145-475: The Peach Blossom Fan ( Chinese : 桃花扇 ; pinyin : Táohuā shàn ; Wade–Giles : T'ao-hua shan ; Jyutping : Tou4faa1 sin3 ) is a musical play and historical drama in 44 scenes that was completed in 1699 by the early Qing dynasty playwright Kong Shangren after more than 10 years of effort. The play depicts the drama that resulted in the 1644 collapse of the Ming dynasty . The play recounts
290-907: A Gējì and the heroine. Li Xiangjun, the Fragrant Princess , follows her desires on whom to love and opposes bullies on the royal court. Su Kunsheng (T: 蘇崑生, S: 苏昆生, P: Sū Kūnshēng , W: Su K'un-sheng ), Li Xiangjun's singing teacher - Su Kunsheng asks Li Xiangjun to perform The Peony Pavilion . Ruan Dacheng (T: 阮大鋮, S: 阮大铖, P: Ruǎn Dàchéng , W: Juan Ta-ch'eng ), corrupt politician, dramatist and poet Ding Jizhi (Ting Chi-chih), poet-musician Shen Gongxian (Shen Kung-hsien), poet-musician Zhang Yanzhu (Chang Yen-chu), poet-musician Bian Yujing (Pien Yü-ching), professional singing-girl Kou Baimen (K'ou Pai-men), professional singing-girl Zheng Tuoniang (Cheng T'o-niang), professional singing-girl General Zuo Liangyu (C: 左良玉, P: Zuǒ Liángyù , W: Tso Liang-yü ), commander of
435-464: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
580-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
725-505: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
870-595: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
1015-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
1160-597: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
1305-700: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
1450-570: A deep respect for Hou Fang-yü, Liu Ching-t'ing, and Shih K'o-fa, as in their different ways they follow their doomed ideals." (in order of appearance) The Master of Ceremonies of the Imperial Temple in Nanjing. He states that The Peach Blossom Fan "employs the emotions entailed by separation and union, to depict feelings about rise and fall." (T: 借離合之情，寫興亡之感,[...], S: 借离合之情，写兴亡之感,[...]) Hou Fangyu (C: 侯方域 , P: Hóu Fāngyù , W: Hou Fang-yü ),
1595-588: A famous painter Cai Yisuo (C: 蔡益所, P: Cài Yìsuǒ , W: Ts'ai Yi-so ), a Nanjing bookseller Zhang Wei (T: 张 薇, S: 张 薇, P: Zhāng Wēi , W: Chang Wei ) or Zhang the Taoist (T: 張瑤星, S: 张瑶星, P: Zhāng yáoxīng ), former commander of the Imperial Guard in Beijing Huang Shu (Huang Shu), Inspector General Tian Xiong (T'ien Hsiung), adjutant to General Huang Degong Han Zanzhou (Hsu Ch'ing-chün),
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#17328481375131740-478: A frenzy of disagreement, and Liang became a wanted man by order of Empress Dowager Cixi , the leader of the political conservative faction who later took over the government as regent . Cixi strongly opposed reforms at that time and along with her supporters, condemned the "Hundred Days' Reform" as being too radical. In 1898, the Conservative Coup ended all reforms, and Liang fled to Japan, where he stayed for
1885-561: A higher degree. He took the exams along with Kang Youwei , a famous Chinese scholar and reformist . According to one popular narrative of Liang's failure to pass the Jinshi, the examiner was determined to flunk Kang for his heterodox challenge to existing institutions, but since the exams were all anonymous, he could only presume that the exam with the most unorthodox views was Kang's. Instead, Kang disguised himself by writing an examination eight-legged essay espousing traditionalist ideas and passed
2030-455: A magistrate's runner Cyril Birch wrote that "The world of The Peach Blossom Fan is that late-Ming world of gross corruption, of callousness and cowardice and the breakdown of a long-cherished order. Yet the quality of life revealed in the play is of extraordinary cultivation and sensibility. There is a great poignancy in this contrast". C. H. Wang wrote that the play has an intertwining of the motifs of separation and union of people in love, and
2175-564: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
2320-504: A newspaper regards the government the way a father or elder brother regards a son or younger brother — teaching him when he does not understand, and reprimanding him when he gets something wrong." Undoubtedly, his attempt to unify and dominate a fast-growing and highly competitive press market has set the tone for the first generation of newspaper historians of the May Fourth Movement. Newspaper as an educational program: Liang
2465-449: A people, we must first renew their fictions." In New Fiction , Liang published his novella The Future of New China . The novella depicts arguments between two characters who support constitutional monarchy and republican revolution respectively. The characters contest their political differences but are also connected through their desire to revive Chinese culture and the nation. Liang Qichao's historiographical thought represents
2610-407: A realization. Li Xiangjun thus becomes a nun, while Hou Fangyu follows her step to become a Taoist priest. Cyril Birch, who collaborated on a University of California Press translation of The Peach Blossom Fan , wrote that "There can be no happy ending, given the historical authenticity of the action". Like other Southern-style plays the play incorporates martial scenes and a love affair central to
2755-538: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
2900-503: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
3045-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
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#17328481375133190-610: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
3335-563: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
