainese residents. Shanghainese programming has since declined, over concerns of regionalist/localist accusations. From 1992 onward, Shanghainese use was discouraged in schools, in addition, Shanghais emergence as a cosmopolitan global city consolidated the status of Mandarin as the standard language of business and services, at the expense of the local language. Since 2005, new movements have emerged to protect Shanghainese from fading away, Shanghais former party boss Chen Liangyu, a native Shanghainese himself, reportedly supported her proposal. There have been talks of re-integrating Shanghainese into pre-kindergarten education, because children are unable to speak any Shanghainese
8.
Shanghai
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Shanghai is the most populous city proper in the world, with a population of more than 24 million as of 2014. As one of the four direct-controlled municipalities of the Peoples Republic of China, it is a financial centre and transport hub. Located in the Yangtze River Delta in East China, Shanghai sits on the edge of the mouth of the Yangtze in the middle portion of the eastern Chinese coast. The municipality borders the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the north, south and west, as a major administrative, shipping and trading city, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to trade and recognition of its favourable port location and economic potential. The city was one of five treaty ports forced open to foreign trade following the British victory over China in the First Opium War, the subsequent 1842 Treaty of Nanking and 1844 Treaty of Whampoa allowed the establishment of the Shanghai International Settlement and the French Concession. The city then flourished as a center of commerce between China and other parts of the world, and became the financial hub of the Asia-Pacific region in the 1930s. However, with the Communist Party takeover of the mainland in 1949, trade was limited to other socialist countries, and the citys global influence declined. In the 1990s, the reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping resulted in an intense re-development of the city, aiding the return of finance. The two Chinese characters in the name are 上 and 海, together meaning Upon-the-Sea. The earliest occurrence of this dates from the 11th-century Song Dynasty, at which time there was already a river confluence. There are disputes as to exactly how the name should be understood, Shanghai is officially abbreviated 沪 in Chinese, a contraction of 沪渎, a 4th- or 5th-century Jin name for the mouth of Suzhou Creek when it was the main conduit into the ocean. This character appears on all motor vehicle license plates issued in the municipality today, another alternative name for Shanghai is Shēn or Shēnchéng, from Lord Chunshen, a third-century BC nobleman and prime minister of the state of Chu, whose fief included modern Shanghai. Sports teams and newspapers in Shanghai often use Shen in their names, such as Shanghai Shenhua F. C. Huating was another early name for Shanghai. In AD751, during the dynasty, Huating County was established at modern-day Songjiang. Today, Huating appears as the name of a hotel in the city. The city also has various nicknames in English, including Pearl of the Orient, during the Spring and Autumn period, the Shanghai area belonged to the Kingdom of Wu, which was conquered by the Kingdom of Yue, which in turn was conquered by the Kingdom of Chu. During the Warring States period, Shanghai was part of the fief of Lord Chunshen of Chu and he ordered the excavation of the Huangpu River. Its former or poetic name, the Chunshen River, gave Shanghai its nickname of Shen, two important events helped promote Shanghais development in the Ming dynasty
9.
Shanghai International Settlement
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The settlements were established following the defeat of the Qing army by the British in the First Opium War. The British also established a base on Hong Kong under an extensive lease, American and French involvement followed closely on the heels of the British and their enclaves were established north and south, respectively, of the British area. Unlike the colonies of Hong Kong and Weihaiwei, which were sovereign British territories, however, during the Small Sword Society uprising of 1853–55, the Qing government gave up sovereignty in the concessions to the foreign powers in exchange of their support to suppress the rebellion. In 1854, the three countries created the Shanghai Municipal Council to serve all their interests, but, in 1862, the following year the British and American settlements formally united to create the Shanghai International Settlement. The international settlement came to an end in December 1941 when Japanese troops stormed in immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The French later surrendered their privileges in a separate 1946 agreement, the next morning Balfour sent word to the circuit intendant of Shanghai, Gong Mujiu, requesting a meeting, at which he indicated his desire to find a house to live in. Balfour, his interpreter Walter Henry Medhurst, surgeon Dr. Hale and it served as the consulate during construction of a Western-style building within the official Settlement boundaries just to the south of Suzhou Creek. This was completed within a year and this soon became the epicenter of the British settlement. Under the Treaty of Wanghia, Americans gained the rights as those enjoyed by the British in Chinas treaty ports. It also contained a clause that effectively carved out Shanghai as a zone within Imperial China. It was only in 1845 that Britain followed in Americas footsteps, the American consular presence did not create a problem for the British because it was never intended to have a post in person. Since American traders in China were prohibited from engaging in the opium trade, their business transactions were conducted under the auspices of British firms. The only serious incident of political complaint against the Americans was in 1845, when the Stars and Stripes was raised by the acting US Consul, Henry G. Wolcott, neither the British nor the Chinese governor approved of the display. In 1848, France established its own French concession under French consular jurisdiction and they also claimed the right to exclude Chinese troops from the concession areas. Chinese entry was subsequently legalised and continued to grow, the aims of this first Council were simply to assist in the formation of roads, refuse collection, and taxation across the disparate Concessions. In 1863 the American concession—land fronting the Huangpu River to the north-east of Soochow Creek —officially joined the British Settlement to become the Shanghai International Settlement, the French concession remained independent and the Chinese retained control over the original walled city and the area surrounding the foreign enclaves. This would later result in sometimes absurd administrative outcomes, such as needing three drivers licenses to travel through the complete city, by the late-1860s Shanghais official governing body had been practically transferred from the individual concessions to the Shanghai Municipal Council. The British Consul was the de jure authority in the Settlement, instead, he and the other consulates deferred to the Council
10.
Huangpu River
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It is the last significant tributary of the Yangtze before it empties into the East China Sea. The Bund and Lujiazui are located along the river, the Huangpu is the largest river in Shanghai, with Suzhou Creek being its major tributary. It is on average 400 metres wide and 9 metres deep and it divides the city into two regions, Pudong and Puxi. Songpu Bridge Xupu Bridge Lupu Bridge Nanpu Bridge Yangpu Bridge Many lines of the Shanghai Metro cross underneath the river, there are also many tunnels crossing under the river. There are currently several ferry lines operated by Shanghai Ferry, in March 2013, thousands of pig carcasses were found floating in the Huangpu River in Shanghai. Some of the pigs carried ear tags saying they were from Jiaxing, so that city in Zhejiang may be the source, geography of China List of rivers in China Sladen, Douglas, Bits of China, The Japs at Home, 5th ed. New York, New Amsterdam Book Co. pp. 276–354
11.
