Winter Solstice, the 2nd Most Important Day on Chinese Calendar The 24 solar terms in the Chinese calendar are determined by, not a human ruler’s will, but the pulse of Nature – the change of season. Of the 24, winter solstice, the 22nd on the roll, is evidently the first solar term to be established during the Spring and Autumn […]
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For thousands of years, Chinese people speak in hundreds of different dialects but use only one script, Han Characters (汉字), which makes the written communication and culture inheritance possible. The separation of the written and spoken forms of the Chinese language provides a tie that holds the Chinese people together while gives space for localized expressions in daily lives. 8 […]
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The front of the bronze Han mirror. In ancient China, mirrors, that are normally made of bronze, were often viewed as more than just instruments for reflection; they were also artworks, and sometimes sacred objects with supernatural disposition, and for that, they often used as sacrifice articles to detect other worlds. The earliest mirrors in China were said to be […]
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Chinese civilization perhaps is the most literature-oriented in human history, but the dominant writing style in China changes over time. Here is a long-established observation that brilliantly summarizes the evolution of China’s literature scene: 楚骚 汉赋 魏晋骈文 唐诗 宋词 元曲 明代话本 It means that the odes of the Warrior States era, the rhymed essays of the Han Dynasty, the couplet-style essays […]
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In Chinese mythology, epidemics are caused by Five Epidemic Demons with five pairs of evil eyes, all having a human body but the head of a man, a tiger, a horse, a bird or a rooster. According to the Encyclopedia on The Origin of the Mysterious Figures from Confucius, Buddhism and Daoist (三教源流搜神大全), a work compiled during the Ming Dynasty, […]
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Great truths are always simple. (It is the language that makes the world complicated.) A quotation from Mencius Laws without compassion cannot build a good society; compassion without laws cannot make a good government. In other words, laws without compassion will not unite people; compassion without laws can lead to injustice. A Quotation from The Book of Rites The Book […]
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In the mountainous west Hunan Province in China’s southern inland region, there are many remote villages where the mysterious practice to communicate with hidden forces is still very much part of the daily reality. A family in the village. COMMENTS FROM MINDS.COM Eric Hmmmmm…. that is fascinating. Are they forces of evil? 😨😭 All Things Chinese Pure “evil” forces are rare […]
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In Chinese mythology, most beings in the celestial worlds more or less look like humans. The difference between the bodies of the terrestrial humans and the celestial beings are that the latter is much more refined in substance, more graceful in appearance, lighter in weight, shining in colour and transformable in shape since it is not formed with flesh and blood […]
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Oracle Turtle Scripts This is Oracle Turtle Script, the early Chinese written language carved on a turtle shell during Shang Dynasty (1600 BC – 1046 BC) – an era ruled by merchants with a social system chiefly based on written business contacts. This script used to be considered as the earliest form of Chinese characters by archaeologists. But the evidence […]
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White Deer College (白鹿书院), in Jiangxi Province, was a private university established 1,000 years ago with its heyday during Song and Ming dynasties. In classic China (before the middle 17th century), there were two kinds of tertiary education facilities: state-sponsored university and private colleges. The students of the former were selected nationwide. Not only they needed to pay no tuition […]
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During the middle of the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644), there were four men regarded as the top four talented scholars in the region of Jiangnan, the area where Liangzhu Culture developed 5,300 – 4,000 years ago. One of the four in Hangzhou, other three from Suzhou, all were great poets, painters and calligraphers. This calligraphy is the first page […]
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The Heart Sutra is one of the most important Buddhist classics, while hand-copying Heart Surra is a popular practice among Buddhist followers in China historically. The practice mainly serves two purposes: to help distribute Buddhist classics in an era when printing was expensive, and most importantly, to function as a meditative learning process that allows the message easily entering the […]
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