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28-514: The Bok Kai Temple ( Chinese : 北溪廟 , literally North Creek Temple) is a traditional Chinese temple in the city of Marysville, California , located at the corner of D and First Streets. Since 1880, it served as the center of what was a bustling Chinatown for a small town known as the "Gateway to the Gold Fields". It is the only in situ 19th-century Chinese Temple in the United States that

56-554: A Deity in Chinese folk religion believed to govern the northern region and rain, hence its place of reverence at Bok Kai Temple, or Northern Creek Temple. The temple plays a central role for the "bomb festival"; the first such festival in Marysville dates back to at least 1873, before the current temple was built. Although a dozen Chinese communities in California held "bomb festivals" in

84-584: A retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , and Macau , as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages written using Chinese characters, Japanese kanji include many simplified characters known as shinjitai standardized after World War II, sometimes distinct from their simplified Chinese counterparts . Korean hanja , still used to

112-503: A certain extent in South Korea , remain virtually identical to traditional characters, with variations between the two forms largely stylistic. There has historically been a debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters . Because the simplifications are fairly systematic, it is possible to convert computer-encoded characters between the two sets, with the main issue being ambiguities in simplified representations resulting from

140-514: A protected property on the National Register of Historic Places . A Bok Kai festival and parade is held annually in the spring, during which time the temple is opened for ceremonies as well as for interested parties to tour. Other tours may be arranged by contacting the Temple caretaker. In 2022, it was reported that the temple served as an inspiration and point of reference for artists working on

168-850: Is 産 (also the accepted form in Japan and Korea), while in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan the accepted form is 產 (also the accepted form in Vietnamese chữ Nôm ). The PRC tends to print material intended for people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, versions of the People's Daily are printed in traditional characters, and both People's Daily and Xinhua have traditional character versions of their website available, using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional characters in order to communicate with consumers;

196-546: Is still active. When the Chinese from the Pearl River Delta west of Canton arrived in California during the gold rush , many on their way to work the gold mines landed in riverboats at Marysville. Its importance as a supply depot grew and was imprinted in their Cantonese language : Marysville was known as Sahm Fou (三埠, Third City); Sacramento Yee Fou (二埠, Second City); and San Francisco Dai Fou (大埠, The Big City). In

224-483: The Chinese Commercial News , World News , and United Daily News all use traditional characters, as do some Hong Kong–based magazines such as Yazhou Zhoukan . The Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified characters. DVDs are usually subtitled using traditional characters, influenced by media from Taiwan as well as by the two countries sharing the same DVD region , 3. With most having immigrated to

252-987: The Kensiu language . Standard Form of National Characters There are three lists of the Standard Form of National Characters, promulgated by Taiwan's Ministry of Education: Note: Viewing this section correctly requires certain standard typefaces to be installed and the browser to be configured to use them in appropriate contexts. The Standard Form of National Characters tends to adopt orthodox variants for most of its characters, but it still adopts many common vulgar variants . Many have their components rearranged. For example: Other vulgar variants which are extremely common in handwriting have been adopted. For example: Some forms which were standardized have never been used or are extremely rare. For example: Some components are differentiated where most other standards do not differentiate. For example: This standard tends to follow

280-672: The Pixar film Turning Red , which features a fictional temple located in Chinatown, Toronto . Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages . In Taiwan , the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters . These forms were predominant in written Chinese until

308-622: The Shanghainese -language character U+20C8E 𠲎 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-20C8E —a composition of 伐 with the ⼝   'MOUTH' radical—used instead of the Standard Chinese 嗎 ; 吗 . Typefaces often use the initialism TC to signify the use of traditional Chinese characters, as well as SC for simplified Chinese characters . In addition, the Noto, Italy family of typefaces, for example, also provides separate fonts for

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336-489: The 1860s, a temple was erected in Marysville to serve its substantial Chinese population. The history of the original and other non-extant temples is unclear; but in 1880 a new one was built and dedicated, which is still in place and in use. The foremost of the gods that are worshiped is Běidì ( 北帝 ; 'North Deity', Cantonese : Pak Tai , Bok Tai ; non-standard Toishanese: Buck Eye , Beuk Aie ), also known as Xuan Wu , ( 玄武 "Dark Warrior" or "Mysterious Warrior"),

364-547: The People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese characters are standardised according to the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters . Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. There are differences between the accepted traditional forms in mainland China and elsewhere, for example the accepted traditional form of 产 in mainland China

392-465: The United States during the second half of the 19th century, Chinese Americans have long used traditional characters. When not providing both, US public notices and signs in Chinese are generally written in traditional characters, more often than in simplified characters. In the past, traditional Chinese was most often encoded on computers using the Big5 standard, which favored traditional characters. However,

420-425: The air above the assembled crowd. The lucky person who catches the ring as it drops, fights off others vying for it, and retains full control of it, usually to the temple door, receives from the temple a reward or fortune corresponding to the ring number. In the 1880s, the Marysville dragon , Moo Lung ( Chinese : 舞龍 ; lit. 'dragon dance'), was added to the festivities. In the 1950s, when Marysville