Huangpu District, Shanghai
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Huangpu District, makes up the eastern part of Shanghais traditional urban core and is today the most central of Shanghais 18 districts. The Huangpu District is one of the most densely populated districts in the world. The Huangpu District is located in central Shanghai, Peoples Republic of China on the bank of Huangpu River, after which the district is named. It is opposite to Pudong and is bounded by Suzhou Creek to the north, todays Huangpu District is sometimes referred to as new Huangpu to distinguish it from the pre-merger Huangpu District which existed before 2000. In 2000, the pre-merger Huangpu and Nanshi districts were combined to form a new district, in June 2011, the existing Huangpu District was combined with Luwan District to form a further new district, again called Huangpu. As a result of merger, it currently has an area of 20.43 square kilometres and 678,670 inhabitants. Of the three districts that make up todays Huangpu, the pre-merger Huangpu District is located to the north, bounded by Suzhou Creek in the north. South of the per-merger Huangpu District was Nanshi District, bounded by the Huangpu River to the east, west of Nanshi District was Luwan District, bounded by the Huangpu River to the south. Each of these have a history and character. The former Nanshi District, literally southern city, was the core of Shanghai. It included the old, walled city as well as the nearby docklands on both sides of the Huangpu River, Shanghai County was established at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. A city wall was built to repel the Wokou, and this Ming Dynasty wall defined the extent of urban Shanghai for the few centuries. In 1842, the north of the old city was established as the British concession in Shanghai. At the time, the concession was referred to by locals as the city while the walled Chinese city was the southern city. From this reference was derived the name Nanshi. Upon the defeat of Japan at the end of World War II, in 1945, after the Republic of China government took control, the old city was divided into the Third District and the Fourth District. In 1959 these were merged to form Nanshi District, the pre-merger Huangpu District was largely located in the former Shanghai International Settlement. In the later part of the 19th century and the early 20th century, the International Settlement was handed back to the Chinese government in 1943
12.
Lujiazui
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Lujiazui, formerly known as Lokatse from its pronunciation in Shanghainese, is a locality in Shanghai, a peninsula formed by a bend in the Huangpu River. Since the early 1990s, Lujiazui has been developed specifically as a new district of Shanghai. Lujiazui is a development zone designated by the government. In 2005, the State Council reaffirmed the positioning of the 31.78 km2 Lujiazui area as the only finance, Lujiazui is located in the Pudong New District on the eastern bank of Huangpu River. It forms a peninsula on a bend of the Huangpu River, until the 1980s, Lujiazui was a relatively low-built area, featuring residential houses, warehouses, and factories. Following the allocation of Lujiazui as a special investment zone in 1992 and this was largely driven by Chinese state owned enterprises investing and developing the property within the area, with the inaugural landmark, the Oriental Pearl Tower, being completed in 1994. Currently, there are more than 30 buildings over 25 stories high with commerce as their leading function, the success of Lujiazui in the past 20 years has fueled tourism and business related travel to Shanghai. At the southern end, the Dongchang Road ferry terminal provides river-crossing services across the Huangpu River to central, the most popular ferry service for tourists connects Dongchang Road wharf with Jinling East wharf, located on the Bund. At the north end, the Xichang Inn wharf provides river-crossing services across the Huangpu River to northern central Shanghai. The former Lujiazui ferry wharf, once part of the most popular river crossing in Shanghai, was closed in 1999, with its wharf structure now used as a waterfront seating area. By road, Lujiazui is connected to the rest of central Shanghai by the Yanan East Road Tunnel, by metro, Lujiazui is served by Lujiazui station, which is on Shanghai Metro Line 2. Lujiazui still on the rise, by Tian Xiuzhen, Shanghai Star, 2004-12-16 Lujiazui to become top biz district, Shanghai Daily
13.
Pudong
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Pudong is a district of Shanghai located east of the Huangpu River across from the historic city center of Shanghai in Puxi. These modern skyscrapers directly face Puxis historic Bund, a remnant of former foreign concessions in China, pudong—literally The East Bank of the Huangpu River—originally referred only to the less-developed land across from Shanghais Old City and foreign concessions. The area was farmland and only slowly developed, with warehouses and wharfs near the shore administered by the districts of Puxi on the west bank, Huangpu, Yangpu. Pudong was originally established as a county in 1958 until 1961 which the county was split among Huangpu, Yangpu, Nanshi, Wusong, in October 1,1992 the original area of Pudong County and Chuansha County merged and established Pudong New Area. In 1993, the Chinese government set up a Special Economic Zone in Chuansha, the western tip of the Pudong district was designated as the Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone and has become a financial hub of modern China. Several landmark buildings were constructed, including the Oriental Pearl Tower, the Jin Mao Building, and these buildings—all along Century Avenue and visible from the historic Bund—now form the most common skyline of Shanghai. On May 6,2009, it was disclosed that the State Council had approved the proposal to merge Nanhui District with Pudong, in 2010, Pudong was host to the main venues of the Shanghai Expo, whose grounds now form a public park. Pudong New Area consist of the original Pudong County, Chuansha County, districts of the direct-controlled municipality of Shanghai are administratively on the same level as prefecture-level cities. However, the government of Pudong has an equivalent to that of a sub-provincial city. This is due to Pudongs size and importance as the hub of China. The Pudong Communist Party Secretary is the top office of the district, the Pudong party chief is customarily also a member of the Shanghai Party Standing Committee. On April 27,2015, Peoples Government of Pudong New Area is working with China Pilot Free-Trade Zone Administrative Committee, Pudong is bounded by the Huangpu River in the west and the East China Sea in the east. Pudong is distinguished from Puxi, the part of Shanghai. It has an area of 1,210.4 square kilometres and according to the 2010 Census, currently, at least 2.1 million of residents of Pudong are newcomers from other provinces or cities in China. Pudong is the most populous district in Shanghai, according to the 2010 Census, it has 5,044,430 people in 1,814,802 families, around 1/4 of Shanghais total population, an explosive growth since the last census thanks to immigrants. Pudongs resident population growth is well above national average because it is an immigration destination. The 2010 census shows a 58. 26% increase in the last decade, in particular, the district saw am immigration growth of 189. 5%, or an annual pace of 11. 22%. Excluding immigrants, the rate is 0. 806% while the death rate is 0.729
14.
Bunding
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Frequently, the liquids in these tanks and pipes are toxic, and bunding is used to prevent the liquid from causing damage. If a large tank has a failure, the liquid alone can cause extensive damage. If built properly, bunding is large enough and strong enough to contain the contents of an entire tank, when multiple tanks share a bund, the capacity is based on the largest tank. One of the most common designs for large tanks is a concrete or masonry wall around the tank with a concrete floor, the outside of the wall may be reinforced with an earth berm. Concrete works very well for many liquids, but it is unsuitable for applications like containing strong acids. Using earth berms for bunding is not recommended for most situations, smaller tanks often use containers made of steel or plastic. The material used depends on cost, the properties of the liquid. Plastic tanks cannot hold very dense liquids at high wall levels, large, exposed bunding will need a sump pump or some other system to remove precipitation, though it may also be used to transfer spilled liquid into another container. Rainwater must be treated if the liquid being stored is toxic because there may be small amounts of it surrounding the tank, the bund may have a roof to prevent precipitation from getting in, but steps must be taken to provide adequate ventilation when storing flammable liquids. If the wall is over a high, it may require a ladder or steps to allow people to escape quickly. Another design uses a channel that drains the liquid to a secondary container, when the risk of tank failure is not as likely or when it would not cause extensive damage, the bunding may be designed to merely contain small leaks from hoses and valves. This bunding may not be able to contain the volume of the tank. Plastic and steel are used, but another common method is making a hump or lip around the perimeter of a concrete floor, some bunding is temporary, such as short-term chemical storage in the field. A hump or slope type bunding is helpful when vehicles need access to the area, there is also a type of bunding that compresses when a vehicle passes over and expands once it has passed. Bunding is a requirement in many countries particularly around tanks, storage vessels. It is reasonably easy to construct a water-tight bund around the base of a tank or vessel, a concrete base and a sealed wall of masonry, brickwork, concrete or even prefabricated steel provides the holding capacity. In the UK commercial installations exceeding 200 litres and domestic installations exceeding 2500 litres require a tank to comply with Environment Agency control of pollution regulations. Almost all regulations require a holding capacity of 110% of the largest tank within the bund or 25% of the capacity of all the tanks within the bund whichever is the greatest
15.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
16.
