Reference list

                                           Reference list 

http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-food/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_culture
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/whatiscam/chinesemed.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customs_and_etiquette_in_Chinese_dining

Chinese ancient architechture

This part will provide you with detailed information about different kinds of Chinese  architecture, including the related culture and background knowledge. Chinese ancient architecture has its own unique style in the world architecture. It uses different structural materials which include civil construction, brick work, timber construction and bamboo construction. There are various architecture styles such as palace, tower, temple, garden and mausoleum which can be generally grouped into imperial architecture, religious architecture, garden architecture and general architecture.

 Imperial Architecture: 
Here you will get to know Chinese imperial architecture, including imperial palaces, gardens and mausoleums. In order to incarnate the supremacy of imperial power, imperial architecture often adopt the layout of an axial symmetry, with the  buildings on the central axis tall and splendid while the rest rather small and simple.

 Traditional Chinese Residences

Lingering Garden, Suzhou

In this part, you will get to know the general information of the architecture that common people live in. The 56 ethnic groups have weaved a colorful civilian residence picture. Beijing locals has their own distictive houses in traditional Courtyards (Siheyuan).  In northern part of Shaanxi Province, people prefer to live in Farmers' Caves (Yaodong). In Yunnan Province, local people buildSeal-like Compound (Yikeyin) to dwell in, and in the west of Fujian Province, Hakkas create the Earthen Buildings(Tulou)which is considered to be built with a wondrous architectural style.

 Garden Architecture
Chinese gardens are famous for their variety and delicate craftwork. This part will not only present you different kinds of beautiful gardens, but you will also be impressed at the unique constructional idea and methods of Chinese laboring people.

Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Buddhist Architecture

 Religious Architecture
Religious architecture in China has an added Chinese flavor to it. Different religions have their unique architectural styles.

Nature of the Chinese Culture and its Main Difference from Western Cultures

Nature of the Chinese Culture and its Main Difference from Western Cultures

Family-centered communitarianism vs individualism.
In most western countries, in particular Anglo-Saxon countries, people emphasizes personal freedom, personal rights, and privacy etc.. In contrast, in Chinese societies, no matter in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, Singapore as well as overseas Chinese communities, people more emphasize relationship, and “we-ness” and “community”. This leads to the following 4 key words in understand the Chinese culture which is different from western cultures.

5 key words in understanding the contemporary Chinese Culture:

1. Guanxi (Relations)
The Chinese term for relationship is “guanxi”, one of the most important cultural traits of Chinese people. The term “guanxi” may be better translated as personal contacts” or “personal connections”. “guanxi” can also be understood as “reciprocal obligation”, i.e. “a special relationship individual have with each other in which eachcan make unlimited demand on the other”, “friendship with implications of a continual exchange of favors”, or “the establishment of a connection between two independent individuals to enable a bilateral flow of personal or social transactions”.

“guanxi” derives essentially from the Chinese family system. In the traditional Chinese family, whenever small immediate or extended, members are mutually obligated to help one another. “guanxi” is strongly colored by Confucian reciprocal obligation toward family members. Through the establishment of the “guanxi”, people bond with each other with respected obligation toward each other. “guanxi” is essentially a network. 

“guanxi” is usually established among people who share a commonality of certain identies – for example, tongxue (schoolmates), laoxiang (fellow viligers) and laopengyou (old friends). China is not a full-fledged market economy yet, which makes it difficult to allocate resources through market mechanisms alone, therefore, “guanxi” is a major means of resources aalocation. Without “guanxi”, one “simply cannot get anything done”. In recent years, making intensive use of “guanxi”, or getting through the “backdoor” to get things done, has been legitimately criticized by the Chinese government. However, in china hardly any aspect of social life is not touched by “guanxi”.