448-493: The inverse is equally true as well. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters. In Hong Kong and Macau , traditional characters were retained during the colonial period, while the mainland adopted simplified characters. Simplified characters are contemporaneously used to accommodate immigrants and tourists, often from

476-412: The late 19th century, usually on yee yuet yee ( Chinese : 二月二 ; lit. 'second-month second'), the second day of the second month of the lunar year, Marysville's festival is the only one to persist to the present day. Each "bomb" used is a specially made firecracker that launches a hand-sized "good fortune" ring with a number (the local newspaper called them "wheels of fortune") high in

504-725: The mainland. The increasing use of simplified characters has led to concern among residents regarding protecting what they see as their local heritage. Taiwan has never adopted simplified characters. The use of simplified characters in government documents and educational settings is discouraged by the government of Taiwan. Nevertheless, with sufficient context simplified characters are likely to be successfully read by those used to traditional characters, especially given some previous exposure. Many simplified characters were previously variants that had long been in some use, with systematic stroke simplifications used in folk handwriting since antiquity. Traditional characters were recognized as

532-682: The majority of Chinese text in mainland China are simplified characters , there is no legislation prohibiting the use of traditional Chinese characters, and often traditional Chinese characters remain in use for stylistic and commercial purposes, such as in shopfront displays and advertising. Traditional Chinese characters remain ubiquitous on buildings that predate the promulgation of the current simplification scheme, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese characters continue to be used for ceremonial, cultural, scholarly/academic research, and artistic/decorative purposes. In

560-975: The merging of previously distinct character forms. Many Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between these character sets. Traditional characters are known by different names throughout the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially refers to traditional Chinese characters as 正體字 ; 正体字 ; zhèngtǐzì ; 'orthodox characters'. This term is also used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard characters, including both simplified, and traditional, from other variants and idiomatic characters . Users of traditional characters elsewhere, as well as those using simplified characters, call traditional characters 繁體字 ; 繁体字 ; fántǐzì ; 'complex characters', 老字 ; lǎozì ; 'old characters', or 全體字 ; 全体字 ; quántǐzì ; 'full characters' to distinguish them from simplified characters. Some argue that since traditional characters are often

588-448: The middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of the predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China , Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is

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616-665: The official script in Singapore until 1969, when the government officially adopted Simplified characters. Traditional characters still are widely used in contexts such as in baby and corporation names, advertisements, decorations, official documents and in newspapers. The Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative in Southeast Asia regarding simplification. Although major public universities teach in simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications such as

644-700: The original standard forms, they should not be called 'complex'. Conversely, there is a common objection to the description of traditional characters as 'standard', due to them not being used by a large population of Chinese speakers. Additionally, as the process of Chinese character creation often made many characters more elaborate over time, there is sometimes a hesitation to characterize them as 'traditional'. Some people refer to traditional characters as 'proper characters' ( 正字 ; zhèngzì or 正寫 ; zhèngxiě ) and to simplified characters as 簡筆字 ; 简笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'simplified-stroke characters' or 減筆字 ; 减笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'reduced-stroke characters', as

672-627: The traditional character set used in Taiwan ( TC ) and the set used in Hong Kong ( HK ). Most Chinese-language webpages now use Unicode for their text. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hant to specify webpage content written with traditional characters. In the Japanese writing system , kyujitai are traditional forms, which were simplified to create shinjitai for standardized Japanese use following World War II. Kyūjitai are mostly congruent with

700-970: The traditional characters in Chinese, save for minor stylistic variation. Characters that are not included in the jōyō kanji list are generally recommended to be printed in their traditional forms, with a few exceptions. Additionally, there are kokuji , which are kanji wholly created in Japan, rather than originally being borrowed from China. In the Korean writing system , hanja —replaced almost entirely by hangul in South Korea and totally replaced in North Korea —are mostly identical with their traditional counterparts, save minor stylistic variations. As with Japanese, there are autochthonous hanja, known as gukja . Traditional Chinese characters are also used by non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Maniq people living in Thailand and Malaysia use Chinese characters to write

728-509: The ubiquitous Unicode standard gives equal weight to simplified and traditional Chinese characters, and has become by far the most popular encoding for Chinese-language text. There are various input method editors (IMEs) available for the input of Chinese characters . Many characters, often dialectical variants, are encoded in Unicode but cannot be inputted using certain IMEs, with one example being

756-571: The words for simplified and reduced are homophonous in Standard Chinese , both pronounced as jiǎn . The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han dynasty c.  200 BCE , with the sets of forms and norms more or less stable since the Southern and Northern dynasties period c.  the 5th century . Although

784-474: Was the only U.S. community firing off these "bombs", the name was changed to the Bok Kai Festival. The temple remains a primary focus of the present Marysville Chinese-American community, who have dedicated themselves to preserving the temple and celebrating the Bok Kai Festival. The temple is infrequently used as an active place of worship, but is preserved as both a California Historical Landmark and as

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