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183-447: Over thousands of years, the waterfall has eroded its crest and slowly moved upstream. It currently appears to be two waterfalls most of the time, but when the river is swollen due to summer rains can form one fall again. In Vietnamese, the two falls are considered as two parts of one waterfall with the sole name Bản Giốc. The two parts are thác chính (Main waterfall) and thác phụ (Subordinate waterfall). Chinese texts sometimes name both of

366-575: A paper bag with a candle placed inside, although more complicated lanterns consist of a collapsible bamboo or metal frame of hoops covered with tough paper . Sometimes, other lanterns can be made out of colored silk (usually red) or vinyl. Silk lanterns are also collapsible with a metal expander and are decorated with Chinese characters and/or designs. The vinyl lanterns are more durable; they can resist rain, sunlight, and wind. Paper lanterns do not last very long, they soon break, and silk lanterns last longer. The gold paper on them will soon fade away to

549-680: A poetic flowering, while the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature were written during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Printmaking in the form of movable type was developed during the Song dynasty . Academies of scholars sponsored by the empire were formed to comment on the classics in both printed and handwritten form. Members of royalty frequently participated in these discussions. Chinese philosophers, writers and poets were highly respected and played key roles in preserving and promoting

732-471: A queue as did all Manchu men and dress in Manchu qipao. However, the order for ordinary non-Banner Han civilians to wear Manchu clothing was lifted and only Han who served as officials were required to wear Manchu clothing, with the rest of the civilian Han population dressing however they wanted. Qipao covered most of the woman's body, revealing only the head, hands, and the tips of the toes. The baggy nature of

915-576: A "marbled" effect from the contrasted colours; this technique is called tìxī ( 剔犀 /剃犀) in Chinese. This style continued to be used up to the Ming dynasty , especially on small boxes and jars with covers, though after the Song only red was often used, and the motifs were often carved with wider flat spaces at the bottom level to be exposed. A folding screen ( simplified Chinese : 屏风 ; traditional Chinese : 屏風 )

1098-544: A | and single-storey | ɑ | forms both representing the Latin letter ⟨ A ⟩ . Variants also emerge for aesthetic reasons, to make handwriting easier, or to correct what the writer perceives to be errors in a character's form. Individual components may be replaced with visually, phonetically, or semantically similar alternatives. The boundary between character structure and style—and thus whether forms represent different characters, or are merely variants of

1281-412: A Neo-Confucian moral critique of late Ming decadence. Plaks explores the textual history of the novels (all published after their author's deaths, usually anonymously) and how the ironic and satiric devices of these novels paved the way for the great novels of the 18th century. Plaks further shows these Ming novels share formal characteristics. China's fashion history covers hundreds of years with some of

1464-437: A brush onto silk, bamboo, or paper, and being printed using woodblocks and moveable type . Technologies invented since the 19th century allowing for wider use of characters include telegraph codes and typewriters , as well as input methods and text encodings on computers. Chinese characters are accepted as representing one of four independent inventions of writing in human history. In each instance, writing evolved from

1647-416: A character's meaning. Examples of phono-semantic compounds include 河 ( hé ; 'river'), 湖 ( hú ; 'lake'), 流 ( liú ; 'stream'), 沖 ( chōng ; 'surge'), and 滑 ( huá ; 'slippery'). Each of these characters have three short strokes on their left-hand side: 氵 , a simplified combining form of ⽔   'WATER' . This component serves

1830-708: A discipline (書法; pinyin : shūfǎ , "the rules of writing Han characters " ). The Zhou dynasty is often regarded as the touchstone of Chinese cultural development. Concepts covered in the Chinese classic texts include poetry , astrology , astronomy , the calendar , and constellations . Some of the most important early texts include the I Ching and the Shujing within the Four Books and Five Classics . Many Chinese concepts such as Yin and Yang , Qi , Four Pillars of Destiny in relation to heaven and earth were theorized in

2013-428: A few characters in length at their shortest, to several dozen at their longest. The Shang king would communicate with his ancestors by means of scapulimancy , inquiring about subjects such as the royal family, military success, and the weather. Inscriptions were made in the divination material itself before and after it had been cracked by exposure to heat; they generally include a record of the questions posed, as well as

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2196-690: A given position in the compound. Components within a character may serve a specific function: phonetic components provide a hint for the character's pronunciation, and semantic components indicate some element of the character's meaning. Components that serve neither function may be classified as pure signs with no particular meaning, other than their presence distinguishing one character from another. A straightforward structural classification scheme may consist of three pure classes of semantographs , phonographs and signs —having only semantic, phonetic, and form components respectively, as well as classes corresponding to each combination of component types. Of

2379-558: A language. Specifically, characters represent the smallest units of meaning in a language, which are referred to as morphemes . Morphemes in Chinese—and therefore the characters used to write them—are nearly always a single syllable in length. In some special cases, characters may denote non-morphemic syllables as well; due to this, written Chinese is often characterized as morphosyllabic . Logographs may be contrasted with letters in an alphabet , which generally represent phonemes ,

2562-406: A line, and later evolved into their present forms with less potential for graphical ambiguity in context. More complex indicatives include 凸 ('convex'), 凹 ('concave'), and 平 ('flat and level'). Compound ideographs ( 会意 ; 會意 ; huìyì )—also called logical aggregates , associative idea characters , or syssemantographs —combine other characters to convey

2745-446: A long history; ever since the Sui dynasty (581–618 CE), educated candidates prepared for the imperial examinations and exam graduates were drafted into government as scholar-bureaucrats . This led to the creation of a meritocracy , although success was available only to males who could afford test preparation. Imperial examinations required applicants to write essays and demonstrate mastery of

2928-522: A major influence, expounding a realpolitik of wu wei. The Tao Te Ching , a compact book containing teachings attributed to Laozi ( Chinese : 老子 ; pinyin : Lǎozǐ ; Wade–Giles : Lao Tzu ), is widely considered the keystone work of the Taoist tradition, together with the later writings of Zhuangzi . Confucianism, also known as Ruism, was the official philosophy throughout most of Imperial China 's history, and mastery of Confucian texts

3111-542: A mature form, also called 八分 ( bāfēn ). Bamboo slips discovered during the late 20th century point to this maturation being completed during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han ( r.  141–87 BCE ). This process, called libian ( 隶变 ; 隸變 ), involved character forms being mutated and simplified, with many components being consolidated, substituted, or omitted. In turn, the components themselves were regularized to use fewer, straighter, and more well-defined strokes. The resulting clerical forms largely lacked any of

3294-419: A model first popularized in the 2nd-century Shuowen Jiezi dictionary. More recent models have analysed the methods used to create characters, how characters are structured, and how they function in a given writing system. Most characters can be analysed structurally as compounds made of smaller components ( 部件 ; bùjiàn ), which are often independent characters in their own right, adjusted to occupy

3477-685: A new, synthetic meaning. A canonical example is 明 ('bright'), interpreted as the juxtaposition of the two brightest objects in the sky: ⽇   'SUN' and ⽉   'MOON' , together expressing their shared quality of brightness. Other examples include 休 ('rest'), composed of pictographs ⼈   'MAN' and ⽊   'TREE' , and 好 ('good'), composed of ⼥   'WOMAN' and ⼦   'CHILD' . Many traditional examples of compound ideographs are now believed to have actually originated as phono-semantic compounds, made obscure by subsequent changes in pronunciation. For example,

3660-490: A number of New Confucians (not to be confused with Neo-Confucianism) have advocated that democratic ideals and human rights are quite compatible with traditional Confucian "Asian values". Confucianism is described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or simply a way of life. Confucianism developed from what was later called the Hundred Schools of Thought from

3843-645: A pale white, and the red silk will become a mix between pink and red. Often associated with festivals , paper lanterns are common in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and similarly in Chinatowns with large communities of Overseas Chinese , where they are often hung outside of businesses to attract attention. In Japan the traditional styles include bonbori and chōchin and there is a special style of lettering called chōchin moji used to write on them. Airborne paper lanterns are called sky lanterns , and are often released into

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4026-719: A semantic component. Pictographs have often been extended from their original meanings to take on additional layers of metaphor and synecdoche , which sometimes displace the character's original sense. When this process results in excessive ambiguity between distinct senses written with the same character, it is usually resolved by new compounds being derived to represent particular senses. Indicatives ( 指事 ; zhǐshì ), also called simple ideographs or self-explanatory characters , are visual representations of abstract concepts that lack any tangible form. Examples include 上 ('up') and 下 ('down')—these characters were originally written as dots placed above and below