Hindustani language
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Hindustani, historically also known as Hindavi, Dehlvi and Rekhta, is the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is an Indo-Aryan language, deriving primarily from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi, before the Partition of the British Indian Empire, the terms Hindustani, Urdu, and Hindi were synonymous, all covered what would be called Urdu and Hindi today. Hindustani is also spoken by a number of people in Mauritius. Early forms of present-day Hindustani developed from the Middle Indo-Aryan apabhramsha vernaculars of present-day North India in the 7th–13th centuries. Amir Khusro, who lived in the 13th century CE during the Delhi Sultanate period in North India, used these forms in his writings, the Delhi Sultanate, which comprised several Turkic and Afghan dynasties that ruled from Delhi, was succeeded by the Mughal Empire in 1526. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianised Central Asian Turkic, the term Hindustani was the name given to that variant of Khariboli. For socio-political reasons, though essentially the variant of Khariboli with Persian vocabulary, the more highly Persianised version later established as a language of the court was called Rekhta, or mixed. As an emerging common dialect, Hindustani absorbed large numbers of Persian, Arabic, and Turkic words and its development was centred on the poets of the Mughal courts of cities in Uttar Pradesh such as Delhi, Lucknow, and Agra. He continued, But it has all the magnitude and importance of separate language and it is linguistic result of Mohammedan invasions of eleventh & twelfth centuries and is spoken by many Hindus in North India and by Musalman population in all parts of India. Next to English it was the language of British Indian Empire, was commonly written in Arabic or Persian characters. When the British colonised the Indian subcontinent from the late 18th through to the late 19th century, they used the words Hindustani, Hindi and they developed it as the language of administration of British India, further preparing it to be the official language of modern India and Pakistan. However, with independence, use of the word Hindustani declined, being replaced by Hindi and Urdu. It has a literature of 500 years, with prose, poetry, religion & philosophy, under the Bahmani Kings and it is a living language, still prevalent all over the Deccan Plateau. Note that the term Hindustani has generally fallen out of usage in modern India, except to refer to Indian as a nationality. The term used to refer to it is Hindi or Urdu, depending on the religion of the speaker, in common usage in India, the term Hindi includes all these dialects except those at the Urdu end of the spectrum. Urdu is the language of Pakistan and an officially recognised regional language of India. It is also a language in the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, National Capital Territory of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar. In a specific sense, Hindustani may be used to refer to the dialects and varieties used in speech, in contrast with the standardised Hindi
17.
Levee
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A levee, dike, dyke, embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels. It is usually earthen and often parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines, the word levee, from the French word levée, is used in American English. It originated in New Orleans a few years after the founding in 1718 and was later adopted by English speakers. The name derives from the trait of the ridges being raised higher than both the channel and the surrounding floodplains. The modern word dike or dyke most likely derives from the Dutch word dijk, the 126 kilometres long Westfriese Omringdijk was completed by 1250, and was formed by connecting existing older dikes. The Roman chronicler Tacitus even mentions that the rebellious Batavi pierced dikes to flood their land, the word dijk originally indicated both the trench and the bank. It is closely related to the English verb to dig, in Anglo-Saxon, the word dic already existed and was pronounced as dick in northern England and as ditch in the south. Similar to Dutch, the English origins of the lie in digging a trench. This practice has meant that the name may be given to either the excavation or the bank, thus Offas Dyke is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench though it once had raised banks as well. In the midlands and north of England, and in the United States, a dike is what a ditch is in the south, a property boundary marker or small drainage channel. Where it carries a stream, it may be called a dike as in Rippingale Running Dike. The Weir Dike is a dike in Bourne North Fen, near Twenty and alongside the River Glen. In the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, a dyke may be a ditch or a narrow artificial channel off a river or broad for access or mooring, some longer dykes being named. In parts of Britain, particularly Scotland, a dyke may be a field wall, Levees can be mainly found along the sea, where dunes are not strong enough, along rivers for protection against high-floods, along lakes or along polders. Furthermore, levees have been built for the purpose of empoldering, the latter can be a controlled inundation by the military or a measure to prevent inundation of a larger area surrounded by levees. Levees have also built as field boundaries and as military defences. More on this type of levee can be found in the article on dry-stone walls, Levees can be permanent earthworks or emergency constructions built hastily in a flood emergency. When such a bank is added on top of an existing levee it is known as a cradge
18.
Wellington Pier (Bombay)
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Wellington Pier was an important pier for embarkation and disembarkation of passengers and goods in the city of Bombay, India in the late 19th century. It is the location of the famed Gateway of India and the passengers using it now are those who are taking the ferry to Elephanta Island. The original name for the pier was derived from the Palla fish that were sold at this spot in old times and this was corrupted to the Portuguese Pollem and finally to the English Apollo. This old name was popular among Indians and is used today instead of Wellington Pier. The pier was once a maze of wharves and docks where brisk trading took place, during the months of April and May the pier was particularly busy, with thousands of baskets of cotton being stacked ready for loading onto ships. There was frantic activity on the Cotton Green, at the Customs House, beginning in 1900, the British administration started to reclaim the area in order build the Gateway of India, designed to welcome King George V. The entire area now serves as a magnet for tourists visiting the gateway and nearby Taj building, going to the Elephanta Caves or coming in remembrance of the 26/11 attacks. Next day, they all went down to the sea, and there was a scene at the Apollo Bunder when Punch discovered that Meeta could not come too, and Judy learned that the ayah must be left behind. But Punch found a thousand fascinating things in the rope, block, and steam-pipe line on the big P. and O. Steamer, long before Meeta, – Rudyard Kiplings short story, Baa Baa Black Sheep, published in 1888. India Revisited By Edwin Arnold, p.54 The Charm of Mumbai By R P Karkaria, p.336 A Financial Chapter In The History Of Mumbai City, Mumbai in 1864-65
19.
Bandar Abbas
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The city occupies a strategic position on the narrow Strait of Hormuz, and it is the location of the main base of the Iranian Navy. Bandar Abbas is also the capital and largest city of Bandar Abbas County, at the 2006 census, its population was 367,508, with 89,404 families. Bandar Abbas has always been a port, and as such its various names have all addressed this function, the most common name over time has traditionally been said to derive from Persian gümrük, customhouse, but is now speculated to be from Persian kamrūn, shrimp. Its current name is derived from that of Shah Abbas I paired with port, the earliest record of Bandar Abbas is during the reign of Darius the Great. Dariuss commander, Silacus, embarked from Bandar Abbas to India, during Alexanders conquest of the Persian Empire, Bandar Abbas was known under the name of Hormirzad. In the year 630 CE, Maharaja Derbar Raja of Gemeron was defeated in battle and escaped to Ceylon, the inhabitants of Kedah found him to be a valiant and intelligent person, and they made him the king of Kedah. In the year 634 CE, a new kingdom was formed in Kedah consisting of Persian royalty and native Malay of Hindu faith, by the 16th century, Bandar Abbas was known as Gamrūn to the Persians. In 1565, a European navigator called it Bamdel Gombruc, citing this as the Persian, Bandar Abbas was conquered by the Portuguese in 1514, and was an important location to protect their commerce in the Persian Gulf and India. They named the city Comorão, due to the presence of lobsters, in 1614, Comorão was taken by ‘Abbās the Great from the Portuguese and renamed Bandar-e ‘Abbās. Backed by the English navy, ‘Abbās developed the city into a major port, by 1622, the Portuguese and English names had been officially combined to form Combrù or Combu, although the inhabitants still called it Bandar-e ‘Abbās. Sir Thomas Herbert said the official English name was Gumbrown, and he wrote in 1630 that some write it Gamrou, others Gomrow, and othersome Cummeroon. By the 1670s, the city was known as Gameroon, in 1622 CE Shah Abbas defeated Portuguese troops with the help of British troops and Iranian commander Imam Quli Khan. In honor of this victory Gumbroon was renamed Bandar Abbas Port, in the current division of Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan province and one of the most important strategic and commercial center is in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea. Between 1794 and 1868, Bandar Abbas was under the control of the Sultanate of Oman, the details of the original lease apparently differed between the Arabic and Persian versions. The Omanis controlled the stretch of some 100 miles from Sadij to Khamir. They also controlled the islands of Hormuz and Qeshm, in 1823, the Persians attempted to oust the Omanis, but the sultan managed to keep his hold on Bandar through bribery and tribute of the governor of Shiraz. In 1845–46, an army under the general of Fars menaced Bandar to extort tribute. The Omanis threatened to blockade Persia, but the British resident at Bushir convinced them to back down, the Persians recovered the city in 1854, while the sultan was in Zanzibar
20.