Basic characteristics of Chinese

Chinese culture is so substantive in content, so comprehensive in varieties, and has had so long a history, that to its outsiders, it is very similar to the elephant before the blind men in the ancient story. The blind men could not grasp the elephant in its entirety. They held onto some part, and from this vantage point they attempted to describe the whole animal. The man who has Chinese culture by the feet may say that Chinese people are conservative and this explains why it is so difficult for China to accept modernization. The man who holds Chinese culture by the tail may say that the substance of Chinese society is its family system and this accounts for the failure of some modern politicians’ attempt to establish communal life. The man who holds Chinese culture by the ears may say that Chinese people are spontaneously artistic, and this is perhaps the reason why they have been underdeveloped in scientific thinking. These interpretations of Chinese culture may not be mistaken, but they all commit one common fallacy: the fallacy of selected emphasis, or, the fallacy of taking the part for  the whole. 

1. Agriculture As Economic Foundation

The term "agriculture" as a mode of production, or as a way of economic life, does not seem to bother with any explanation. But I would like to point out some of the qualities of this mode of life because they have shaped the character of Chinese culture.

Compared with the life of tradesmen and herdsmen, a farmer’s life is relatively fixed, settled, and relaxingly permanent. This is commonly referred to as "the lack of mobility." Because this style of life is more settled and at rest, it is easier for a farmer to raise children, and to develop a family up to a large population under one roof. Due to the lack of mobility, a farmer’s life is relatively free from risk and adventure. This may account for the origin of Chinese conservatism which will receive some attention later. 

1. Naturalistic View Of Life

A naturalistic view of life is the direct offspring of the agricultural society. Farmers work on land in the open air rather than working on papers in an enclosed air-conditioned office. Closeness to nature and direct contact with plants and animals easily develop a naturalistic view of life which is hardly found in an industrialized society.

In spite of the fact that China has gradually become modernized during the last one hundred years, this naturalistic view of life is still rooted deeply into the Chinese mind of the contemporary era. Many Chinese overseas in the American Continent have saved enough money to purchase a Caddilac, but they do not even buy a Pinto or Tercel. This is simply because they still believe that walking is a more natural way of life than operating a motor behind the wheel. In a modern society, sleeping-pills are so popular that they are even sold in the supermarket without the prescription of a physician. But from the Chinese viewpoint. it is a violation of the naturalistic view of life because they do not believe that sleeping should be artificially induced. 