4209-563: A semantic function in each example, indicating the character has some meaning related to water. The remainder of each character is its phonetic component: 湖 ( hú ) is pronounced identically to 胡 ( hú ) in Standard Chinese, 河 ( hé ) is pronounced similarly to 可 ( kě ), and 沖 ( chōng ) is pronounced similarly to 中 ( zhōng ). The phonetic components of most compounds may only provide an approximate pronunciation, even before subsequent sound shifts in

4392-498: A stone marker that demarcates the border between China and Vietnam in French and Chinese. 20th century disputes could not be resolved where inaccuracies in documents, maps and descriptions that were made in the 19th century became difficult to differentiate. The disappearance or inaccurate replacement of markers and landmarks from time to time, and the varied patterns of transportation, settlement and land use from generation to generation, and

4575-429: A stylus in clay moulds used to cast ritual bronzes . Characters have also been incised into stone, or written in ink onto slips of silk, wood, and bamboo. The invention of paper for use as a writing medium occurred during the 1st century CE, and is traditionally credited to Cai Lun ( d.  121 CE ). There are numerous styles, or scripts ( 书 ; 書 ; shū ) in which characters can be written, including

4758-540: A system using two distinct types of ideographs . Ideographs could either be pictographs visually depicting objects or concepts, or fixed signs representing concepts only by shared convention. These systems are classified as proto-writing , because the techniques they used were insufficient to carry the meaning of spoken language by themselves. Various innovations were required for Chinese characters to emerge from proto-writing. Firstly, pictographs became distinct from simple pictures in use and appearance: for example,

4941-540: A time and without indicating any greater context. Qiu concludes, "We simply possess no basis for saying that they were already being used to record language." A historical connection with the symbols used by the late Neolithic Dawenkou culture ( c.  4300  – c.  2600 BCE ) in Shandong has been deemed possible by palaeographers, with Qiu concluding that they "cannot be definitively treated as primitive writing, nevertheless they are symbols which resemble most

5124-411: A tiny portion survives, and there are notable gaps in the poetic œuvres of even Li Bai and Du Fu, the two most celebrated Tang poets. Ci (辭/辞) are a poetic form, a type of lyric poetry , done in the tradition of Classical Chinese poetry . Ci use a set of poetic meters derived from a base set of certain patterns, in fixed-rhythm, fixed-tone, and variable line-length formal types, or model examples:

5307-811: A transitional form between clerical and regular script which remained in use through the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 CE) and beyond. Cursive script ( 草书 ; 草書 ; cǎoshū ) was in use as early as 24 BCE, synthesizing elements of the vulgar writing that had originated in Qin with flowing cursive brushwork. By the Jin dynasty (266–420), the Han cursive style became known as 章草 ( zhāngcǎo ; 'orderly cursive'), sometimes known in English as 'clerical cursive', 'ancient cursive', or 'draft cursive'. Some attribute this name to

5490-539: A tune of that title, with set rhythm, rhyme , and tempo. The Song dynasty was also a period of great scientific literature, and saw the creation of works such as Su Song 's Xin Yixiang Fayao and Shen Kuo 's Dream Pool Essays . There were also enormous works of historiography and large encyclopedias, such as Sima Guang 's Zizhi Tongjian of 1084 or the Four Great Books of Song fully compiled and edited by

5673-510: A village near Anyang in Henan —discovered to be the site of Yin , the final Shang capital—which was excavated by a team led by Li Ji (1896–1979) from the Academia Sinica between 1928 and 1937. To date, over 150 000 oracle bone fragments have been found. Oracle bone inscriptions recorded divinations undertaken to communicate with the spirits of royal ancestors. The inscriptions range from

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5856-481: A well-developed writing system, which suggests an initial emergence predating the late 2nd millennium BCE. Although written Chinese is first attested in official divinations, it is widely believed that writing was also used for other purposes during the Shang, but that the media used in other contexts—likely bamboo and wooden slips —were less durable than bronzes or oracle bones, and have not been preserved. As early as

6039-414: A word is used to indicate a different word with a similar pronunciation, depending on context. This allowed for words that lacked a plausible pictographic representation to be written down for the first time. This technique preempted more sophisticated methods of character creation that would further expand the lexicon. The process whereby writing emerged from proto-writing took place over a long period; when

6222-643: A writing system comprising thousands of distinct characters was non-trivial. Chinese characters are predominantly input on computers using a standard keyboard. Many input methods (IMEs) are phonetic, where typists enter characters according to schemes like pinyin or bopomofo for Mandarin, Jyutping for Cantonese, or Hepburn for Japanese. For example, 香港 ('Hong Kong') could be input as xiang1gang3 using pinyin, or as hoeng1gong2 using Jyutping. Chinese culture Chinese culture ( simplified Chinese : 中华文化 ; traditional Chinese : 中華文化 ; pinyin : Zhōnghuá wénhuà )

6405-530: Is a form of writing ( calligraphy ), or, the artistic expression of human language in a tangible form. There are some general standardizations of the various styles of calligraphy in this tradition. Chinese calligraphy and ink and wash painting are closely related: they are accomplished using similar tools and techniques, and have a long history of shared artistry. Distinguishing features of Chinese painting and calligraphy include an emphasis on motion charged with dynamic life. According to Stanley-Baker, "Calligraphy

6588-399: Is a subject of debate and other practices, such as Neo-Confucianism , Buddhism and others, have been introduced. Reincarnation and other rebirth concepts are a reminder of the connection between real-life and the after-life. In Chinese business culture , the concept of guanxi , indicating the primacy of relations over rules, has been well documented. While many deities are part of

6771-433: Is a translation of the Chinese name but they have also been referred to as sky candles or fire balloons . The general design is a thin paper shell, which may be from about 30 cm to a couple of metres across, with an opening at the bottom. The opening is usually about 10 to 30 cm wide (even for the largest shells), and is surrounded by a stiff collar that serves to suspend the flame source and to keep it away from

6954-521: Is a type of Classical Chinese poetry form , consisting of words written in one of a number of certain, set tone patterns , based upon the tunes of various songs. Thus Qu poems are lyrics with lines of varying longer and shorter lengths, set according to the certain and specific, fixed patterns of rhyme and tone of conventional musical pieces upon which they are based and after which these matched variations in lyrics (or individual Qu poems) generally take their name. The fixed-tone type of verse such as

7137-427: Is a type of free-standing furniture . It consists of several frames or panels, which are often connected by hinges or by other means. It can be made in a variety of designs and with different kinds of materials. Folding screens have many practical and decorative uses. It originated from ancient China , eventually spreading to the rest of East Asia, Europe, and other parts of the world. Screens date back to China during

7320-454: Is etymologically derived from a picture of feathers under a roof. A particular status and gender would be associated with a specific type of fan. During the Song dynasty , famous artists were often commissioned to paint fans. The Chinese dancing fan was developed in the 7th century. The Chinese form of the hand fan was a row of feathers mounted in the end of a handle. In the later centuries, Chinese poems and four-word idioms were used to decorate

7503-474: Is given by Xu as 轉注 ( zhuǎnzhù ; 'reversed and refocused'); however, its definition is unclear, and it is generally disregarded by modern scholars. Modern scholars agree that the theory presented in the Shuowen Jiezi is problematic, failing to fully capture the nature of Chinese writing, both in the present, as well as at the time Xu was writing. Traditional Chinese lexicography as embodied in

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7686-535: Is historically considered a dominant culture of East Asia. With China being one of the earliest ancient civilizations , Chinese culture exerts profound influence on the philosophy, virtue, etiquette, and traditions of Asia . Chinese characters , ceramics , architecture , music , dance , literature , martial arts , cuisine , arts , philosophy , etiquette, religion , politics , and history have had global influence, while its traditions and festivals are celebrated, instilled, and practiced by people around

7869-472: Is known as guri ( 屈輪 /曲仑) from the Japanese word for the ring-pommel of a sword, where the same motifs were used in metal, and is often called the "Sword-Pommel pattern" in English. This style uses a family of repeated two-branched scrolling shapes cut with a rounded profile at the surface, but below that a "V" section through layers of lacquer in different colours (black, red and yellow, and later green), giving

8052-399: Is not required, and character forms may be accentuated to evoke a variety of aesthetic effects. Traditional ideals of calligraphic beauty often tie into broader philosophical concepts native to East Asia. For example, aesthetics can be conceptualized using the framework of yin and yang , where the extremes of any number of mutually reinforcing dualities are balanced by the calligrapher—such as

8235-402: Is now written with five strokes instead of eight, and a system of five basic stroke types is commonly employed in analysis—with certain compound strokes treated as sequences of basic strokes made in a single motion. Characters are constructed according to predictable visual patterns. Some components have distinct combining forms when occupying specific positions within a character—for example,