3480-438: A well known essay during his most radical period titled "The Young China" and published it in his newspaper Qing Yi Bao ( 淸議報 ) on February 2, 1900. The essay established the concept of the nation-state and argued that the young revolutionaries were the holders of the future of China. This essay was influential on the Chinese political culture during the May Fourth Movement in the 1920s. Weak press: However, Liang thought that
3625-593: A young scholar of distinction Chen Zhenhui (Ch'en Chen-hui), fellow member of the Revival Club Wu Yingji (Wu Ying-chi), fellow member of the Revival Club Liu Jingting (C: 柳敬亭 , P: Liǔ Jìngtíng , W: Liu Ching-t'ing ), a veteran minstrel of renown Li Zhenli (Li Chen-li), proprietress of an elegant house of pleasure and foster mother of the heroine Yang Wencong (Yang Wen-ts'ung), painter, poet, and official Li Xiangjun ,
3770-415: Is "not unduly long" for a southern-style ( Yangtze Valley ) Chinese play, citing the 55-scene length of Peony Pavilion . The main portion of the play includes exactly 40 scenes. The "Enquiry" (prelude) section is located in the play's beginning. The first portion of the main play forms part one, the upper (上) part. The "Inter-calary" scene is in between the two parts of the main play. The second portion of
3915-596: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
4060-689: Is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of
4205-485: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
4350-595: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
4495-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
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4640-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
4785-484: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
4930-496: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
5075-497: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
5220-540: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
5365-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
5510-735: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
5655-709: The Chinese Academy of Sciences , including Liang Sicheng , the prominent historian of Chinese architecture. Liang passed the Xiucai degree provincial examination at the age of 11. In 1884, he undertook the arduous task of studying for the traditional governmental exams. At the age of 16, he passed the Juren second level provincial exams and was the youngest successful candidate at that time. In 1890, Liang failed in his Jinshi degree national examinations in Beijing and never earned
5800-866: The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), Liang was involved in protests in Beijing pushing for an increased participation in the governance by the Chinese people. It was the first protest of its kind in modern Chinese history. This changing outlook on tradition was shown in the historiographical revolution ( 史學革命 ) launched by Liang Qichao in the early twentieth century. Frustrated by his failure at political reform, Liang embarked upon cultural reform. In 1902, while in exile in Japan, Liang wrote "The New Historiography " ( 新史學 ), which called on Chinese to study world history to understand China rather than just Chinese history . The article also attacked old historiographical methods, which he lamented focused on dynasty over state;
5945-721: The Guangxu Emperor (reigned 1875–1908) of the Qing dynasty. This movement is known as the Wuxu Reform or the Hundred Days' Reform . Their proposal asserted that China was in need of more than self-strengthening , and called for many institutional and ideological changes such as getting rid of corruption and remodeling the state examination system. Liang thus was a major influence in the debates on democracy in China . This proposal soon ignited
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6090-510: The Hundred Days' Reform of 1898. When the movement was defeated, he fled to Japan and promoted a constitutional monarchy and organized political opposition to the dynasty. After the revolution of 1911, he joined the Beiyang government , serving as the chief justice and the first president of the currency system bureau. He became dissatisfied with Yuan Shikai and launched a movement to oppose his ambition to be emperor. After Yuan's death, he served as
6235-525: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
6380-680: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
6525-579: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
6670-492: The Qinhuai River . He sends Li Xiangjun a fan as a gift and becomes engaged to her. An official called Ruan Dacheng , delivers trousseau through celebrity Yang Longyou (T: 楊龍友 , S: 杨龙友 , P: Yáng Lóngyǒu , W: Yang Lung-yu ) for Hou in order not to be isolated from the royal court. Hou is persuaded into accepting it, but Li Xiangjun rejects the gift firmly, which wins Hou Fangyu's respect. Because he lacks military provisions,
6815-608: The Republicans to form the new Progressive Party . He was very critical of Sun Yatsen's attempts to undermine President Yuan Shikai. Though usually supportive of the government, he opposed the expulsion of the Nationalists from parliament . Liang's thought was influenced by the West, and he learned about the new political thought and regimes of the Western countries, and he learned these from
6960-473: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
7105-591: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
7250-421: The statist ideology in Japanese society. Liang drew from much of his work and subsequently influenced Korean nationalists in the 1900s. After the failure of constitutional reform, Liang founded the literary journal New Fiction as part of his effort to encourage intellectuals to use fiction for pedagogical and political purposes. Its inaugural editorial includes a saying by Liang which became famous: "to renew