ancient Chinese marriage

Ever since ancient times, there has been a saying that the three most delightful moments in one's life come with success in the imperial examination, marriage and the birth of a son. From the Qin (221 BC – 206 BC) to Qing (1644 – 1911) Dynasties, the feudal system dominated over two thousands years. During this period, the importance of getting married was far more than that a person found his better half. For the male side, it determined the prosperity and even the future fame of their family; while for the female side, it meant that parents lost the chance of seeing their daughter for a long time. Thus to choose an ideal partner was vital for both the individual and the family. Bride and bridegroom on marriage ceremony Bride and groom on marriage ceremony The new couple bows down to each other. The new couple bows down to each other. In feudal society, a marriage would be decided not by a young couple's love, but by their parents' desires. Only after a matchmaker's introduction and when parents considered the two family conditions were similar and could be matched, would the marriage procedures go forward. Conditions that should be taken into consideration included wealth and social status. If a boy's family was well-off or an official family, his parents would never permit him to marry a girl from a poor family. Essential to the marriage process were the commonly recognized 'three Letters and six etiquettes'. Three Letters and Six Etiquettes Woman Matchmaker Woman MatchmakerThe three letters were the betrothal letter, the gift letter with a gifts list and the wedding letter used on the day the groom met his bride at her home. Six etiquettes then led to the final wedding ceremony. Proposing: when a boy's parents intended to make a match, they would invite a matchmaker to propose with them at the girl's home. It was the custom that the first time matchmaker went as a guest they could not be served tea in order not to 'lighten the marriage'. If the proposal was successful, however, the matchmaker (usually a woman) would be rewarded with profuse gifts and feasts to show the two families' gratitude. Many unmarried young people could not see and were unfamiliar with each other till their wedding day. Birthday Matching: after knowing the girl's full name and birthday, they would ask a fortune teller to predict whether that could match their son's and whether there would be a happy marriage. The Chinese zodiac would be surely taken into consideration. Presenting Betrothal Gifts: if the match was predicted to be auspicious, the matchmaker would take gifts to the girl's parents and tell them that the process could continue. Presenting Wedding Gifts: This was the grandest etiquette of the whole process of engagement. Prolific gifts were presented again to the girl's family, symbolizing respect and kindness towards the girl's family as well as the capability of providing a good life for the girl. Presenting Wedding Gifts Presenting Wedding Gifts Selecting the Wedding Date: the boy's family asked the fortune-teller to choose a date according to the astrological book when it would be proper and propitious to hold the wedding ceremony. Wedding Ceremony: the wedding ceremony began with the groom and his party meeting the bride in her home. Before this day the bride's dowry would have been sent to the boy's house. The dowry represented her social status and wealth, and would be displayed at the boy's house. The most common dowries included scissors like two butterflies never separating, rulers indicating acres of fields, and vases for peace and wealth. Before the meeting party's arrival, the bride would be helped by a respectable old woman to tie up her hair with colorful cotton threads. She would wear a red skirt as Chinese believed red foreshadowed delight. When the party arrived, the bride, covered by a red head-kerchief, must cry with her mother to show her reluctance to leave home. She would be led or carried by her elder brother to the sedan. In the meeting party the groom would meet a series of difficulties intentionally set in his path. Only after coping with these could he pass to see his wife-to-be. The Ancient Chinese Wedding Ancient Chinese WeddingOn the arrival of the sedan at the wedding place, there would be music and firecrackers. The bride would be led along the red carpet in a festive atmosphere. The groom, also in a red gown, would kowtow three times to worship the heaven, parents and spouse. Then the new couple would go to their bridal chamber and guests would be treated to a feast. Wine should be poured to the brim of a cup but must not spill over. On the night of the wedding day, there was a custom in some places for relatives or friends to banter the newlyweds. Though this seemed a little noisy, both of them dropped shyness and got familiar with each other. On the third day of the marriage, the new couple would go back to the bride's parents' home. They would be received with also a dinner party including relatives. Of course, marriage customs differed by region, but these were the most common. They have been maintained for thousands of years, but in recent years (especially after the founding of modern China), people have tended to discard some of the details and advocate simplified procedures and wedding ceremonies.