8418-521: Is one of the world's oldest cultures, originating thousands of years ago. The culture prevails across a large geographical region in East Asia with Sinosphere in whole and is extremely diverse, with customs and traditions varying greatly between counties , provinces , cities , towns . The terms 'China' and the geographical landmass of 'China' have shifted across the centuries, before the name 'China' became commonplace in modernity. Chinese civilization

8601-602: Is only rarely combined with painting in lacquer and other lacquer techniques. Later Chinese writers dated the introduction of carved lacquer to the Tang dynasty (618–906), and many modern writers have pointed to some late Tang pieces of armour found on the Silk Road by Aurel Stein and now in the British Museum . These are red and black lacquer on camel hide, but the lacquer is very thin, "less than one millimeter in thickness", and

8784-466: Is referred to as Shodō ( 書道/书道 ), literally "the way/principle of writing"; and in Korea as Seoye (서예; 書藝) literally "the skill/criterion of writing". Chinese calligraphy is normally regarded as one of the "arts" (Chinese 藝術/艺术 pinyin : yìshù ) in the countries where it is practised. Chinese calligraphy focuses not only on methods of writing but also on cultivating one's character (人品) and taught as

8967-457: Is regularly done with corporate brand names: for example, Coca-Cola 's Chinese name is 可口可乐 ; 可口可樂 ( Kěkǒu Kělè ; 'delicious enjoyable'). Some characters and components are pure signs , whose meaning merely derives from their having a fixed and distinct form. Basic examples of pure signs are found with the numerals beyond four, e.g. 五 ('five') and 八 ('eight'), whose forms do not give visual hints to

9150-456: Is represented by tea leaf , bamboo shoot trunk , and hickory nut . Such distinctions give rise to the old Chinese proverb: "十里不同風, 百里不同俗/十里不同風": "praxis vary within ten li , customs vary within a hundred li ". The 31 provincial-level divisions of the People's Republic of China are grouped by its former administrative areas from 1949 to 1980, and are now known as traditional regions. Since

9333-414: Is sheer life experienced through energy in motion that is registered as traces on silk or paper, with time and rhythm in shifting space its main ingredients." Calligraphy has also led to the development of many forms of art in China, including seal carving, ornate paperweights, and inkstones . In China, calligraphy is referred to as Shūfǎ (書法/书法), literally "the way/method/law of writing". In Japan it

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9516-483: Is this name that survives in English as the "cheongsam". Most Han civilian men eventually voluntarily adopted Manchu clothing while Han women continued wearing Han clothing. Until 1911, the changpao was required clothing for Chinese men of a certain class, but Han Chinese women continued to wear loose jacket and trousers, with an overskirt for formal occasions. The qipao was a new fashion item for Han Chinese women when they started wearing it around 1925.The original qipao

9699-483: Is typically classified by the succession of ruling dynasties of Chinese emperors , most of which lasted several hundred years. Chinese art has arguably the oldest continuous tradition in the world, and is marked by an unusual degree of continuity within, and consciousness of, that tradition, lacking an equivalent to the Western collapse and gradual recovery of classical styles. The media that have usually been classified in

9882-530: The I Ching or "Book of Changes", dates to around 1000 BC. A flourishing of philosophy during the Warring States period produced such noteworthy works as Confucius's Analects and Laozi 's Tao Te Ching . (See also: Chinese classics ) Dynastic histories were often written, beginning with Sima Qian 's seminal Records of the Grand Historian , written from 109 BC to 91 BC. The Tang dynasty witnessed

10065-446: The I ;Ching . According to one tradition, Chinese characters were invented during the 3rd millennium BCE by Cangjie , a scribe of the legendary Yellow Emperor . Cangjie is said to have invented symbols called 字 ( zì ) due to his frustration with the limitations of knotting, taking inspiration from his study of the tracks of animals, landscapes, and the stars in the sky. On

10248-683: The Qu and the ci together with the shi and fu forms of poetry comprise the three main forms of Classical Chinese poetry . In Chinese literature , the Qu ( Chinese : 曲 ; pinyin : qǔ ; Wade–Giles : chü ) form of poetry from the Yuan dynasty may be called Yuanqu (元曲 P: Yuánqǔ , W: Yüan-chü ). Qu may be derived from Chinese opera , such as the Zaju (雜劇/杂剧), in which case these Qu may be referred to as sanqu (散曲). The San in Sanqu refers to

10431-598: The Tao ( 道 , literally "Way", also romanized as Dao ). The Tao is a fundamental idea in most Chinese philosophical schools; in Taoism, however, it denotes the principle that is the source, pattern and substance of everything that exists. Taoism differs from Confucianism by not emphasizing rigid rituals and social order. Taoist ethics vary depending on the particular school, but in general tend to emphasize wu wei (effortless action), "naturalness", simplicity, spontaneity, and

10614-548: The ⼑   'KNIFE' component appears as 刂 on the right side of characters, but as ⺈ at the top of characters. The order in which components are drawn within a character is fixed. The order in which the strokes of a component are drawn is also largely fixed, but may vary according to several different standards. This is summed up in practice with a few rules of thumb, including that characters are generally assembled from left to right, then from top to bottom, with "enclosing" components started before, then closed after,

10797-646: The 3500 characters that are frequently used in Standard Chinese, pure semantographs are estimated to be the rarest, accounting for about 5% of the lexicon, followed by pure signs with 18%, and semantic–form and phonetic–form compounds together accounting for 19%. The remaining 58% are phono-semantic compounds. The Chinese palaeographer Qiu Xigui ( b.  1935 ) presents three principles of character function adapted from earlier proposals by Tang Lan  [ zh ] (1901–1979) and Chen Mengjia (1911–1966), with semantographs describing all characters whose forms are wholly related to their meaning, regardless of

10980-510: The Contention of a Hundred Schools of Thought (百家爭鳴/百家争鸣; bǎijiā zhēngmíng ; pai-chia cheng-ming ; "hundred schools contend"). The thoughts and ideas discussed and refined during this period have profoundly influenced lifestyles and social consciousness up to the present day in China and across East Asia. The intellectual society of this era was characterized by itinerant scholars, who were often employed by various state rulers as advisers on

11163-485: The Han dynasty papercutting became a new art form after the invention of paper. Chinese opera would also be introduced and branched regionally in addition to other performance formats such as variety arts . The Chinese paper lantern (紙燈籠, 纸灯笼) is a lantern made of thin, brightly colored paper. Paper lanterns come in various shapes and sizes, as well as various methods of construction. In their simplest form, they are simply

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11346-514: The Imperial guardian lions . Along with the belief in the divine beings, there is belief in evil beings. Practices such as Taoist exorcism fighting mogwai and jiangshi with peachwood swords are just some of the concepts passed down from generations. A few Chinese fortune telling rituals are still in use today after thousands of years of refinement. Taoism, a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin, emphasizes living in harmony with

11529-707: The Ming (1368–1644) and Qing dynasties (1644–1912) led to considerable standardization in character forms, which prefigured later script reforms during the 20th century. This print orthography , exemplified by the 1716 Kangxi Dictionary , was later dubbed the jiu zixing ('old character shapes'). Printed Chinese characters may use different typefaces , of which there are four broad classes in use: Before computers became ubiquitous, earlier electro-mechanical communications devices like telegraphs and typewriters were originally designed for use with alphabets, often by means of alphabetic text encodings like Morse code and ASCII . Adapting these technologies for use with

11712-467: The Shuowen Jiezi describes 信 ('trust') as an ideographic compound of ⼈   'MAN' and ⾔   'SPEECH' , but modern analyses instead identify it as a phono-semantic compound—though with disagreement as to which component is phonetic. Peter A. Boodberg and William G. Boltz go so far as to deny that any compound ideographs were devised in antiquity, maintaining that secondary readings that are now lost are responsible for

11895-462: The Shuowen Jiezi has suggested implausible etymologies for some characters. Moreover, several categories are considered to be ill-defined: for example, it is unclear whether characters like 大 ('large') should be classified as pictographs or indicatives. However, awareness of the 'six writings' model has remained a common component of character literacy, and often serves as a tool for students memorizing characters. The broadest trend in

12078-576: The Shuowen Jiezi . For nearly two millennia, this scheme was the primary framework for character analysis used throughout the Sinosphere. Xu based most of his analysis on examples of Qin seal script that were written down several centuries before his time—these were usually the oldest specimens available to him, though he stated he was aware of the existence of even older forms. The first five categories are pictographs, indicatives, compound ideographs, phono-semantic compounds, and loangraphs. The sixth category

