The tomb of Yellow Emperor, also called Huangdiling, is the tomb of Yellow Emperor, a legendary Chinese sovereign and cultural hero who is considered in Chinese mythology to be the ancestor of all Han Chinese.
The tomb of Yellow Emperor placed at Qiaoshan,Huangling,Yan'an,China, it is one of the Key Historical Site under State Protection of China.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Taixue
Taixue which literally means Greatest Study or Learning was the highest rank of educational establishment in Ancient China between the Han Dynasty and Sui Dynasty. It was replaced by the Guozijian. The first nationwide government school system in China was established in 3 CE under Emperor Ping of Han, with the taixue located in the capital of Chang'an and local schools established in the and in the main cities of the smaller .
Taixue taught Confucianism and Chinese literature among other things for the high level civil service, although a civil service system based upon examination rather than recommendation was not introduced until the Sui and not perfected until the Song Dynasty .
Taixue taught Confucianism and Chinese literature among other things for the high level civil service, although a civil service system based upon examination rather than recommendation was not introduced until the Sui and not perfected until the Song Dynasty .
St. Louis Chinese Culture Day
is a special event that happens in the Botanical Gardens in St. Louis, Missouri.
During this special occasion, people celebrate and learn about Chinese culture, dances, and songs. People from China perform at the Missouri Botanical Garden including people from two Chinese schools in St. Louis. The performances include lion dancing, Peking Opera, the Chinese Waist Drum, aerobatics, and martial arts.
During this special occasion, people celebrate and learn about Chinese culture, dances, and songs. People from China perform at the Missouri Botanical Garden including people from two Chinese schools in St. Louis. The performances include lion dancing, Peking Opera, the Chinese Waist Drum, aerobatics, and martial arts.
Song of Pig
Song of Pig is a freely downloadable song by Xiang Xiang , who quickly became a popular Internet pop star in China. According to one of its hosted sites, It has been downloaded a billion times throughout China, Singapore and Malaysia. The song's lyrics describe a pig. An MP3 file of the track was placed on 163888.net. It is the title track of .
The lyrics of the go as follows:
:猪！你的鼻子有两个孔，感冒时的你还挂着鼻涕牛牛
:Pig, there are two holes on your nose; when you catch a cold, you are snorting
:猪！你有着黑漆漆的眼，望呀望呀望也看不到边
:Pig, you have black eyes; look and look yet cannot see to the side
:猪！你的耳朵是那么大，呼扇呼扇也听不到我在骂你傻
:Pig, your ears are so large; yell and yell but they can't hear that I'm cursing you silly
:猪！你的尾巴是卷又卷，原来跑跑跳跳，还离不开它
:Pig, you have a curling tail; you run and jump and still can't escape it
:猪头猪脑猪身猪尾巴
:Pig head, pig brain, pig body and pig tail
:从来不挑食的乖娃娃
:You are a well-behaved baby that is never picky about food
:每天睡到日晒三杆后
:Every day you sleep until after noon
:从不刷牙，从不打架
:You never brush your teeth and you never fight
Lyrics
The lyrics of the go as follows:
:猪！你的鼻子有两个孔，感冒时的你还挂着鼻涕牛牛
:Pig, there are two holes on your nose; when you catch a cold, you are snorting
:猪！你有着黑漆漆的眼，望呀望呀望也看不到边
:Pig, you have black eyes; look and look yet cannot see to the side
:猪！你的耳朵是那么大，呼扇呼扇也听不到我在骂你傻
:Pig, your ears are so large; yell and yell but they can't hear that I'm cursing you silly
:猪！你的尾巴是卷又卷，原来跑跑跳跳，还离不开它
:Pig, you have a curling tail; you run and jump and still can't escape it
:猪头猪脑猪身猪尾巴
:Pig head, pig brain, pig body and pig tail
:从来不挑食的乖娃娃
:You are a well-behaved baby that is never picky about food
:每天睡到日晒三杆后
:Every day you sleep until after noon
:从不刷牙，从不打架
:You never brush your teeth and you never fight
Slow slicing
:''For the Chinese medicinal mushroom, see Lingzhi.''
Slow slicing , also translated as the ''slow process'', the ''lingering death'', or ''death by a thousand cuts'', was a form of execution used in China from roughly AD 900 to its abolition in 1905. In this form of execution, the condemned person was killed by using a knife to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time. The term língchí derives from a classical description of ascending a mountain slowly.
Lingchi was reserved for crimes viewed as especially severe, such as treason and killing one's parents. The process involved tying the person to be executed to a wooden frame, usually in a public place. The flesh was then cut from the body in multiple slices in a process that was not specified in detail in Chinese law and therefore most likely varied. In later times, opium was sometimes administered either as an act of mercy or as a way of preventing fainting. The punishment worked on three levels: as a form of public humiliation, as a slow and lingering death, and as a punishment after death.
According to the Confucian principle of filial piety or ''xiao'' to alter one's body or to cut the body is a form of unfilial practice. Lingchi therefore contravenes the demands of ''xiao''. In addition, to be cut to pieces meant that the body of the victim would not be 'whole' in a spiritual life after death.
This method of execution became a fixture in the image of China among some Westerners. It appears in various accounts of Chinese cruelty, such as Harold Lamb's 1930s biography of Genghis Khan.
''Lingchi'' could be used for the torture and execution of a living person, or applied as an act of humiliation after death. It was meted out for offenses such as acts of treason, murder, or assault on one's parents. There are problems in obtaining accurate details of how the executions took place, but the executions consisted of cuts to the arms, legs, and chest leading to amputation of limbs and followed by decapitation or a stab to the heart.
Art historian James Elkins argues that extant photos of the execution make obvious that the "death by division" involved some degree of dismemberment while the subject was living. However, Elkins also argues that, contrary to the apocryphal version of "death by a thousand cuts", the actual process could not have lasted long, the condemned could likely not have remained conscious and aware after one or two severe wounds, and the entire process could not have included more than a "few dozen" wounds. Reliable eyewitnesses, like Meadows , describe a fast process lasting no longer than 15 to 20 minutes. Available photographic records seem to prove the speed of the event as the crowd remains consistent across the series of photographs. Moreover, these photographs show a striking contrast between the stream of blood that soaks the left flank of the victim and the lack of blood on the right side, possibly showing that the first or the second cut has reached the heart. . The ''coup de gr?ce'' was all the more certain when the family could afford a bribe.
The western perception of ''língchí'' has often differed considerably from the actual practice, and some misconceptions persist to the present. The distinction between the sensationalized Western myth and the Chinese reality was noted by Westerners as early as 1895. That year, Australian traveler , who claimed to have witnessed an execution by slicing, wrote that "Ling Chi commonly, and quite wrongly, translated as 'death by slicing into 10,000 pieces' — a truly awful description of a punishment whose cruelty has been extraordinarily misrepresented ... The mutilation is ghastly and excites our horror as an example of barbarian cruelty; but it is not cruel, and need not excite our horror, since the mutilation is done, not before death, but after."
According to apocryphal lore, ''língchí'' began when the torturer, wielding an extremely sharp knife, began by putting out the eyes, rendering the condemned incapable of seeing the remainder of the torture and, presumably, adding considerably to the psychological terror of the procedure. Successive rather minor cuts chopped off ears, nose, tongue, fingers, toes, and such before proceeding to grosser cuts that removed large portions of flesh from more sizable parts, e.g., thighs and shoulders. The entire process was said to last three days, and to total 3,600 cuts. The heavily carved bodies of the deceased were then put on a parade for a show in the public. Some victims were reportedly given doses of opium, but accounts differ as to whether the drug was said to amplify or alleviate suffering. There are discrepancies between descriptions and evaluations according to the authors' moral and religious background: Protestants tend to understate the physical ordeal of the condemned, while Catholics tended to exaggerate.
Some modern writers suggest that ''língchí'' — as a genuine adjunct to execution — was exaggerated in some retellings to become the more sensationalistic "death by a thousand cuts." This apparent confusion might be due to the novelty of slicing to Western observers, or attributed to mistranslation, cultural differences, racism or other factors. This idea is perhaps supported by at least one source: J. M. Roberts, in ''Twentieth Century: The History of the World, 1901 to 2000'' , writes "the traditional punishment of death by slicing ... became part of the western stereotype of Chinese backwardness as the 'death of a thousand cuts.'" Roberts then notes that slicing "was ordered, in fact, for K'ang Yu-Wei, a man termed the ' of China', and a major advocate of intellectual and government reform in the 1890s."
Although officially outlawed by the in 1905, língchí became a widespread Western symbol of the Chinese penal system from the 1910s on. Three sets of photographs shot by French soldiers in 1904-1905 were the basis for later mythification. The abolition was immediately enforced, and definite: no língchí was performed in China after April 1905; the reported cases are all based on mistaken dating of the last executions.
Regarding the use of opium, as related in the introduction to Morrison's book, Sir Meyrick Hewlett insisted that "most Chinese people sentenced to death were given large quantities of opium before execution, and Morrison avers that a charitable person would be permitted to push opium into the mouth of someone dying in agony, thus hastening the moment of decease." At the very least, such tales were deemed credible to British officials in China and other Western observers.
Língchí is known from the Five Dynasties period and became very widespread in the Song Dynasty . It first appeared in a Chinese code of laws for the non-Chinese Liao Dynasty .
The punishment remained in the Qing Dynasty code of laws for persons convicted of high treason and other serious crimes. Língchí was abolished as a result of the 1905 revision of the Chinese penal code by Shen Jiaben (沈家本, 1840-1913; . Reports from Qing dynasty jurists such as Shen Jiaben show that executioners' customs varied, as the regular way to perform this penalty was not specified in detail in the Penal code.
It should be pointed out that the Chinese were not alone in carrying out punishments regarded as . However, as Western countries moved to abolish similar punishments, some Westerners began to focus attention on the methods of execution used in China. As early as 1866, the year after the last recorded case of Hanging, drawing, and quartering, Thomas Francis Wade, then serving with the British diplomatic mission in China, unsuccessfully urged the abolition of língchí.
It is worthy of notice that the first proposal for abolishing lingchi was submitted by Lu You 陸游 in a memorial to the Emperor under the Southern Song dynasty. Lu You's elaborated argumentation against lingchi was piously copied and transmitted by generations of scholars, among them influential jurists of all dynasties, till the late Qing reformer Shen Jiaben introduced it in his 1905 memorial that obtained the abolition, eventually. This anti-lingchi trend met a more general attitude opposed to "cruel and unusual punishments' which the Tang had not included in the canonic table of "Five Punishments," and defined the plainly legal ways of punishing crime. Hence the abolitionist trend is deeply ingrained in the Chinese legal tradition, rather than
being purely derived from Western influences.
* , ''The People and Politics of the Far East'', . Norman was a widely travelled writer and photographer whose collection is now owned by the University of Cambridge. Norman claimed to have witnessed such an execution, and gave a graphic account in his book. " grasping handfuls from the fleshy parts of the body such as the thighs and breasts slices them away... the limbs are cut off piecemeal at the wrists and ankles, the elbows and knees, shoulders and hips. Finally the condemned is stabbed to the heart and the head is cut off".
*, ''An Australian in China'', differs from some other reports in stating that most ''Ling Chi'' mutilations are in fact made ''post mortem''. Morrison wrote his description based on an account related by a claimed eyewitness: "The prisoner is tied to a rude cross: he is invariably deeply under the influence of opium. The executioner, standing before him, with a sharp sword makes two quick incisions above the eyebrows, and draws down the portion of skin over each eye, then he makes two more quick incisions across the breast, and in the next moment he pierces the heart, and death is instantaneous. Then he cuts the body in pieces; and the degradation consists in the fragmentary shape in which the prisoner has to appear in heaven. "
* Tienstin , ''The China Year Book'' , p 1401, contains contemporary reports from fighting in Guangzhou between the Nanjing Government and Communist forces. Stories of various atrocities are related, including accounts of ''língchí''. There is no mention of opium, and these cases appear to be government propaganda.
* ''The Times'', , A ''Times'' journalist reported from the city of Canton that the communists were targeting Christians priests and that "It was announced that Father Wong was to be publicly executed by the slicing process."
*George Roerich, Trails to Inmost Asia , p119, relates the story of the assassination of Yang Tseng-hsin, Governor of Sinkiang in July 1928, by the bodyguard of his foreign minister Fan Yao-han. Fan Yao-han was seized, and he and his daughter were both executed by ''ling-chi'', the minister made to watch his daughter's execution first. However Roerich was not an eyewitness to this event, having already returned to India by the date of the execution.
*George Riley Scott, ''History of Torture'', claims that many were executed this way by the Chinese communist insurgents; he cites claims made by the Nanking government in 1927. It is perhaps uncertain whether these claims were anti-communist propaganda. Scott also calls the it "the slicing process" and differentiates between the different types of execution in different parts of the country. There is no mention of opium. Riley's book contains a picture of a sliced corpse that was killed in Guangzhou in 1927. It gives no indication of whether the slicing was done post-mortem. Scott claims it was common for the relatives of the condemned to bribe the executioner to kill the condemned before the slicing procedure began.
*Sterling Seagrave's ''Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China'' —a semi-fictionalised biography of Empress Dowager Cixi—reports that "the Death of a Thousand Cuts ... is a classic form of execution practiced by every in China's history ... it was not at all exceptional in cases of high treason."
*Louise Levathes, ''When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433'' : "Huang was condemned to a particularly gruesome execution for high treason known as ''ling chi'', or 'death by one thousand cuts.' Cuts were made on his chest, abdomen, arms, legs, and back, so that he very slowly bled to death over a period of time, perhaps as long as three days."
*Mark Costanzo, ''Just Revenge: Costs and Consequences of the Death Penalty'' : "'Death by a thousand cuts'—where small bits of flesh were carved away over a period of days—was sometimes used in ancient China."
* Academia Sinica resources website: 1. /1912-1925 /1915──中華民國四年乙卯/七月 - 190 - 7,17 革 命 黨 人 鍾 明 光 炸 傷 廣 東 將 軍 龍 濟 光 。This means that Zhong Mingguang, from the Revolutionnary Party Geming dang, would have been executed by língchí for an attempt at bombing General Long Jiguang. But on this event, the most reliable Boorman Biographical dictionaary, II, 456 , reads: “Lung Chi-kuang, who had become one of Yuan’s most trusted henchmen, further enraged the Kwangtung populace when he ordered a lanter procession in Canton to celebrate Yuan’s diplomatic “success.” When Lung went to visit his brother on 17 July, during a flood in Canton, Chung Ming-kuang, a member of the worker’s assassination group, seized the opportunity to throw a bomb at him. It killed 17 members of Lung Chi-kuang’s bodyguard and the assassin, but Long received only a foot wound”. So, Zhong Mingguang did not suffer língchí as a form of execution, for he died from his own bombing. It is not known whether he was mutilated after death.
One account reports that United States Marine Corps members stationed in and around Shanghai between 1927 and 1941 brought evidence of human rights abuses to the United States: "The prevalence of executions and torture is evidenced by the scrapbooks brought back from China by the Marines. There are photographs of firing squads, beheadings, disembowelments, rape and such torture as 'the death of a thousand cuts.'"
As the online Marine history notes, "Apparently these photographs were commercially available , because there are exact duplicates in many scrapbooks with the name of a commercial studio stamped on the backs of the photographs." It is possible that photos from the 1910s were mistakenly associated with the ongoing atrocities of China in the 1920s, and the ''língchí'' photos were sold as curios.
Photographs from this same period, including lines of beheaded corpses, non-Chinese diplomats killed by gunfire, and a ''língchí'' victim, can be found in George Ryley Scott's ''A History of Torture.''
The first Western photographs of língchí were taken in 1890 in Guangzhou .
French soldiers stationed in Beijing had the opportunity to photograph three different língchí executions in 1905:
*Wang Weiqin 王維勤, a former Official who killed two families, executed on the 31 October 1904:
*Unknown, reason unknown, possibly a young deranged boy who killed his mother, and was executed in January 1905. Photographs were published by Dumas in 1934 ''Nouveau traité de psychologie '' , and again namely by Bataille, in fact by Lo Duca, who mistakenly appended abstracts of Fou-tchou-li's executions as related by Carpeaux .
*Fou-tchou-li , a Mongol guard who killed his master, the prince of Inner Mongolian Aohan Banner, and who was executed on the 10 April 1905; as ''língchí'' was to be abolished two weeks later, this was presumably the last attested case of it in Chinese history . Photographs appeared in books by Matignon , and Carpeaux , the latter claiming that he was present. Carpeaux's narrative was mistakenly, but persistently, associated to photographs published by Dumas and Bataille. Even related to the correct set of photos, Carpeaux's narrative is highly dubious; for instance, an examination of the Chinese judicial archives show that Carpeaux bluntly invented the execution decree below:
The execution proclamation is reported to state "'The Mongolian Princes demand that the aforesaid Fou-Tchou-Le, guilty of the murder of Prince Ao-Han-Ouan, be burned alive, but the Emperor finds this torture too cruel and condemns Fou-Tchou-Li to slow death by Leng-Tch-e . Respect this!"
Photographic material and other sources are available online at the Chinese Torture Database hosted by the Institut d'Asie Orientale
Other uses or citations of the 1905 photographs include:
*Georges Bataille
:Adrien Borel, Georges Bataille's analyst, introduced Bataille to the photographs. Bataille became fascinated by the photographs, reportedly gazing at them daily. He included the photos in his ''The Tears of Eros''.
This book has been criticized for allegedly dubious content
*Julio Cortázar
:Julio Cortázar in his 1963 novel Rayuela apparently refers to Língchí in chapter 14, where Oliveira is looking at a set of Chinese execution pictures owned by Wong.
*''Hannibal''
:The 1905 incident inspired a brief reference in Thomas Harris's novel '''' : "...police photographs of his outrages were ged to collectors of hideous arcana. They were second in popularity only to the execution of Fou-Tchou-Li."
*Susan Sontag
:Susan Sontag mentions the 1905 case in ''Regarding the Pain of Others'' . One reviewer wrote that though Sontag includes no photographs in her book—a volume about photography—"she does tantalisingly describe a photograph that obsessed the philosopher Georges Bataille, in which a criminal, while being chopped up and slowly by executioners, rolls his eyes heavenwards in bliss."
*John Zorn
:Saxophonist and composer John Zorn used at least one of the 1905 photos with his 1992 album, ''''.
*Chen Chien-jen
:Inspired by the 1905 photos, Chinese artist Chen Chien-jen created a 25-minute motion picture called ''Lingchi'', which has generated some controversy.
In his novel ''The Journeyer'', author Gary Jennings demonstrates the distinction between Western myth and Chinese reality by referring to the "Death of a Thousand" as a torture procedure he explains thus: One thousand pieces of paper are placed in a container, and a paper is drawn out by the Fondler to determine where the cut will be made. Having determined that there are 333 body parts, each of these parts is represented three times . For example, the pinky finger - when the first paper is drawn denoting the pinkie finger, perhaps the digit will be removed to the first joint. The second time the pinky finger paper is drawn, another section to the next joint is amputated. The third time the pinky finger paper is drawn, the rest of the finger is amputated. Jennings also fictionalizes in the book that, in an extended form of the torture, the body parts and blood are fed to the condemned as his only nourishment.