7395-510: The "power" of newspaper, especially its influence over government policies. In 1896, he wrote an editorial for the first issue of Shiwu bao (Contemporary affairs) titled, On the Benefits of the Press to State Affairs. In the editorial, Liang compared the circulation of information in a country to the blood and pulse of a body. Liang wrote that China was weak due to blockages of communication between
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#17328481375137540-761: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Liang Qichao Liang Qichao (Chinese: 梁啓超 ; Wade–Giles : Liang Chʻi -chʻao ; Yale : Lèuhng Kái-chīu ) (February 23, 1873 – January 19, 1929)
7685-565: The Emperor with lust. Governor of Cao (曹撫) Tian Yang (田仰) covets Li's beauty and wants to take her as concubine. At the marriage ceremony, Li resists with a suicide attempt. She knocks her head on a pillar, leaving blood spots on the fan which was given by Hou Fangyu. After that, Yang draws a branch of peach blossoms with Li Xiangjun's blood on the fan, and it is sent to Hou Fangyu to show Li Xiangjun's determination. Jin Fu, author of Chinese Theatre , wrote that
7830-602: The Ice-Drinker's Studio ( 飲冰室合集 ) is his representative works in literature compiled into 148 volumes. Liang gained his idea of calling his work as Collected Works of Yinbingshi from a passage of Zhuangzi . It states that "Every morning, I receive the mandate [for action], every evening I drink the ice [of disillusion], but I remain ardent in my inner mind" ( 吾朝受命而夕飲冰，我其內熱與 ). As a result, Liang called his workplace as "The Ice-drinker's studio" (Yinbingshi), and addressed himself as Yinbingshi Zhuren ( 飲冰室主人 ), literally Host of
7975-579: The Ice-drinker's studio , in order to present his idea that he was worrying about all the political matters, so he would still try his best to reform the society by the effort of writings. Liang also wrote fiction and scholarly essays on fiction, which included Fleeing to Japan after failure of Hundred Days' Reform (1898) and the essay On the Relationship Between Fiction and the Government of
8120-429: The Japanese translation books, and he learned the Western thought through Meiji Japan to analyze the knowledge of the West. In 1915, he opposed Yuan's attempt to make himself emperor. He convinced his disciple Cai E , the military governor of Yunnan , to rebel. Progressive party branches agitated for the overthrow of Yuan and more provinces declared their independence. The revolutionary activity that he had frowned upon
8265-555: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
8410-453: The Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng group forms an opposing grouping. Each role-type may control a set of characters. The "painted-face" (P: jing , W: ching ) role controls Ma Shiying, Liu Liangzuo, Su Kunsheng, and Zhang Yanzhu. The "comic" (P: chou , W: ch'ou) role type controls Liu Jingting, Cai Yisuo, Zhen Tuoniang, and several attendants and servants. Birch wrote that the audience is "led to
8555-569: The Mausoleum of the Ming Emperor (明孝陵). Though started in 1648, "The Peach Blossom Fan" was completed by Kong Shangren in 1699, under the watch and reign of the Qing Dynasty. That was a culmination of more than twenty years in efforts of writing. The musical play "The Peach Blossom Fan" contains 44 historical drama scenes emphasizing Chinese culture. Drama characterized the collapse in 1644 of one of
8700-447: The Mind of Modern China , described Liang as "a brilliant scholar, journalist, and political figure." Liang Qichao was the "most influential turn-of-the-century scholar-journalist," according to Levenson. Liang showed that newspapers and magazines could serve as an effective medium for communicating political ideas. Liang, as a historian and a journalist, believed that both careers must have
8845-490: The Ming dynasty. The remaining protagonists decide to seclude themselves instead of serving in the Qing dynasty. Hou Fangyu and Li Xiangjun meet each other occasionally at Qixia Mountain . When they are telling their affection, Zhang Yaoxing, a Taoist master, criticized them for the affair, asking "How laughable to cling to your amorous desires when the world has been turned upside down?" (or: "When there are such tremendous changes, you still indulge in love?"). This gives them both
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#17328481375138990-704: The People (論小說與群治之關係 , 1902). These novels emphasized modernization in the West and the call for reform. In the early 1920s, Liang retired from politics and taught at the Tung-nan University in Shanghai and Tsinghua University Research Institute in Peking. He founded the Jiangxue she (Chinese Lecture Association) and brought important intellectual figures to China, including Driesch and Rabindranath Tagore . Academically he
9135-636: The Qing dynasty and served its royal court", satirizing the traitor Wang Jingwei of that time. In 1964, playwright Mei Qian (梅阡) and Sun Jing (孫敬), using Ou's ending, put the drama into a movie script, starring famous actress Wang Danfeng and actor Feng Zhe. In 2004, the California Institute for the Arts staged a version directed by Chen Shi-Zheng . The text was written by playwright Edward Mast and songs created by Stephin Merritt . The Peach Blossom Fan