12261-507: The Sinosphere . In Japanese , Korean , and Vietnamese , Chinese characters are known as kanji , hanja , and chữ Hán respectively. Writing traditions also emerged for some of the other languages of China , like the sawndip script used to write the Zhuang languages of Guangxi . Each of these written vernaculars used existing characters to write the language's native vocabulary, as well as

12444-576: The Song dynasty , and the development of both these and the technique of carving were essentially over by the early Ming. These types were the abstract guri or Sword-Pommel pattern, figures in a landscape, and birds and plants. To these some designs with religious symbols, animals, auspicious characters (right) and imperial dragons can be added. The objects made in the technique are a wide range of small types, but are mostly practical vessels or containers such as boxes, plates and trays. Some screens and pieces of Chinese furniture were made. Carved lacquer

12627-512: The Sui dynasty (581–618) required test takers to write in Literary Chinese using regular script, which contributed to the prevalence of both throughout later Chinese history. Each character of a text is written within a uniform square allotted for it. As part of the evolution from seal script into clerical script, character components became regularized as discrete series of strokes ( 笔画 ; 筆畫 ; bǐhuà ). Strokes can be considered both

12810-554: The Tang dynasty (618–907). During the Tang dynasty, folding screens were considered ideal ornaments for many painters to display their paintings and calligraphy on. Many artists painted on paper or silk and applied it onto the folding screen. There were two distinct artistic folding screens mentioned in historical literature of the era. One of it was known as the huaping ( simplified Chinese : 画屏 ; traditional Chinese : 畫屏 ; lit. 'painted folding screen') and

12993-462: The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors period, some form of Chinese monarch has been the main ruler above all. Different periods of history have different names for the various positions within society. Conceptually each imperial or feudal period is similar, with the government and military officials ranking high in the hierarchy , and the rest of the population under regular Chinese law . From

13176-616: The Three Treasures : 慈 "compassion", 儉/俭 "frugality", and 谦 "humility". The roots of Taoism can be traced back to at least the 4th century BCE. Early Taoism drew its cosmological notions from the School of Yinyang (Naturalists), and was deeply influenced by one of China's oldest texts, the Yijing , which expounds a philosophical system of human behavior in accordance with the alternating cycles of nature. The " Legalist " Shen Buhai may also have been

13359-561: The academic scholars who studied under the ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi ( c.  470 BC – c.  391 BC ). The philosophy is embodied in an eponymous book: the Mozi . Another group is the School of the Military (兵家; Bingjia ) that studied warfare and strategy; Sunzi and Sun Bin were influential leaders. The School of Naturalists was a Warring States era philosophy that synthesized

13542-603: The cheongsam (or qipao in Mandarin). The clothing of the era before the Qing dynasty is referred to as Hanfu or traditional Han Chinese clothing . Many symbols such as phoenix have been used for decorative as well as economic purposes. Among them were the Banners ( qí ), mostly Manchu, who as a group were called Banner People ( 旗人 pinyin : qí rén ). Manchu women typically wore a one-piece dress that retrospectively came to be known as

13725-493: The four virtues women must abide by , while scholars such as Zhu Xi and Cheng Yi would expand on this. Chinese marriage and Taoist sexual practices are some of the rituals and customs found in society. With the rise of European economic and military power beginning in the mid-19th century, non-Chinese systems of social and political organization gained adherents in China. Some of these would-be reformers totally rejected China's cultural legacy, while others sought to combine

13908-470: The loanwords it borrowed from Chinese . In addition, each invented characters for local use. In written Korean and Vietnamese, Chinese characters have largely been replaced with alphabets, leaving Japanese as the only major non-Chinese language still written using them. At the most basic level, characters are composed of strokes that are written in a fixed order. Methods of writing characters have historically included being carved into stone, being inked with

14091-475: The novel as early as the Song dynasty . The novel as an extended prose narrative which realistically creates a believable world of its own evolved in China and in Europe from the 14th to 18th centuries, though a little earlier in China. Chinese audiences were more interested in history and were more historically minded. They appreciated relative optimism, moral humanism, and relative emphasis on collective behavior and

14274-414: The qípáo ( 旗袍 , Manchu : sijigiyan or banner gown ). The generic term for both the male and the female forms of Manchu dress, essentially similar garments, was chángpáo ( 長袍 /长袍). The qipao fitted loosely and hung straight down the body, or flared slightly in an A-line. Under the dynastic laws after 1636, all Han Chinese in the banner system were forced to adopt the Manchu male hairstyle of wearing

14457-456: The 1,000 m (3,300 ft) long by 200 m (660 ft) wide Tongling Gorge (Tōnglíng dàxiágǔ 通灵大峽谷 "Tongling Grand Canyon") in Baise City (百色市), Guangxi province , accessible only through a cavern from an adjoining gorge. Rediscovered only recently, it has many species of endemic plants, found only in the gorge. The waterfalls are located in an area of mature karst formations where

14640-452: The 11th century. Notable Confucianists , Taoists and scholars of all classes have made significant contributions to and from documenting history to authoring saintly concepts that seem hundreds of years ahead of time. Although the oldest surviving textual examples of surviving ci are from 8th century CE Dunhuang manuscripts , beginning in the poetry of the Liang dynasty , the ci followed

14823-467: The 12th century CE. It is extremely time-consuming to produce, and has always been a luxury product, essentially restricted to China, though imitated in Japanese lacquer in somewhat different styles. The producing process is called Diāoqī ( 雕漆 /彫漆, carving lacquer).Though most surviving examples are from the Ming and Qing dynasties, the main types of subject matter for the carvings were all begun under

15006-519: The 13th century BCE in what is now Anyang , Henan, as part of divinations conducted by the Shang dynasty royal house. Character forms were originally highly pictographic in style, but evolved over time as writing spread across China. Numerous attempts have been made to reform the script, including the promotion of small seal script by the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Clerical script , which had matured by

15189-533: The 6th century to 221 BC, during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period of ancient China. While this period was fraught with chaos and bloody battles, it was an era of great cultural and intellectual expansion in China. It came to be known as the Golden Age of Chinese philosophy because a broad range of thoughts and ideas were developed and could be freely discussed. This phenomenon has been called

15372-500: The Buddhist terminology introduced to China in antiquity, as well as contemporary non-Chinese words and names. For example, each character in the name 加拿大 ( Jiānádà ; 'Canada') is often used as a loangraph for its respective syllable. However, the barrier between a character's pronunciation and meaning is never total: when transcribing into Chinese, loangraphs are often chosen deliberately as to create certain connotations. This

15555-467: The Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture . Chinese characters have a documented history spanning over three millennia, representing one of the four independent inventions of writing accepted by scholars; of these, they comprise the only writing system continuously used since its invention. Over time, the function, style, and means of writing characters have evolved greatly. Unlike letters in alphabets that reflect

15738-399: The Chinese people and become internalized in the blood and soul of the Chinese nation. During the 361 years of civil war after the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), there was a partial restoration of feudalism when wealthy and powerful families emerged with large amounts of land and huge numbers of semi-serfs. They dominated important civilian and military positions of the government, making

15921-515: The Confucian classics. Those who passed the highest level of the exam became elite scholar-officials known as jinshi , a highly esteemed socio-economic position. A major mythological structure developed around the topic of the mythology of the imperial exams . Trades and crafts were usually taught by a shifu . The female historian Ban Zhao wrote the Lessons for Women in the Han dynasty and outlined

16104-740: The Eastern Zhou period (771–256 BCE). These were initially one-panel screens in contrast to folding screens. Folding screens were invented during the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). Depictions of those folding screens have been found in Han-era tombs, such as one in Zhucheng , Shandong Province. Folding screens were originally made from wooden panels and painted on lacquered surfaces, eventually folding screens made from paper or silk became popular too. Even though folding screens were known to have been used since antiquity , it became rapidly popular during

16287-457: The Qin small seal script was standardized for use throughout the entire country under the direction of Chancellor Li Si ( c.  280  – 208 BCE). It was traditionally believed that Qin scribes only used small seal script, and the later clerical script was a sudden invention during the early Han. However, more than one script was used by Qin scribes: a rectilinear vulgar style had also been in use in Qin for centuries prior to

16470-410: The Shang royal house. Contemporaneous inscriptions in a related but distinct style were also made on ritual bronze vessels. This oracle bone script ( 甲骨文 ; jiǎgǔwén ) was first documented in 1899, after specimens were discovered being sold as "dragon bones" for medicinal purposes, with the symbols carved into them identified as early character forms. By 1928, the source of the bones had been traced to