In the novel Flashman and the Dragon by George MacDonald Fraser, reference is made to a prisoner being bound tightly in a thin wire mesh through which nubs of flesh protrude. These are then cut off by the torturer with a sharp razor. In order to kill the prisoner, the razor is run quickly over many nubs of flesh at once.
In Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee novels, The sagacious Judge Dee is sometimes required to oversee the execution of criminals sentenced to die this way. When he deems it merciful, he orders the executioner to make the final cut first.
In Malcolm Bosse's novel "The Examination", Hong, the brother of Chen, is subjected to this torture, although he is not killed.
In the film , Jane Fonda plays the lead role who is sentenced to death by being placed in a container of budgerigars, where the multitude of cuts from the birds' claws and beaks are intended to kill her.
In Amy Tan's novel "The Joy Luck Club", the first story told by Lena St. Clair, "The Voice from the Wall", features the death of a thousand cuts.
In Mercedes Lackey's book "The Serpent's Shadow", an evil priestess of Kali uses the "Death of a Thousand Cuts" as a method of sacrifice. The intent is to increase the amount of magical power produced by prolonging the sacrifice's pain, suffering and eventual death.
In the 1966 film The Conqueror, this execution was called the "Slow Death." Three of the main characters threaten to see the punishment inflicted at different points in the story. The "Slow Death" as described in the Conqueror accords with the more sensationalistic depictions of Slow Slicing described above, but with the added refinement that the victim's severed parts are to be fed to animals before his very eyes.
In the film , US Navy machinist's mate Jake Holman witnesses a friend, engine room coolie Po-Han being punished in this manner by an angry mob. He then proceeds to shoot him in the head to spare him further suffering*.
In the film Rush Hour 3, the Death by 1000 Cuts is mentioned. Inspector Lee receives his first cut, but defeats his enemy before receiving further wounds.
The phrase "death of a thousand cuts" is often used metaphorically to describe the gradual or destruction of something, such as an institution or program, by repeated minor attacks. The term is also used in business management to describe a product or idea that is damaged or destroyed by too many minor changes.
Leng Tch'e is also the name of a Belgium Grindcore supergroup. It features members of Aborted, Permanent Death and Dark Ages.
In the 1960s British comedy film Carry On up the Khyber, the Qazi of Kalabar orders the punishment of 'death by a thousand cuts' to his British hostages. When the Qazi's daughter objects, he retorts, 'Nonsense, the British are used to cuts!'
*Liu Jin — a eunuch during the Ming Dynasty.
*Yuan Chonghuan — a famous military leader.
Slow slicing , also translated as the ''slow process'', the ''lingering death'', or ''death by a thousand cuts'', was a form of execution used in China from roughly AD 900 to its abolition in 1905. In this form of execution, the condemned person was killed by using a knife to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time. The term língchí derives from a classical description of ascending a mountain slowly.
Lingchi was reserved for crimes viewed as especially severe, such as treason and killing one's parents. The process involved tying the person to be executed to a wooden frame, usually in a public place. The flesh was then cut from the body in multiple slices in a process that was not specified in detail in Chinese law and therefore most likely varied. In later times, opium was sometimes administered either as an act of mercy or as a way of preventing fainting. The punishment worked on three levels: as a form of public humiliation, as a slow and lingering death, and as a punishment after death.
According to the Confucian principle of filial piety or ''xiao'' to alter one's body or to cut the body is a form of unfilial practice. Lingchi therefore contravenes the demands of ''xiao''. In addition, to be cut to pieces meant that the body of the victim would not be 'whole' in a spiritual life after death.
This method of execution became a fixture in the image of China among some Westerners. It appears in various accounts of Chinese cruelty, such as Harold Lamb's 1930s biography of Genghis Khan.
Description
''Lingchi'' could be used for the torture and execution of a living person, or applied as an act of humiliation after death. It was meted out for offenses such as acts of treason, murder, or assault on one's parents. There are problems in obtaining accurate details of how the executions took place, but the executions consisted of cuts to the arms, legs, and chest leading to amputation of limbs and followed by decapitation or a stab to the heart.
Art historian James Elkins argues that extant photos of the execution make obvious that the "death by division" involved some degree of dismemberment while the subject was living. However, Elkins also argues that, contrary to the apocryphal version of "death by a thousand cuts", the actual process could not have lasted long, the condemned could likely not have remained conscious and aware after one or two severe wounds, and the entire process could not have included more than a "few dozen" wounds. Reliable eyewitnesses, like Meadows , describe a fast process lasting no longer than 15 to 20 minutes. Available photographic records seem to prove the speed of the event as the crowd remains consistent across the series of photographs. Moreover, these photographs show a striking contrast between the stream of blood that soaks the left flank of the victim and the lack of blood on the right side, possibly showing that the first or the second cut has reached the heart. . The ''coup de gr?ce'' was all the more certain when the family could afford a bribe.
Western perceptions of ''lingchi''
The western perception of ''língchí'' has often differed considerably from the actual practice, and some misconceptions persist to the present. The distinction between the sensationalized Western myth and the Chinese reality was noted by Westerners as early as 1895. That year, Australian traveler , who claimed to have witnessed an execution by slicing, wrote that "Ling Chi commonly, and quite wrongly, translated as 'death by slicing into 10,000 pieces' — a truly awful description of a punishment whose cruelty has been extraordinarily misrepresented ... The mutilation is ghastly and excites our horror as an example of barbarian cruelty; but it is not cruel, and need not excite our horror, since the mutilation is done, not before death, but after."
According to apocryphal lore, ''língchí'' began when the torturer, wielding an extremely sharp knife, began by putting out the eyes, rendering the condemned incapable of seeing the remainder of the torture and, presumably, adding considerably to the psychological terror of the procedure. Successive rather minor cuts chopped off ears, nose, tongue, fingers, toes, and such before proceeding to grosser cuts that removed large portions of flesh from more sizable parts, e.g., thighs and shoulders. The entire process was said to last three days, and to total 3,600 cuts. The heavily carved bodies of the deceased were then put on a parade for a show in the public. Some victims were reportedly given doses of opium, but accounts differ as to whether the drug was said to amplify or alleviate suffering. There are discrepancies between descriptions and evaluations according to the authors' moral and religious background: Protestants tend to understate the physical ordeal of the condemned, while Catholics tended to exaggerate.
Some modern writers suggest that ''língchí'' — as a genuine adjunct to execution — was exaggerated in some retellings to become the more sensationalistic "death by a thousand cuts." This apparent confusion might be due to the novelty of slicing to Western observers, or attributed to mistranslation, cultural differences, racism or other factors. This idea is perhaps supported by at least one source: J. M. Roberts, in ''Twentieth Century: The History of the World, 1901 to 2000'' , writes "the traditional punishment of death by slicing ... became part of the western stereotype of Chinese backwardness as the 'death of a thousand cuts.'" Roberts then notes that slicing "was ordered, in fact, for K'ang Yu-Wei, a man termed the ' of China', and a major advocate of intellectual and government reform in the 1890s."
Although officially outlawed by the in 1905, língchí became a widespread Western symbol of the Chinese penal system from the 1910s on. Three sets of photographs shot by French soldiers in 1904-1905 were the basis for later mythification. The abolition was immediately enforced, and definite: no língchí was performed in China after April 1905; the reported cases are all based on mistaken dating of the last executions.
Regarding the use of opium, as related in the introduction to Morrison's book, Sir Meyrick Hewlett insisted that "most Chinese people sentenced to death were given large quantities of opium before execution, and Morrison avers that a charitable person would be permitted to push opium into the mouth of someone dying in agony, thus hastening the moment of decease." At the very least, such tales were deemed credible to British officials in China and other Western observers.
History
Língchí is known from the Five Dynasties period and became very widespread in the Song Dynasty . It first appeared in a Chinese code of laws for the non-Chinese Liao Dynasty .
The punishment remained in the Qing Dynasty code of laws for persons convicted of high treason and other serious crimes. Língchí was abolished as a result of the 1905 revision of the Chinese penal code by Shen Jiaben (沈家本, 1840-1913; . Reports from Qing dynasty jurists such as Shen Jiaben show that executioners' customs varied, as the regular way to perform this penalty was not specified in detail in the Penal code.
It should be pointed out that the Chinese were not alone in carrying out punishments regarded as . However, as Western countries moved to abolish similar punishments, some Westerners began to focus attention on the methods of execution used in China. As early as 1866, the year after the last recorded case of Hanging, drawing, and quartering, Thomas Francis Wade, then serving with the British diplomatic mission in China, unsuccessfully urged the abolition of língchí.
It is worthy of notice that the first proposal for abolishing lingchi was submitted by Lu You 陸游 in a memorial to the Emperor under the Southern Song dynasty. Lu You's elaborated argumentation against lingchi was piously copied and transmitted by generations of scholars, among them influential jurists of all dynasties, till the late Qing reformer Shen Jiaben introduced it in his 1905 memorial that obtained the abolition, eventually. This anti-lingchi trend met a more general attitude opposed to "cruel and unusual punishments' which the Tang had not included in the canonic table of "Five Punishments," and defined the plainly legal ways of punishing crime. Hence the abolitionist trend is deeply ingrained in the Chinese legal tradition, rather than
being purely derived from Western influences.
Published accounts
* , ''The People and Politics of the Far East'', . Norman was a widely travelled writer and photographer whose collection is now owned by the University of Cambridge. Norman claimed to have witnessed such an execution, and gave a graphic account in his book. " grasping handfuls from the fleshy parts of the body such as the thighs and breasts slices them away... the limbs are cut off piecemeal at the wrists and ankles, the elbows and knees, shoulders and hips. Finally the condemned is stabbed to the heart and the head is cut off".
*, ''An Australian in China'', differs from some other reports in stating that most ''Ling Chi'' mutilations are in fact made ''post mortem''. Morrison wrote his description based on an account related by a claimed eyewitness: "The prisoner is tied to a rude cross: he is invariably deeply under the influence of opium. The executioner, standing before him, with a sharp sword makes two quick incisions above the eyebrows, and draws down the portion of skin over each eye, then he makes two more quick incisions across the breast, and in the next moment he pierces the heart, and death is instantaneous. Then he cuts the body in pieces; and the degradation consists in the fragmentary shape in which the prisoner has to appear in heaven. "
* Tienstin , ''The China Year Book'' , p 1401, contains contemporary reports from fighting in Guangzhou between the Nanjing Government and Communist forces. Stories of various atrocities are related, including accounts of ''língchí''. There is no mention of opium, and these cases appear to be government propaganda.
* ''The Times'', , A ''Times'' journalist reported from the city of Canton that the communists were targeting Christians priests and that "It was announced that Father Wong was to be publicly executed by the slicing process."
*George Roerich, Trails to Inmost Asia , p119, relates the story of the assassination of Yang Tseng-hsin, Governor of Sinkiang in July 1928, by the bodyguard of his foreign minister Fan Yao-han. Fan Yao-han was seized, and he and his daughter were both executed by ''ling-chi'', the minister made to watch his daughter's execution first. However Roerich was not an eyewitness to this event, having already returned to India by the date of the execution.
*George Riley Scott, ''History of Torture'', claims that many were executed this way by the Chinese communist insurgents; he cites claims made by the Nanking government in 1927. It is perhaps uncertain whether these claims were anti-communist propaganda. Scott also calls the it "the slicing process" and differentiates between the different types of execution in different parts of the country. There is no mention of opium. Riley's book contains a picture of a sliced corpse that was killed in Guangzhou in 1927. It gives no indication of whether the slicing was done post-mortem. Scott claims it was common for the relatives of the condemned to bribe the executioner to kill the condemned before the slicing procedure began.
*Sterling Seagrave's ''Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China'' —a semi-fictionalised biography of Empress Dowager Cixi—reports that "the Death of a Thousand Cuts ... is a classic form of execution practiced by every in China's history ... it was not at all exceptional in cases of high treason."
*Louise Levathes, ''When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433'' : "Huang was condemned to a particularly gruesome execution for high treason known as ''ling chi'', or 'death by one thousand cuts.' Cuts were made on his chest, abdomen, arms, legs, and back, so that he very slowly bled to death over a period of time, perhaps as long as three days."
*Mark Costanzo, ''Just Revenge: Costs and Consequences of the Death Penalty'' : "'Death by a thousand cuts'—where small bits of flesh were carved away over a period of days—was sometimes used in ancient China."
* Academia Sinica resources website: 1. /1912-1925 /1915──中華民國四年乙卯/七月 - 190 - 7,17 革 命 黨 人 鍾 明 光 炸 傷 廣 東 將 軍 龍 濟 光 。This means that Zhong Mingguang, from the Revolutionnary Party Geming dang, would have been executed by língchí for an attempt at bombing General Long Jiguang. But on this event, the most reliable Boorman Biographical dictionaary, II, 456 , reads: “Lung Chi-kuang, who had become one of Yuan’s most trusted henchmen, further enraged the Kwangtung populace when he ordered a lanter procession in Canton to celebrate Yuan’s diplomatic “success.” When Lung went to visit his brother on 17 July, during a flood in Canton, Chung Ming-kuang, a member of the worker’s assassination group, seized the opportunity to throw a bomb at him. It killed 17 members of Lung Chi-kuang’s bodyguard and the assassin, but Long received only a foot wound”. So, Zhong Mingguang did not suffer língchí as a form of execution, for he died from his own bombing. It is not known whether he was mutilated after death.
U.S. military accounts
One account reports that United States Marine Corps members stationed in and around Shanghai between 1927 and 1941 brought evidence of human rights abuses to the United States: "The prevalence of executions and torture is evidenced by the scrapbooks brought back from China by the Marines. There are photographs of firing squads, beheadings, disembowelments, rape and such torture as 'the death of a thousand cuts.'"
As the online Marine history notes, "Apparently these photographs were commercially available , because there are exact duplicates in many scrapbooks with the name of a commercial studio stamped on the backs of the photographs." It is possible that photos from the 1910s were mistakenly associated with the ongoing atrocities of China in the 1920s, and the ''língchí'' photos were sold as curios.
Photographs from this same period, including lines of beheaded corpses, non-Chinese diplomats killed by gunfire, and a ''língchí'' victim, can be found in George Ryley Scott's ''A History of Torture.''
Photographs
1890
The first Western photographs of língchí were taken in 1890 in Guangzhou .
1905
French soldiers stationed in Beijing had the opportunity to photograph three different língchí executions in 1905:
*Wang Weiqin 王維勤, a former Official who killed two families, executed on the 31 October 1904:
*Unknown, reason unknown, possibly a young deranged boy who killed his mother, and was executed in January 1905. Photographs were published by Dumas in 1934 ''Nouveau traité de psychologie '' , and again namely by Bataille, in fact by Lo Duca, who mistakenly appended abstracts of Fou-tchou-li's executions as related by Carpeaux .
*Fou-tchou-li , a Mongol guard who killed his master, the prince of Inner Mongolian Aohan Banner, and who was executed on the 10 April 1905; as ''língchí'' was to be abolished two weeks later, this was presumably the last attested case of it in Chinese history . Photographs appeared in books by Matignon , and Carpeaux , the latter claiming that he was present. Carpeaux's narrative was mistakenly, but persistently, associated to photographs published by Dumas and Bataille. Even related to the correct set of photos, Carpeaux's narrative is highly dubious; for instance, an examination of the Chinese judicial archives show that Carpeaux bluntly invented the execution decree below:
The execution proclamation is reported to state "'The Mongolian Princes demand that the aforesaid Fou-Tchou-Le, guilty of the murder of Prince Ao-Han-Ouan, be burned alive, but the Emperor finds this torture too cruel and condemns Fou-Tchou-Li to slow death by Leng-Tch-e . Respect this!"
Photographic material and other sources are available online at the Chinese Torture Database hosted by the Institut d'Asie Orientale
Other uses or citations of the 1905 photographs include:
*Georges Bataille
:Adrien Borel, Georges Bataille's analyst, introduced Bataille to the photographs. Bataille became fascinated by the photographs, reportedly gazing at them daily. He included the photos in his ''The Tears of Eros''.
This book has been criticized for allegedly dubious content
*Julio Cortázar
:Julio Cortázar in his 1963 novel Rayuela apparently refers to Língchí in chapter 14, where Oliveira is looking at a set of Chinese execution pictures owned by Wong.
*''Hannibal''
:The 1905 incident inspired a brief reference in Thomas Harris's novel '''' : "...police photographs of his outrages were ged to collectors of hideous arcana. They were second in popularity only to the execution of Fou-Tchou-Li."
*Susan Sontag
:Susan Sontag mentions the 1905 case in ''Regarding the Pain of Others'' . One reviewer wrote that though Sontag includes no photographs in her book—a volume about photography—"she does tantalisingly describe a photograph that obsessed the philosopher Georges Bataille, in which a criminal, while being chopped up and slowly by executioners, rolls his eyes heavenwards in bliss."
*John Zorn
:Saxophonist and composer John Zorn used at least one of the 1905 photos with his 1992 album, ''''.
*Chen Chien-jen
:Inspired by the 1905 photos, Chinese artist Chen Chien-jen created a 25-minute motion picture called ''Lingchi'', which has generated some controversy.
Uses in fiction
In his novel ''The Journeyer'', author Gary Jennings demonstrates the distinction between Western myth and Chinese reality by referring to the "Death of a Thousand" as a torture procedure he explains thus: One thousand pieces of paper are placed in a container, and a paper is drawn out by the Fondler to determine where the cut will be made. Having determined that there are 333 body parts, each of these parts is represented three times . For example, the pinky finger - when the first paper is drawn denoting the pinkie finger, perhaps the digit will be removed to the first joint. The second time the pinky finger paper is drawn, another section to the next joint is amputated. The third time the pinky finger paper is drawn, the rest of the finger is amputated. Jennings also fictionalizes in the book that, in an extended form of the torture, the body parts and blood are fed to the condemned as his only nourishment.
In the novel Flashman and the Dragon by George MacDonald Fraser, reference is made to a prisoner being bound tightly in a thin wire mesh through which nubs of flesh protrude. These are then cut off by the torturer with a sharp razor. In order to kill the prisoner, the razor is run quickly over many nubs of flesh at once.
In Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee novels, The sagacious Judge Dee is sometimes required to oversee the execution of criminals sentenced to die this way. When he deems it merciful, he orders the executioner to make the final cut first.
In Malcolm Bosse's novel "The Examination", Hong, the brother of Chen, is subjected to this torture, although he is not killed.
In the film , Jane Fonda plays the lead role who is sentenced to death by being placed in a container of budgerigars, where the multitude of cuts from the birds' claws and beaks are intended to kill her.
In Amy Tan's novel "The Joy Luck Club", the first story told by Lena St. Clair, "The Voice from the Wall", features the death of a thousand cuts.
In Mercedes Lackey's book "The Serpent's Shadow", an evil priestess of Kali uses the "Death of a Thousand Cuts" as a method of sacrifice. The intent is to increase the amount of magical power produced by prolonging the sacrifice's pain, suffering and eventual death.
In the 1966 film The Conqueror, this execution was called the "Slow Death." Three of the main characters threaten to see the punishment inflicted at different points in the story. The "Slow Death" as described in the Conqueror accords with the more sensationalistic depictions of Slow Slicing described above, but with the added refinement that the victim's severed parts are to be fed to animals before his very eyes.