9280-517: The Qing dynasty. In Liang's view, Chineseness was a cultural concept rather than an ethnic concept. Liang viewed China as weak not because of ethnic Manchu rule, but because of its cultural customs formed over millennia. From his perspective, an "imperial strategy" to combine all Chinese ethnicities into one nation was the best path to a strong China. With the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, constitutional monarchy became an increasingly irrelevant topic. Liang merged his renamed Democratic Party with
9425-592: The Qing empire to oppose Western imperialists . Despite the failures of his reforms, Liang's idea of Chinese nationalism based on the civic idea of Five Races Under One Union inspired Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang 's nationalism, as well as the nationalist rhetoric of the CCP . Lin Yutang once called Liang "the greatest personality in the history of Chinese journalism," while Joseph Levenson , author of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and
9570-464: The Red Chamber . Harold Acton , who co-wrote an English translation, stated that The Peach Blossom Fan is a "highly poetic chronicle play" that is "a vivid evocation of the downfall of the Ming dynasty" that "deserves to be better known to students of Chinese literature and history." Dylan Suher of the literary magazine Asymptote described The Peach Blossom Fan as "The greatest masterpiece of
9715-435: The Restoration Society, when the Ming Dynasty sought to bring changes as there had been rampant corruption. Ming falls after falling in love with Li Xiangjun, starts sharing gifts, and engages with her. Officials in the court plot or plan on how to cut short his reign and oversee the fall of the Ming Dynasty, with this plan being set and overseen by courtesans such as Ruan Dacheng. The dynasty is officially isolated from power and
9860-417: The United States, which included a meeting with President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, DC , before returning to Japan via Vancouver, British Columbia , Canada. While living in Japan in 1905, Liang supported the Constitutionalist movement within the Qing administration. The descendant of Confucius Duke Yansheng was proposed as a replacement for the Qing dynasty as Emperor by Liang Qichao. For
10005-500: The University of California Press translation is "complete except for a very few places". Portions translated included what Birch described as "the contrasting low punning and bawdy badinage ," the scholars' formal compliments and greetings, "high poetry" within the songs, and self-introduction speeches and soliloquies described by Birch as "sometimes rather stiff". Acton wrote that he and Chen Shih-hsiang hoped that their translation would be published at some point but that they translated
10150-558: The Wu Chang garrison General Shi Kefa (C: 史可法 , P: Shǐ Kéfǎ , W: Shih K'o-fa ), President of the Board of War at Nanjing Ma Shiying (T: 馬士英, S: 马士英, P: Mǎ Shìyīng , W: Ma Shih-ying ), Governor of Feng Yang and Grand Secretary General Yuan Jixian (Yüan Chih-hsien) General Huang Degong (Huang Te-kung) Emperor Hong Guang (Emperor Hung-kuang) General Liu Zeqing (Liu Tse-ch'ing) General Gao Jie (Kao Chieh) General Liu Liangzuo (Liu Liang-tso) Lan Ying (T: 藍 瑛, S: 蓝 瑛, P: Lán Yīng , W: Lan Ying ),
10295-437: The ancient teachings of Confucianism , but also learn from the successes of Western political life and not just Western technology. Liang shaped the ideas of democracy in China , using his writings as a medium to combine Western scientific methods with traditional Chinese historical studies. Liang's works were strongly influenced by the Japanese political scholar Katō Hiroyuki , who used methods of social Darwinism to promote
10440-409: The beginning of modern Chinese historiography and reveals some important directions of Chinese historiography in the twentieth century. For Liang, the major flaw of " old historians " ( 舊史家 ) was their failure to foster the national awareness necessary for a strong and modern nation. Liang's call for new history not only pointed to a new orientation for historical writing in China, but also indicated
10585-616: The best of Western technology, industry and government systems. He also gave public lectures to both Chinese and Western audiences around the country. This visit coincided with the Federation of the six British colonies into the new nation of Australia in 1901. He felt this model of integration might be an excellent model for the diverse regions of China. He was feted by politicians, and met the first Prime Minister of Australia , Edmund Barton . He returned to Japan later that year. In 1903, Liang embarked on an eight-month lecture tour throughout
10730-520: The capital Beijing again with Kang for the national examination. During the examination, he was active in the Gongche Shangshu movement . After failing to pass the examination for a second time, he stayed in Beijing to help Kang publish Domestic and Foreign Information . He also helped to organize the Society for National Strengthening [ zh ] , where Liang served as secretary. For time, he
10875-520: The commander of Wuchang Zuo Liangyu intends to move his army south to Nanjing, which terrifies the court. Considering Hou Fangyu's father had once been Zuo Liangyu's superior, Nanjing officials send Yang to ask Hou for help as a substitute. Hou Fangyu writes a letter to discourage Zuo from moving, but is slandered by Ruan for betraying the country, forcing him to find shelter with Shi Kefa in Yangzhou . Li Xiangjun and Hou Fangyu are separated. At that time,
11020-570: The complete script. In the next year, General Li Muan set up a therical troupe called Jin Dou to perform the play, which gained huge fame immediately. Each time the troupe performed, the actors and actresses were given considerable tips. The play was a particular favorite of the Kangxi Emperor . Merchants in Yang Zhou once raised 160 thousand gold for the costume in the play. During the last century,