16653-514: The Shang, the Western Zhou dynasty , established a strict hierarchical society that used clothing as a status meridian, and inevitably, the height of one's rank influenced the ornateness of a costume. Such markers included the length of a skirt, the wideness of a sleeve and the degree of ornamentation. In addition to these class-oriented developments, Han Chinese clothing became looser, with the introduction of wide sleeves and jade decorations hung from

16836-586: The Shang, the oracle bone script existed as a simplified form alongside another that was used in bamboo books, in addition to elaborate pictorial forms often used in clan emblems. These other forms have been preserved in what is called bronze script ( 金文 ; jīnwén ), where inscriptions were made using a stylus in a clay mould, which was then used to cast ritual bronzes . These differences in technique generally resulted in character forms that were less angular in appearance than their oracle bone script counterparts. Study of these bronze inscriptions has revealed that

17019-620: The Sinosphere during the 20th century as a result of Western influence. Many publications outside mainland China continue to use the traditional vertical writing direction. Western influence also resulted in the generalized use of punctuation being widely adopted in print during the 19th and 20th centuries. Prior to this, the context of a passage was considered adequate to guide readers; this was enabled by characters being easier than alphabets to read when written scriptio continua , due to their more discretized shapes. The earliest attested Chinese characters were carved into bone, or marked using

17202-434: The Tang capital of Changan was damaged by war in the eighth and ninth centuries, so that while more than 50,000 Tang poems survive (more than any earlier period in Chinese history), this still likely represents only a small portion of the poetry that was actually produced during the period. Many seventh-century poets are reported by the 721 imperial library catalog as having left behind massive volumes of poetry, of which only

17385-518: The Tang poet Wen Tingyun (812–870) was a great master of the ci , writing it in its distinct and mature form. One of the more notable practitioners and developers of this form was Li Yu of the Southern Tang dynasty during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period . However, the ci form of Classical Chinese poetry is especially associated with the poetry of the Song dynasty , during which it

17568-454: The Vietnamese claimed as well. Historically, Nam Quan Gate served as the border marker and entry point to Vietnam between Vietnam & China (hence there's also a Vietnamese historical saying, that Vietnam stretched from Cape Cà Mau to Ải Nam Quan). The waterfalls increase the quality of life for people who live within the sound of the falls. A road running along the top of the falls leads to

17751-510: The West , and The Golden Lotus collectively constituted a technical breakthrough reflecting new cultural values and intellectual concerns. Their educated editors, authors, and commentators used the narrative conventions developed from earlier story-tellers , such as the episodic structure, interspersed songs and folk sayings, or speaking directly to the reader, but they fashioned self-consciously ironic narratives whose seeming familiarity camouflaged

17934-528: The West since the Renaissance as the decorative arts are extremely important in Chinese art, and much of the finest work was produced in large workshops or factories by essentially unknown artists, especially in Chinese ceramics . Different forms of art have swayed under the influence of great philosophers, teachers, religious figures and even political figures. Chinese art encompasses all facets of fine art , folk art and performance art . Porcelain pottery

18117-561: The Yuan dynasty era. Both Sanqu and Ci are lyrics written to fit a different melodies, but Sanqu differs from Ci in that it is more colloquial, and is allowed to contain Chenzi (襯字/衬字 "filler words" which are additional words to make a more complete meaning). Sanqu can be further divided into Xiaoling (小令) and Santao (散套), with the latter containing more than one melody. The Four Great Classical or Classic Novels of Chinese literature are

18300-611: The ancient pictographic script discovered thus far in China... They undoubtedly can be viewed as the forerunners of primitive writing." The oldest attested Chinese writing comprises a body of inscriptions produced during the Late Shang period ( c.  1250  – 1050 BCE), with the very earliest examples from the reign of Wu Ding dated between 1250 and 1200 BCE. Many of these inscriptions were made on oracle bones —usually either ox scapulae or turtle plastrons—and recorded official divinations carried out by

18483-436: The answers as interpreted in the cracks. A minority of bones feature characters that were inked with a brush before their strokes were incised; the evidence of this also shows that the conventional stroke orders used by later calligraphers had already been established for many characters by this point. Oracle bone script is the direct ancestor of later forms of written Chinese. The oldest known inscriptions already represent

18666-419: The apparent absence of phonetic indicators, but their arguments have been rejected by other scholars. Phono-semantic compounds ( 形声 ; 形聲 ; xíngshēng ) are composed of at least one semantic component and one phonetic component. They may be formed by one of several methods, often by adding a phonetic component to disambiguate a loangraph, or by adding a semantic component to represent a specific extension of

18849-541: The basic unit of handwriting, as well as the writing system's basic unit of graphemic organization. In clerical and regular script, individual strokes traditionally belong to one of eight categories according to their technique and graphemic function. In what is known as the Eight Principles of Yong , calligraphers practice their technique using the character 永 ( yǒng ; 'eternity'), which can be written with one stroke of each type. In ordinary writing, 永

19032-444: The border between China and Vietnam in French and Chinese. Modern disputes arose as there are discrepancies as to the correlating legal documents on border demarcation and the placement of markers between the French and Qing administrations in the 19th century. Disputes regarding the border demarcation at this location were settled in 1999 Viet Nam-China Treaty on Land Borderline . Additional talks were held as late as 2009 to clarify

19215-542: The broader concept of heaven. A large part of Chinese culture is based in the belief in a spiritual world. Countless methods of divination have helped answer questions, even serving as an alternative to medicine. Folklores have helped fill the gap between things that cannot be explained. There is often a blurred line between myth, religion and unexplained phenomenon. Many of the stories have since evolved into traditional Chinese holidays . Other concepts have extended beyond mythology into spiritual symbols such as Door god and

19398-492: The calligrapher Zhong Yao ( c.  151  – 230), who was living in the state of Cao Wei (220–266); he is often called the "father of regular script". The earliest surviving writing in regular script comprises copies of Zhong Yao's work, including at least one copy by Wang Xizhi. Characteristics of regular script include the 'pause' ( 頓 ; dùn ) technique used to end horizontal strokes, as well as heavy tails on diagonal strokes made going down and to

19581-639: The character as 明 . However, the increased usage of 朙 was followed by the proliferation of a third variant: 眀 , with ⽬   'EYE' on the left—likely derived as a contraction of 朙 . Ultimately, 明 became the character's standard form. From the earliest inscriptions until the 20th century, texts were generally laid out vertically—with characters written from top to bottom in columns, arranged from right to left. Word boundaries are generally not indicated with spaces . A horizontal writing direction—with characters written from left to right in rows, arranged from top to bottom—only became predominant in

19764-399: The civil service exams, but the art was theoretically available to everyone. This led to a large record of poetry and poets, a partial record of which survives today. Two of the most famous poets of the period were Li Bai and Du Fu . Tang poetry has had an ongoing influence on world literature and modern and quasi-modern poetry. The Quantangshi ("Complete Tang Poems") anthology compiled in

19947-473: The clothing also served to conceal the figure of the wearer regardless of age. With time, though, the qipao were tailored to become more form fitting and revealing. The modern version, which is now recognized popularly in China as the "standard" qipao , was first developed in Shanghai in the 1920s, partly under the influence of Beijing styles. People eagerly sought a more modernized style of dress and transformed

20130-403: The components they enclose. For example, 永 is drawn in the following order: Over a character's history, variant character forms ( 异体字 ; 異體字 ; yìtǐzì ) emerge via several processes. Variant forms have distinct structures, but represent the same morpheme; as such, they can be considered instances of the same underlying character. This is comparable to visually distinct double-storey |

20313-532: The concepts of yin-yang and the Five Elements ; Zou Yan is considered the founder of this school. His theory attempted to explain the universe in terms of basic forces in nature: the complementary agents of yin (dark, cold, female, negative) and yang (light, hot, male, positive) and the Five Elements or Five Phases (water, fire, wood, metal, and earth). The ancient written standard was Classical Chinese . It

20496-441: The contemporary situations in Chinese culture that relate to social structure, sociocultural change, and the relationship of these factors to the current state of mental health of the Chinese people. The chapter focuses on the issues of mind, body, and behavior. The cultural framework is of central concern to Chinese participants, whether they are social scientists, humanists, or clinical psychiatrists. Chinese culture appears to affect

20679-531: The creation of a sense of national spirit. Tang poetry refers to poetry written in or around the time of, or in the characteristic style of, China's Tang dynasty (18 June 618 – 4 June 907, including the 690–705 reign of Wu Zetian ) or that follows a certain style, often considered the Golden Age of Chinese poetry . During the Tang dynasty, poetry continued to be an important part of social life at all levels of society. Scholars were required to master poetry for