In the film , US Navy machinist's mate Jake Holman witnesses a friend, engine room coolie Po-Han being punished in this manner by an angry mob. He then proceeds to shoot him in the head to spare him further suffering*.
In the film Rush Hour 3, the Death by 1000 Cuts is mentioned. Inspector Lee receives his first cut, but defeats his enemy before receiving further wounds.
Other uses of the term
The phrase "death of a thousand cuts" is often used metaphorically to describe the gradual or destruction of something, such as an institution or program, by repeated minor attacks. The term is also used in business management to describe a product or idea that is damaged or destroyed by too many minor changes.
Leng Tch'e is also the name of a Belgium Grindcore supergroup. It features members of Aborted, Permanent Death and Dark Ages.
In the 1960s British comedy film Carry On up the Khyber, the Qazi of Kalabar orders the punishment of 'death by a thousand cuts' to his British hostages. When the Qazi's daughter objects, he retorts, 'Nonsense, the British are used to cuts!'
Famous people being executed by slow slicing
*Liu Jin — a eunuch during the Ming Dynasty.
*Yuan Chonghuan — a famous military leader.
Sinosphere
Sinosphere, also known as Chinese world, Chinese cultural sphere or Chinese-character cultural sphere , a term coined by linguist James Matisoff, is a grouping of countries and regions that are currently inhabited with a majority population or were historically under heavy influence. It is commonly used in areal linguistics to contrast with Indosphere, which refers to the cultures and languages influenced by proximity to India. James C. Bennett, founder of , sees it as a network commonwealth between Chinese people around the world. Bennett envisages the Sinosphere as consisting of Greater China, and to some extent, its overseas Chinese population in Southeast Asia, notable countries like Malaysia and Singapore. One of the main unifying links is based on the Chinese language.
In East Asian commentator circles, the term Chinese cultural sphere or Chinese character cultural sphere is used interchangeably for Sinosphere but covering a broader definition. Chinese cultural sphere denotes a grouping of countries, regions, and people with . This includes the Sinosphere under the Bennett definition plus countries that have extensive Chinese cultural heritage including Japan, Korea , Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. In French, the term '''' is used for this concept.
The concept of Sinosphere, as a network commonwealth, predated the popularization of the modern idea of Anglosphere in the English-speaking world, and developed largely independent of the Anglosphere. In the early post-Cold War period of the 1990s, economic reforms in the People's Republic of China, coupled with its recognition as a potent rival government of the Republic of China , increased economic and cultural exchanges between China and overseas Chinese itself, led to emergence of the concept of a network of Chinese people that transcend traditional national borders, political differences, and geographical distances.
Later on, this definition was broadened to include East Asian countries that had historical heritage influenced by China, countries such as Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and Vietnam have increased their economic and cultural contacts with the Chinese-speaking communities in both breadth and scope.
Sometimes in East Asia the term Sinosphere is used to imply the concept of East Asian integration.
Bennett considers the Sinosphere is unified by first language ability in . Asian commentators define the unifying factor as influence of traditional Chinese cultural beliefs, marked by Confucianist social and moralethics; Taoist with Mahayana Buddhist religious beliefs, and the use of Chinese characters as a major part of writing system .
Another indicator is the everyday use of chopsticks, which also originate in China.
The concept of Sinosphere seemed to undergo a setback with the Asian financial crisis and the advent of the dotcom economies in 1997 and 1998. However, with China's membership in the WTO and continuing economic development there are some repopularizations of the use of the term ''Sinosphere''.
The development of the Anglosphere provides an interesting contrast. The idea of a network commonwealth is common to both Sinosphere and Anglosphere, but the two visions were developed independently from each other. As of the first decade of the 21st century, the concept of the Anglosphere remains at large invisible among Asian commentators supportive of the Sinosphere. Among the few who have heard the concept, the common response is either derision or fear. Those who regard the Anglosphere with scorn take the route that regionalist consolidations will triumph over cultural affinities that are separated by geographical distances, and the Sinosphere is more consolidated on a geographical sense than the more dispersed Anglosphere, and also because they regard China's economic might will overtake the Anglosphere in the not too distant future. Detractors who see the Anglosphere as a threat to the Sinosphere regard the Anglosphere as a concept of Anglo-Saxon imperialism and hegemony, and translate the term into Chinese as in an attempt to evoke the memory over the historical Japanese concept of a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere during the World War II. Some other commentators point out India is an Anglosphere member and it has the potential to overtake China in economic developments. Some also see the Anglosphere's flexible nature and civil society base as points of strengths that the Sinosphere lacks and which will guarantee it will pose a serious competition against the Sinosphere.
Currently Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan are contested by both Anglosphere and Sinosphere proponents as under each respective sphere of influence. Singapore has a 76% Chinese majority, but its governmental, legal and business practice are more akin to English-speaking countries courtesy of its British colonial past. Hong Kong's position is similar to Singapore but its population is 98% Chinese and in Hong Kong, Chinese rather than English is commonly used as the daily communication medium. Japan has had ancient Chinese influence ever since the Taika Reform period; however, the Anglosphere has displaced China in influence from the time of Commodore Matthew Perry's visit in 1853. Post-World War II, Japanese political and military interests are more often aligned with the United States than with China.
In East Asian commentator circles, the term Chinese cultural sphere or Chinese character cultural sphere is used interchangeably for Sinosphere but covering a broader definition. Chinese cultural sphere denotes a grouping of countries, regions, and people with . This includes the Sinosphere under the Bennett definition plus countries that have extensive Chinese cultural heritage including Japan, Korea , Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. In French, the term '''' is used for this concept.
Modern Origins: 1990s
The concept of Sinosphere, as a network commonwealth, predated the popularization of the modern idea of Anglosphere in the English-speaking world, and developed largely independent of the Anglosphere. In the early post-Cold War period of the 1990s, economic reforms in the People's Republic of China, coupled with its recognition as a potent rival government of the Republic of China , increased economic and cultural exchanges between China and overseas Chinese itself, led to emergence of the concept of a network of Chinese people that transcend traditional national borders, political differences, and geographical distances.
Later on, this definition was broadened to include East Asian countries that had historical heritage influenced by China, countries such as Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and Vietnam have increased their economic and cultural contacts with the Chinese-speaking communities in both breadth and scope.
Sometimes in East Asia the term Sinosphere is used to imply the concept of East Asian integration.
Defining characteristics
Bennett considers the Sinosphere is unified by first language ability in . Asian commentators define the unifying factor as influence of traditional Chinese cultural beliefs, marked by Confucianist social and moralethics; Taoist with Mahayana Buddhist religious beliefs, and the use of Chinese characters as a major part of writing system .
Another indicator is the everyday use of chopsticks, which also originate in China.
Current Developments
The concept of Sinosphere seemed to undergo a setback with the Asian financial crisis and the advent of the dotcom economies in 1997 and 1998. However, with China's membership in the WTO and continuing economic development there are some repopularizations of the use of the term ''Sinosphere''.
The development of the Anglosphere provides an interesting contrast. The idea of a network commonwealth is common to both Sinosphere and Anglosphere, but the two visions were developed independently from each other. As of the first decade of the 21st century, the concept of the Anglosphere remains at large invisible among Asian commentators supportive of the Sinosphere. Among the few who have heard the concept, the common response is either derision or fear. Those who regard the Anglosphere with scorn take the route that regionalist consolidations will triumph over cultural affinities that are separated by geographical distances, and the Sinosphere is more consolidated on a geographical sense than the more dispersed Anglosphere, and also because they regard China's economic might will overtake the Anglosphere in the not too distant future. Detractors who see the Anglosphere as a threat to the Sinosphere regard the Anglosphere as a concept of Anglo-Saxon imperialism and hegemony, and translate the term into Chinese as in an attempt to evoke the memory over the historical Japanese concept of a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere during the World War II. Some other commentators point out India is an Anglosphere member and it has the potential to overtake China in economic developments. Some also see the Anglosphere's flexible nature and civil society base as points of strengths that the Sinosphere lacks and which will guarantee it will pose a serious competition against the Sinosphere.
Currently Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan are contested by both Anglosphere and Sinosphere proponents as under each respective sphere of influence. Singapore has a 76% Chinese majority, but its governmental, legal and business practice are more akin to English-speaking countries courtesy of its British colonial past. Hong Kong's position is similar to Singapore but its population is 98% Chinese and in Hong Kong, Chinese rather than English is commonly used as the daily communication medium. Japan has had ancient Chinese influence ever since the Taika Reform period; however, the Anglosphere has displaced China in influence from the time of Commodore Matthew Perry's visit in 1853. Post-World War II, Japanese political and military interests are more often aligned with the United States than with China.
Sinophile
A Sinophile is a non- person who demonstrates a strong interest in aspects of or who shows a specific interest in the Greater China region. It is also commonly used to describe those knowledgeable of Chinese history and culture , non-native Chinese language speakers, pro-Chinese politicians, and people perceived as having an obsessive interest in any of the above.
* Chinese languages
* Martial Arts, such as variants of Kung fu
* Chinese calligraphy and art
* Chinese horoscopes
* Ancient art of feng shui - Daoism
* Zen Buddhism
* Traditional cultural Chinese clothing Hanfu and modern cultural Chinese clothing Qipao
* On occasion, Sinophiles can also denote a sexual preference for Chinese or Asian partners. The term can be used to describe men or women but is more frequently used to describe men occasionally being used as a synonym for those displaying a real or perceived Asian fetish. The term is not inherently offensive as "yellow fever."
*Matteo Ricci , Jesuit priest; fluent in
*Gottfried Leibniz, polymath who was fascinated with Confucius and I Ching
*Pearl S. Buck , who wrote many novels about China.
*Anson Burlingame, ex-U.S. Congressman, who was appointed in 1861 to be the United States minister in China. He was an unabashed Sinophile, who was a voice of conciliation and moderation within the Western diplomatic community.
*Right Honourable Kevin Rudd , the Prime Minister of Australia, who majored in Chinese language and Chinese history in university and speaks fluent . He also adopted a Chinese name.
*Joseph Needham , a biochemist best known for his works on the history of Chinese science; learned Classical Chinese
*Matthew Pankhurst, a world renowned scholar infamous for his studies of the Chinese language, cullture, and woman.
*David Wilson, Baron Wilson of Tillyorn (, British diplomat and former Governor of Hong Kong; learned
* , missionary; fluent in
*Sir Cecil Clementi , British colonial administrator and former Governor of Hong Kong; fluent in Cantonese and Pekingnese
*Sir John Francis Davis , Sinologist, diplomat and former Governor of Hong Kong
*Sir Edward Youde , diplomat, Sinologist and former Governor of Hong Kong; fluent in Mandarin
*Sir David Akers-Jones , former administrator of Hong Kong and advisor to the government
Typical interests of Sinophiles
* Chinese languages
* Martial Arts, such as variants of Kung fu
* Chinese calligraphy and art
* Chinese horoscopes
* Ancient art of feng shui - Daoism
* Zen Buddhism
* Traditional cultural Chinese clothing Hanfu and modern cultural Chinese clothing Qipao
* On occasion, Sinophiles can also denote a sexual preference for Chinese or Asian partners. The term can be used to describe men or women but is more frequently used to describe men occasionally being used as a synonym for those displaying a real or perceived Asian fetish. The term is not inherently offensive as "yellow fever."
Notable Sinophiles
=
=*Matteo Ricci , Jesuit priest; fluent in
=
=*Gottfried Leibniz, polymath who was fascinated with Confucius and I Ching
=
=*Pearl S. Buck , who wrote many novels about China.
*Anson Burlingame, ex-U.S. Congressman, who was appointed in 1861 to be the United States minister in China. He was an unabashed Sinophile, who was a voice of conciliation and moderation within the Western diplomatic community.
=
=*Right Honourable Kevin Rudd , the Prime Minister of Australia, who majored in Chinese language and Chinese history in university and speaks fluent . He also adopted a Chinese name.
=
=*Joseph Needham , a biochemist best known for his works on the history of Chinese science; learned Classical Chinese
*Matthew Pankhurst, a world renowned scholar infamous for his studies of the Chinese language, cullture, and woman.
*David Wilson, Baron Wilson of Tillyorn (, British diplomat and former Governor of Hong Kong; learned
* , missionary; fluent in
*Sir Cecil Clementi , British colonial administrator and former Governor of Hong Kong; fluent in Cantonese and Pekingnese
*Sir John Francis Davis , Sinologist, diplomat and former Governor of Hong Kong
*Sir Edward Youde , diplomat, Sinologist and former Governor of Hong Kong; fluent in Mandarin
*Sir David Akers-Jones , former administrator of Hong Kong and advisor to the government
Shenzhen (comic)
Shenzhen is a black-and-white graphic novel by the Canadian Quebecois author Guy Delisle published in .
It documents Delisle's three-month deployment in December 1997 to Shenzhen, a big city developed by the People's Republic of China near Hong Kong, where he is acting as the liaison between Dupuis, a French animation producing company and a Chinese studio, where Chinese animators draw child-oriented films from the phase taking the French storyboards as a guide.
He struggles with boredom, the difficulties of and the culture shock of a Westerner in this profit-oriented Chinese city.
The book has 145 pages.
Some of the frames are drawn by Chinese artists and by a friend of Delisle's.
Delisle had already been to China in Nanjing.
He is deployed to Shenzhen as part of an outsourcing project, where he will spend three months in the Great Wall Hotel.
Unlike in Hong Kong, there are not many bilingual Chinese so he has language problems during his stay, including with the interpreters at work. Often he has to recourse to drawing or pointing to communicate.
Among his experiences of life in Shenzhen include a visit to a Chinese dentist to cure a toothache, but after seeing the unhygienic conditions of the clinic, he is relieved to find out it is just a case of mesialization.
Since the main leisure activity in Shenzhen is shopping, Delisle tries to read books, works for L'Association's '''' magazine, and buys Chinese artbooks .
He realizes that the ''Spirou'' that he liked as a child is no longer funny.
An allegory he applies to the Chinese rural exodus is the Divine Comedy with the Chinese countryside as the '''', the USA as the '''' and the big Chinese cities, Shenzhen, and Hongkong as intermediate rings.
He finds a copy of ''Théodore Poussin''.
His Chinese-speaking acquaintances bring him to try .
He finds and Hong Kong more interesting than Shenzhen.
The only tourist attraction he visits in the new city is the , since his Chinese friends are not interested in Splendid China.
He spends a Christmas dinner with a Chinese animator who, while a fan of Rembrandt has only a black-and-white photo of ''Bathsheba at Her Bath''.
There is less political commentary than in his later '''' comic.
It documents Delisle's three-month deployment in December 1997 to Shenzhen, a big city developed by the People's Republic of China near Hong Kong, where he is acting as the liaison between Dupuis, a French animation producing company and a Chinese studio, where Chinese animators draw child-oriented films from the phase taking the French storyboards as a guide.
He struggles with boredom, the difficulties of and the culture shock of a Westerner in this profit-oriented Chinese city.
The book has 145 pages.
Some of the frames are drawn by Chinese artists and by a friend of Delisle's.
Plot
Delisle had already been to China in Nanjing.
He is deployed to Shenzhen as part of an outsourcing project, where he will spend three months in the Great Wall Hotel.
Unlike in Hong Kong, there are not many bilingual Chinese so he has language problems during his stay, including with the interpreters at work. Often he has to recourse to drawing or pointing to communicate.
Among his experiences of life in Shenzhen include a visit to a Chinese dentist to cure a toothache, but after seeing the unhygienic conditions of the clinic, he is relieved to find out it is just a case of mesialization.
Since the main leisure activity in Shenzhen is shopping, Delisle tries to read books, works for L'Association's '''' magazine, and buys Chinese artbooks .
He realizes that the ''Spirou'' that he liked as a child is no longer funny.
An allegory he applies to the Chinese rural exodus is the Divine Comedy with the Chinese countryside as the '''', the USA as the '''' and the big Chinese cities, Shenzhen, and Hongkong as intermediate rings.
He finds a copy of ''Théodore Poussin''.
His Chinese-speaking acquaintances bring him to try .
He finds and Hong Kong more interesting than Shenzhen.
The only tourist attraction he visits in the new city is the , since his Chinese friends are not interested in Splendid China.
He spends a Christmas dinner with a Chinese animator who, while a fan of Rembrandt has only a black-and-white photo of ''Bathsheba at Her Bath''.
There is less political commentary than in his later '''' comic.
Shen (clam-monster)
In Chinese mythology, the shen or chen is a shapeshifting or sea monster believed to create mirages.
Chinese classic texts use the word ''shen'' to mean "a large shellfish" that was associated with funerals and "an aquatic monster" that could change its shape, which was later associated with "mirages".
The word used to mean a shellfish, or mollusk, identified as an oyster, mussel, or giant clam such as the Pearl of Lao Tzu. While early Chinese dictionaries treat ''shen'' as a general term for "mollusca", the ''Erya'' defines it as a large ''yao'' which means shellfish, clam, scallop, or mother-of-pearl. According to ''Shuowen Jiezi'', an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary of the Han Dynasty defines it a large ''ge'' , meaning clam, oyster, shellfish, or bivalve.
Chinese classics variously record that ''shen'' was salted as a food , named a "lacquered wine barrel" used in sacrifices to earth spirits , and its shells were used to make hoes and receptacles . They also record two ''shen-'' related with funerals: ''shenche'' "hearse" and ''shentan'' 蜃炭 "oyster-lime; white clay", which was especially used as mortar for mausoleum walls .
Wolfram Eberhard describes the ''shen'' mussel as "a strange animal", and mentions the ''Zhouli'''s Zhangshen 掌蜃 "Manager of ''Shen''", who was a special government official in charge of acquiring them for royal sacrifices and funerals. "It is not clear why these mussels were placed into the tombs," he admits, possibly either as a sacrifice to the earth god or "the shell lime was used simply for a purifying and protective effect."
Edward H. Schafer, who aptly translates ''shen'' or ''chen'' as "clam-monster", traces its linguistic evolution from originally designating a "large bivalve mollusc",
Beginning as an unassuming marine invertebrate, the ch'en was later imagined as a gaping, pearl-producing clam, possibly to be identified with the giant clams of tropical seas, for instance ''Tridacna''. Finally, by early medieval times, it had become a monster lurking in submarine grottoes, and was sometimes endowed with the attributes of a dragon – or, more likely, under influence, a nāga. It expressed its artistic nature by belching up bubbles and frothy clots. These foamy structures were sometimes worked into buildings. …The plastic exhalations of the clam-monster sometimes burst the film of surface tension and appeared to astonished mariners as stunning mansions adrift on the surface of the deep.
Second, ''shen'' 蜃 meant the "clam-monster" that miraculously transformed shapes. The ''Shuowen jiezi'' defines ''ge'' 蛤 as the "category of ''shen''", which includes three creatures that transform within the sea. A ''que'' "sparrow" transforms into a ''ge'' 蛤, or ''muli'' 牡厲 "oyster" in dialect, after 1000 years; a ''yan'' "swallow" transforms into a ''haige'' 海蛤 after 100 years; and a ''fulei'' 復絫, or ''fuyi'' 服翼 "bat", transforms into a ''kuige'' 魁蛤 after it gets old. These kinds of legendary animal "transformations" – ''hua'' "transform, change, convert, turn into; metamorphose; take the form of" – are a common theme in Chinese folklore, particularly for dragons like the ''shen''. The "dragon's transformations are unlimited", writes Visser , and "it is no wonder that Chinese literature abounds with stories about dragons which had assumed the shape of men, animals, or objects.