Banda Aceh
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Banda Aceh, formerly known as Kutaradja, is the capital and largest city in the province of Aceh, Indonesia. It is located on the island of Sumatra and has an elevation of 35 meters, the city covers an area of 64 square kilometres and had a population of 219,070 people, according to the 2000 census. Banda Aceh is located on the tip of Indonesia at the mouth of the Aceh River. The city was established as Bandar Aceh Darussalam Kandang and served as a capital. Later its name was changed to Bandar Aceh Darussalam, and then became known as Banda Aceh. The first part of the name comes from the Persian bandar meaning port or haven, the city rose to international prominence in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean earthquake in 2004, which struck off the western coast of Sumatra. Banda Aceh was the closest major city to the earthquakes epicentre and it suffered great damage in the earthquake and further damage when a tsunami struck shortly afterwards. 167,000 people died as a result and many more were injured, Banda Aceh, situated at the tip of Sumatra, has long been a strategic, transportation and trading hub in the eastern Indian Ocean. Ibn Battuta also reported visiting the city in the century when under the control of the trading kingdom of Samudera Pasai. However the Pasai began to collapse under pressure from declining economic conditions and the Portuguese, after a long period of rule by the Sultanate, Aceh began to come into conflict with the Dutch and the British in the second half of the 18th century. At the end of the 18th century, the territory of Aceh in the Malay Peninsula, namely Kedah, in 1871, the Dutch began to threaten Aceh, and on 26 March 1873, the Dutch formally declared war on Aceh. The Dutch bombarded the capital in that year and sought to capture the Sultans palace in the city to bring about a capitulation of the Acehnese. Significant support from the British in the led the modernisation and fortification of the city. The Dutch expedition commander General Johan Köhler was killed in a skirmish around the city, a second expedition was mounted by the Dutch within months and was successful in overwhelming the city. On 26 December 2004, the city was hit by a tsunami caused by the 9. 2-magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean, the disaster killed 167,000 inhabitants and destroyed more than 60% of the citys buildings. Based on the statistical data issued by the City Government of Banda Aceh, Banda Aceh is divided into nine districts, One of the unique features of Banda Aceh are the motorised becaks that are found almost everywhere. Unlike traditional becaks, a motorised becak can take passengers anywhere in the city, the fare for riding a motorised becak is relatively cheap and is usually negotiated beforehand. Transport by taxis and minibuses, known as labi-labi, are also common, Sultan Iskandar Muda International Airport is located in Blang Bintang,13.5 km from Banda Aceh
21.
Baghdad
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Baghdad is the capital of the Republic of Iraq. The population of Baghdad, as of 2016, is approximately 8,765,000 making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab world, and the second largest city in Western Asia. Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century, within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center for the Islamic world. This, in addition to housing several key institutions, garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the Centre of Learning. Throughout the High Middle Ages, Baghdad was considered to be the largest city in the world with a population of 1,200,000 people. The city was destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state in 1938, in contemporary times, the city has often faced severe infrastructural damage, most recently due to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent Iraq War that lasted until December 2011. In recent years, the city has been subjected to insurgency attacks. As of 2012, Baghdad was listed as one of the least hospitable places in the world to live, the site where the city of Baghdad developed has been populated for millennia. By the 8th century AD, several villages had developed there, including a Persian hamlet called Baghdad, the name is of Indo-European origin and a Middle Persian compound of Bagh god and dād given by, translating to Bestowed by God or Gods gift. In Old Persian the first element can be traced to boghu and is related to Slavic bog god, a similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt, known in English by its Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning gift of Mithra. There are a number of locations in the wider region whose names are compounds of the word bagh, including Baghlan. The name of the town Baghdati in Georgia shares the same etymological origins, when the Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, founded a completely new city for his capital, he chose the name Madinat al-Salaam or City of Peace. This was the name on coins, weights, and other official usage. By the 11th century, Baghdad became almost the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis, after the fall of the Umayyads, the first Muslim dynasty, the victorious Abbasid rulers wanted their own capital whence they could rule. They chose a site north of the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, on 30 July 762, the caliph Al-Mansur commissioned the construction of the city, mansur believed that Baghdad was the perfect city to be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids. Mansur loved the site so much he is quoted saying, This is indeed the city that I am to found, where I am to live, and where my descendants will reign afterward. The citys growth was helped by its excellent location, based on at least two factors, it had control over strategic and trading routes along the Tigris, the abundance of water in a dry climate
22.
Tigris
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The Tigris is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq, the Tigris is 1,850 km long, rising in the Taurus Mountains of eastern Turkey about 25 km southeast of the city of Elazig and about 30 km from the headwaters of the Euphrates. The river then flows for 400 km through Turkish territory before becoming the border between Syria and Turkey and this stretch of 44 km is the only part of the river that is located in Syria. Close to its confluence with the Euphrates, the Tigris splits into several channels, First, the artificial Shatt al-Hayy branches off, to join the Euphrates near Nasiriyah. Second, the Shatt al-Muminah and Majar-al-Kabir branch off to feed the Central Marshes, further downstream, two other distributary channels branch off, which feed the Hawizeh Marshes. The main channel continues southwards and is joined by the Al-Kassarah, finally, the Tigris joins the Euphrates near al-Qurnah to form the Shatt-al-Arab. According to Pliny and other ancient historians, the Euphrates originally had its outlet into the sea separate from that of the Tigris, Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, stands on the banks of the Tigris. The port city of Basra straddles the Shatt al-Arab, in ancient times, many of the great cities of Mesopotamia stood on or near the Tigris, drawing water from it to irrigate the civilization of the Sumerians. Notable Tigris-side cities included Nineveh, Ctesiphon, and Seleucia, while the city of Lagash was irrigated by the Tigris via a canal dug around 2400 B. C, the Tigris has long been an important transport route in a largely desert country. Shallow-draft vessels can go as far as Baghdad, but rafts are needed for transport upstream to Mosul, General Francis Rawdon Chesney hauled two steamers overland through Syria in 1836 to explore the possibility of an overland and river route to India. One steamer, the Tigris, was wrecked in a storm which sank, Chesney proved the river navigable to powered craft. Later, the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company was established in 1861 by the Lynch Brothers trading company and they had 2 steamers in service. By 1908 ten steamers were on the river, tourists boarded steam yachts to venture inland as this was the first age of archaeological tourism, and the sites of Ur and Ctesiphon became popular to European travelers. In the First World War, during the British conquest of Ottoman Mesopotamia, Indian, see Siege of Kut and the Fall of Baghdad. The Tigris Flotilla included vessels Clio, Espiegle, Lawrence, Odin, armed tug Comet, armed launches Lewis Pelly, Miner, Shaitan, Sumana, and stern wheelers Muzaffari/Mozaffir. These were joined by Royal Navy Fly-class gunboats Butterfly, Cranefly, Dragonfly, Mayfly, Sawfly, Snakefly, and Mantis, Moth, the Ancient Greek form Tigris was borrowed from Old Persian Tigrā, itself from Elamite Tigra, itself from Sumerian Idigna. The Sumerian form was borrowed into Akkadian as Idiqlat, and from there into the other Semitic languages, another name for the Tigris used in Middle Persian was Arvand Rud, literally swift river. Today, however, Arvand Rud refers to the confluence of the Euphrates, in Kurdish, it is also known as Ava Mezin, the Great Water
23.