20862-542: The culture of the empire. Some classical scholars, however, were noted for their daring depictions of the lives of the common people, often to the displeasure of authorities. At the start of the 20th century, most of the population were still illiterate , and the many languages spoken ( Mandarin , Wu , Yue ( Cantonese ), Min Nan (Ban-lam-gu), Jin , Xiang , Hakka , Gan , Hui , Ping etc.) in different regions prevented spoken communication with people from other areas. However,

21045-610: The day that these first characters were created, grain rained down from the sky; that night, the people heard the wailing of ghosts and demons, lamenting that humans could no longer be cheated. Collections of graphs and pictures have been discovered at the sites of several Neolithic settlements throughout the Yellow River valley, including Jiahu ( c.  6500 BCE ), Dadiwan and Damaidi (6th millennium BCE), and Banpo (5th millennium BCE). Symbols at each site were inscribed or drawn onto artefacts, appearing one at

21228-478: The detached status of the Qu lyrics of this verse form: in other words, rather than being embedded as part of an opera performance the lyrics stand separately on their own. Since the Qu became popular during the late Southern Song dynasty, and reached a special height of popularity in the poetry of the Yuan dynasty, therefore it is often called Yuanqu (元曲), specifying the type of Qu found in Chinese opera typical of

21411-445: The dissemination of Buddhism throughout China. Chinese Buddhism is also marked by the interaction between Indian religions , Chinese folk religion , and Taoism . During the Xia and Shang dynasties, Chinese religion was oriented to worshipping the supreme god Shang Di , with the king and diviners acting as priests and using oracle bones . The Zhou dynasty oriented religion to worshipping

21594-417: The distinct process of semantic extension, where a word acquires additional senses, which often remain written with the same character. As both processes often result in a single character form being used to write several distinct meanings, loangraphs are often misidentified as being the result of semantic extension, and vice versa. Loangraphs are also used to write words borrowed from other languages, such as

21777-519: The distinct units of sound used by speakers of a language. Despite their origins in picture-writing, Chinese characters are no longer ideographs capable of representing ideas directly; their comprehension relies on the reader's knowledge of the particular language being written. The areas where Chinese characters were historically used—sometimes collectively termed the Sinosphere —have a long tradition of lexicography attempting to explain and refine their use; for most of history, analysis revolved around

21960-439: The duality between strokes made quickly or slowly, between applying ink heavily or lightly, between characters written with symmetrical or asymmetrical forms, and between characters representing concrete or abstract concepts. Woodblock printing was invented in China between the 6th and 9th centuries, followed by the invention of moveable type by Bi Sheng (972–1051) during the 11th century. The increasing use of print during

22143-822: The early Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), abstracted the forms of characters—obscuring their pictographic origins in favour of making them easier to write. Following the Han, regular script emerged as the result of cursive influence on clerical script, and has been the primary style used for characters since. Informed by a long tradition of lexicography , states using Chinese characters have standardized their forms: broadly, simplified characters are used to write Chinese in mainland China , Singapore , and Malaysia , while traditional characters are used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , and Macau . After being introduced in order to write Literary Chinese , characters were often adapted to write local languages spoken throughout

22326-471: The early eighteenth century includes over 48,900 poems written by over 2,200 authors. The Quantangwen (全唐文, "Complete Tang Prose"), despite its name, contains more than 1,500 fu and is another widely consulted source for Tang poetry. Despite their names, these sources are not comprehensive, and the manuscripts discovered at Dunhuang in the twentieth century included many shi and some fu , as well as variant readings of poems that were also included in

22509-462: The effect very different, with simple abstract shapes on a plain field and almost no impression of relief . The style of carving into thick lacquer used later is first seen in the Southern Song (1127–1279), following the development of techniques for making very thick lacquer. There is some evidence from literary sources that it had existed in the late Tang. At first the style of decoration used

22692-504: The evolution of Chinese characters over their history has been simplification, both in graphical shape ( 字形 ; zìxíng ), the "external appearances of individual graphs", and in graphical form ( 字体 ; 字體 ; zìtǐ ), "overall changes in the distinguishing features of graphic[al] shape and calligraphic style, [...] in most cases refer[ring] to rather obvious and rather substantial changes". The traditional notion of an orderly procession of script styles, each suddenly appearing and displacing

22875-406: The extent that the original objects represented are no longer obvious. This proto-writing system was limited to representing a relatively narrow range of ideas with a comparatively small library of symbols. This compelled innovations that allowed for symbols to directly encode spoken language. In each historical case, this was accomplished by some form of the rebus technique, where the symbol for

23058-554: The fact that the style was considered more orderly than a later form referred to as 今草 ( jīncǎo ; 'modern cursive'), which had first emerged during the Jin and was influenced by semi-cursive and regular script. This later form was exemplified by the work of figures like Wang Xizhi (303–361), who is often regarded as the most important calligrapher in Chinese history. An early form of semi-cursive script ( 行书 ; 行書 ; xíngshū ; 'running script') can be identified during

23241-488: The fans by using Chinese calligraphy pens. In ancient China, fans came in various shapes and forms (such as in a leaf, oval or a half-moon shape), and were made in different materials such as silk, bamboo, feathers, etc. Carved lacquer or Qīdiāo ( Chinese : 漆雕 ) is a distinctive Chinese form of decorated lacquerware . While lacquer has been used in China for at least 3,000 years, the technique of carving into very thick coatings of it appears to have been developed in

23424-460: The forms of pictographs have been simplified in order to make them easier to write. As a result, modern readers generally cannot deduce what many pictographs were originally meant to resemble; without knowing the context of their origin in picture-writing, they may be interpreted instead as pure signs. However, if a pictograph's use in compounds still reflects its original meaning, as with 日 in 晴 ('clear sky'), it can still be analysed as

23607-403: The four novels commonly regarded by Chinese literary criticism to be the greatest and most influential of pre-modern Chinese fiction. Dating from the Ming and Qing dynasties, they are well known to most Chinese either directly or through their many adaptations to Chinese opera and other forms of popular culture . They are among the world's longest and oldest novels and are considered to be

23790-598: The historical forms like seal script and clerical script. Most styles used throughout the Sinosphere originated within China, though they may display regional variation. Styles that have been created outside of China tend to remain localized in their use: these include the Japanese edomoji and Vietnamese lệnh thư scripts. Calligraphy was traditionally one of the four arts to be mastered by Chinese scholars, considered to be an artful means of expressing thoughts and teachings. Chinese calligraphy typically makes use of an ink brush to write characters. Strict regularity

23973-401: The initial development of Chinese writing, and has remained common throughout its subsequent history. Some loangraphs ( 假借 ; jiǎjiè ; 'borrowing') are introduced to represent words previously lacking another written form—this is often the case with abstract grammatical particles such as 之 and 其 . The process of characters being borrowed as loangraphs should not be conflated with

24156-468: The late Ming dynasty and early Qing dynasty was varied, self-conscious, and experimental. In China, however, there was no counterpart to the 19th-century European explosion of novels. The novels of the Ming and early Qing dynasties represented a pinnacle of classic Chinese fiction. The scholar and literary critic Andrew H. Plaks argues that Romance of the Three Kingdoms , Water Margin , Journey to

24339-406: The late Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) onwards, traditional Chinese society was organized into a hierarchic system of socio-economic classes known as the four occupations . However, this system did not cover all social groups and the distinctions between the groups became blurred after the commercialization of Chinese culture in the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE). Ancient Chinese education also has

24522-488: The late Han, with its development stemming from a cursive form of neo-clerical script. Liu Desheng ( 劉德升 ; c.  147  – 188 CE) is traditionally recognized as the inventor of the semi-cursive style, though accreditations of this kind often indicate a given style's early masters, rather than its earliest practitioners. Later analysis has suggested popular origins for semi-cursive, as opposed to it being an invention of Liu. It can be characterized partly as

24705-479: The later anthologies. There are also collections of individual poets' work, which generally can be dated earlier than the Qing anthologies, although few earlier than the eleventh century. Only about a hundred Tang poets have such collected editions extant. Another important source is anthologies of poetry compiled during the Tang dynasty, although only thirteen such anthologies survive in full or in part. Many records of poetry, as well as other writings, were lost when

24888-499: The mainstream script underwent slow, gradual evolution during the late Shang, which continued during the Zhou dynasty ( c.  1046  – 256 BCE) until assuming the form now known as small seal script ( 小篆 ; xiǎozhuàn ) within the Zhou state of Qin . Other scripts in use during the late Zhou include the bird-worm seal script ( 鸟虫书 ; 鳥蟲書 ; niǎochóngshū ), as well as