The ''Yueling'' 月令 "Monthly Commands" chapter of the ''Liji'' lists sparrows and pheasants transforming into shellfish during the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. In the last month of autumn, " Small birds enter the great water and become mollusks", and in the first month of winter, " Pheasants enter the great water and become large mollusks." While many other classical texts repeat this seasonal legend about pheasants that transform in ''dashui'' 大水 "great water; flood", the ''Da Dai Liji'' and '''' say they transform in the ''huai'' 淮 "Huai River." According to Chinese folklore swallows are a favorite food of both Chinese ''long'' and ''shen'' 蜃 dragons. Read explains, "Hence if people eat swallow's flesh they should not go out and cross a river ."
Eberhard equates the ''shen'' 蜃 with the ''jiaolong'' 蛟龍 "flood dragon; crocodile" and compares tales of both these dragons attacking cattle in rivers. The 1596 CE ''Bencao gangmu'' Chinese materia medica describes the ''shen'' or ''chen'' 蜃 under the ''jiaolong'' entry, with quotes from the ''Yueling'' and Lu Dian's ''Piya''.
A kind of crocodile shaped like a huge serpent. Horned like a dragon, with a red mane. Below the middle of the back it has scales inversely arranged. It lives on swallows. It spurts forth clouds of vapour in huge rings. It appears when it is going to rain. The fat and wax is made into candles which have a fragrant smoke noticeable 100 steps away, and ascend in layers in the air. The ''Yueh-Ling'' says the pheasant metamorphoses into a ''Ch'un'' when it enters the water. Lu Tien says that serpents and tortoises together produce tortoises but cohabitation of tortoises and pheasants produce ''Ch'un'', although they are different animals they are moved by the same influences. Other records refer to its relationship to the clam.
The shape-changing ''shen'' is believed to cause a mirage or . ''Shen-'' synonyms meaning "mirage" include ''shenlou'' 蜃樓 , ''shenqi'' 蜃氣 , ''shenqilou'' 蜃氣樓, ''haishishenlou'' 海市蜃樓 , and ''shenjing'' 蜃景 . In vocabulary, ''shinkirō'' 蜃気楼 is the usual word for "mirage". Compare the association between the ''long'' 龍 "dragon" and "waterspouts", evident in words like ''longjuan'' 龍卷 "waterspout" and ''longjuanfeng'' 龍卷風 "cyclone; tornado" .
Most Chinese characters are written with a "phonetic" element that roughly indicates pronunciation with a "" or "signific" that suggests semantic field. ''Shen'''s standard and antiquated characters combine the ''chen'' "dragon , duodecimal 5th of the 12 Earthly Branches; period from 7-9 AM; time period; occasion; star; celestial body" phonetic with the ''chong'' "insect; reptile" radical.
A variety of other characters utilize this phonetic ''chen'' 辰 "5th; dragon", which the ''Wenlin'' says "may have depicted an ancient kind of hoe" in ancient oracle bone script . Some etymologically significant examples include:
*''chen'' 晨 "dragon star"
*''zhen'' 震 "thunder; quake"
*''zhen'' 振 "shake; stimulate"
*''zhen'' 娠 "pregnant"
*''shen'' 脤 "sacrificial meat"
This ''chen'' 晨 or ''chenxing'' 辰星 "dragon star" is an asterism in the traditional Chinese constellations, a morning star within the Azure Dragon that is associated with east and spring. Specifically, the "dragon star" is in the 5th and 6th lunar Twenty-eight mansions, with its ''xin'' 心 "" and ''wei'' 尾 "" corresponding to the Western constellations of Antares and Scorpius.
Carr etymologically hypothesizes that the ''chen'' < *' 辰 phonetic series split between *' "dragon" and *' "thunder". The former words include aquatic ''shen'' < *' 蜃 "large shellfish; sea dragon", celestial ''chen'' < *' 晨 "dragon star", and possibly through dragon-emperor association, ''chen'' < *' 宸 "imperial palace; mansion". The latter ones, reflecting the belief that dragons cause rainfall and thunder, include ''zhen'' < *' 震 "thunder; shake", ''zhen'' < *' 振 "shake; scare", and ''ting'' < *''d'ieng'' 霆 "thunderbolt".
Schuessler provides more refined reconstructions and etymologies:
*''shen'' < *'''' 蜃 "'Clam, oyster' … 'some kind of dragon'."
*''chen'' < *'''' 辰 "The 5th of the Earthly branches, identified with the dragon … cf. 蜃 'some kind of dragon'", which might be an Austro-Asiatic language loan from Vietnamese ''tr?n'' or Mon ''klan'' "python".
*''chen'' < *'''' 晨 or 辰 "Time when life begins to stir: 'early morning' … "start of growing/agricultural season in the 3rd month; heavenly bodies that mark that time' … 'heavenly body', 'time'."
*''zhen'' < *'''' 振 or 震 " 'to shake, rouse, quake' … 'to alarm, fear', 'scared', 'thunder', 'move'".
*''zhen'' < '''' 娠 "'Pregnant', 'become pregnant' … is derived from 'to shake, rouse, excite' , hence lit. 'start stirring, moving' ."
In the present day, the mythical ''shen'' "clam-monster" is best known through the everyday words for "mirage; illusion", typically Chinese ''haishishenlou'' 海市蜃樓, Korean ''shingiru'' ??? 蜃氣樓, and Japanese ''shinkirō'' 蜃気楼.
In the Chinese novel ''Water Margin'', the character Tong Meng is nicknamed Fanzhiang Shen 翻江蜃 "River-churning Shen". In Japanese manga, Shin 蜃 is an illusion-creating weapon of Tomo and an illusion-manifesting technique of Demon Eyes Kyo. The title ''Honō no Mirāju'' 炎の蜃気楼 "Mirage of Blaze" transcribes ''shinkirō'' 蜃気楼 with the English gairaigo loanword ''mirāju''.
Meanings
Chinese classic texts use the word ''shen'' to mean "a large shellfish" that was associated with funerals and "an aquatic monster" that could change its shape, which was later associated with "mirages".
Large shellfish
The word used to mean a shellfish, or mollusk, identified as an oyster, mussel, or giant clam such as the Pearl of Lao Tzu. While early Chinese dictionaries treat ''shen'' as a general term for "mollusca", the ''Erya'' defines it as a large ''yao'' which means shellfish, clam, scallop, or mother-of-pearl. According to ''Shuowen Jiezi'', an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary of the Han Dynasty defines it a large ''ge'' , meaning clam, oyster, shellfish, or bivalve.
Chinese classics variously record that ''shen'' was salted as a food , named a "lacquered wine barrel" used in sacrifices to earth spirits , and its shells were used to make hoes and receptacles . They also record two ''shen-'' related with funerals: ''shenche'' "hearse" and ''shentan'' 蜃炭 "oyster-lime; white clay", which was especially used as mortar for mausoleum walls .
Wolfram Eberhard describes the ''shen'' mussel as "a strange animal", and mentions the ''Zhouli'''s Zhangshen 掌蜃 "Manager of ''Shen''", who was a special government official in charge of acquiring them for royal sacrifices and funerals. "It is not clear why these mussels were placed into the tombs," he admits, possibly either as a sacrifice to the earth god or "the shell lime was used simply for a purifying and protective effect."
Edward H. Schafer, who aptly translates ''shen'' or ''chen'' as "clam-monster", traces its linguistic evolution from originally designating a "large bivalve mollusc",
Beginning as an unassuming marine invertebrate, the ch'en was later imagined as a gaping, pearl-producing clam, possibly to be identified with the giant clams of tropical seas, for instance ''Tridacna''. Finally, by early medieval times, it had become a monster lurking in submarine grottoes, and was sometimes endowed with the attributes of a dragon – or, more likely, under influence, a nāga. It expressed its artistic nature by belching up bubbles and frothy clots. These foamy structures were sometimes worked into buildings. …The plastic exhalations of the clam-monster sometimes burst the film of surface tension and appeared to astonished mariners as stunning mansions adrift on the surface of the deep.
Aquatic dragon
Second, ''shen'' 蜃 meant the "clam-monster" that miraculously transformed shapes. The ''Shuowen jiezi'' defines ''ge'' 蛤 as the "category of ''shen''", which includes three creatures that transform within the sea. A ''que'' "sparrow" transforms into a ''ge'' 蛤, or ''muli'' 牡厲 "oyster" in dialect, after 1000 years; a ''yan'' "swallow" transforms into a ''haige'' 海蛤 after 100 years; and a ''fulei'' 復絫, or ''fuyi'' 服翼 "bat", transforms into a ''kuige'' 魁蛤 after it gets old. These kinds of legendary animal "transformations" – ''hua'' "transform, change, convert, turn into; metamorphose; take the form of" – are a common theme in Chinese folklore, particularly for dragons like the ''shen''. The "dragon's transformations are unlimited", writes Visser , and "it is no wonder that Chinese literature abounds with stories about dragons which had assumed the shape of men, animals, or objects.
The ''Yueling'' 月令 "Monthly Commands" chapter of the ''Liji'' lists sparrows and pheasants transforming into shellfish during the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. In the last month of autumn, " Small birds enter the great water and become mollusks", and in the first month of winter, " Pheasants enter the great water and become large mollusks." While many other classical texts repeat this seasonal legend about pheasants that transform in ''dashui'' 大水 "great water; flood", the ''Da Dai Liji'' and '''' say they transform in the ''huai'' 淮 "Huai River." According to Chinese folklore swallows are a favorite food of both Chinese ''long'' and ''shen'' 蜃 dragons. Read explains, "Hence if people eat swallow's flesh they should not go out and cross a river ."
Eberhard equates the ''shen'' 蜃 with the ''jiaolong'' 蛟龍 "flood dragon; crocodile" and compares tales of both these dragons attacking cattle in rivers. The 1596 CE ''Bencao gangmu'' Chinese materia medica describes the ''shen'' or ''chen'' 蜃 under the ''jiaolong'' entry, with quotes from the ''Yueling'' and Lu Dian's ''Piya''.
A kind of crocodile shaped like a huge serpent. Horned like a dragon, with a red mane. Below the middle of the back it has scales inversely arranged. It lives on swallows. It spurts forth clouds of vapour in huge rings. It appears when it is going to rain. The fat and wax is made into candles which have a fragrant smoke noticeable 100 steps away, and ascend in layers in the air. The ''Yueh-Ling'' says the pheasant metamorphoses into a ''Ch'un'' when it enters the water. Lu Tien says that serpents and tortoises together produce tortoises but cohabitation of tortoises and pheasants produce ''Ch'un'', although they are different animals they are moved by the same influences. Other records refer to its relationship to the clam.
Mirage
The shape-changing ''shen'' is believed to cause a mirage or . ''Shen-'' synonyms meaning "mirage" include ''shenlou'' 蜃樓 , ''shenqi'' 蜃氣 , ''shenqilou'' 蜃氣樓, ''haishishenlou'' 海市蜃樓 , and ''shenjing'' 蜃景 . In vocabulary, ''shinkirō'' 蜃気楼 is the usual word for "mirage". Compare the association between the ''long'' 龍 "dragon" and "waterspouts", evident in words like ''longjuan'' 龍卷 "waterspout" and ''longjuanfeng'' 龍卷風 "cyclone; tornado" .
Characters
Most Chinese characters are written with a "phonetic" element that roughly indicates pronunciation with a "" or "signific" that suggests semantic field. ''Shen'''s standard and antiquated characters combine the ''chen'' "dragon , duodecimal 5th of the 12 Earthly Branches; period from 7-9 AM; time period; occasion; star; celestial body" phonetic with the ''chong'' "insect; reptile" radical.
A variety of other characters utilize this phonetic ''chen'' 辰 "5th; dragon", which the ''Wenlin'' says "may have depicted an ancient kind of hoe" in ancient oracle bone script . Some etymologically significant examples include:
*''chen'' 晨 "dragon star"
*''zhen'' 震 "thunder; quake"
*''zhen'' 振 "shake; stimulate"
*''zhen'' 娠 "pregnant"
*''shen'' 脤 "sacrificial meat"
This ''chen'' 晨 or ''chenxing'' 辰星 "dragon star" is an asterism in the traditional Chinese constellations, a morning star within the Azure Dragon that is associated with east and spring. Specifically, the "dragon star" is in the 5th and 6th lunar Twenty-eight mansions, with its ''xin'' 心 "" and ''wei'' 尾 "" corresponding to the Western constellations of Antares and Scorpius.
Etymologies
Carr etymologically hypothesizes that the ''chen'' < *' 辰 phonetic series split between *' "dragon" and *' "thunder". The former words include aquatic ''shen'' < *' 蜃 "large shellfish; sea dragon", celestial ''chen'' < *' 晨 "dragon star", and possibly through dragon-emperor association, ''chen'' < *' 宸 "imperial palace; mansion". The latter ones, reflecting the belief that dragons cause rainfall and thunder, include ''zhen'' < *' 震 "thunder; shake", ''zhen'' < *' 振 "shake; scare", and ''ting'' < *''d'ieng'' 霆 "thunderbolt".
Schuessler provides more refined reconstructions and etymologies:
*''shen'' < *'''' 蜃 "'Clam, oyster' … 'some kind of dragon'."
*''chen'' < *'''' 辰 "The 5th of the Earthly branches, identified with the dragon … cf. 蜃 'some kind of dragon'", which might be an Austro-Asiatic language loan from Vietnamese ''tr?n'' or Mon ''klan'' "python".
*''chen'' < *'''' 晨 or 辰 "Time when life begins to stir: 'early morning' … "start of growing/agricultural season in the 3rd month; heavenly bodies that mark that time' … 'heavenly body', 'time'."
*''zhen'' < *'''' 振 or 震 " 'to shake, rouse, quake' … 'to alarm, fear', 'scared', 'thunder', 'move'".
*''zhen'' < '''' 娠 "'Pregnant', 'become pregnant' … is derived from 'to shake, rouse, excite' , hence lit. 'start stirring, moving' ."
Popular culture
In the present day, the mythical ''shen'' "clam-monster" is best known through the everyday words for "mirage; illusion", typically Chinese ''haishishenlou'' 海市蜃樓, Korean ''shingiru'' ??? 蜃氣樓, and Japanese ''shinkirō'' 蜃気楼.
In the Chinese novel ''Water Margin'', the character Tong Meng is nicknamed Fanzhiang Shen 翻江蜃 "River-churning Shen". In Japanese manga, Shin 蜃 is an illusion-creating weapon of Tomo and an illusion-manifesting technique of Demon Eyes Kyo. The title ''Honō no Mirāju'' 炎の蜃気楼 "Mirage of Blaze" transcribes ''shinkirō'' 蜃気楼 with the English gairaigo loanword ''mirāju''.
Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove
The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove were a group of Taoist Qingtan scholars, writers, and musicians who came together in the bloody 3rd century CE. Later it has been determined that the group is mostly fictitious; although the individual members all probably have existed, their interconnection is highly suspect, as is their alleged previous court official career. Careers notwithstanding, key members were linked with the "Taoist" Cao Wei; they found their lives to be in danger when the avowedly "Confucian" came to power. They wrote taoist poems, poems criticizing the court and the administration and manuals on taoist mysticism and alchemy. It would be a mistake to assume that all members had similar views regarding immortality or politics, however, and while some members tried to negotiate their difficult political positions by self-consciously adopting the roles of ale-fueled jokesters and eccentrics, others eventually capitulated and joined the Jin dynasty . Although it is unknown how much they personally engaged in Qingtan, they became the subjects of it themselves in the Shishuo Xinyu .
As is traditionally depicted, the group wished to escape the intrigues, corruption and stifling atmosphere of court life during the politically fraught Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. They gathered in a bamboo grove near the house of Xi Kang in Shanyang where they enjoyed, and praised in their works, the simple, rustic life. This was contrasted with the politics of court. The Seven Sages stressed the enjoyment of ale, personal freedom, spontaneity and a celebration of nature.
Liu Ling, Ruan Ji, Ruan Xian, Xiang Xiu, Wang Rong and were the other six sages who made up the group. Xi Kang was especially close to Ruan Ji; their relationship was described as "stronger than metal and fragrant as orchids". The wife of a fellow sage was said to be impressed by Ruan Ji and Xi Kang's prowess when she spied on them during sex.
It would be Xi Kang's disdain for courtly life which would eventually lead to his execution. The group's rural life became a common theme for art, and they inspired other artists who wished to retreat during times of political upheavals. The myth spread rapidly, and within a few generations the pa ta were so inspired by the supposedly anarchist revelry of the Seven Sages that they sought to copy them fully, while naked.
Another person associated with the Seven Sages is Rong Qiqi , who in fact lived quite earlier. This association is depicted in some apocryphal art from the fourth century CE, in a tomb near Nanjing.
The Seven Sages, or the symbol that they became, have been remarked to be influential in Chinese poetry, music, art, and overall culture.
As is traditionally depicted, the group wished to escape the intrigues, corruption and stifling atmosphere of court life during the politically fraught Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. They gathered in a bamboo grove near the house of Xi Kang in Shanyang where they enjoyed, and praised in their works, the simple, rustic life. This was contrasted with the politics of court. The Seven Sages stressed the enjoyment of ale, personal freedom, spontaneity and a celebration of nature.
Liu Ling, Ruan Ji, Ruan Xian, Xiang Xiu, Wang Rong and were the other six sages who made up the group. Xi Kang was especially close to Ruan Ji; their relationship was described as "stronger than metal and fragrant as orchids". The wife of a fellow sage was said to be impressed by Ruan Ji and Xi Kang's prowess when she spied on them during sex.
It would be Xi Kang's disdain for courtly life which would eventually lead to his execution. The group's rural life became a common theme for art, and they inspired other artists who wished to retreat during times of political upheavals. The myth spread rapidly, and within a few generations the pa ta were so inspired by the supposedly anarchist revelry of the Seven Sages that they sought to copy them fully, while naked.
Another person associated with the Seven Sages is Rong Qiqi , who in fact lived quite earlier. This association is depicted in some apocryphal art from the fourth century CE, in a tomb near Nanjing.
The Seven Sages, or the symbol that they became, have been remarked to be influential in Chinese poetry, music, art, and overall culture.
Scholar-bureaucrats
Scholar-bureaucrats or scholar-officials were civil servants appointed by the emperor of China to perform day-to-day governance from the Sui Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, China's last imperial dynasty. These officials mostly came from the well-educated men known as the . These men had earned academic degrees by passing rigorous . The scholar-bureaucrats were schooled in calligraphy and Confucian texts. They dominated the politics of China at the time.
As a small fraction of them could become officials, the majority of the ''scholar-gentry'' stayed in local villages or cities as social leaders. The ''scholar-gentry'' carried out social welfare measures, taught in private schools, helped decide minor legal disputes, supervised community projects, maintained local law and order, conducted Confucian ceremonies, assisted in the government's collection of taxes, and preached Confucian moral teachings. As a class, these scholars represented morality and virtue. Although they received no official salary and were not government officials, their contributions and cooperation were much needed by the district magistrate in governing local areas, and received contributions from the imperial dynasty as well.
The system of scholar-bureaucrats and Imperial examinations was adopted and adapted by several of China, in particular the Ryūkyū Kingdom , which sent students to China on a regular basis, and maintained a center of Chinese learning at Kumemura from which administrators and officials of the kingdom's government were selected.