11165-411: The construction of the modernization, Liang focused on two relative questions in politics. The first one was the ways that transformed people became citizen for modernization, and Liang thought Chinese needed to improve civic ethos to build the nation-state in the Qing dynasty, and the second one was the question of the citizenship, and Liang thought both of them were important to support the reformation in
11310-400: The court as a gift, catering to the Emperor. Li Xiangjun scolds the evil officials to their faces and is beaten cruelly. Hou Fangyu flees to Nanjing during the chaotic war but was caught and sent into prison by Ruan Dacheng. Yangzhou falls and Shi Kefa drowns himself into the river. The new Emperor is captured by the Qing army. The end of the play features a Taoist ceremony mourning the loss of
11455-493: The death of the Ming dynasty through the love story of its two main characters, young scholar Hou Fangyu ( 侯方域 ) and a famous Geji named Li Xiangjun . The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature has called it "China's greatest historical drama". An English translation published by the University of California Press was translated by Chen Shih-hsiang and Harold Acton , K.B.E. with Cyril Birch collaborating. In
11600-795: The decay happen. Kong heard stories about the period of Hong Guang (C: 弘 光 ) from his cousin Kong Fangxun (孔方訓), whose tale of Li Xiangjun inspired him into creating a script. But at that time, it was only a draft because Kong wanted to collect historical details. So during his three-year stay in the south, where the story took place, Kong got acquainted with Ming loyalists like Mao Xiang ( 冒襄 ), Deng Hanyi ( 鄧漢儀 ), Xu Shuxue (許漱雪), Zong Yuanding (宗元鼎), She Chacun (社茶村) and masters of art like Shitao , Gong Xian , and Cha Shibiao (查士標). He also visited historical sites such as Plum Blossom Mountain (梅花岭), Qin Huai River (秦淮河), Swallow Rock (燕子磯), Imperial Palace, and
11745-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
11890-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
12035-406: The early Qing dynasty, the rise and fall of the dynasty touched many poets and playwrights, especially intellectuals, which pushed them into thinking of the historical lessons taught by the downfall of the Ming. These writers, including Kong Shangren, expressed hatred and regret at its collapse through their works and a sense of historical responsibility. Kong said he wanted to make clear what had made
12180-566: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
12325-626: The exam while Liang's paper was assumed to be Kang's and picked out to be failed. Inspired by the book Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms by the reform Confucian scholar Wei Yuan , Liang became extremely interested in western political thought. After returning home, Liang went on to study with Kang Youwei , who was teaching at Wanmu Caotang [ zh ] in Guangzhou . Kang's teachings about foreign affairs fueled Liang's interest in reforming China. In 1895, Liang went to
12470-524: The fan and poem symbolize the integrity and determination of Li Xiangjun. The Qing's army continues to go south, threatening the Ming government. However, the internal conflicts among four generals, who are in charge of strategic posts in north of the Yangtze River, are fierce, and Shi Kefa himself could not retrieve the defeat. Meanwhile, the new Emperor never cares about politics, only losing himself in song and dance. Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng send Li into
12615-541: The final seven scenes and revised the drafts. As a guide Birch used the People's Literature Press edition published in 1959 in Beijing . He used the annotations written by Wang Chi-ssu (C: 王季思 , P: Wáng Jìsī , W: Wang Chi-ssu ) and Su Huan-chung. Due to the usage of allusions common in plays in the Ming and Qing Dynasties the University of California translation uses footnotes for what Birch described as "many" of these allusions. Birch wrote "many more have been sacrificed to
12760-643: The finance chief of the Duan Qirui cabinet and as supervisor of the Salt Administration . He advocated the New Culture Movement and supported cultural change but not political revolution. Liang Qichao was born in a small village in Xinhui , Guangdong Province on February 23, 1873. Liang's father, Liang Baoying ( 梁寶瑛 , Cantonese : Lèuhng Bóu-yīng ; courtesy name Lianjian 蓮澗 ; Cantonese : Lìhn-gaan ),
12905-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
13050-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
13195-492: The government crackdown on anti-Qing protesters, Liang studied the works of Western philosophers of the Enlightenment period, namely Hobbes , Rousseau , Locke , Hume and Bentham , translating them and introducing his own interpretation of their works. His essays were published in a number of journals, drawing interest among Chinese intellectuals who had been taken aback by the dismemberment of China's formidable empire at
13340-550: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
13485-406: The hands of foreign powers. Western Social and Political Theories : In the early 20th century, Liang Qichao played a significant role in introducing Western social and political theories into Korea such as Social Darwinism and international law. Liang wrote in his well-known manifesto , New People ( 新民說 ): Liang advocated reform in both the genres of poem and novel. The Collected Works from