25071-548: The method by which the meaning was originally depicted, phonographs that include a phonetic component, and loangraphs encompassing existing characters that have been borrowed to write other words. Qiu also acknowledges the existence of character classes that fall outside of these principles, such as pure signs. Most of the oldest characters are pictographs ( 象形 ; xiàngxíng ), representational pictures of physical objects. Examples include 日 ('Sun'), 月 ('Moon'), and 木 ('tree'). Over time,

25254-530: The methods of government, war, and diplomacy. This period ended with the rise of the imperial Qin dynasty and the subsequent purge of dissent . A traditional source for this period is the Shiji , or Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian . The autobiographical section of the Shiji , the "Taishigong Zixu" (太史公自序), refers to the schools of thought described below. Mohism was an ancient Chinese philosophy of logic , rational thought and science developed by

25437-456: The most colorful and diverse arrangements. Different social classes in different eras boast different fashion trends, the color yellow was usually reserved for the emperor during China's Imperial era. From the beginning of its history, Han clothing (especially in elite circles) was inseparable from silk , supposedly discovered by the Yellow Emperor's consort, Leizu . The dynasty to follow

25620-423: The night sky for aesthetic effect at lantern festivals . The Chinese sky lantern (天燈, 天灯), also known as Kongming lantern , is a small hot air balloon made of paper, with an opening at the bottom where a small fire is suspended. In Asia and elsewhere around the world, sky lanterns have been traditionally made for centuries, to be launched for play or as part of long-established festivities. The name "sky lantern"

25803-473: The old qipao to suit their tastes. Slender and form fitting with a high cut, it had great differences from the traditional qipao . It was high-class courtesans and celebrities in the city that would make these redesigned tight fitting qipao popular at that time. In Shanghai it was first known as zansae or "long dress" (長衫—Mandarin Chinese: chángshān; Shanghainese : zansae ; Cantonese: chèuhngsāam ), and it

25986-458: The one previous, has been disproven by later scholarship and archaeological work. Instead, scripts evolved gradually, with several coexisting in a given area. Several of the Chinese classics indicate that knotted cords were used to keep records prior to the invention of writing. Works that reference the practice include chapter 80 of the Tao Te Ching and the " Xici  II" commentary to

26169-415: The original limestone bedrock layers are being eroded. Numerous streams spring from underground fissures along the lower levels of the area. The waterfalls have multiple drops, from bedrock layer to layer, which shows the multiple depositions of sediments of different hardness which formed the terrain over millions of years. A road running along the top of the falls leads to a stone marker that demarcates

26352-434: The other was known as the shuping ( simplified Chinese : 书屏 ; traditional Chinese : 書屏 ; lit. 'calligraphed folding screen'). It was not uncommon for people to commission folding screens from artists, such as from Tang-era painter Cao Ba or Song-era painter Guo Xi . The landscape paintings on folding screens reached its height during the Song dynasty (960–1279). The lacquer techniques for

26535-405: The phonetic series of characters using 余 ( yú ; jyu4 ), a literary first-person pronoun. The Old Chinese pronunciations of these characters were similar, but the phonetic component no longer serves as a useful hint for their pronunciation due to subsequent sound shifts. The phenomenon of existing characters being adapted to write other words with similar pronunciations was necessary in

26718-428: The pictograph 大 , meaning 'large', was originally a picture of a large man, but one would need to be aware of its specific meaning in order to interpret the sequence 大鹿 as signifying 'large deer', rather than being a picture of a large man and a deer next to one another. Due to this process of abstraction, as well as to make characters easier to write, pictographs gradually became more simplified and regularized—often to

26901-489: The pictorial qualities that remained in seal script. Around the midpoint of the Eastern Han (25–220 CE), a simplified and easier form of clerical script appeared, which Qiu terms 'neo-clerical' ( 新隶体 ; 新隸體 ; xīnlìtǐ ). By the end of the Han, this had become the dominant script used by scribes, though clerical script remained in use for formal works, such as engraved stelae . Qiu describes neo-clerical as

27084-405: The pinnacle of China's literary achievement in classic novels, influencing the creation of many stories, plays, movies, games, and other forms of entertainment across other parts of East Asia. Chinese fiction, rooted in narrative classics such as Shishuo Xinyu , Sou Shen Ji , Wenyuan Yinghua , Da Tang Xiyu Ji , Youyang Zazu , Taiping Guangji , and official histories, developed into

27267-542: The population of China, 95% of Taiwan ( Han Taiwanese ), 76% of Singapore , 23% of Malaysia , and about 17% of the global population , making them the world's largest ethnic group , numbering over 1.3 billion people. In modern China, there are 56 officially labelled ethnic groups . Throughout Chinese history, many non-Han foreigners like the Indo-Iranians became Han Chinese through assimilation, other groups retained their distinct ethnic identities, or faded away. At

27450-748: The population of mainland China are related to the recent dramatic socialist revolution and particularly to the 10-year period of the Cultural Revolution. Chinese civilization is the only one that has preserved its historical continuity among the world's “cradles for four ancient civilizations.” In the long process of civilization evolution, the Chinese people, in the spirit of “continuous self-renewal,” “self-discipline and social commitment,” “inclusiveness to diversity,” and “realism and adaptation to changes,” created cultural traditions of abundant contents, sophisticated structures, and various forms. These traditions have since been nourishing, nurturing, and shaping

27633-487: The positions available to members of their own families and clans. The Tang dynasty extended the imperial examination system as an attempt to eradicate this feudalism. Traditional Chinese culture covers large geographical territories, where each region is usually divided into distinct sub-cultures. Each region is often represented by three ancestral items. For example, Guangdong is represented by chenpi , aged ginger and hay . The ancient city of Lin'an ( Hangzhou ),

27816-435: The pre-imperial periods. By the end of the Qing dynasty, Chinese culture had embarked on a new era with written vernacular Chinese for the common citizens. Hu Shih and Lu Xun were considered pioneers in modern literature at that time. After the founding of the People's Republic of China , the study of Chinese modern literature gradually increased. Modern-era literature has influenced modern interpretations of nationhood and

27999-529: The purely pictorial use of symbols disappeared, leaving only those representing spoken words, the process was complete. Chinese characters have been used in several different writing systems throughout history. The concept of a writing system includes both the written symbols themselves, called graphemes —which may include characters, numerals, or punctuation—as well as the rules by which they are used to record language. Chinese characters are logographs , which are graphemes that represent units of meaning in

28182-525: The quantities they represent. The Shuowen Jiezi is a character dictionary authored c.  100 CE by the scholar Xu Shen ( c.  58  – c.  148 CE ). In its postface, Xu analyses what he sees as all the methods by which characters are created. Later authors iterated upon Xu's analysis, developing a categorization scheme known as the 'six writings' ( 六书 ; 六書 ; liùshū ), which identifies every character with one of six categories that had previously been mentioned in

28365-423: The regional forms used in non-Qin states. Examples of these styles were preserved as variants in the Shuowen Jiezi . Historically, Zhou forms were collectively referred to as large seal script ( 大篆 ; dàzhuàn ), a term which has fallen out of favour due to its lack of precision. Following Qin's conquest of the other Chinese states that culminated in the founding of the imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BCE,

28548-472: The result of clerical forms being written more quickly, without formal rules of technique or composition: what would be discrete strokes in clerical script frequently flow together instead. The semi-cursive style is commonly adopted in contemporary handwriting. Regular script ( 楷书 ; 楷書 ; kǎishū ), based on clerical and semi-cursive forms, is the predominant form in which characters are written and printed. Its innovations have traditionally been credited to

28731-463: The rhythmic and tonal pattern of the ci are based upon certain, definitive musical song tunes. They are also known as Changduanju (長短句/长短句, "lines of irregular lengths") and Shiyu (詩餘/诗馀, "that which is beside poetry").Typically the number of characters in each line and the arrangement of tones were determined by one of around 800 set patterns, each associated with a particular title, called cípái 詞牌/词牌. Originally they were written to be sung to

28914-534: The right. It developed further during the Eastern Jin (317–420) in the hands of Wang Xizhi and his son Wang Xianzhi (344–386). However, most Jin-era writers continued to use neo-clerical and semi-cursive styles in their daily writing. It was not until the Northern and Southern period (420–589) that regular script became the predominant form. The system of imperial examinations for the civil service established during