Baghdadi Jews
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Many of them were merchant traders who settled on trade routes and formed immigrant communities in their new homelands. The main Baghdadi Jewish communities in Asia are found in India, Yangon, Singapore, the majority of Baghdadi Jews lived in the Indian cities of Mumbai and Kolkata. The ethnic Jewish community in Penang is now extinct with the death of its last member in 2011, some smaller Jewish communities, such as the one in Bangkok, trace their first founders to Baghdadi Jewish traders who worked and settled down in the region. There are only one or two remaining Baghdadi Jews in Bangladesh, though there had been significant Persian Jewish communities in India since early Mughal times, the first Arabic-speaking Iraqi Jews arrived in the 18th century. In 1730, Joseph Semah arrived in Surat from Baghdad and established the Surat Synagogue, there was already an established Baghdadi Jew community by then with its center in Surat. Surat was a trading port in the 16th and 17th centuries. Surat is located in Western India, in Gujarat State, and is the commercial capital of Gujarat. Arab Jews came to India as traders in the wake of the Portuguese, Dutch and these Baghdadis, as they came to be known, especially the Sassoons of Bombay and the Ezras of Calcutta, eventually established manufacturing and commercial houses of fabulous wealth. The majority came from Iraq, thus giving the community its name, though smaller groups came from countries such as Syria and Afghanistan. Unlike other Indian Jewish communities, whose oral traditions attest to their presence in India as long as 2000 years ago, sir David Sassoon is the most illustrious name of this community of Jews. In Mumbai, the Jewish community was concentrated in the Jacob Circle area in Central Bombay and they had totally integrated themselves with the society around them. Their dress used to be traditionally Indian and their womenfolk wear saree, and bangles. Their surnames and family names were like those of other Indians and their culinary habits are also influenced by Indian. Persian speaking Jews closely related to Baghdadi Jews from Afghanistan and Iran came with the Ghaznavad, Ghori and Mughal invasions of Mahmud, Muhammad, the most obscure of Indian Jews, they were traders and courtiers of the Mughals. Jewish advisors at the Court of Akbar the Great in Agra played a significant role in Akbars liberal religious policies, in Delhi, one Jew was tutor to the Crown Prince, Dara Shikoh, the teacher and student were later assassinated by Aurangzeb. These Jews got assimilated in the population as no trace or community remains. The community largely emigrated abroad following Indian independence following Zionism, after Indian independence, there was a continuous migration of Baghdadi Jews to Israel. Many others went to the United States and United Kingdom, Indian Baghdadi cuisine is an Indian hybrid cuisine, with many Arab, Turkish, Persian and Indian influences
24.
Sassoon family
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The Sassoon family, known as Rothschilds of the East due to the great wealth they accumulated in trade, is of Baghdadi Jewish descent and international renown. It was based in Baghdad, Iraq, before moving to Bombay, India and then spreading to China, England and it is said that the family descended from the Shoshans, one of the families of Iberian Peninsula. From the 18th century, the Sassoons were one of the wealthiest families in the world, the name of the family strongly implies a local, Mesopotamian origin for the family. It is, however, possible that some Spanish Sephardi blood was mixed with the primarily Mesopotamian Jewish Sasoons, Sassoon ben Salih and his family were the chief treasurers to the pashas of Baghdad and Southern Iraq. His son David fled from a new and unfriendly wāli, going first to the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr in 1828 and then to Bombay, India, in 1832, with his large family. In Bombay, he built the business called David S. Sassoon. They filled the functions of the branches of his business in India, Burma, Malaya. His business extended to China – where Sassoon House on the Bund in Shanghai became a noted landmark –, in each branch, he maintained a rabbi. His wealth and munificence were proverbial, his philanthropy across Asia included the building of schools, orphanages, hospitals, on his death, tributes to him were made from across the continent by Muslims, Christians, Parsees, Jews, and Hindus. Sassoons eight sons also branched out in many directions, the Sassoon family was heavily involved in the shipping and opium production industry in China and India. Elias David, his son by his first wife, had been the first of the sons to go to China and he later returned to Bombay, before leaving the firm to establish E. D. Sassoon in 1867, with offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Another son, Albert Abdullah David Sassoon took on the running of the firm on his fathers death, and notably constructed the Sassoon Docks, the first wet dock built in western India. With two of his brothers he became prominent in England, and the family were friends of the Prince of Wales. Of those who settled in England, Sir Edward Albert Sassoon, the son of Albert, married Aline Caroline de Rothschild, the seat was then inherited by his son Sir Philip Sassoon from 1912 until his death. Philip served in the First World War as military secretary to Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and, during the 1920s and 1930s, the twentieth-century English poet, one of the best known World War I poets, Siegfried Sassoon was Davids great-grandson. Another descendant of Sassoon David Sassoon is the British banker and government minister James, in the 19th century, one daughter of the family, Rachel Sassoon Beer bought a number of newspapers in England, including The Sunday Times and The Observer, which she also edited. The branch that carried on the tradition has been represented by Rabbi Solomon David Sassoon. He was the son of one David Sassoon who collected Jewish books and manuscripts and this David was the son of Flora Abraham, who had moved from India to England in 1901 and established a famous salon in her London home
25.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
26.