The examinations consisted of a battery of tests administered at the district, provincial, and metropolitan levels. Tight quotas restricted the number of successful candidates in each test — for example, only three-hundred students could pass the metropolitan examinations. Students often took the examinations several times before earning a degree.
Each student taking the exam arrived at an examination compound with only a few amenities: a water pitcher, a chamber pot, bedding, food, an inkstone, ink, and brushes. Guards would verify the students' identities and search them for hidden printed materials. Each exam taker spent three days and two nights writing "eight-legged essays" — literary compositions with eight distinct sections — in a tiny room with a makeshift bed, desk, and bench. There were no interruptions in those three days, nor were candidates allowed any communication. If someone died during an exam, officials wrapped his body in a straw mat and tossed it over the high walls that ringed the compound.
Civil service exams remained intensely competitive, yet a degree at any level did not ensure government service. Those who only passed the district level exam had a much poorer chance of being a part of the imperial bureaucracy than those who passed the metropolitan level exam. During the Qing dynasty, the empire's one million degree holders competed for only 20,000 official civil service positions. Those who did not get to serve the government spent their careers "plowing with the writing brush" by becoming local teachers or tutors.
The entire premise of the scholarly meritocracy was based on mastery of the Confucian classics, with important effects on society.
Theoretically, this system resulted in a highly ruling class, with the best students running the country. The examinations gave many people the opportunity to pursue political power and honor — and thus encouraged serious pursuit of formal education. And since the system did not formally discriminate based on social status, it provided an avenue for upward social mobility regardless of age or social class.
However, even though the examination-based bureaucracy's heavy emphasis on Confucian literature ensured that the most eloquent writers and erudite scholars achieved high positions of responsibility for running the country, it contained no formal safeguard against political corruption besides the Confucian moral teachings that the examinations tested on. Once their political futures were secured by success in the examinations, high-ranking officials were often tempted to corruption and abuse of their powers. Furthermore, the relatively lower social status of the military profession in Confucian society discouraged efficiency and meritocracy within the military.
Nonetheless, since the examinations focused on Confucian classics and neo-Confucian commentaries, the entrenchment of the examination system guaranteed that Confucianism would be at the heart of Chinese education and that Confucians would exert a strong influence on the state with little interruption, thus providing remarkable cultural continuity for Chinese civilization through centuries.
*Max Weber, ''The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism''
*Jerry Bentley and Herb Ziegler. ''Traditions and Encounters - A Global Perspective on the Past''.
As a small fraction of them could become officials, the majority of the ''scholar-gentry'' stayed in local villages or cities as social leaders. The ''scholar-gentry'' carried out social welfare measures, taught in private schools, helped decide minor legal disputes, supervised community projects, maintained local law and order, conducted Confucian ceremonies, assisted in the government's collection of taxes, and preached Confucian moral teachings. As a class, these scholars represented morality and virtue. Although they received no official salary and were not government officials, their contributions and cooperation were much needed by the district magistrate in governing local areas, and received contributions from the imperial dynasty as well.
The system of scholar-bureaucrats and Imperial examinations was adopted and adapted by several of China, in particular the Ryūkyū Kingdom , which sent students to China on a regular basis, and maintained a center of Chinese learning at Kumemura from which administrators and officials of the kingdom's government were selected.
Examinations
The examinations consisted of a battery of tests administered at the district, provincial, and metropolitan levels. Tight quotas restricted the number of successful candidates in each test — for example, only three-hundred students could pass the metropolitan examinations. Students often took the examinations several times before earning a degree.
Each student taking the exam arrived at an examination compound with only a few amenities: a water pitcher, a chamber pot, bedding, food, an inkstone, ink, and brushes. Guards would verify the students' identities and search them for hidden printed materials. Each exam taker spent three days and two nights writing "eight-legged essays" — literary compositions with eight distinct sections — in a tiny room with a makeshift bed, desk, and bench. There were no interruptions in those three days, nor were candidates allowed any communication. If someone died during an exam, officials wrapped his body in a straw mat and tossed it over the high walls that ringed the compound.
Civil service exams remained intensely competitive, yet a degree at any level did not ensure government service. Those who only passed the district level exam had a much poorer chance of being a part of the imperial bureaucracy than those who passed the metropolitan level exam. During the Qing dynasty, the empire's one million degree holders competed for only 20,000 official civil service positions. Those who did not get to serve the government spent their careers "plowing with the writing brush" by becoming local teachers or tutors.
Effect
The entire premise of the scholarly meritocracy was based on mastery of the Confucian classics, with important effects on society.
Theoretically, this system resulted in a highly ruling class, with the best students running the country. The examinations gave many people the opportunity to pursue political power and honor — and thus encouraged serious pursuit of formal education. And since the system did not formally discriminate based on social status, it provided an avenue for upward social mobility regardless of age or social class.
However, even though the examination-based bureaucracy's heavy emphasis on Confucian literature ensured that the most eloquent writers and erudite scholars achieved high positions of responsibility for running the country, it contained no formal safeguard against political corruption besides the Confucian moral teachings that the examinations tested on. Once their political futures were secured by success in the examinations, high-ranking officials were often tempted to corruption and abuse of their powers. Furthermore, the relatively lower social status of the military profession in Confucian society discouraged efficiency and meritocracy within the military.
Nonetheless, since the examinations focused on Confucian classics and neo-Confucian commentaries, the entrenchment of the examination system guaranteed that Confucianism would be at the heart of Chinese education and that Confucians would exert a strong influence on the state with little interruption, thus providing remarkable cultural continuity for Chinese civilization through centuries.
Bibliography
*Max Weber, ''The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism''
*Jerry Bentley and Herb Ziegler. ''Traditions and Encounters - A Global Perspective on the Past''.
Ricci Institutes
The Ricci Institutes, named after the sinologist Matteo Ricci, are research and publication centers directed towards the studies of Chinese ancient and modern culture as well as towards the intercultural dialogue between the Chinese World and the others spiritual traditions in the world. They were directly preceded by the “Bureau d’?tudes Sinologiques" that pioneered modern sinological research, an organization created by French Jesuits at the end of the 19th century in Shanghai.
There are four institutes in the world:
* The Taipei Ricci Institute, founded in 1966 by Father Yves Raguin, S.J.
* The Paris Ricci Institute, founded in 1972 by Father Claude Larre, S.J.
* The Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at the University of San Francisco, founded in 1984 Edward Malatesta, S.J.
* The Macau Ricci Institute, founded in 1999 by Yves Camus, S.J. and Luis Sequeira, S.J.
These institutes are juridically independent and foster different research and publication programs, while cooperating on occasional projects. Although the Ricci Institutes are Jesuit-led works, directors and staff may also be lay persons, cooperating with Chinese or foreign sinologists.
* MASSON, Michel, s.j., ''Reporting on the Individual Reports IRACS’s 2003 Meeting at USF'', The Ricci Bulletin 2004, No. 7, February 2004, p. 9-16.
There are four institutes in the world:
* The Taipei Ricci Institute, founded in 1966 by Father Yves Raguin, S.J.
* The Paris Ricci Institute, founded in 1972 by Father Claude Larre, S.J.
* The Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at the University of San Francisco, founded in 1984 Edward Malatesta, S.J.
* The Macau Ricci Institute, founded in 1999 by Yves Camus, S.J. and Luis Sequeira, S.J.
These institutes are juridically independent and foster different research and publication programs, while cooperating on occasional projects. Although the Ricci Institutes are Jesuit-led works, directors and staff may also be lay persons, cooperating with Chinese or foreign sinologists.
Bibliography
* MASSON, Michel, s.j., ''Reporting on the Individual Reports IRACS’s 2003 Meeting at USF'', The Ricci Bulletin 2004, No. 7, February 2004, p. 9-16.
Reunion dinner
At Chinese New Year a reunion dinner is held on New Year's Eve where members of the family, near and far, get together for celebration. The New Year's Eve dinner is very large and traditionally includes chicken. Fish is included, but not eaten up completely , as the Chinese phrase 年年有魚/餘; is a homophone for phrases which could mean "be blessed every year" or "have profit every year", since "yú" is also the pronunciation for "surplus". A type of black hair-like algae, pronounced "fat choy" in Cantonese, is also featured in many dishes since its name sounds similar to "prosperity". Hakka will serve "kiu nyuk" 扣肉 and "ngiong tiu fu" 釀豆腐. Because the things sound alike, the belief is that having one will lead to the other, like the old child's aphorism "step on a crack, break your mother's back".
Redology
Redology is the study of the novel ''Dream of the Red Chamber'', one of the Four Classics of China. There are many researchers in this field, most can be divided into four general groups. The first group is the commentators, such as Zhou Chun, Xu Fengyi, Chen Yupi, and others. The second group is the index group, which mainly includes Wang Mengruan and Cai Yuanpei. The third group is the textual critics, including Hu Shi and Yu Pingbo. The final group is the literary thought group. There are quite a few researchers in this group, most notably Zhou Ruchang.
# Critical thought - comprising scholars such as Zhou Chun, Xu Fengyi and Chen Yupi;
# Allegorical thought - comprising scholars such as Wang Mengruan and Cai Yuanpei;
# Investigative thought - principally Hu Shi, Yu Pingbo and Zhou Ruchang;
# Literary thought.
Professor Liang Guizhi divides redological research into two areas: intensive research, or research into realist novels of ancient times as represented by ''Dream of the Red Chamber'', and extensive research, which deals with texts written on its setting and background.
There are four branches of intensive research:
# Cao Studies
#: research into the family history and life of Cao Xueqin and how he is related to the novel.
# Comparative Studies
#: chiefly concerned with distinguishing between Zhi Yanzhai's editions and the unadulterated original . Research in comparative studies is also primarily involved with handwritten copies as they may bear closer resemblance to the original manuscripts.
# Zhi Studies
#: as Zhiyan Zhai was known to be a close friend of Cao Xueqin through whose notes can be found the original plot of chapters 80 onwards and anecdotal evidence of real-life circumstances from Cao's life.
# Investigative Studies
#: investigate or attest the plot of the final 28 chapters in reference to that of the first 80.
Research in later periods are built on these foundations. For example, recently, renowned writer Liu Xinwu has authored ''Qin Studies'', the culmination of a decade of research into Qin Keqing's pioneering research on ''Dream of the Red Chamber''.
Most people believe that these can be divided into three schools: allegorical, archetypal and literary.
Professor Liang Guizhi believes that there are four schools of redological study:
# The school of literary criticism initiated from a Western literary perspective of the novel, adopted by Wang Guowei from the philosophical thought of Schopenhauer.
# The school of allegory that links ''Dream of the Red Chamber'' to historical events during the Qing dynasty, later represented by Cai Yuanpei, or Bao Jiadong's claim that the novel is a general account of culture within the Eight Banners system of the Qing dynasty.
# The largely refuted school that claims, as in ''Divided Dream of the Red Chamber'' co-written by Huo Guoling, Huo Lijun and Huo Jiping, that Cao Xueqing wrote the novel for a girl whom he admired, who later entered the palace as consort to the Yongzheng Emperor; Cao, in order to realize his political ideals, plotted with her in the fatal poisoning of the emperor, but was then usurped of would-be political rights by the Qianlong Emperor.
# The investigative school as represented by Hu Shi and Yu Pingbo, advocating that the novel was in at least some part autobiographical; this school is the brainchild of Zhou Ruchang, the founder of the comparative studies branch and the initiator of the school of literary thought within redology. Zhou is responsible for raising redological research to its peak within Chinese culture and for creating its current sense of reverence and prestige while at the same time pointing out its failings; he believes that ''Dream of the Red Chamber'' is a 'universal key' to the culture of China.
It is also possible to categorize Redology into two themes.
Xia Yi: This includes Cao Studies, Qin Studies, Comparative Studies, Zhi Studies and Investigative Studies. Qin Studies refers to the study of Cao Xueqin, the author himself, for which there is very few information available.
Guan Yi: This field studies the society set in the novel. This includes the people, arts, culture etc.
There are a vast number of redologists and thus discords are difficult to avoid; according to Liu Mengqi's records there have been Seventeen Debates, Nine Public Cases, Four Mysteries and Three Dead Knots.
Seventeen Debates
#Hu Shih and Cài Yuánpéi debate
#The location of ''Dream of the Red Chamber''
#Are the feet of the female character in the novel or not?
#Debate in 1954
#Li Xifan and He Qifang's war of words
#Regarding "Fen Gua" and "Dian Xi Qiao"
#When did Cao Xueqin die?
#The debate between Wu Shican and Yi Tengshu on "The Introduction of Tang Cun"
#The authenticity of "Fei Yi Ji Ji Gao"
#About Cao Xueqin's self portrait
#Regarding the "Shi" Poem by Cao Xueqin
#Is Cao Xueqin the real author of the novel?
#The value of thirty years of redology?
#What exactly is redology?
#The pen war between Fan Conkui and Yu Fuguan
#Discussion of the Two Worlds of the Red Chamber by Zhao Gang and Yu Shiying
#The storm between Tang Degang and Xia Zhiqing
Nine Public Cases
#Xue Baochai and Lin Daiyu; which one is better?
#How to evaluate last forty chapters of ''Dream of the Red Chamber''
#Are there anti-Qing dynasty sentiments in ''Dream of the Red Chamber''
#The authenticity of Chapters 64 and 67
#Who is the author of the "Fan Li" from the Jia Wu Edition?
#The edition systems of Dream of the Red Chamber
#Where is Cao's ancestry native place?
#What color flag does Cao's family belong to in Qing's system?
#Mystery of the missing Jing Edition
Four Mysteries
#Mystery of Jia Yuanchun's Deliberation
#Mystery of Jia Yuanchun's "Hao Shi Zhong" Song
#Why is the book called "Dream of the Red Chamber"?
#Mystery of the Twenty Jue Ju
Three Dead Knots
#Who is Zhiyan Zhai ?
#Who is the son of Cao Xueqin
#Who is the Author of the subsequent work?
# Critical thought - comprising scholars such as Zhou Chun, Xu Fengyi and Chen Yupi;
# Allegorical thought - comprising scholars such as Wang Mengruan and Cai Yuanpei;
# Investigative thought - principally Hu Shi, Yu Pingbo and Zhou Ruchang;
# Literary thought.
Intensive and Extensive Research
Professor Liang Guizhi divides redological research into two areas: intensive research, or research into realist novels of ancient times as represented by ''Dream of the Red Chamber'', and extensive research, which deals with texts written on its setting and background.
There are four branches of intensive research:
# Cao Studies
#: research into the family history and life of Cao Xueqin and how he is related to the novel.
# Comparative Studies
#: chiefly concerned with distinguishing between Zhi Yanzhai's editions and the unadulterated original . Research in comparative studies is also primarily involved with handwritten copies as they may bear closer resemblance to the original manuscripts.
# Zhi Studies
#: as Zhiyan Zhai was known to be a close friend of Cao Xueqin through whose notes can be found the original plot of chapters 80 onwards and anecdotal evidence of real-life circumstances from Cao's life.
# Investigative Studies
#: investigate or attest the plot of the final 28 chapters in reference to that of the first 80.
Research in later periods are built on these foundations. For example, recently, renowned writer Liu Xinwu has authored ''Qin Studies'', the culmination of a decade of research into Qin Keqing's pioneering research on ''Dream of the Red Chamber''.
Redological Schools
Most people believe that these can be divided into three schools: allegorical, archetypal and literary.
Professor Liang Guizhi believes that there are four schools of redological study:
# The school of literary criticism initiated from a Western literary perspective of the novel, adopted by Wang Guowei from the philosophical thought of Schopenhauer.
# The school of allegory that links ''Dream of the Red Chamber'' to historical events during the Qing dynasty, later represented by Cai Yuanpei, or Bao Jiadong's claim that the novel is a general account of culture within the Eight Banners system of the Qing dynasty.
# The largely refuted school that claims, as in ''Divided Dream of the Red Chamber'' co-written by Huo Guoling, Huo Lijun and Huo Jiping, that Cao Xueqing wrote the novel for a girl whom he admired, who later entered the palace as consort to the Yongzheng Emperor; Cao, in order to realize his political ideals, plotted with her in the fatal poisoning of the emperor, but was then usurped of would-be political rights by the Qianlong Emperor.
# The investigative school as represented by Hu Shi and Yu Pingbo, advocating that the novel was in at least some part autobiographical; this school is the brainchild of Zhou Ruchang, the founder of the comparative studies branch and the initiator of the school of literary thought within redology. Zhou is responsible for raising redological research to its peak within Chinese culture and for creating its current sense of reverence and prestige while at the same time pointing out its failings; he believes that ''Dream of the Red Chamber'' is a 'universal key' to the culture of China.
Redology: Xia Yi and Guan Yi
It is also possible to categorize Redology into two themes.
Xia Yi: This includes Cao Studies, Qin Studies, Comparative Studies, Zhi Studies and Investigative Studies. Qin Studies refers to the study of Cao Xueqin, the author himself, for which there is very few information available.
Guan Yi: This field studies the society set in the novel. This includes the people, arts, culture etc.
Redological Debates and Mysteries
There are a vast number of redologists and thus discords are difficult to avoid; according to Liu Mengqi's records there have been Seventeen Debates, Nine Public Cases, Four Mysteries and Three Dead Knots.
Seventeen Debates
#Hu Shih and Cài Yuánpéi debate
#The location of ''Dream of the Red Chamber''
#Are the feet of the female character in the novel or not?
#Debate in 1954
#Li Xifan and He Qifang's war of words
#Regarding "Fen Gua" and "Dian Xi Qiao"
#When did Cao Xueqin die?
#The debate between Wu Shican and Yi Tengshu on "The Introduction of Tang Cun"
#The authenticity of "Fei Yi Ji Ji Gao"
#About Cao Xueqin's self portrait
#Regarding the "Shi" Poem by Cao Xueqin
#Is Cao Xueqin the real author of the novel?
#The value of thirty years of redology?
#What exactly is redology?
#The pen war between Fan Conkui and Yu Fuguan
#Discussion of the Two Worlds of the Red Chamber by Zhao Gang and Yu Shiying
#The storm between Tang Degang and Xia Zhiqing
Nine Public Cases
#Xue Baochai and Lin Daiyu; which one is better?
#How to evaluate last forty chapters of ''Dream of the Red Chamber''
#Are there anti-Qing dynasty sentiments in ''Dream of the Red Chamber''
#The authenticity of Chapters 64 and 67
#Who is the author of the "Fan Li" from the Jia Wu Edition?
#The edition systems of Dream of the Red Chamber
#Where is Cao's ancestry native place?
#What color flag does Cao's family belong to in Qing's system?
#Mystery of the missing Jing Edition
Four Mysteries
#Mystery of Jia Yuanchun's Deliberation
#Mystery of Jia Yuanchun's "Hao Shi Zhong" Song
#Why is the book called "Dream of the Red Chamber"?
#Mystery of the Twenty Jue Ju
Three Dead Knots
#Who is Zhiyan Zhai ?
#Who is the son of Cao Xueqin
#Who is the Author of the subsequent work?