13630-400: The ideas to the youth in that period. He believed that newspapers did not only act as a historical record, but was also a means to "shape the course of history." Press as a weapon in revolution: Liang also thought that the press was an "effective weapon in the service of a nationalist uprising". In Liang's words, the newspaper is a “revolution of ink, not a revolution of blood.” He wrote, "so
13775-507: The importance of journalism's social role and supported the idea of a strong relationship between politics and journalism before the May Fourth Movement , (also known as the New Culture Movement ). He believed that newspapers and magazines should serve as an essential and effective tool in communicating political ideas. The magazine New Youth became an important way to show his thought in the New Culture Movement, and his articles spread
13920-510: The inauguration of our journal last year, there have come into being almost ten separate journals with the same style and design." Liang spread his notions about democracy as chief editor of the New Citizen Journal . The journal was published without hindrance for five years but eventually ceased in 1907 after 96 issues. Its readership was estimated to be 200,000. As one of the pioneers of Chinese journalism of his time, Liang believed in
14065-537: The individual over the group; the past but not the present; and facts, rather than ideals. Liang was head of the Translation Bureau and oversaw the training of students who were learning to translate Western works into Chinese. He believed that this task was "the most essential of all essential undertakings to accomplish" because he believed Westerners were successful - politically, technologically and economically. Philosophical Works : After escaping Beijing and
14210-683: The interests of readability". Birch wrote that in the final scenes, if the closest translation "would have impossibly retarded the movement of the verse" Birch used paraphrasing to follow on the actions of Chen Shih-hsiang and Acton. Birch cited Scene 32 as an example of a place where the translation was abridged . There the Master of Ceremonies' speech's strings of instructions indicating commands such as "Kneel! Rise! Kneel!" were omitted. Birch wrote that "These commands, in performance, would punctuate an elaborate posturing dance, but they make for boring reading." Liang Qichao (1873–1929) wrote that this play
14355-472: The journal, Liang coined many Chinese equivalents for never-before-heard theories or expressions and used the journal to help communicate public opinion in China to faraway readers. Through news analyses and essays, Liang hoped that the New Citizen would be able to start a "new stage in Chinese newspaper history." A year later, Liang and his co-workers saw a change in the newspaper industry and remarked, "Since
14500-581: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
14645-516: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
14790-558: The length is not tiresomely long compared to many of the similar Chinese plays with 55 plus scenes, mainly with style drawn from the South. At the start of the play is the 'Enquiry' which also forms part one. In contrast, the Intercalary fills in the inner parts before the central portion, with additional scenes such as the Sequel and eventually the epilogue. Plot-wise, "The Peach Blossom Fan" is set in
14935-740: The literature of political disappointment", and the play contains "some of the most elegant Chinese ever written—a density of poetic expression that rivals Shakespeare's." Several modern adaptations of the play has also received acclaim. Kevin J. Wetmore reviewing the Edward Mast adapted and Chen Shi-Zheng directed version for Theatre Journal , describes it as "a powerfully moving, brilliantly theatrical, and playfully entertaining production." Japanese: Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')
15080-475: The main portion of the play forms part two, the lower (下) part. The "Additional Scene" and then the "Sequel", the epilogue, are the final portions of the play. In the late Ming dynasty , the reformist Donglin movement reinstituted the "Restoration Society" (C: 復社 , P: fùshè , W: fu-she ) in Nanjing to fight corrupt officials. Hou Fangyu, one of the Society's members, falls in love with Geji Li Xiangjun beside
15225-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
15370-463: The motifs of the decline and ascent of political powers, and that "The parallel structure is not contained within a single plot only" but rather to the entire work. C. H. Wang, author of "The Double Plot of T'ao-hua shan ," wrote that the author "attempted in this work not only to retell for common theatre-goers a romantic love-story but also to arouse scholars-especially Confucian intellectuals-to consider why and how China so easily lost her strength in
15515-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
15660-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
15805-454: The national crises of 1644-45." The play was written fewer than 50 years after the fall of the Ming dynasty , during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty . As soon as Kong finished the script of The Peach Blossom Fan , it was lent out and spread quickly among scholars and aristocrats. In the autumn of the year Jimao, even the emperor sent servant to Kong's house, asking in haste for
15950-483: The next 14 years. While in Tokyo he befriended the influential politician and future Japanese Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi . In Japan, he continued to actively advocate the democratic cause by using his writings to raise support for the reformers’ cause among overseas Chinese and foreign governments. He continued to emphasize the importance of individualism, and to support the concept of a constitutional monarchy as opposed to