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
27.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
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Bank (geography)
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In geography, the word bank generally refers to the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as banks in different fields of geography, in limnology, a stream bank or river bank is the terrain alongside the bed of a river, creek, or stream. The bank consists of the sides of the channel, between which the flow is confined, stream banks are of particular interest in fluvial geography, which studies the processes associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them. The shoreline of ponds, swamps, estuaries, reservoirs, or lakes are also of interest in limnology, the grade of all these banks or shorelines can vary from vertical to a shallow slope. In freshwater ecology, banks are of interest as the location of riparian habitats, riparian zones occur along upland and lowland river and stream beds. The ecology around and depending on a marsh, swamp, slough, or estuary, banks are also of interest in navigation, where the term can refer either to a barrier island or a submerged plateau, such as an ocean bank. A barrier island is a narrow island composed of sand. A submerged plateau is a flat topped elevation of the sea floor at shallow depth
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Old City (Shanghai)
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The Cochin or Cochin China, is a breed of chicken. In China itself, the name 九斤黄 is actually used for any large chicken or even a dish made from one and this chicken was originally bred in China and later exported to Britain and America in the mid 19th century. As a very distinctive breed of chicken, it created a bit of a craze among poultry lovers in the English-speaking world. It was successfully bred into other birds, there is also a bantam version, which is often called the Pekin bantam, but this should not be confused with the separate and true Pekin bantam. As above, the most distinctive feature of the Cochin is the excessive plumage that covers leg, the skin beneath the feathers is yellow and the egg colour is light brown. Eggs are also medium in size, standard weight is 5 kg for a cock,4 kg for a cockerel,3.9 kg for a hen, and 3.2 kg for a pullet. Colour varieties include buff, black, partridge, blue, silver laced, splash, golden laced, cochins can be frizzled, with the feathers curling outwards. Cochins are well known as mothers, even as foster mothers for other breeds, and they can lay many eggs. Cochins are also known to be good pet hens for the garden, as they are tame, cochins are rather quiet chickens, and tend to be quite calm as well. Delayed feathering in chickens, a found in this breed. Media related to Cochin at Wikimedia Commons
30.
Consulate-General of Russia in Shanghai
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The Consulate-General of the Russian Federation in Shanghai is the diplomatic mission of Russia in Hongkou District, Shanghai. It is located at 20 Huangpu Road on The Bund in Shanghai, next to the Garden Bridge near the convergence of the Suzhou and Huangpu rivers and it was established in 1896 and has occupied the present building since 1917. The Russian Consulate School in Shanghai, a primary school operated by the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, is on the consulate grounds. China–Russia relations Shanghai Russians List of diplomatic missions in China Consulate-General of the Russian Federation in Shanghai
31.
Bund Center
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Bund Center is a 198 m, 50-storey tower in the Huangpu area of Shanghai, China. Designed by the architects of John Portman and Associates, the tower was completed in 2002, the building is mainly used for offices and major tenants of the building are Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Nokia, APP and Regus. The Bund Center’s prominent outer appearance is the located on top of the building. A total of 16 indicator lights are installed so that the crown illuminates a light at nighttime. The investors of the building are Shanghai Golden Bund Real Estate CO. LTD, asia Food and Properties LTD. and Shanghai Huangpu Investment Development CO. LTD. The Westin Bund Center hotel is attached to the Bund Center, offering dining, official site The Westin Bund Center as 3D-Modell in 3D Warehouse of Google SketchUp
32.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
33.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
34.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
35.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
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Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
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Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
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Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
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Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
40.
Shanghai Club Building
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The Shanghai Club Building is a six-storey Baroque Revival building in Shanghai located at No.2, The Bund. Once home to one of the mens clubs in Shanghai. It is currently part of the Waldorf Astoria Shanghai on the Bund, the current building was opened in January 1910. The total building footprint is 1,811 square metres, while total area is 9,280 square metres. The buildings main facade uses a design, the middle section featuring six Ionic columns. The roof section of the facade has two symmetrical Baroque-style cupolas, with carved details. Interior design was by Japanese architect Shimoda Kikutaro, the most famous feature of the interior is the 34-metre black-and-white marble bar, called the long bar. The Shanghai Club was the mens club for British residents of Shanghai. The club was originally named The Correspondents Club, in 1864, a club building was erected on this site, a three-storey red-brick building. United States President Ulysses S. Grant was hosted there when he visited Shanghai in 1879, in 1905, the Club decided to rebuild its club building. In 1909, the old building was torn down and replaced with a new, six-storey building, the new building opened in January 1910. In its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, the Club was the most exclusive club in Shanghai, the second-floor was famous for the Long Bar. This was a mahogany, L-shaped bar that measured 110.7 feet by 39 feet. It was famous for being the worlds longest bar at one time, noël Coward said, laying his cheek on it, that he could see the curvature of the earth. There were also forty guest rooms on the second and third floors, membership was restricted to white males of a certain class. A massive Italianate Grand Hall was located on the first floor, with ceilings over 12 feet high, the hall ended in a curving marble staircase, where twin elevators whisked members to the upper floors. On the outbreak of war in the Pacific in 1941, the Shanghai Club was closed and occupied by the Japanese occupation force until the end of the war. In 1949, the building was expropriated by the new Communist government of Shanghai, in 1971, it became the Dongfeng Hotel, and it was notable from 1990 to 1996 for hosting the first KFC restaurant in Shanghai
41.
Beaux-Arts architecture
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Beaux-Arts architecture expresses the academic neoclassical architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The style of instruction that produced Beaux-Arts architecture continued without interruption until 1968. The Beaux-Arts style heavily influenced the architecture of the United States in the period from 1880 to 1920, in contrast, many European architects of the period 1860–1914 outside France gravitated away from Beaux-Arts and towards their own national academic centers. American architects of the Beaux-Arts generation often returned to Greek models, for the first time, repertories of photographs supplemented meticulous scale drawings and on-site renderings of details. Beaux-Arts training emphasized the production of quick conceptual sketches, highly finished perspective presentation drawings, close attention to the program, site considerations tended toward social and urbane contexts. In the façade shown to the right, Diana grasps the cornice she sits on in an action typical of Beaux-Arts integration of sculpture with architecture. A sense of appropriate idiom at the craftsman level supported the teams of the first truly modern architectural offices. The prestige of the École gave the style Beaux-Arts a second wind in combining the new manner with the traditional training and they were followed by an entire generation. Henry Hobson Richardson absorbed Beaux-Arts lessons in massing and spatial planning and his Beaux-Arts training taught him to transcend slavish copying and recreate in the essential fully digested and idiomatic manner of his models. Richardson evolved a personal style freed of historicism that was influential in early Modernism. The White City of the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago was a triumph of the movement, the Beaux-Arts curriculum was subsequently begun at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. From 1916, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City schooled architects, painters, bosworth, Carnegie Mellon University, designed by Henry Hornbostel, and the University of Texas, designed by Paul Philippe Cret. Beaux-Arts architecture also brought a civic face to the railroad, two of the best American examples of the Beaux-Arts tradition stand within a few blocks of each other, Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library. Another prominent U. S. example of the style is the largest academic dormitory in the world, in the late 1800s, during the years when Beaux-Arts architecture was at a peak in France, Americans were one of the largest groups of foreigners in Paris. Many of them were architects and students of architecture who brought this back to America. Beaux-Arts was very prominent in public buildings in Canada in the early 20th century, notably all three prairie provinces legislative buildings are in this style. Buenos Aires is a center of Beaux-Arts architecture which continued to be built as late as the 1950s, national Theatre, Melbourne General Post Office building, Forrest Place, Perth Argus Building. Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York, A Photographic Guide United States, sixteenth Street Architecture – profiles of Beaux-Arts architecture in Washington D. C
42.