Red Detachment of Women
The Red Detachment of Women is a ballet which premiered in 1964. It is perhaps best known in the West as the ballet performed for U.S. President Richard Nixon on his . Based on the novel of the same title as well as the film adapted from the novel by Liang Xin, it depicts the liberation of a peasant girl in Hainan Island and her rise in the Chinese Communist Party. The ballet was later adapted to a Beijing opera, and as the ballet itself, both stage and film versions were produced.
The film version of the ballet made Xue Jinghua and Liu Qingtang superstars along with a dozen other artists who were cast as protagonists in other model plays of the time.
It is one of the so-called eight model plays, the only plays, ballets and operas permitted in China during the Cultural Revolution . With ''The White Haired Girl'' it is regarded as a classic Chinese ballet, and its music is familiar to almost every Chinese person who grew up during that time.
It was made into a film in 1972 and is now part of the permanent repertoire of the National Ballet of China.
Despite its political overtone and historical background when it was created, it remains a favorite of music and ballet lovers nearly 30 years after the Cultural Revolution in China. Many numbers were based on the folk songs of Hainan Island, a place that, with its coconut trees rustling in tropical wind, evokes much romantic ethos. Though there are unmistakable elements of Chinese music, the music of this ballet was performed with basically a Western symphony orchestra.
It was written as a collaboration, with music by Du Mingxin, Wu Zuqiang, Wang Yanqiao, Shi Wanchun and Dai Hongcheng, and choreography by Li Chengxiang, Jiang Zuhui and Wang Xixian.
:Place: Yelinzhai, Hainan Island, China
:Time: The Ten-Year Civil War
:Main Characters:
*HONG Changqing, Commissar of the Red Detachment of Women
*WU Qinghua, daughter of a peasant, later a soldier, and finally the Commissar
*Lian Zhang, literally the Company Commander
*Xiao PANG, or "Little PANG," the Messenger
*Nanbatian, literally "the Tyrant of the South"
*OU Guangsi , Nanbatian's Lackey
In his dungeon, Nanbatian, the despotic landlord, has imprisoned his tenants who are unable to pay their exorbitant rents. Wu Qinghua, daughter of a poor peasant, is chained to a column. Lao Si comes with the order of Nanbatian to sell Wu. Lao Si releases Wu from the chain. While Lao Si is in an unguarded moment, Wu kicks him, and he loses his balance and falls. Wu manages to escape while two other inmates hold Lao Si to the ground.
Major numbers:
* ''Pas de deux'' of two inmates
Immediately after the prologue. Night has fallen in the coconut forest and Wu Qinghua is desperately running away from Lao Si and his lackeys. She is soon recaptured. Nanbatian and his entourage arrive. The Tyrant whips Wu until she loses consciousness. A thunderstorm approaches, so Nanbatian and his followers leave and Wu is left for dead.
Hong Changqing, the Commissar, and Xiao Pang, the Messenger, who are on a reconnaissance mission in disguise, pass by. They save Wu and point her the way to the camp of the Red Army.
Major numbers:
* Dance of Lao Si and his lackeys
* Wu Qinghua's Solo No. 1
* Wu Qinghua's fight with Lao Si
* Wu Qinghua's fight with Nanbatian
* Group dance of slaves
* Wu Qinghua's Solo No. 2
* ''Pas de trois'' of Hong Changqing, Wu Qinghua and Xiao Pang
In the camp of the Red Army beside the Wanquan River, a newly formed Detachment of Women is being trained. Wu Qinghua arrives to meet Hong Changqing and Xiao Pang, who introduce her to others. In a solo dance, Wu tells the Red Army soldiers the enormity of Nanbatian's crimes. She then ceremoniously receives a rifle and is accepted as a member of the Women's Detachment. With determination, they plan to liberate the peasants and slave girls under the oppresion of Nanbatian.
Major numbers:
* Group dance of the Detachment members
* Rifle drill of the Detachment members
* Hong Changqing's bayonet dance
* Group bayonet dance of the Detachment members
* A young women soldier's solo
* Seven-inch dagger dance of the Red Guards
* Group dance of all
* Wu Qinghua's solo
In the luxurious of Nanbatian, an extravagant birthday celebration for the Tyrant is going on in the garden before his house. Mountains of gifts are brought in; visitors are arriving, Li girls are driven in with whips at their backs to dance for the guests.
Hong Changqing, disguised as a wealthy merchant from southeast Asia, arrives on the scene, calm and dignified, to congratulate Nanbatian on his birthday. Meanwhile, the members of the Women's Detachment have secretly gathered around the manor of the Tyrant. It has been agreed that Hong is to fire his gun at midnight as signal for the Detachment to break in to wipe out the Tyrant and his gang in one fell swoop.
At night, all people recede into the houses. Nanbatian comes out to see some of his guests off. Overcome by deep personal hatred, Wu Qinghua shoots Nanbatian, prematurely issuing the battle signal. Nanbatian is merely wounded and escapes from a secret tunnel with a few of his lackeys.
Nanbatian's prisons are opened, and the prisoners are liberated. Hong leads them in opening the granary of the Tyrant and distributing the grain.
Wu is reprimanded for her blunder, and her gun is removed from her.
Major numbers:
* Group dance of slaves
* ''Li'' Girls' dance
* Broadsword dance of Nanbatian's lackeys
* Xiao Pang's solo
* ''Pas de deux'' of Wu Qinghua and her comrade-in-arm
* Opening the granary and distributing grain
Back in the camp of the Red Army. Hong Changqing, the Commissar, is giving a lecture to the soldiers in the early morning. Wu Qinghua comes to grips with her mistake. Hong and the Company Commander are pleased to see Wu's progress. The Company Commander returns the gun to her, and together they practice marksmanship and grenade throwing.
The local people visit the Red Army and present them with ''douli''s and lichees.
Suddenly, the sound of cannons is heard and Xiao Pang, the Messenger, arrives on horseback with the information that Nanbatian has assembled a large number of troops, and they are on their way to attack the base of the Red Army. The members of the Detachment immediately bid goodbye to their dear ones and set out to the battle field.
Major numbers:
* Hong Changqing's solo
* Group dance of the soldiers
* Wu Qinghua's solo
* ''Pas de deux'' of Wu Qinghua and Company Commander No. 1
* Dance of five female soldiers and the head cook
* ''Douli'' Dance
* ''Pas de deux'' of Wu Qinghua and Company Commander No. 2
* Dance of Hong Changqing and male soldiers
* Group dance of all
On the battlefield at a mountain pass. In order to annihilate the enemy's effective power, the main force of the Red Army strategically shifts to the rear of the enemy, and the Company Commander leads most of the members of the Detachment in moving away with the main force. Hong Changqing and a small group of Red Army soldiers and Red Guards form a covering force to divert the enemy. After a series of fierce fights, the goal is achieved.
As they prepare to withdraw, the enemy starts yet another attack. Hong gives his portfolio to Wu Qinghua and orders her and other members to retreat while he and only two other soldiers leave behind to fend off the enemy.
Hong's two comrades-in-arm are killed and he himself is captured.
Major numbers:
* Dance of Wu Qinghua and other soldiers
* Wu Qinghua's fight with an enemy
* Fight between two soldiers and two enemies
* Red flag dance
* Dance of Hong Changqing and two comrades-in-arm
* Dance of Hong Changqing and two enemies
The main force of the Red Army is pressing forward with the momentum of an avalanche. Their group dance.
A memorable moment in the entr'acte is the precisedly synchronized ''grand jete'' of members of the Women's Detachment crossing the stage in a seemingly endless line, vividly suggesting they are as fast as an arrow flying in the air.
Major numbers:
* Group dance of the Red Army soldiers
* Sequence of synchronized ''grand jeté''
In the lair of the Tyrant, Nanbatian and his lackeys are panic-stricken knowing that their end is approaching. The Tyrant runs out all his means to force Hong Changqing to surrender, but the Commissar vehemently denounces the enemy. Nanbatian threatens Hong with death, but the hero remains steadfast. At the end, Hong is burnt in a horrid fire under the giant banyan tree amidst a chorus of the Internationale, and he dies a martyr's death.
The main force of the Red Army has won their battle with the enemy. They storm the hideout of the Tyrant and kill him and his lackeys.
The Red Army emancipates Nanbatian's prisoners and Yelinzhai is liberated.
Wu Qinghua and the Company Commander look everywhere for Hong and find the truth. They all kneel in front of the place where Hong has died to pay their respects to the hero.
The Red Army Battalion Commander announces that Wu will succeed Hong as the Commissar of the Women's Detachment. Wu takes over Hong's portfolio, and she and her comrades-in-arm will continue their revolutionary cause.
Major numbers:
* Dance of Nanbatian and Lao Si
* Hong Changqing's solo
* Hong Changqing dying a martyr's death
* Red Army's assault on Nanbatian's lair
* Celebration of liberation
* ''Pas de deux'' of Wu Qinghua and Company Commander
* Mourning the martyr
* Group dance and the ''tableau vivant'' at the end
The film version of the ballet made Xue Jinghua and Liu Qingtang superstars along with a dozen other artists who were cast as protagonists in other model plays of the time.
It is one of the so-called eight model plays, the only plays, ballets and operas permitted in China during the Cultural Revolution . With ''The White Haired Girl'' it is regarded as a classic Chinese ballet, and its music is familiar to almost every Chinese person who grew up during that time.
It was made into a film in 1972 and is now part of the permanent repertoire of the National Ballet of China.
Despite its political overtone and historical background when it was created, it remains a favorite of music and ballet lovers nearly 30 years after the Cultural Revolution in China. Many numbers were based on the folk songs of Hainan Island, a place that, with its coconut trees rustling in tropical wind, evokes much romantic ethos. Though there are unmistakable elements of Chinese music, the music of this ballet was performed with basically a Western symphony orchestra.
It was written as a collaboration, with music by Du Mingxin, Wu Zuqiang, Wang Yanqiao, Shi Wanchun and Dai Hongcheng, and choreography by Li Chengxiang, Jiang Zuhui and Wang Xixian.
Synopsis
:Place: Yelinzhai, Hainan Island, China
:Time: The Ten-Year Civil War
:Main Characters:
*HONG Changqing, Commissar of the Red Detachment of Women
*WU Qinghua, daughter of a peasant, later a soldier, and finally the Commissar
*Lian Zhang, literally the Company Commander
*Xiao PANG, or "Little PANG," the Messenger
*Nanbatian, literally "the Tyrant of the South"
*OU Guangsi , Nanbatian's Lackey
Prologue
In his dungeon, Nanbatian, the despotic landlord, has imprisoned his tenants who are unable to pay their exorbitant rents. Wu Qinghua, daughter of a poor peasant, is chained to a column. Lao Si comes with the order of Nanbatian to sell Wu. Lao Si releases Wu from the chain. While Lao Si is in an unguarded moment, Wu kicks him, and he loses his balance and falls. Wu manages to escape while two other inmates hold Lao Si to the ground.
Major numbers:
* ''Pas de deux'' of two inmates
Act I
Immediately after the prologue. Night has fallen in the coconut forest and Wu Qinghua is desperately running away from Lao Si and his lackeys. She is soon recaptured. Nanbatian and his entourage arrive. The Tyrant whips Wu until she loses consciousness. A thunderstorm approaches, so Nanbatian and his followers leave and Wu is left for dead.
Hong Changqing, the Commissar, and Xiao Pang, the Messenger, who are on a reconnaissance mission in disguise, pass by. They save Wu and point her the way to the camp of the Red Army.
Major numbers:
* Dance of Lao Si and his lackeys
* Wu Qinghua's Solo No. 1
* Wu Qinghua's fight with Lao Si
* Wu Qinghua's fight with Nanbatian
* Group dance of slaves
* Wu Qinghua's Solo No. 2
* ''Pas de trois'' of Hong Changqing, Wu Qinghua and Xiao Pang
Act II
In the camp of the Red Army beside the Wanquan River, a newly formed Detachment of Women is being trained. Wu Qinghua arrives to meet Hong Changqing and Xiao Pang, who introduce her to others. In a solo dance, Wu tells the Red Army soldiers the enormity of Nanbatian's crimes. She then ceremoniously receives a rifle and is accepted as a member of the Women's Detachment. With determination, they plan to liberate the peasants and slave girls under the oppresion of Nanbatian.
Major numbers:
* Group dance of the Detachment members
* Rifle drill of the Detachment members
* Hong Changqing's bayonet dance
* Group bayonet dance of the Detachment members
* A young women soldier's solo
* Seven-inch dagger dance of the Red Guards
* Group dance of all
* Wu Qinghua's solo
Act III
In the luxurious of Nanbatian, an extravagant birthday celebration for the Tyrant is going on in the garden before his house. Mountains of gifts are brought in; visitors are arriving, Li girls are driven in with whips at their backs to dance for the guests.
Hong Changqing, disguised as a wealthy merchant from southeast Asia, arrives on the scene, calm and dignified, to congratulate Nanbatian on his birthday. Meanwhile, the members of the Women's Detachment have secretly gathered around the manor of the Tyrant. It has been agreed that Hong is to fire his gun at midnight as signal for the Detachment to break in to wipe out the Tyrant and his gang in one fell swoop.
At night, all people recede into the houses. Nanbatian comes out to see some of his guests off. Overcome by deep personal hatred, Wu Qinghua shoots Nanbatian, prematurely issuing the battle signal. Nanbatian is merely wounded and escapes from a secret tunnel with a few of his lackeys.
Nanbatian's prisons are opened, and the prisoners are liberated. Hong leads them in opening the granary of the Tyrant and distributing the grain.
Wu is reprimanded for her blunder, and her gun is removed from her.
Major numbers:
* Group dance of slaves
* ''Li'' Girls' dance
* Broadsword dance of Nanbatian's lackeys
* Xiao Pang's solo
* ''Pas de deux'' of Wu Qinghua and her comrade-in-arm
* Opening the granary and distributing grain
Act IV
Back in the camp of the Red Army. Hong Changqing, the Commissar, is giving a lecture to the soldiers in the early morning. Wu Qinghua comes to grips with her mistake. Hong and the Company Commander are pleased to see Wu's progress. The Company Commander returns the gun to her, and together they practice marksmanship and grenade throwing.
The local people visit the Red Army and present them with ''douli''s and lichees.
Suddenly, the sound of cannons is heard and Xiao Pang, the Messenger, arrives on horseback with the information that Nanbatian has assembled a large number of troops, and they are on their way to attack the base of the Red Army. The members of the Detachment immediately bid goodbye to their dear ones and set out to the battle field.
Major numbers:
* Hong Changqing's solo
* Group dance of the soldiers
* Wu Qinghua's solo
* ''Pas de deux'' of Wu Qinghua and Company Commander No. 1
* Dance of five female soldiers and the head cook
* ''Douli'' Dance
* ''Pas de deux'' of Wu Qinghua and Company Commander No. 2
* Dance of Hong Changqing and male soldiers
* Group dance of all
Act V
On the battlefield at a mountain pass. In order to annihilate the enemy's effective power, the main force of the Red Army strategically shifts to the rear of the enemy, and the Company Commander leads most of the members of the Detachment in moving away with the main force. Hong Changqing and a small group of Red Army soldiers and Red Guards form a covering force to divert the enemy. After a series of fierce fights, the goal is achieved.
As they prepare to withdraw, the enemy starts yet another attack. Hong gives his portfolio to Wu Qinghua and orders her and other members to retreat while he and only two other soldiers leave behind to fend off the enemy.
Hong's two comrades-in-arm are killed and he himself is captured.
Major numbers:
* Dance of Wu Qinghua and other soldiers
* Wu Qinghua's fight with an enemy
* Fight between two soldiers and two enemies
* Red flag dance
* Dance of Hong Changqing and two comrades-in-arm
* Dance of Hong Changqing and two enemies
Entr'acte
The main force of the Red Army is pressing forward with the momentum of an avalanche. Their group dance.
A memorable moment in the entr'acte is the precisedly synchronized ''grand jete'' of members of the Women's Detachment crossing the stage in a seemingly endless line, vividly suggesting they are as fast as an arrow flying in the air.
Major numbers:
* Group dance of the Red Army soldiers
* Sequence of synchronized ''grand jeté''
Act VI
In the lair of the Tyrant, Nanbatian and his lackeys are panic-stricken knowing that their end is approaching. The Tyrant runs out all his means to force Hong Changqing to surrender, but the Commissar vehemently denounces the enemy. Nanbatian threatens Hong with death, but the hero remains steadfast. At the end, Hong is burnt in a horrid fire under the giant banyan tree amidst a chorus of the Internationale, and he dies a martyr's death.
The main force of the Red Army has won their battle with the enemy. They storm the hideout of the Tyrant and kill him and his lackeys.
The Red Army emancipates Nanbatian's prisoners and Yelinzhai is liberated.
Wu Qinghua and the Company Commander look everywhere for Hong and find the truth. They all kneel in front of the place where Hong has died to pay their respects to the hero.
The Red Army Battalion Commander announces that Wu will succeed Hong as the Commissar of the Women's Detachment. Wu takes over Hong's portfolio, and she and her comrades-in-arm will continue their revolutionary cause.
Major numbers:
* Dance of Nanbatian and Lao Si
* Hong Changqing's solo
* Hong Changqing dying a martyr's death
* Red Army's assault on Nanbatian's lair
* Celebration of liberation
* ''Pas de deux'' of Wu Qinghua and Company Commander
* Mourning the martyr
* Group dance and the ''tableau vivant'' at the end
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and . The toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain arise mainly from the formation of glass and the mineral mullite within the fired body at these high temperatures. Porcelain is sometimes referred to as china. This is because until the 17th century, China was the sole producer of porcelain.
Porcelain derives its present name from its resemblance to the cowrie shell, which in old porcellana, from feminine of porcellano, of a young sow , from porcella, young sow, diminutive of porca, sow, from Latin, feminine of porcus, pig, and from the Greek π?ρκο?, . Properties associated with porcelain include low permeability and ; considerable , hardness, glassiness, brittleness, whiteness, translucence, and resonance; and a high resistance to chemical attack and thermal shock.
For the purposes of trade, the ''Combined Nomenclature of the European Communities'' defines porcelain as being "completely vitrified, hard, impermeable , white or artificially coloured, translucent and resonant." However, the term ''porcelain'' lacks a universal definition and has "been applied in a very unsystematic fashion to substances of diverse kinds which have only certain surface-qualities in common" .
Porcelain is used to make table, kitchen, sanitary, and decorative wares; objects of fine art; and tiles. Its high resistance to the passage of electricity makes porcelain an excellent . Dental porcelain is used to make false teeth, caps and crowns.
The most common uses of porcelain are the creation of artistic objects and the production of more utilitarian wares. It is difficult to distinguish between stoneware and porcelain because this depends upon how the terms are defined. A useful working definition of ''porcelain'' might include a broad range of ceramic wares, including some that could be classified as stoneware.
Clay is generally thought to be the primary material from which porcelain is made, even though clay minerals might account for only a small proportion of the whole. The word "paste" is an old term for both the unfired and fired material. A more common terminology these days for the unfired material is "body", for example, when buying materials a potter might order an amount of porcelain body from a vendor.
The composition of porcelain is highly variable, but the clay mineral kaolinite is often a significant component. Other materials can include feldspar, ball clay, glass, bone ash, steatite, quartz, petuntse and alabaster; further information on these formulations is given at "soft-paste porcelain".