16095-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
16240-404: The people. It is a play detailing the power of people who come together in unison and love for a just cause. That equally highlights the delicate balance of ascending to power without the interests of service to humanity at the core of decision-making. The play was conceived as a two-part play, as stated in the notes of Liang Qichao . The play has over 40 total scenes. Birch wrote that this length
16385-461: The play "for its own sake rather than for publication." Chen Shih-hsiang had been researching early Chinese poetry and Acton had suggested translating The Peach Blossom Fan . Chen Shih-hsiang died in May 1971. At that time there was a manuscript draft with all scenes except for the final seven translated. Cyril Birch, who had worked with Chen Shih-hsiang at the University of California Berkeley , translated
16530-458: The play has been performed in forms of Peking Opera, Drama, Chu Opera, Gui Opera, Yue Opera, Xiang Opera, Min Opera, Bei Kun, Nan Kun and Huangmei Opera, and it has been adapted into 3 kinds of endings, including one that ends in a happy reunion. In 1937, when World War II broke out, the famous Chinese playwright Ouyang Yuqian altered the ending of the play into "Having cut his hair, Hou surrendered to
16675-651: The plot. Birch wrote that the Hou Fangyu-Fragrant Princess love affair "is brilliantly integrated with the more weighty matter of the plot" and that the martial scenes "perfectly reflect the unhappy progress of the Ming cause and depict in vivid terms the gallant but ultimately futile loyalty or generals like Huang Te-kung and Shih-K'o-fa." The play involves 30 dramatis personae . The protagonists are historical figures. Like many southern Chinese ( Yangtze Valley ) plays, there are contrasting character groupings. Hou Fangyu and his friends are in one grouping, while
16820-512: The political situation runs out of control. News comes that Li Zicheng , the leader of peasant rebellion, had captured the capital Beijing, and that the Chongzhen Emperor had hanged himself. Ruan and Ma Shiying, the local governor of Fengyang (鳳陽督撫), crowns the Prince of Fu (福王) Zhu Yousong as new Emperor and changes the title of the reign into Hongguang 弘光. They persecute Reformists and indulge
16965-448: The press in China at that time was quite weak, not only due to lack of financial resources and to conventional social prejudices, but also because "the social atmosphere was not free enough to encourage more readers and there was a lack of roads and highways that made it hard to distribute newspapers". Liang felt that the prevalent newspapers of the time were "no more than a mass commodity". He criticized that those newspapers "failed to have
17110-584: The radical republicanism supported by the Tokyo-based Tongmenghui (the forerunner of the Kuomintang ). During his time in Japan, Liang also served as a benefactor and colleague to Phan Boi Chau , one of Vietnam's most important anticolonial revolutionaries. In 1899, Liang went to Canada, where he met Dr. Sun Yat-Sen among others, then to Honolulu in Hawaii . During the Boxer Rebellion , Liang
17255-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
17400-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
17545-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
17690-606: The rise of modern historical consciousness among Chinese intellectuals. He advocated the Great Man theory in his 1899 piece, "Heroes and the Times" ( 英雄與時勢 , Yīngxióng yǔ Shíshì ), and he also wrote biographies of European state-builders such as Otto von Bismarck , Horatio Nelson , Oliver Cromwell , Lajos Kossuth , Giuseppe Mazzini , and Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour ; as well as Chinese men including Zheng He , Tan Sitong , and Wang Anshi . During this period of Japan's challenge in
17835-428: The rulers, ministers, the people, and between China and the outside world. He criticized the Qing dynasty for its control on information, which to Liang implied a failure of political rationality. Liang both praised Western freedom of the press and criticized Western media narratives of China for legitimizing colonization and conquest. Using newspapers and magazines to communicate political ideas: Liang realised
17980-782: The same purpose and "moral commitment," as he proclaimed, "by examining the past and revealing the future, I will show the path of progress to the people of the nation." Thus, he founded his first newspaper, called the Qing Yi Bao ( 淸議報 ), named after a student movement of the Han dynasty . Liang's exile to Japan allowed him to speak freely and exercise his intellectual autonomy. During his career in journalism, he edited two premier newspapers, Zhongwai Gongbao ( 中外公報 ) and Shiwu Bao ( 時務報 ). He also published his moral and political ideals in Qing Yi Bao ( 淸議報 ) and New Citizen ( 新民叢報 ). In addition, he used his literary works to further spread his views on republicanism both in China and across
18125-456: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
18270-399: The slightest influence upon the nation as a society". Liang Qichao was both a traditional Confucian scholar and a reformist . Liang Qichao contributed to the reform in late Qing by writing various articles interpreting non-Chinese ideas of history and government, with the intent of stimulating Chinese citizens' minds to build a new China. In his writings, he argued that China should protect
18415-511: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