East Asia
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East Asia is the eastern subregion of the Asian continent, which can be defined in either geographical or ethno-cultural terms. Geographically and geopolitically, it includes China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Korea and Japan, it covers about 12,000,000 km2, or about 28% of the Asian continent, the East Asian people comprise more than 1.5 billion people. About 38% of the population of Asia and 22%, or over one fifth, the overall population density of the region is 133 inhabitants per square kilometre, about three times the world average of 45/km2. Historically, societies in East Asia have been part of the Chinese cultural sphere, major religions include Buddhism, Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion in China and Taiwan, Shinto in Japan, Korean shamanism in Korea. Shamanism is also prevalent among Mongolians and other populations of northern East Asia. The Chinese calendar is the root from which many other East Asian calendars are derived, Chinese Dynasties dominated the region in matters of culture, trade, and exploration as well as militarily for a very long time. There are records of tributes sent overseas from the kingdoms of Korea. There were also considerable levels of cultural and religious exchange between the Chinese and other regional Dynasties and Kingdoms, as connections began to strengthen with the Western world, Chinas power began to diminish. Around the same time, Japan solidified itself as a nation state, throughout World War II, Korea, Taiwan, much of eastern China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam all fell under Japanese control. Culturally, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam are commonly seen as being encompassed by cultural East Asia, there are mixed debates around the world whether these countries or regions should be considered in East Asia or not. Vietnam Siberia in Russia Sovereignty issues exist over some territories in the South China Sea, however, in this context, the term Far East is often more appropriate which covers ASEAN countries and the countries in East Asia. However, being a Eurocentric term, Far East describes the geographical position in relation to Europe rather than its location within Asia. Alternatively, the term Asia Pacific Region is often used in describing East Asia and this usage, which is seen in economic and diplomatic discussions, is at odds with the historical meanings of both East Asia and Northeast Asia. The Council on Foreign Relations defines Northeast Asia as Japan and Korea, the military and economic superpower of China became the largest economy in the world in 2014, surpassing the United States of America. Currently in East Asia, trading systems are open, and zero or low duties on imports of consumer and capital goods etc. have considerably helped stimulate cost-efficiency. Free and flexible labor and other markets are important factors making for high levels of business-economic performance. East Asian populations have demonstrated highly positive work ethics, there are relatively large and fast-growing markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds. The culture of East Asia has been influenced by the civilisation of China, East Asia, as well as Vietnam, share a Confucian ethical philosophy, Buddhism, political and legal structures, and historically a common writing system
43.
Shanghai French Concession
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The Shanghai French Concession was a foreign concession in Shanghai, China from 1849 until 1943, which progressively expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The concession came to an end in 1943 when the Vichy French government signed it over to the puppet government in Nanking. Despite re-development over the last few decades, the area retains a distinct character, the French Concession effectively occupied a narrow collar of land around the northern end of the Old City, south of the British settlement. At an area of 66 hectares, the French Concession was about a third of the size of the British settlement at that time. A further small strip of land to the east of the Old City was added in 1861, to allow the construction of the quai de France. The French Concessions first significant expansion was agreed in 1899 and proclaimed in 1900, the area newly added to the concession sat immediately to the west of the original grant. In 1902, the French introduced from France London planes as a tree on Avenue Joffre. Now popular as a roadside tree throughout China, because of its history it is known in Chinese as the French plane, meanwhile, from 1860s, the French Concession authorities had begun constructing extra-settlement roads outside the concession. Controlled by concession authorities, extra-settlement roads effectively gave France and the treaty powers a form of control over land extending outside their formal concessions. In 1913, France requested police powers over its extra-settlement roads and this agreement, proclaimed in 1914, gave the French Concession control over a significantly larger area between the Old City and Xujiahui,15 times the size of the original grant. As a nod to the more numerous Chinese residents in the new territory, by the 1920s the French Concession was developed into the premier residential area of Shanghai. As demand grew, numerous apartment buildings at varying levels of luxury were built, vibrant commercial areas also developed, helped by the influx of White Russians after the Russian Revolution. In 1943, during World War II, the government of Vichy France announced that it would give up its concessions in Tianjin and these were handed over to the Wang Jingwei Government on 5 June 1943, with the Shanghai Concession following on 30 July. The former French Concession remained largely unchanged during the decades of Communist rule in China. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, however, largely unregulated re-development of the area tore apart many old neighbourhoods, for example, the London Planes that graced the former Avenue Joffre were removed in the 1990s, only to be later replaced after public outcry. The old French Club building and its gardens, which used to be a field in the early days, were gutted. After the 2000s, the government enforced more stringent development and planning controls in this area. A small strip extended eastward along the rue du Consulat, now the East Jinling Road, to the Quai de France, now East-2 Zhongshan Road, to the south-east of the French Concession was the walled Chinese city
44.
Chinese Civil War
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The Chinese Civil War was fought between forces loyal to the Kuomintang -led government of the Republic of China, and forces loyal to the Communist Party of China. The civil war began in August 1927, with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-sheks Northern Expedition and it can generally be divided into two stages, the first being from 1927 to 1937, and the second being from 1946 to 1950 with the Second Sino-Japanese War separating them. The war represented a split between the Communist CPC and the KMTs brand of Nationalism. It continued intermittently until late 1937, when the two came together to form the Second United Front to counter the Japanese threat and prevent the country from crumbling. Chinas full-scale civil war resumed in 1946, a year after the end of hostilities with Japan, to this day no armistice or peace treaty has ever been signed, and there is debate about whether the Civil War has legally ended. The ROC mutually claims mainland China, and they continue the fight over diplomatic recognition. The Qing Dynasty, the last of the ruling Chinese dynasties, collapsed in 1911 and finally fell in 1912 with the abdication of the last emperor, Puyi. China fell into what became known as the era, when control of much of the country was divided among a group of powerful independent warlords. Sun Yat-sens efforts to aid from the Western countries were ignored, however. Thus the struggle for power in China began between the KMT and the CPC, in 1923, a joint statement by Sun and Soviet representative Adolph Joffe in Shanghai pledged Soviet assistance for Chinas unification. The Sun-Joffe Manifesto was a declaration of cooperation among the Comintern, KMT, Comintern agent Mikhail Borodin arrived in China in 1923 to aid in the reorganization and consolidation of the KMT along the lines of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The CPC joined the KMT to form the First United Front, in 1923, Sun Yat-sen sent Chiang Kai-shek, one of his lieutenants from his Tongmeng Hui days, for several months of military and political study in Moscow. By 1924 Chiang became the head of the Whampoa Military Academy, the Soviets provided the academy with much educational material, organization and equipment, including munitions. They also provided education in many of the techniques for mass mobilization, with this aid, Sun Yat-sen was able to raise a dedicated army of the party, with which he hoped to defeat the warlords militarily. CPC members were present in the academy, and many of them became instructors, including Zhou Enlai. Communist members were allowed to join the KMT on an individual basis, the CPC itself was still small at the time, having a membership of 300 in 1922 and only 1,500 by 1925. The KMT in 1923 had 50,000 members, however, after Sun died, the KMT split into left- and right-wing movements. KMT members worried that the Soviets were trying to destroy the KMT from inside using the CPC, the CPC then began movements in opposition of the Northern Expedition, passing a resolution against it at a party meeting
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Typhoon
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A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops in the western part of the North Pacific Ocean between 180° and 100°E. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, for organizational purposes, the northern Pacific Ocean is divided into three regions, the eastern, central, and western. While the RSMC names each system, the name list itself is coordinated among 18 countries that have territories threatened by typhoons each year. Only the Philippines use their own naming list for systems approaching the country, a typhoon differs from a cyclone or hurricane only on the basis of location. A hurricane is a storm that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, a typhoon occurs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, within the northwestern Pacific there are no official typhoon seasons as tropical cyclones form throughout the year. While the majority of storms form between June and November, a few storms do occur between December and May, on average, the northwestern Pacific features the most numerous and intense tropical cyclones globally. Like other basins, they are steered by the ridge towards the west or northwest, with some systems recurving near. The Philippines receive the brunt of the landfalls, with China, some of the deadliest typhoons in history have struck China. Southern China has the longest record of typhoon impacts for the region, Taiwan has received the wettest known typhoon on record for the northwest Pacific tropical cyclone basins. The term typhoon is the name in the northwest Pacific for a severe tropical cyclone, whereas hurricane is the regional term in the northeast Pacific. Elsewhere this is called a cyclone, severe tropical cyclone. The Oxford English Dictionary cites Urdu ṭūfān and Chinese tai fung giving rise to early forms in English. The earliest forms -- touffon, later tufan, tuffon, and others -- derive from Urdu ṭūfān, from 1699 appears tuffoon, later tiffoon, derived from Chinese with spelling influenced by the older Urdu-derived forms. The modern spelling dates to 1820, preceded by tay-fun in 1771 and ty-foong. The Urdu source word توفان ṭūfān comes via Persian from Arabic طوفان, the Chinese source is the word tai fung, cited as a common dialect form of Mandarin dà big and fēng wind. In Mandarin the word for the windstorm is 大风 and in Cantonese 大風, the modern Japanese word is also derived from Chinese, 台風. The first character in Japanese has a modern meaning of pedestal or stand. So the Japanese characters originally had a meaning of typhoon wind, the Ancient Greek Τυφῶν is not unrelated and has secondarily contaminated the word
46.