The clays used are often described as being long or short, depending on their plasticity. Long clays are cohesive and have high plasticity; short clays are less cohesive and have lower plasticity. In soil mechanics, plasticity is determined by measuring the increase in content of water required to change a clay from a solid state bordering on the plastic, to a plastic state bordering on the liquid, though the term is also used less formally to describe the facility with which a clay may be worked. Clays used for porcelain are generally of lower plasticity and are shorter than many other pottery clays. They wet very quickly, meaning that small changes in the content of water can produce large changes in workability. Thus, the range of water content within which these clays can be worked is very narrow and the loss or gain of water during storage and throwing or forming must be carefully controlled to keep the clay from becoming too wet or too dry to manipulate. This property also contributes to porcelain's use as a slipcasting body.
The following section provides background information on the methods used to form, decorate, finish, glaze, and fire ceramic wares.
Forming. The relatively low plasticity of the material used for making porcelain make shaping the clay difficult. In the case of throwing on a potters wheel it can be seen as ''pulling'' clay upwards and outwards into a required shape and potters often speak of ''pulling'' when forming a piece on a wheel, but the term is misleading; clay in a plastic condition cannot be pulled without breaking. The process of throwing is in fact one of remarkable complexity. To the casual observer, throwing carried out by an expert potter appears to be a graceful and almost effortless activity, but this masks the fact that a rotating mass of clay possesses energy and momentum in an abundance that will, given the slightest mishandling, rapidly cause the workpiece to become uncontrollable.
Glazing. Unlike their lower-fired counterparts, porcelain wares do not need glazing to render them impermeable to liquids and for the most part are glazed for decorative purposes and to make them resistant to dirt and staining. Great detail is given in the article.Many types of glaze, such as the iron-containing glaze used on the celadon wares of , were designed specifically for their striking effects on porcelain.
Decoration. Porcelain wares may be decorated under the glaze using pigments that include cobalt and copper or over the glaze using coloured . Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often -fired at around 1000 degrees Celsius, coated with glaze and then sent for a second -firing at a temperature of about 1300 degrees Celsius or greater. In an alternative method particularly associated with Chinese and early European porcelains, the glaze is applied to the unfired body and the two fired together in a single operation. Wares glazed in this way are described as being ''green-fired'' or ''once-fired''.
Firing. In this process, ''green'' ceramic wares are heated to high temperatures in a kiln to permanently set their shapes. Porcelain is fired at a higher temperature than earthenware or stoneware so that the clay can and become non-porous.
Western porcelain is generally divided into the three main categories: hard-paste, soft-paste, and bone, depending on the composition of the paste, the material used to form the body of a porcelain object.
:''Main article Hard-paste porcelain''
Some of the earliest European porcelains were produced at the in the early 18th century; they were formed from a paste composed of kaolinite, quartz, and alabaster and fired at temperatures in excess of , producing a porcelain of great hardness and strength. Later, the composition of the Meissen hard paste was changed and the alabaster was replaced by feldspar, allowing the pieces to be fired at lower temperatures. Kaolinite, feldspar and quartz continue to provide the basic ingredients for most continental European hard-paste porcelains.
:''Main article Soft-paste porcelain''
Its history dates from the early attempts by European potters to replicate Chinese porcelain by using mixtures of china clay and ground-up glass or frit; soapstone and lime were known to have also been included in some compositions. As these early formulations suffered from high pyroplastic deformation, or slumping in the kiln at raised temperature, they were uneconomic to produce. Formulations were later developed based on kaolin, quartz, feldspars, nepheline syenite and other feldspathic rocks. These were technically superior and continue in production.
:''Main article Bone China''
Although originally developed in England to compete with imported porcelain, Bone china is now made worldwide. It has been suggested that a misunderstanding of an account of porcelain manufacture in China given by a Jesuit missionary was responsible for the first attempts to use bone-ash as an ingredient of Western porcelain . For whatever reason, when it was first tried it was found that adding bone-ash to the paste produced a white, strong, translucent porcelain. Traditionally English bone china was made from two parts of bone-ash, one part of china clay kaolin and one part china stone , although this has largely been replaced by feldspars from non-UK sources
Porcelain is generally believed to have originated in China. Although proto-porcelain wares exist dating from the Shang Dynasty, by the Eastern Han Dynasty high firing glazed ceramic wares had developed into porcelain, and porcelain manufactured during the Tang Dynasty period was exported to the Islamic world where it was highly prized. Early porcelain of this type includes the tri-color glazed porcelain, or ''sancai'' wares. Historian S.A.M. Adshead writes that true porcelain items in the restrictive sense that we know them today could be found in dynasties after the Tang, during the Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, and Qing Dynasty.
By the and dynasties, porcelain had become widely produced. Eventually, porcelain and the expertise required to create it began to spread into other areas; by the seventeenth century, it was being to Europe.
In the 9th century, Chinese porcelain reached the Abbasid caliphate. A passage in a work written by Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Baihaki stated that the governor of Khorasan, ‘Ali ibn ‘Isa, sent as a present to the caliph Harun al-Rashid , “twenty pieces of Chinese Imperial porcelain , the like of which had never been seen at a Caliph’s court before, in addition to 2,000 other pieces of porcelain”.
The influence of porcelain of the and is evident in many ceramics made by Muslim potters. Wares made in the town of in Anatolia, are particularly notable and had major influence on European decorative arts, for example on Italian .
These exported Chinese porcelains of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were held in such great esteem in Europe that in the English language '''' became a commonly–used synonym for the Franco-Italian term ''porcelain''. After a number of false starts, such as the Medici porcelain, the European search for the secret of porcelain manufacture ended in 1708 with the discovery by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and Johann Friedrich B?ttger of a combination of ingredients, including Colditz clay , alabaster, and quartz, that produced a hard, white, translucent porcelain. It appears that in this discovery technology transfer from East Asia played little part.
Tschirnhaus and B?ttger were employed by Augustus the Strong and worked at Dresden and Meissen in the German state of Saxony. Tschirnhaus had a wide knowledge of European science and had been involved in the European quest to perfect porcelain manufacture when in 1705 B?ttger was appointed to assist him in this task. B?ttger had originally been trained as a pharmacist; after he turned to alchemical research, it was his claim that he knew the secret of transmuting dross into gold that attracted the attention of Augustus. Imprisoned by Augustus as an incentive to hasten his research, B?ttger was obliged to work with other alchemists in the futile search for transmutation and was eventually assigned to assist Tschirnhaus. One of the first results of the collaboration between the two was the development of a red stoneware that resembled the red stoneware of Yixing.
A workshop note records that the first specimen of hard, white European porcelain was produced in January 1708. At the time, the research was still being supervised by Tschirnhaus; however, he died in October of that year. It was left to B?ttger to report to Augustus in March 1709 that he could make true white porcelain. For this reason, credit for the European discovery of porcelain is traditionally ascribed to him rather than Tschirnhaus.
The was established in 1710 after the development of a kiln and a glaze suitable for use with B?ttger's porcelain, which required firing at temperatures greater than to achieve translucence. Meissen porcelain was ''once-fired'', or ''green-fired'', in the Chinese manner. It was noted for its great resistance to thermal shock; a visitor to the factory in B?ttger's time reported having seen a white-hot teapot being removed from the kiln and dropped into cold water without damage. Evidence to support this widely disbelieved story was given in the 1980s when the procedure was repeated in an experiment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
William Cookworthy discovered deposits of china clay in Cornwall, making a considerable contribution to the development of porcelain and other whiteware ceramics in the United Kingdom. Cookworthy's , established in 1768, used Cornish china clay and china stone to make porcelain with a body composition similar to that of the Chinese porcelains of the early eighteenth century.
In rare cases, porcelain has been used as a building material, usually in the form of large rectangular panels on exterior surfaces. The Dakin Building in Brisbane, California, constructed in 1986, is notable for its porcelain skin. An older example is the in Houston, Texas; constructed in 1929, it had a seventy-foot long logo of porcelain on its exterior.
* Chinese porcelain
* Japanese pottery and porcelain
* Korean pottery and porcelain
* Porcelain Tower of Nanjing
Porcelain derives its present name from its resemblance to the cowrie shell, which in old porcellana, from feminine of porcellano, of a young sow , from porcella, young sow, diminutive of porca, sow, from Latin, feminine of porcus, pig, and from the Greek π?ρκο?, . Properties associated with porcelain include low permeability and ; considerable , hardness, glassiness, brittleness, whiteness, translucence, and resonance; and a high resistance to chemical attack and thermal shock.
For the purposes of trade, the ''Combined Nomenclature of the European Communities'' defines porcelain as being "completely vitrified, hard, impermeable , white or artificially coloured, translucent and resonant." However, the term ''porcelain'' lacks a universal definition and has "been applied in a very unsystematic fashion to substances of diverse kinds which have only certain surface-qualities in common" .
Porcelain is used to make table, kitchen, sanitary, and decorative wares; objects of fine art; and tiles. Its high resistance to the passage of electricity makes porcelain an excellent . Dental porcelain is used to make false teeth, caps and crowns.
Scope, materials and methods
Scope
The most common uses of porcelain are the creation of artistic objects and the production of more utilitarian wares. It is difficult to distinguish between stoneware and porcelain because this depends upon how the terms are defined. A useful working definition of ''porcelain'' might include a broad range of ceramic wares, including some that could be classified as stoneware.
Materials
Clay is generally thought to be the primary material from which porcelain is made, even though clay minerals might account for only a small proportion of the whole. The word "paste" is an old term for both the unfired and fired material. A more common terminology these days for the unfired material is "body", for example, when buying materials a potter might order an amount of porcelain body from a vendor.
The composition of porcelain is highly variable, but the clay mineral kaolinite is often a significant component. Other materials can include feldspar, ball clay, glass, bone ash, steatite, quartz, petuntse and alabaster; further information on these formulations is given at "soft-paste porcelain".
The clays used are often described as being long or short, depending on their plasticity. Long clays are cohesive and have high plasticity; short clays are less cohesive and have lower plasticity. In soil mechanics, plasticity is determined by measuring the increase in content of water required to change a clay from a solid state bordering on the plastic, to a plastic state bordering on the liquid, though the term is also used less formally to describe the facility with which a clay may be worked. Clays used for porcelain are generally of lower plasticity and are shorter than many other pottery clays. They wet very quickly, meaning that small changes in the content of water can produce large changes in workability. Thus, the range of water content within which these clays can be worked is very narrow and the loss or gain of water during storage and throwing or forming must be carefully controlled to keep the clay from becoming too wet or too dry to manipulate. This property also contributes to porcelain's use as a slipcasting body.
Methods
The following section provides background information on the methods used to form, decorate, finish, glaze, and fire ceramic wares.
Forming. The relatively low plasticity of the material used for making porcelain make shaping the clay difficult. In the case of throwing on a potters wheel it can be seen as ''pulling'' clay upwards and outwards into a required shape and potters often speak of ''pulling'' when forming a piece on a wheel, but the term is misleading; clay in a plastic condition cannot be pulled without breaking. The process of throwing is in fact one of remarkable complexity. To the casual observer, throwing carried out by an expert potter appears to be a graceful and almost effortless activity, but this masks the fact that a rotating mass of clay possesses energy and momentum in an abundance that will, given the slightest mishandling, rapidly cause the workpiece to become uncontrollable.
Glazing. Unlike their lower-fired counterparts, porcelain wares do not need glazing to render them impermeable to liquids and for the most part are glazed for decorative purposes and to make them resistant to dirt and staining. Great detail is given in the article.Many types of glaze, such as the iron-containing glaze used on the celadon wares of , were designed specifically for their striking effects on porcelain.
Decoration. Porcelain wares may be decorated under the glaze using pigments that include cobalt and copper or over the glaze using coloured . Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often -fired at around 1000 degrees Celsius, coated with glaze and then sent for a second -firing at a temperature of about 1300 degrees Celsius or greater. In an alternative method particularly associated with Chinese and early European porcelains, the glaze is applied to the unfired body and the two fired together in a single operation. Wares glazed in this way are described as being ''green-fired'' or ''once-fired''.
Firing. In this process, ''green'' ceramic wares are heated to high temperatures in a kiln to permanently set their shapes. Porcelain is fired at a higher temperature than earthenware or stoneware so that the clay can and become non-porous.
Categories of porcelain
Western porcelain is generally divided into the three main categories: hard-paste, soft-paste, and bone, depending on the composition of the paste, the material used to form the body of a porcelain object.
Hard paste
:''Main article Hard-paste porcelain''
Some of the earliest European porcelains were produced at the in the early 18th century; they were formed from a paste composed of kaolinite, quartz, and alabaster and fired at temperatures in excess of , producing a porcelain of great hardness and strength. Later, the composition of the Meissen hard paste was changed and the alabaster was replaced by feldspar, allowing the pieces to be fired at lower temperatures. Kaolinite, feldspar and quartz continue to provide the basic ingredients for most continental European hard-paste porcelains.
Soft paste
:''Main article Soft-paste porcelain''
Its history dates from the early attempts by European potters to replicate Chinese porcelain by using mixtures of china clay and ground-up glass or frit; soapstone and lime were known to have also been included in some compositions. As these early formulations suffered from high pyroplastic deformation, or slumping in the kiln at raised temperature, they were uneconomic to produce. Formulations were later developed based on kaolin, quartz, feldspars, nepheline syenite and other feldspathic rocks. These were technically superior and continue in production.
Bone china
:''Main article Bone China''
Although originally developed in England to compete with imported porcelain, Bone china is now made worldwide. It has been suggested that a misunderstanding of an account of porcelain manufacture in China given by a Jesuit missionary was responsible for the first attempts to use bone-ash as an ingredient of Western porcelain . For whatever reason, when it was first tried it was found that adding bone-ash to the paste produced a white, strong, translucent porcelain. Traditionally English bone china was made from two parts of bone-ash, one part of china clay kaolin and one part china stone , although this has largely been replaced by feldspars from non-UK sources
History
Chinese porcelain
Porcelain is generally believed to have originated in China. Although proto-porcelain wares exist dating from the Shang Dynasty, by the Eastern Han Dynasty high firing glazed ceramic wares had developed into porcelain, and porcelain manufactured during the Tang Dynasty period was exported to the Islamic world where it was highly prized. Early porcelain of this type includes the tri-color glazed porcelain, or ''sancai'' wares. Historian S.A.M. Adshead writes that true porcelain items in the restrictive sense that we know them today could be found in dynasties after the Tang, during the Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, and Qing Dynasty.
By the and dynasties, porcelain had become widely produced. Eventually, porcelain and the expertise required to create it began to spread into other areas; by the seventeenth century, it was being to Europe.
Islamic porcelain
In the 9th century, Chinese porcelain reached the Abbasid caliphate. A passage in a work written by Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Baihaki stated that the governor of Khorasan, ‘Ali ibn ‘Isa, sent as a present to the caliph Harun al-Rashid , “twenty pieces of Chinese Imperial porcelain , the like of which had never been seen at a Caliph’s court before, in addition to 2,000 other pieces of porcelain”.
The influence of porcelain of the and is evident in many ceramics made by Muslim potters. Wares made in the town of in Anatolia, are particularly notable and had major influence on European decorative arts, for example on Italian .
European porcelain
These exported Chinese porcelains of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were held in such great esteem in Europe that in the English language '''' became a commonly–used synonym for the Franco-Italian term ''porcelain''. After a number of false starts, such as the Medici porcelain, the European search for the secret of porcelain manufacture ended in 1708 with the discovery by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and Johann Friedrich B?ttger of a combination of ingredients, including Colditz clay , alabaster, and quartz, that produced a hard, white, translucent porcelain. It appears that in this discovery technology transfer from East Asia played little part.
Meissen
Tschirnhaus and B?ttger were employed by Augustus the Strong and worked at Dresden and Meissen in the German state of Saxony. Tschirnhaus had a wide knowledge of European science and had been involved in the European quest to perfect porcelain manufacture when in 1705 B?ttger was appointed to assist him in this task. B?ttger had originally been trained as a pharmacist; after he turned to alchemical research, it was his claim that he knew the secret of transmuting dross into gold that attracted the attention of Augustus. Imprisoned by Augustus as an incentive to hasten his research, B?ttger was obliged to work with other alchemists in the futile search for transmutation and was eventually assigned to assist Tschirnhaus. One of the first results of the collaboration between the two was the development of a red stoneware that resembled the red stoneware of Yixing.
A workshop note records that the first specimen of hard, white European porcelain was produced in January 1708. At the time, the research was still being supervised by Tschirnhaus; however, he died in October of that year. It was left to B?ttger to report to Augustus in March 1709 that he could make true white porcelain. For this reason, credit for the European discovery of porcelain is traditionally ascribed to him rather than Tschirnhaus.
The was established in 1710 after the development of a kiln and a glaze suitable for use with B?ttger's porcelain, which required firing at temperatures greater than to achieve translucence. Meissen porcelain was ''once-fired'', or ''green-fired'', in the Chinese manner. It was noted for its great resistance to thermal shock; a visitor to the factory in B?ttger's time reported having seen a white-hot teapot being removed from the kiln and dropped into cold water without damage. Evidence to support this widely disbelieved story was given in the 1980s when the procedure was repeated in an experiment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Other developments
William Cookworthy discovered deposits of china clay in Cornwall, making a considerable contribution to the development of porcelain and other whiteware ceramics in the United Kingdom. Cookworthy's , established in 1768, used Cornish china clay and china stone to make porcelain with a body composition similar to that of the Chinese porcelains of the early eighteenth century.
As a building material
In rare cases, porcelain has been used as a building material, usually in the form of large rectangular panels on exterior surfaces. The Dakin Building in Brisbane, California, constructed in 1986, is notable for its porcelain skin. An older example is the in Houston, Texas; constructed in 1929, it had a seventy-foot long logo of porcelain on its exterior.
Europe and the Americas
East Asia
* Chinese porcelain
* Japanese pottery and porcelain
* Korean pottery and porcelain
* Porcelain Tower of Nanjing
Numbers in Chinese culture
In Chinese culture, certain numbers are believed by some to be auspicious or inauspicious based on the word that the number name sounds similar to. However some Chinese people regard these beliefs to be superstitions. Since the pronunciation and the vocabulary may vary greatly in different Chinese dialects, the rules are not generally applicable for all cases.
Because of the supposed auspiciousness of certain numbers, some people will often choose, attempt to obtain, or pay large sums for numbers that are considered to be lucky for their phone numbers, street addresses, residence floor , driver's license number, vehicle license plate number, bank account number, etc.
Lucky numbers are based on words that sound similar to other Chinese words. The numbers , , and are believed to have auspicious meanings because their names sound similar to words that have positive meanings.
The number 1 can represent unity.
The number is a good number in Chinese culture. There is a Chinese saying "good things come in pairs". It is common to use double symbols in product brandnames, e.g. double happiness, double coin, double elephants etc. like the number two because it sounds the same as their word for "easy" .
The number sounds like the word "生 ", meaning "life", and is thus considered a lucky number.
Although the number is considered unlucky by most Chinese , it is considered lucky in some local Chinese dialects where it is a homophone with the word "事". When the number 4 is encountered during a celebration, people would often remark "四四如意", which would also refer to "事事如意" .
4 also sounds like the word "思 ". 4 in solfège sounds like "fa ", meaning "get fortune"; 14 in solfège sounds like "dou fa ", meaning "everyone gets fortunes".