18560-463: The then known dynasties, the Ming Dynasty. Using Hou Fangyu and a Gējì by the play name Li Xiangjun, it elaborates in love the death of the Ming Dynasty, though camouflaged in a love story. Many historians have, over the years, referred to it as one of China's masterpieces in historical drama. In terms of composition, it is a two-part play as conceived originally. There are an additional 40 scenes, but
18705-465: The throne to establish a new order and reject the old system of doing things. An analysis of this work suggests that "The Bleach of the Blossom Fan" exposes the rot of official corruption, cowardly choices, and even outright callousness of those in authority, such as the Ming Dynasty. However, his order of things is cut short eventually because he had failed to read the people's mood or even be sensitive to
18850-609: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
18995-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
19140-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
19285-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
19430-751: The world. Accordingly, he had become an influential journalist in terms of political and cultural aspects by writing new forms of periodical journals. He published his articles in the magazine New Youth to expand the thought of science and democracy in the 1910s. Furthermore, journalism paved the way for him to express his patriotism . Liang produced a widely read biweekly journal called New Citizen ( Xinmin Congbao 新民叢報 ), first published in Yokohama , Japan on February 8, 1902. The journal covered many different topics, including politics, religion, law, economics, business, geography and current and international affairs. In
19575-508: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
19720-409: Was "a book of utmost desolation, poignant splendor, and utmost turmoil." He further wrote: "With the refined strictness of its structure, the magnificence of its style, and the depth of its sentiments, I would venture that Kong Shangren's Peach Blossom Fan surpasses the works of all epochs!" Scholar Wang Guowei (1877–1927), who held the play in great esteem, compared it to the novel Dream of
19865-447: Was a Chinese politician, social and political activist, journalist, and intellectual. His thought had a significant influence on the political reformation of modern China. He inspired Chinese scholars and activists with his writings and reform movements. His translations of Western and Japanese books into Chinese further introduced new theories and ideas and inspired young activists. In his youth, Liang joined his teacher Kang Youwei in
20010-616: Was a farmer and local scholar, but had a classical background that emphasized on tradition and education for ethnic rejuvenescence allowed him to be introduced to various literary works at six years old. By the age of nine, Liang started writing thousand-word essays and became a district-school student soon after. Liang had two wives: Li Huixian ( 李惠仙 ; Cantonese : Léih Waih-sīn ) and Wang Guiquan ( 王桂荃 ; Cantonese : Wòhng Gwai-chyùhn ). They gave birth to nine children, all of whom became successful individuals through Liang's strict and effective education. Three of them were scientific personnel at
20155-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
20300-606: Was also enlisted by the governor of Hunan , Chen Baozhen to edit reform-friendly publications, such as the Hunan Daily ( Xiangbao 湘報 ) and the Hunan Journal ( Xiang xuebao 湘學報 ). As an advocate of constitutional monarchy , Liang was unhappy with the governance of the Qing Government and wanted to change the status quo in China. He organized reforms with Kang Youwei by putting their ideas on paper and sending them to
20445-535: Was back in Canada, where he formed the " Chinese Empire Reform Association ". This organization later became the Constitutionalist Party which advocated constitutional monarchy. While Sun promoted revolution, Liang preached incremental reform. In 1900–1901, Liang visited Australia on a six-month tour that aimed at raising support for a campaign to reform the Chinese empire and thus modernize China through adopting
20590-433: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
20735-475: Was printed during Kong Shangren 's lifetime. Several variations in the text appear in subsequent editions of the play. There was 1982 edition edited by Wang Chi-ssu and others, published in Beijing . The play is presented in four juan ( chüan ) rather than the standard two parts. One edition published by the University of California Press was translated into English by Chen Shih-hsiang and Harold Acton, K.B.E. with Cyril Birch collaborating. Birch wrote that
20880-593: Was utilized successfully. Besides Duan Qirui , Liang was the biggest advocate of entering World War I on the Allied side . He felt it would boost China's status and also ameliorate foreign debts. He condemned his mentor, Kang Youwei , for assisting in the failed attempt to restore the Qing in July 1917. After failing to turn Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang into responsible statesmen, he gave up and left politics. Liang favored nationalism that incorporated different ethnic groups of
21025-416: Was well aware that the newspaper could serve as an "educational program", and said, "the newspaper gathers virtually all the thoughts and expressions of the nation and systematically introduces them to the citizenry, it being irrelevant whether they are important or not, concise or not, radical or not. The press, therefore, can contain, reject, produce, as well as destroy, everything." For example, Liang wrote
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