Women in Chinese tradition

In China from very early times, men have been seen as the core of the family. The ancestors to whom a Shang or Zhou dynasty king made sacrifices were his patrilineal ancestors, that is, his ancestors linked exclusively through men (his father’s father, his father’s father’s father, and so on). When women enter the early historical record, it is often because they caused men problems. Some women schemed to advance their own sons when their husband had sons by several women. Women’s loyalties were often in question. In 697 BCE, for instance, the daughter of one of the most powerful ministers in the state of Zheng learned from her husband that the ruler had ordered him to kill her father. After her mother advised her that “All men are potential husbands, but you have only one father,” she told her father of the plot, and he promptly killed her husband. The ruler of Zheng placed the blame on the husband for foolishly confiding in his wife. Taken together, accounts of these sorts present a mixed picture of women and the problems they presented for men in the nobility. The women in their lives were capable of loyalty, courage, and devotion, but also of intrigue, manipulation, and selfishness. Confucius probably took for granted these sorts of attitudes toward women, common in his society. He greatly esteemed ancestral rites and related family virtues such as filial piety. He hoped that through the practice of ritual everyone, male and female, high and low, old and young, would learn to fulfill the duties of their roles. Women’s roles were primarily kinship roles: daughter, sister, wife, daughter-in-law, mother, and mother-in-law. In all these roles, it was incumbent on women to accord with the wishes and needs of closely-related men: their fathers when young, their husbands when married, their sons when widowed. Confucius’s follower Mencius declared that the worst of unfilial acts was a failure to have descendants (Mencius 4A.26). In later centuries this emphasis on the necessity of sons led many to be disappointed at the birth of a daughter. In the centuries after Confucius, it became common for writers to discuss gender in terms of yin and yang. Women were yin, men were yang. Yin was soft, yielding, receptive, passive, reflective, and tranquil, whereas yang was hard, active, assertive, and dominating. Day and night, winter and summer, birth and death, indeed all natural processes occur though processes of interaction of yin and yang. Conceptualizing the differences between men and women in terms of yin and yang stresses that these differences are part of the natural order of the universe, not part of the social institutions artificially created by human beings. In yin yang theory the two forces complement each other but not in strictly equal ways. The natural relationship between yin and yang is the reason that men lead and women follow. If yin unnaturally gains the upper hand, order at both the cosmic and social level are endangered. Maintaining a physical separation between the worlds of men and the worlds of women was viewed as an important first step toward assuring that yin would not dominate yang. The Confucian classic the Book of Rites stressed the value of segregation even within the home; houses should be divided into an inner and an outer section, with the women staying in the inner part. One poem in the Book of Poetry concluded: “Women should not take part in public affairs; they should devote themselves to tending silkworms and weaving.” A similar sentiment was expressed in the Book of Documents in proverbial form: “When the hen announces the dawn, it signals the demise of the family.” During Han times (202 BCE – 220 CE), both the administrative structure of the centralized state and the success of Confucianism helped shape the Chinese family system and women’s place in it. Han laws supported the authority of family heads over the other members of their families. The family head was generally the senior male, but if a man died before his sons were grown, his widow would serve as family head until they were of age. The law codes of the imperial period enforced monogamy and provided a variety of punishments for bigamy and for promoting a concubine to the status of wife. Men could divorce their wives on any of seven grounds, which included barrenness, jealousy, and talkativeness, but could do so only if there was a family for her to return to. There were no grounds on which a woman could divorce her husband, but divorce by mutual agreement was possible. Much was written in Han times on the virtues women should cultivate. The Biographies of Exemplary Women told the stories of women from China’s past who had given their husbands good advice, sacrificed themselves when forced to choose between their fathers and husbands, or performed other heroic deeds. It also contained cautionary tales about scheming, jealous, and manipulative women who brought destruction to all around them. Another very influential book was written by Ban Zhao, a well-educated woman from a prominent family. Her Admonitions for Women urged girls to master the seven virtues appropriate to women: humility, resignation, subservience, self-abasement, obedience, cleanliness, and industry.

Chinese main festival: Chinese New Year and its importance

Chinese New year is one of the most important traditional holidays in China. The day is celebrated on the first day of the first month according to Chinese calendar and is also known as Lunar New Year. The day is rooted in centuries old customs and traditions and is one of the most popular public holidays in China. Apart from China, the day is also celebrated in countries like Korea, Bhutan, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong etc., which follows the Chinese calendar. According to the popular myth, the origin of this day lies in the fight against Nian, a beast in Chinese mythology. The beast would visit the cities and eat cattle, crops and even people. In order to protect themselves from the beast, people would place food at their doorsteps after which the beast wouldn’t harm them. However, once the people saw that the beast was scared of the color red. From then on, on the first day of every new year, people would hand red paper lanterns and other things red to scare off the beast. They would also light firecrackers in order to scare the beast away. After some time, the beast stopped coming to the city. In some other cities like San Francisco, the day has its origins in the famous parade carried out by their ancestors. In 1849, many Chinese men came to the city to try their fortune after the Gold Rush. After facing hostility from the local people, they decided to hold a parade in order to showcase their culture and tradition to the localities. Ever since, the day is celebrated with a street parade in San Francisco. Chinese New Year is celebrated in different ways in different parts of the world. The predominant color in all the celebrations of this day is red. According to tradition, red envelopes containing money are given by the elderly to the young. The money contained in these red envelopes is always even, which is determined by the left-most digit than the right-most one. The red envelopes are symbolic of staving off evil and bringing in good luck. People exchange gifts and light firecrackers on this day. Other traditions associated with this day include hanging of the Fu symbol on the main door of the house which is supposed to bring good luck and wearing red color clothes. Dragon and Lion dances are also very popular during Chinese New Year.