The number is associated with the Five elements , and in turn was historically associated with the Emperor of China. For example, the Tiananmen gate, being the main thoroughfare to the Forbidden City, has five arches.
The number , pronounced "liu" in Mandarin, sounds like the word for "flowing", "smooth" or "slippery" which can mean "everything goes smoothly".
The number can be seen prominently in many shop windows across the country, and people there often pay extra to get a mobile phone number including this string of digits. Paradoxically, that number is considered to be demonic in Western culture, as it is the Number of the Beast.
License plate number AW6666 was bought for RMB 272,000 in an auction by an anonymous bidder on behalf of a motorcycle dealership in Zengcheng, Guangzhou.
The number symbolizes "togetherness". This is shown in the Chinese mythology of Cowherd and Weaver Girl. The seventh day of the seventh month is The Night of Sevens. However, the mythology of Cowherd and Weaver Girl is a tragedy, since they could only meet up with each other once every 1000 years, therefore 7 is often known as a sad, tragic, and unlucky number in the northern Chinese tradition. Also, the 7th month of the year is known as the Ghost Month, and therefore 7 is often linked with fate, destiny, and supernatural occurrences.
The word for in Mandarin sounds similar to the word which means "prosper" or "wealth" . In regional dialects the words for "eight" and "fortune" are also similar, eg "baat" and "faat".
There is also a resemblance between two digits, "88", and the ''shuang xi'' , a popular decorative design composed of two stylized characters 喜 .
Telephone number 8888-8888 was sold for USD$270,723 in Chengdu, China.
The opening ceremony of the began on 8/8/08 at 8 seconds and 8 minutes past 8 pm
A man in Hangzhou offered to sell his license plate reading A88888 for RMB 1.12 million.
The number , being the greatest of single-digit numbers, was historically associated with the Emperor of China; the Emperor's robes often had nine dragons, and Chinese mythology held that the dragon has nine children.
Moreover, the number '''' sounds like the word for "longlasting" , and as such is often used in weddings.
While 13 in Western culture is a bad number, in Chinese, 13 is a good number because in Cantonese, 13 is close to "實生" , so when faced with uncertainties, this is a comforting number. Of course, that makes 14 bad, because 14 is close to "實死" .
1314 - Forever , as the pronunciation of "1314" is close to "一生一世" . At one stage, 520 1314 was a very romantic number since "520" is close to 我愛您 , so 520 1314, was a very romantic 7-digit phone number.
138 or 148 - Prosperous for life; variations include 338 and 448 .
- Prosperous all the way, or to be prosperous together - many charged telephone service numbers in China begin with this number. Many businesses also prefer to have this number as part of their names. It is considered one of the luckiest numbers in Chinese culture.
518 - I will prosper ; other variations include: 5189 , 516289 and 5918 .
54 - in Cantonese: 'ng sei' sounds like 'm sei' - not die; in Mandarin, sounds like "I die"
524 - Cantonese, "Not easy to die"
Number is considered an unlucky number in , , and cultures because it sounds like the word "death" . Due to that, many numbered product lines skip the "4": e.g. Nokia cell phones , , Canon PowerShot G's series , etc. In East Asia, some buildings do not have a 4th floor. In Hong Kong, some high-rise residential buildings miss ALL floor numbers with "4", e.g. 4, 14, 24, 34 and all 40-49 floors. As a result, a building with 50th as the highest floor may actually have 36.
Number is considered to be one of the unluckiest numbers in Chinese culture. Although 14 is usually said as "shi si," which sounds like "ten die", it can also be said as "yi si" or "yao si", literally "one four". Thus, 14 can also be said as "yao si," literally "one four," but it also means "want to die" . In Cantonese, 14 sounds like "sap6 sei3", which sounds like "sat6 sei2" meaning "certainly die" .
Ironically, in the Rich Text Format specification, language code 4 is for the Chinese language.
Although it can represent "me" , it is usually associated with "not" .
If used for the negative connotation it can become good by using it with a negative.
54 being "not die" or "no death".
If used for the positive it can be used as a possessive. 528 is a way of saying "no easy fortune for me". 53 sounds like "m4 sang1 （唔生）" - "not live".
Six in Cantonese which has a similar pronunciation to that of "luk6" - to drop, fall or decline may form unlucky combinations.
Seven is considered spiritual or ghostly. The seventh month of the Chinese calendar is also called the "Ghost Month". See Ghost Festival for more detail. During this month, the gates of hell are said to be open so ghosts and spirits are permitted to visit the living realm. It is not commonly associated with luck.
250 - if it is read in a certain way, it means imbecile in Mandarin. 二百五 （èr bǎi wǔ) reading means imbecile, while alternative ways such as 两百五 or 二百五十 means 250. The difference lies with the rule that 两 should be used in the place of 二 to mean 2 when directly before a measure word
9413 - "九死一生" , meaning 90% chance of being dead and only 10% chance of being alive.
In Hong Kong, seven and nine both have similar pronunciations to two of "the five most insulting words" in Cantonese - the male genital. Six in Cantonese also has a similar pronunciation to an impolite word which is used to count the number of cylindrical objects. Therefore, 167, 169, 1679 and other creative combinations are dirty jokes in Hong Kong culture.
5354 - "唔生唔死" sounds like "not alive, not dead". This often refers to something that is half dead or on the verge of death.
Because of the supposed auspiciousness of certain numbers, some people will often choose, attempt to obtain, or pay large sums for numbers that are considered to be lucky for their phone numbers, street addresses, residence floor , driver's license number, vehicle license plate number, bank account number, etc.
Lucky numbers
Lucky numbers are based on words that sound similar to other Chinese words. The numbers , , and are believed to have auspicious meanings because their names sound similar to words that have positive meanings.
One
The number 1 can represent unity.
Two
The number is a good number in Chinese culture. There is a Chinese saying "good things come in pairs". It is common to use double symbols in product brandnames, e.g. double happiness, double coin, double elephants etc. like the number two because it sounds the same as their word for "easy" .
Three
The number sounds like the word "生 ", meaning "life", and is thus considered a lucky number.
Four
Although the number is considered unlucky by most Chinese , it is considered lucky in some local Chinese dialects where it is a homophone with the word "事". When the number 4 is encountered during a celebration, people would often remark "四四如意", which would also refer to "事事如意" .
4 also sounds like the word "思 ". 4 in solfège sounds like "fa ", meaning "get fortune"; 14 in solfège sounds like "dou fa ", meaning "everyone gets fortunes".
Five
The number is associated with the Five elements , and in turn was historically associated with the Emperor of China. For example, the Tiananmen gate, being the main thoroughfare to the Forbidden City, has five arches.
Six
The number , pronounced "liu" in Mandarin, sounds like the word for "flowing", "smooth" or "slippery" which can mean "everything goes smoothly".
The number can be seen prominently in many shop windows across the country, and people there often pay extra to get a mobile phone number including this string of digits. Paradoxically, that number is considered to be demonic in Western culture, as it is the Number of the Beast.
License plate number AW6666 was bought for RMB 272,000 in an auction by an anonymous bidder on behalf of a motorcycle dealership in Zengcheng, Guangzhou.
Seven
The number symbolizes "togetherness". This is shown in the Chinese mythology of Cowherd and Weaver Girl. The seventh day of the seventh month is The Night of Sevens. However, the mythology of Cowherd and Weaver Girl is a tragedy, since they could only meet up with each other once every 1000 years, therefore 7 is often known as a sad, tragic, and unlucky number in the northern Chinese tradition. Also, the 7th month of the year is known as the Ghost Month, and therefore 7 is often linked with fate, destiny, and supernatural occurrences.
Eight
The word for in Mandarin sounds similar to the word which means "prosper" or "wealth" . In regional dialects the words for "eight" and "fortune" are also similar, eg "baat" and "faat".
There is also a resemblance between two digits, "88", and the ''shuang xi'' , a popular decorative design composed of two stylized characters 喜 .
Telephone number 8888-8888 was sold for USD$270,723 in Chengdu, China.
The opening ceremony of the began on 8/8/08 at 8 seconds and 8 minutes past 8 pm
A man in Hangzhou offered to sell his license plate reading A88888 for RMB 1.12 million.
Nine
The number , being the greatest of single-digit numbers, was historically associated with the Emperor of China; the Emperor's robes often had nine dragons, and Chinese mythology held that the dragon has nine children.
Moreover, the number '''' sounds like the word for "longlasting" , and as such is often used in weddings.
Thirteen
While 13 in Western culture is a bad number, in Chinese, 13 is a good number because in Cantonese, 13 is close to "實生" , so when faced with uncertainties, this is a comforting number. Of course, that makes 14 bad, because 14 is close to "實死" .
Combinations
1314 - Forever , as the pronunciation of "1314" is close to "一生一世" . At one stage, 520 1314 was a very romantic number since "520" is close to 我愛您 , so 520 1314, was a very romantic 7-digit phone number.
138 or 148 - Prosperous for life; variations include 338 and 448 .
- Prosperous all the way, or to be prosperous together - many charged telephone service numbers in China begin with this number. Many businesses also prefer to have this number as part of their names. It is considered one of the luckiest numbers in Chinese culture.
518 - I will prosper ; other variations include: 5189 , 516289 and 5918 .
54 - in Cantonese: 'ng sei' sounds like 'm sei' - not die; in Mandarin, sounds like "I die"
524 - Cantonese, "Not easy to die"
Unlucky numbers
Four
Number is considered an unlucky number in , , and cultures because it sounds like the word "death" . Due to that, many numbered product lines skip the "4": e.g. Nokia cell phones , , Canon PowerShot G's series , etc. In East Asia, some buildings do not have a 4th floor. In Hong Kong, some high-rise residential buildings miss ALL floor numbers with "4", e.g. 4, 14, 24, 34 and all 40-49 floors. As a result, a building with 50th as the highest floor may actually have 36.
Number is considered to be one of the unluckiest numbers in Chinese culture. Although 14 is usually said as "shi si," which sounds like "ten die", it can also be said as "yi si" or "yao si", literally "one four". Thus, 14 can also be said as "yao si," literally "one four," but it also means "want to die" . In Cantonese, 14 sounds like "sap6 sei3", which sounds like "sat6 sei2" meaning "certainly die" .
Ironically, in the Rich Text Format specification, language code 4 is for the Chinese language.
Five
Although it can represent "me" , it is usually associated with "not" .
If used for the negative connotation it can become good by using it with a negative.
54 being "not die" or "no death".
If used for the positive it can be used as a possessive. 528 is a way of saying "no easy fortune for me". 53 sounds like "m4 sang1 （唔生）" - "not live".
Six
Six in Cantonese which has a similar pronunciation to that of "luk6" - to drop, fall or decline may form unlucky combinations.
Seven
Seven is considered spiritual or ghostly. The seventh month of the Chinese calendar is also called the "Ghost Month". See Ghost Festival for more detail. During this month, the gates of hell are said to be open so ghosts and spirits are permitted to visit the living realm. It is not commonly associated with luck.
Combinations
250 - if it is read in a certain way, it means imbecile in Mandarin. 二百五 （èr bǎi wǔ) reading means imbecile, while alternative ways such as 两百五 or 二百五十 means 250. The difference lies with the rule that 两 should be used in the place of 二 to mean 2 when directly before a measure word
9413 - "九死一生" , meaning 90% chance of being dead and only 10% chance of being alive.
In Hong Kong, seven and nine both have similar pronunciations to two of "the five most insulting words" in Cantonese - the male genital. Six in Cantonese also has a similar pronunciation to an impolite word which is used to count the number of cylindrical objects. Therefore, 167, 169, 1679 and other creative combinations are dirty jokes in Hong Kong culture.
5354 - "唔生唔死" sounds like "not alive, not dead". This often refers to something that is half dead or on the verge of death.
Ni Hao, Kai-Lan
Ni Hao, Kai-Lan is a children's television show, which premiered on on February 7, 2008. The show was soon thereafter re-broadcasted on Treehouse TV.
Kai-lan is a young girl who shares her biculturalism in her playtime adventures with her animal friends.
The title character's name, Kai-lan, is the Chinese name of show creator, Karen Chau, before being .
Voiced by Jade-Lianna Peters
Kai-lan's grandfather, Ye Ye, appears as the patriarch, sharing with his granddaughter.
Voiced by and Ben Wang
Rintoo is an impulsive
* A few words of Mandarin Chinese vocabulary
* One or more of Kai-lan's friends having a negative emotional response to some action or activity
* Kai-lan thinking out loud
* Cause-and-effect problem solving
* Before saying good-bye , Kai-lan says, "You make my heart feel super happy."
"Ni Hao, Kai-lan" is based on the childhood memories of creator, Karen Chau, growing up in a bicultural household. However, the original concept for the show was a series of 2 minute shorts oriented around yoga with the working title, "Downward Doghouse" -- a reference to the "downward facing dog".
Main Characters
Kai-lan Chow
Kai-lan is a young girl who shares her biculturalism in her playtime adventures with her animal friends.
The title character's name, Kai-lan, is the Chinese name of show creator, Karen Chau, before being .
Voiced by Jade-Lianna Peters
Ye Ye
Kai-lan's grandfather, Ye Ye, appears as the patriarch, sharing with his granddaughter.
Voiced by and Ben Wang
Rintoo
Rintoo is an impulsive
* A few words of Mandarin Chinese vocabulary
* One or more of Kai-lan's friends having a negative emotional response to some action or activity
* Kai-lan thinking out loud
* Cause-and-effect problem solving
* Before saying good-bye , Kai-lan says, "You make my heart feel super happy."
Conception
"Ni Hao, Kai-lan" is based on the childhood memories of creator, Karen Chau, growing up in a bicultural household. However, the original concept for the show was a series of 2 minute shorts oriented around yoga with the working title, "Downward Doghouse" -- a reference to the "downward facing dog".
Naming taboo
Naming taboo is a cultural taboo against speaking or writing the given names of exalted persons in China and neighboring nations in the ancient Chinese cultural sphere.
* The ''naming taboo of the state'' discouraged the use of the emperor's given name and those of his ancestors. For example, during the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang's given name Zheng was avoided, and the first month of the year "Zheng Yue" was rewritten into "Zheng Yue" and furthermore renamed as "Duan Yue" . The character 正 was also pronounced Zeng instead of Zheng to avoid any similarity. Generally, ancestor names going back to seven generations were avoided. The strength of this taboo was reinforced by law; transgressors could expect serious punishment for writing an emperor's name without modifications. In 1777, Wang Xihou in his dictionary criticized the Kangxi dictionary and wrote the Qianlong Emperor's name without leaving out any stroke as required. These disrespects resulted in his and his family's executions and confiscation of their property.
* The ''naming taboo of the clan'' discouraged the use of the names of one's own ancestors. In diplomatic documents and letters between clans, each clan's naming taboos were observed.
* The ''naming taboo of the holinesses'' discouraged the use of the names of respected people. For example, writing Confucius' name was taboo during the .
There were three ways to avoid using a taboo character:
* Changing the character to another one which usually was a synonym or sounded like the character being avoided. For example, the Xuanwu Gate of the Forbidden City was renamed as "Shenwu" in order to avoid the Kangxi Emperor's name Xuanye .
* Leaving the character as a blank.
* Omitting a stroke in the character, especially the final stroke.
Throughout Chinese history, there were emperors whose names contained common characters who would try to alleviate the burden of the populace in practicing name avoidance. For example, Emperor Xuan of Han, whose given name Bingyi contained two very common characters, changed his name to Xun , a far less common character, with the stated purpose of making it easier for his people to avoid using his name. Similarly, Emperor Taizong of Tang, whose given name Shimin also contained two very common characters, ordered that name avoidance only required the avoidance of the characters ''Shi'' and ''Min'' in direct succession and that it did not require the avoidance of those characters in isolation. However, his son Emperor Gaozong of Tang effectively made this edict of Emperor Taizong ineffective after his death by requiring the complete avoidance of the characters ''Shi'' and ''Min'', necessitating the Li Shiji to change his name to Li Ji.
The custom of naming taboo had a built-in contradiction: without knowing what the emperors' names were one could hardly be expected to avoid them, so somehow the emperors' names had to be informally transmitted to the populace to allow them to learn them in order to avoid them. In one famous incident in 435, during the Northern Wei Dynasty, Goguryeo ambassadors made a formal request that the imperial government issue them a document containing the emperors' names so that they could avoid offending the emperor while submitting their king's petition. Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei agreed and issued them such a document. However, the mechanism of how the regular populace would be able to learn the emperors' names remained generally unclear throughout Chinese history.
Since every reign of every dynasty had its own naming taboos, the study of naming taboos can help date an ancient text.
Kinds of naming taboo
* The ''naming taboo of the state'' discouraged the use of the emperor's given name and those of his ancestors. For example, during the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang's given name Zheng was avoided, and the first month of the year "Zheng Yue" was rewritten into "Zheng Yue" and furthermore renamed as "Duan Yue" . The character 正 was also pronounced Zeng instead of Zheng to avoid any similarity. Generally, ancestor names going back to seven generations were avoided. The strength of this taboo was reinforced by law; transgressors could expect serious punishment for writing an emperor's name without modifications. In 1777, Wang Xihou in his dictionary criticized the Kangxi dictionary and wrote the Qianlong Emperor's name without leaving out any stroke as required. These disrespects resulted in his and his family's executions and confiscation of their property.
* The ''naming taboo of the clan'' discouraged the use of the names of one's own ancestors. In diplomatic documents and letters between clans, each clan's naming taboos were observed.
* The ''naming taboo of the holinesses'' discouraged the use of the names of respected people. For example, writing Confucius' name was taboo during the .
Methods to avoid offence
There were three ways to avoid using a taboo character:
* Changing the character to another one which usually was a synonym or sounded like the character being avoided. For example, the Xuanwu Gate of the Forbidden City was renamed as "Shenwu" in order to avoid the Kangxi Emperor's name Xuanye .
* Leaving the character as a blank.
* Omitting a stroke in the character, especially the final stroke.
Naming taboo in history
Throughout Chinese history, there were emperors whose names contained common characters who would try to alleviate the burden of the populace in practicing name avoidance. For example, Emperor Xuan of Han, whose given name Bingyi contained two very common characters, changed his name to Xun , a far less common character, with the stated purpose of making it easier for his people to avoid using his name. Similarly, Emperor Taizong of Tang, whose given name Shimin also contained two very common characters, ordered that name avoidance only required the avoidance of the characters ''Shi'' and ''Min'' in direct succession and that it did not require the avoidance of those characters in isolation. However, his son Emperor Gaozong of Tang effectively made this edict of Emperor Taizong ineffective after his death by requiring the complete avoidance of the characters ''Shi'' and ''Min'', necessitating the Li Shiji to change his name to Li Ji.
The custom of naming taboo had a built-in contradiction: without knowing what the emperors' names were one could hardly be expected to avoid them, so somehow the emperors' names had to be informally transmitted to the populace to allow them to learn them in order to avoid them. In one famous incident in 435, during the Northern Wei Dynasty, Goguryeo ambassadors made a formal request that the imperial government issue them a document containing the emperors' names so that they could avoid offending the emperor while submitting their king's petition. Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei agreed and issued them such a document. However, the mechanism of how the regular populace would be able to learn the emperors' names remained generally unclear throughout Chinese history.
Since every reign of every dynasty had its own naming taboos, the study of naming taboos can help date an ancient text.
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