Introduction to Chinese culture

Comprehensive websites for Chinese culture:

History

The ancestors of Chinese people

Yandi and Huangdi were two legendary heroes who have been honored as the ancestors of Chinese people. Di, means emperor. They led their troops to fight with evils and other opponents and won.

From ancient times to now, Yandi and Huangdi have been reputed to the origins of the Chinese culture and the Chinese in all parts of China. Chinese call themselves “the ancestors of Yan•Huang”. Today, at the Qingming festival, the day in April to honor the dead, people from home and abroad hold ceremonies in Huangling county, Shanxi Province, where a tomb was built to honor Huangdi.

Philosopher : Confucius


 
Confucius was born in the state of Lu in the Spring and Autumn Period. He is the greatest educator and philosopher in Chinese civilization. His thoughts were compiled into a book known as “Lun Yu” by his disciples.

Physicians: Hua Tuo and Li Shi-zhen

Hua Tuo was an outstanding physician and surgeon in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. He was the first doctor in the world who invented the anaesthetic, called ‘ma fei san’, and applied in his surgical operations.

Li Shi-zhen was a famous pharmacologist in the Ming Dynasty. He practiced medicine and collected the specimens of medical herbs to cure diseases, save people. He devoted himself to compile his masterpiece “Ben-cao gang-mu”, which took him thirty years to accomplish. The book contains 1,892 descriptions of medication and 11,096 prescriptions. It is considered as an encyclopaedia of pharmacology in ancient China.

Poets: Libai and Dufu

Libai and Dufu were greatest poets in the Tang Dynasty, the poems’ most prosperous period.

Geography

Rivers: The Yangtze River and the Yellow River

The longest river in China is Yangtze River. It is originates from the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and flows east wards through the middle of China and empties into the East China sea. It is 6,300 kilometers long, third in the world.

The second longest one in China is the Yellow River. It originates from the same plateau and flows east wards through north China and empties into the Bohai Sea. It is 5,500 kilometers long. Being the birthplace of Chinese, the Yellow River is always called the “Mother River” of China.

Mountains: Mount Tai

Mount Tai is located in Shangdong province. The fist emperor who came to Mt. Tai to offer sacrifices to heaven and earth was Emperor Qin. Subsequently, some emperors of th Han, Tang, and Song dynasties journeyed here to worship and pray to heaven.
Mt. Tai is 1,545 meters high and famous for sunrise view from the top.

Chinese minorities

With a history of more than 5,000 years, today China has 56 ethnic groups. In addition to the Han people, who form the majority of the population, there are 55 minority nationalities who constitutes 8 percent of China’s total.

There are five autonomous regions in the country equivalent to provinces: Inner Mongolia, Ningxia(Hui), Zinjiang(Uygru), Tibet,and Guangxi(Zhuang). In addition, in the small minority-compact communities in some provinces there are autonomous prefectures and autonomous counties.

Food

China is a renowned "Culinary Kingdom." In the past several thousand years, Chinese cuisine has become a complete culture system with its unique characteristics, and has given birth to tea culture, wine culture and so on. "food" is one of the most important part of China's abundant tourism resources.

Color, aroma and flavor are all important elements in Chinese cooking. Nutrition is also given a priority. Throughout the country, eight cuisines form: Shanghai cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Guangdong cuisine, Shandong cuisine, Anhui cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Beijing cuisine and Fujian cuisine.

Sports

Movies

The first group of sound films were released initially in 1931. Cai Chusheng's "Song of the Fisherman" In 1935 is the first Chinese film that won an international award, a prize at the Moscow Film Festival. In 1959, the China Film Archive was founded in Beijing. Chen Kaige's "Yellow Earth" caused a sensation in 1985 at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, which started China's era of foreign festival success.

From1988 to 1999, quite a few films gained international awards, which included Zhang Yimou's Golden Bear for "Red Sorghum" at the 1988 Berlin International Film Festival, Zhang's Golden Lion for "The Story of Qiu Ju" at the 1992 Venice International Film Festival, at which Gong Li also won best-actress honors and emerged as the first major international film star from mainland China, Chen Kaige's Palme d'Or for "Farewell My Concubine" at the 1993 Festival de Cannes, and Zhang's Golden Lion for "Not One Less" in Venice in 1999.