29097-518: The river. Bản Giốc–Detian Falls was one of the crossing points for Chinese forces during the Sino-Vietnamese War . Rafts are currently used to boat tourists closer to the falls and return them to their dock of origination. Preservation of the resource may require future cooperation between the local communities by use of a perpetual joint oversight committee. Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used to write

29280-485: The rudiments of Chinese clothing; it consisted of a yi , a narrow-cuffed, knee-length tunic tied with a sash, and a narrow, ankle-length skirt, called chang , worn with a bixi , a length of fabric that reached the knees. Vivid primary colors and green were used, due to the degree of technology at the time. During the Qing dynasty , China's last imperial dynasty, a dramatic shift of clothing occurred, examples of which include

29463-426: The same character—is often non-trivial or unclear. For example, prior to the Qin dynasty the character meaning 'bright' was written as either 明 or 朙 —with either ⽇   'SUN' or 囧 'WINDOW' on the left, and ⽉   'MOON' on the right. As part of the Qin programme to standardize small seal script across China, the 朙 form was promoted. Some scribes ignored this, and continued to write

29646-481: The same time, the Han Chinese majority has maintained distinct linguistic and regional cultural traditions throughout the ages. The term Zhonghua minzu ( simplified Chinese : 中华民族 ; traditional Chinese : 中華民族 ) has been used to describe the notion of Chinese nationalism in general. Much of the traditional identity within the community has to do with distinguishing the family name . The chapter discusses

29829-465: The sash which served to keep the yi closed. The yi was essentially wrapped over, in a style known as jiaoling youren , or wrapping the right side over before the left, because of the initially greater challenge to the right-handed wearer (people of Zhongyuan discouraged left-handedness like many other historical cultures, considering it unnatural, barbarian, uncivilized, and unfortunate). The Shang dynasty ( c.  1600 BC – 1046 BC), developed

30012-428: The sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes , the units of meaning in a language. Writing a language's entire vocabulary requires thousands of different characters. Characters are created according to several different principles, where aspects of both shape and pronunciation may be used to indicate the character's meaning. The first attested characters are oracle bone inscriptions made during

30195-414: The spoken language. Some characters may only have the same initial or final sound of a syllable in common with phonetic components. A phonetic series comprises all the characters created using the same phonetic component, which may have diverged significantly in their pronunciations over time. For example, 茶 ( chá ; caa4 ; 'tea') and 途 ( tú ; tou4 ; 'route') are part of

30378-463: The state of body and health, parent–child interaction, social relationships, individual and group aspirations, models of health care services, and the patterns of disorders and methods of coping under the impact of migration, industrialization, and urbanization. The chapter focuses on the importance of the impact of cultural tradition upon perception, behavioral orientation, pathology, coping, and help-seeking. The mental health concerns that are relevant to

30561-415: The strengths of Chinese and European cultures. In essence, the history of 20th-century China is one of experimentation with new systems of social, political, and economic organization that would allow for the reintegration of the nation in the wake of dynastic collapse. Most spiritual practices are derived from Chinese Buddhism , Taoism and Confucianism . The relative influence of each school of practice

30744-425: The successive administrative differences throughout periods of war and strife led to both Vietnam and China understanding that exactly defining the border would increase prosperity in the long term. The commercial focus of the area directly around the falls will likely remain tourism. There are two directional aspects to transport at a waterfall: (1) portage along the river's course; and (2) fording or rafting across

30927-470: The teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius (551–479 BCE), who considered himself a retransmitter of the values of the Zhou dynasty golden age of several centuries before. In the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), Confucian approaches edged out the "proto-Taoist" Huang-Lao , as the official ideology, while the emperors mixed both with the realist techniques of Legalism. The Hundred Schools of Thought were philosophies and schools that flourished from

31110-530: The tradition of the Shi Jing and the yuefu : they were lyrics which developed from anonymous popular songs into a sophisticated literary genre; although in the case of the ci form some of its fixed-rhythm patterns have an origin in Central Asia . The form was further developed in the Tang dynasty . Although the contributions of Li Bo (also known as Li Po, 701 – 762) are fraught with historical doubt, certainly

31293-454: The tradition, some of the most recognized holy figures include Guan Yin , the Jade Emperor and Buddha . Chinese Buddhism has shaped some Chinese art , literature and philosophy . The translation of a large body of foreign Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and the inclusion of these translations, together with works composed in China, into a printed canon had far-reaching implications for

31476-509: The treaty. However, there are controversies regarding the border demarcation around the Falls. One faction holds that the entirety of these falls belongs to Vietnam, and that the stone tablet had been moved there some time during or after the brief Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979 . To the southeast, the land dispute also along the Sino-Vietnamese border also includes Nam Quan Gate ( Ải Nam Quan ) which

31659-420: The walls. When lit, the flame heats the air inside the lantern, thus lowering its density and causing the lantern to rise into the air. The sky lantern is only airborne for as long as the flame stays alight, after which the lantern sinks back to the ground. The oldest existing Chinese fans are a pair of woven bamboo , wood or paper side-mounted fans from the 2nd century BCE. The Chinese character for "fan" (扇)

31842-478: The wars of unification. The popularity of this form grew as writing became more widespread. By the Warring States period ( c.  475  – 221 BCE), an immature form of clerical script ( 隶书 ; 隸書 ; lìshū ) had emerged based on the vulgar form developed within Qin, often called "early clerical" or "proto-clerical". The proto-clerical script evolved gradually; by the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), it had arrived at

32025-400: The water falls as Détiān Falls ( Chinese : 德天瀑布) on the Chinese side. The waterfall drops 30 m (98 ft). It is separated into three falls by rocks and trees, and the thundering effect of the water hitting the cliffs can be heard from afar. It is currently the 4th largest waterfall along a national border, after Iguazu Falls , Victoria Falls , and Niagara Falls . Somewhat nearby is

32208-415: The welfare of the society. The rise of a money economy and urbanization beginning in the Song era led to a professionalization of entertainment which was further encouraged by the spread of printing, the rise of literacy, and education. In both China and Western Europe, the novel gradually became more autobiographical and serious in exploration of social, moral, and philosophical problems. Chinese fiction of

32391-600: The world. As early as the Zhou dynasty, the Chinese government divided Chinese people into four classes : gentry , farmer , craftsman , and merchant . Gentry and farmers constituted the two major classes, while merchant and craftsmen were collected into the two minor. Theoretically, except for the position of the Emperor, nothing was hereditary. China's majority ethnic group, the Han Chinese , are an East Asian ethnic group and nation . They constitute approximately 92% of

32574-559: The written language made communication possible, such as passing on official orders and documents throughout the entire region of China. Reformers set out to establish a national language, settling on the Beijing-based Mandarin as the spoken form. After the May 4th Movement , Classical Chinese was quickly replaced by written vernacular Chinese , modeled after the vocabulary and grammar of the standard spoken language. Chinese calligraphy

32757-477: Was indeed a popular poetic form. A revival of the ci poetry form occurred during the end of the Ming dynasty and the beginning of the Qing dynasty which was characterized by an exploration of the emotions connected with romantic love together with its valorization, often in a context of a brief poetic story narrative within a ci poem or a linked group of ci poems in an application of the chuanqi form of short story tales to poetry. The Qu form of poetry

32940-568: Was one of the first forms of art in the Palaeolithic period. Early Chinese music and poetry was influenced by the Book of Songs , and the Chinese poet and statesman Qu Yuan . Chinese painting became a highly appreciated art in court circles encompassing a wide variety of Shan shui with specialized styles such as Ming dynasty painting . Early Chinese music was based on percussion instruments, which later gave away to stringed and reed instruments. By

33123-422: Was the primary criterion for entry into the imperial bureaucracy . A number of more authoritarian strains of thought have also been influential, such as Legalism .There was often conflict between the philosophies, e.g. the Song dynasty Neo-Confucians believed Legalism departed from the original spirit of Confucianism. Examinations and a culture of merit remain greatly valued in China today. In recent years,

33306-405: Was used for thousands of years, but was mostly used by scholars and intellectuals in the upper class society called "shi da fu (士大夫)". It was difficult, but possible, for ordinary people to enter this class by passing written exams. Calligraphy later became commercialized, and works by famous artists became prized possessions. Chinese literature has a long past; the earliest classic work in Chinese,

33489-670: Was wide and loose. As hosiery in turn declined in later decades, cheongsams nowadays have come to be most commonly worn with bare legs. Chinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists. The Chinese art in the Republic of China (Taiwan) and that of overseas Chinese can also be considered part of Chinese art where it is based in or draws on Chinese heritage and Chinese culture. Early " Stone Age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. After this early period Chinese art, like Chinese history,

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