Sun Yat-sen
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Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese physician, writer, philosopher, calligrapher and revolutionary, the first president and founding father of the Republic of China. Sun played a role in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty during the years leading up to the Xinhai Revolution. He was appointed to serve as Provisional President of the Republic of China when it was founded in 1912 and he later co-founded the Nationalist Party of China, serving as its first leader. Sun was a figure in post-Imperial China, and he remains unique among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being widely revered amongst the people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Although Sun is considered to be one of the greatest leaders of modern China, his life was one of constant struggle. Sun did not live to see his party consolidate its power over the country during the Northern Expedition and his party, which formed a fragile alliance with the Communists, split into two factions after his death. Suns chief legacy resides in his developing of the philosophy known as the Three Principles of the People, nationalism, modern government. Sun was born as Sun Wen, and his name was Sun Deming. As a child, his pet name was Dixiang, Suns courtesy name was Zaizhi, and his baptized name was Rixin. While at school in Hong Kong he got the art name Yat-sen, sūn Zhōngshān, the most popular of his Chinese names, is derived from his Japanese name Nakayama Shō, the pseudonym given to him by Tōten Miyazaki while in hiding in Japan. Sun Yat-sen was born on 12 November 1866 and his birthplace was the village of Cuiheng, Xiangshan County, Guangdong Province. He had a background of Hakka and Cantonese. After finishing primary education, he moved to Honolulu in the Kingdom of Hawaii, at the age of 10, Sun Yat-sen began seeking schooling. It is also at this point where he met childhood friend Lu Haodong, by age 13 in 1878 after receiving a few years of local schooling, Sun went to live with his elder brother, Sun Mei in Honolulu. Sun Yat-sen then studied at ʻIolani School where he learned English, British history, mathematics, science, originally unable to speak the English language, Sun Yat-sen picked up the language so quickly that he received a prize for outstanding achievement from King David Kalākaua. Sun graduated from Iolani in 1882 and he then attended Oahu College for one semester. In 1883 he was sent home to China as his brother was becoming afraid that Sun Yat-sen would embrace Christianity. When he returned home in 1883 at age 17, Sun met up with his childhood friend Lu Haodong at Beijidian and they saw many villagers worshipping the Beiji Emperor-God in the temple, and were dissatisfied with their ancient healing methods
47.
Zhabei District
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Zhabei, formerly romanized as Chapei, was a district of Shanghai with a land area of 29.26 km² and a resident population of 847,300 as of 2013. It is one of the districts of Shanghai. It is the location of the Shanghai Railway Station, one of the railway stations of Shanghai. On November 4,2015, Zhabei was merged into the smaller, historically, the district has been highly populated with working class residents. Zhabei local authorities have developed business and commercial centres in the district and it has attracted various foreign companies to build offices, apartments and commercial retail outlets over there. It is also where the Shanghai Multimedia Valley is located to attract media, major companies located in Zhabei include TÜV Rheinland, Royal Philips Electronics and Shanghai Bell Alcatel Business Systems Co. China Resources Beverage, the distributor of Cestbon water, has its east China regional office on the floor of the Huanzhi International Building in the district. The League of Legends Pro League, the highest level of professional League of Legends in Mainland China, is played in the Shanghai Electric Industrial Park in Zhabei District, Zhabei District used to be the place of agglomeration of traditional industries such as flavor factory and tires factory. In the last decade, the municipality decided to move the old industry out in order to space for more promising ones such as the hi-tech. Daning Lingshi Park, the biggest green area in the area, is surrounded by a series of cultural facilities such as the Zhabei Stadium. The Shanghai University, Yanchang Campus is also located near the Daning Lingshi Park, Zhabei District travel guide from Wikivoyage Shanghai Zhabei Government Portal Shanghai Circus World
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Waibaidu Bridge
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The Waibaidu Bridge, called the Garden Bridge in English, is the first all-steel bridge, and the only surviving example of a camelback truss bridge, in China. With its rich history and unique design the Waibaidu Bridge is one of the symbols of Shanghai and its modern and industrial image may be regarded as the citys landmark bridge. On 15 February 1994 the Shanghai Municipal Government declared the bridge an example of Heritage Architecture, in an ever-changing metropolis, the Waibaidu Bridge still remains a popular attraction, and one of the few constants in the city skyline. There is considerable debate about the meaning of Waibaidu, the name given to the wooden bridge erected by the Shanghai Municipal Council in 1873. According to one source, The upper stream of any river was called li 裡, the lower stream was called “wai”. Xue Liyong, indicates in his book on the history of the Bund, In several cases, There was even an intermediate degree with the use of zhong 中 for places located between these two extremes. There remains several place names in Shanghai that are linked to this practice, the Chinese name of the Garden Bridge – waibaidu qiao 外白渡橋 – is such a case. Another source indicates that in Shanghainese, waibaidu means passing through the bridge without paying. Before bridges were built over the Suzhou Creek, citizens had to use one of three ferry crossings, one near Zhapu Road, one at Jiangxi Road, and one near the mouth of the Suzhou River. These crossings were the way to ford the river, until the construction of a sluice gate built in the Ming dynasty, later known as Old Sluice. During the Qing dynasty, another bridge was constructed during the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor. It had a draw on the Hongkou side to allow boats to enter or exit Suzou Creek. According to Francis Pott, it was not a very sightly structure, Wills brought capital into China and invested in infrastructure that benefited Chinese and foreigner alike. He invested $12,000 dollars in the 450-foot span, according to Henriot, The investment made was to be repaid by a fee charged on all vehicles and passers-by at a rate of 5 taels per year for a horse-cart and one tael for a pedestrian. The bridge was open to anyone who could pay the small toll, both Chinese and foreigners paid this toll, but as with many goods and services in Shanghai, foreigners paid on credit – thus the impression on the part of many Chinese that foreigners passed free. In 1863, when the British and American Settlements merged, the rate was doubled, the local population regarded Wills toll policy as yet another of many restrictions for Chinese people by foreign powers. They responded with protest and boycotted the bridge, and Cantonese merchants opened new services across Soochow Creek. Zhan Re, from Guangdong, established a ferry near todays Shanxi Road intersection
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