Chinese Writing

As many people know, Chinese language is one of the hardest languages in the world. It has many dialects and many different characters for writing. The "art of writing" as they call it in China is very difficult and rare- due to constant development of new characters in their written and verbal language. This is why a lot of Chinese Art is actually filled with their written symbols. Symbols vary in their difficulty too. There are some that more difficult and used by knowledgeable people or for Art; and others used for regular writing. Here is an example:

Education fact... Tang Dynasty....

Education was a big part of Chinese culture. At first it was just noble people who were educated and they were only men, later they started to educate Nobel women too-because they spent most of the time with future rulers of the country who were suppose to be very well educated. In the Tang dynasty, anyone with an education was expected to greet as well as say goodbye to another person in poetic verse composed on the spot. Can you imagine how difficult it is to compose a poem on the spot? But, apparently for that time it was a regular thing for every educated person.

Cost of Olympic Games in China....

I'm  sure many people watched Olympic Games of 2008 that were in Beijing. It was a grandiose show! Most people could not even imagine that a person is able to come up with and make so many interesting and fascinating things. The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing turned out to be the most expensive games in history. Olympic Games of 2004 in Athens were estimated to cost around $15 billion, the Beijing Games were estimated to cost a whopping $40 billion.

Flag of China

"...China’s national flag was adopted in September 1949 and first flown in Tiananmen Square (the world’s largest public gathering place) on October 1, 1949, the day the People’s Republic of China was formed. The red in the flag symbolizes revolution. The large star symbolizes communism and the little stars represent the Chinese people. The position of the stars represents the unity of the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party..." (http://facts.randomhistory.com/)

Another thing about Chinese Flag is that stars represent people's unity under Communism.

Smart people of China...

It is known that Chinese people are extremely smart. A lot of people believe it is due to their dedication to studying and consistent repetition. But I found one fact that defiantly shows their smart generations started to evolve a long time ago. By the second century B.C., the Chinese discovered that blood circulated throughout the body and that the heart pumped the blood. In Europe, circulation wasn’t discovered until the early seventeenth century by William Harvey (1578-1657).

Royal Chinese customs

I found information that "..It was customary for wealthy men and women in the late empire to grow the nails of their little fingers extremely long as a sign of their rank. They often wore decorative gold and silver nail guards to protect their nails..." This is defiantly royal way of showing their status in society and their nobility because only they can do nothing and grow their nail, unlike working class people who work all the time with their hands.

Color in Chinese Culture

I have read that color also means a lot in Chinese culture. There are so many interesting meanings that Chinese put in to color. Probably no other culture in the world has that much meaning in color. Here are some examples: White-symbolises purity, as in many cultures, but also sometimes connects to death and is a funeral color for Chinese culture; Red- is a color of happiness and used in all holidays, red envelopes are used for greeting cards it symbolizes good luck; Green- is very unpopular color, they have a saying about a men wearing a Green Hat, which means his wife is unfaithful; Blue-Green- on the other hand is a symbol of spring and represents nature and renewal; but Blue or Dark Blue- is also a color for funerals and also symbolizes immortality; Yellow- represents freedom, it is considered most beautiful color in China; symbolizes royalty and a symbolic color of five legendary emperors of ancient China; it is thought to generate Yin and Yang and is a center of everything; it is also respected color of Chinese Buddhist and sometimes used by them in funerals as a mourning color.

I found it very interesting that number 1 hobby in china is stemp collecting. Because, in Ukraine and Russia it was (i dont know about now, but before it was) pretty popular too. I personally know people who had huge books of all kinds of stemps that you can only imagine. Now, I think this hobby probably came to western Europe from China.

Intersting fact about Fortune Cookies

1. Many people mistakenly think that so famous Fortune Cookies are a long Chinese tradition and this is why you always see them in Chinese restaurants. But, it is not true. Fortune Cookies were invented only in 1920, considering how old Chinese culture is, 1920, is very resent date. They were invented by a worker in the Key Heong Noodle Factory in San Francisco. I was not able to find if a worker was actually Chinese or not, so it is possible that so famous Fortune Cookies were not even invented by Chinese.

China-longest continues civilization

China is considered the longest continues civilization by many historians. Some mark the beginning of Chinese civilization as far back as 6000 B. C. and the modern name of China is thought to come from "Chin" dynasty. This is not only unique and different culture, but as you can see one of the oldest and most interesting too. China has centuries of rich history in thir country, customs, and religion.

Tea in China....

I find it very interesting how much Tea itself means for Chinese people. It is not only used as a drink, but also it is an important part of their lives. Tea is used by Chinese people as a medicine and as a regular drink. They have whole Tea Ceremonies that are different for every occasion. To explain how much tea means for Chinese people is easy by comparing it to coffee in America. For example when they want to show respect for older people or invite somebody somewhere to visit with them they offer to go for a cup of tea; here in America people always invite to go get coffee. This is another aspect that shows the difference and much healthier style of living of Chinese culture.

The "Goddess of Democracy" carved by students from the Central Academy of Fine Arts and erected in the Square during the protest. I found this picture very interesting. This is Chinese students protesting in Tienanmen Square in April 1989. I think this picture shows the difference of the culture compared to other nations in the world. Here they not only brought flags and posters but even a statue that represents what they are protesting for. In other nations you usually see aggressive remarks towards government on the posters and people yelling and screaming. This is why i found this picture very unique and interesting.

I have noticed that China is very good about covering things up. Everything that can play against them they erase from history completely, so that nobody even knows about it. For example about famine in my previous post and Tienanmen Square protests. I was very surprised that people in China have no idea what happened in Tienanmen Square. History is very important for each country, as one famous saying goes "...Those who don't remember history, are doomed to repeat it..." So, i think in a way it is really bad to keep important historical events away from people. Of course for the communist government it is to their advantage, but i think it will get back at them one day.

Famine in China....

It surprised me how well China's government was able to cover what was really going on in the country from 1958-1962. Horrible starvation, millions of deaths, and even cannibalism in some areas was hidden from officials of the party. I think it is not right to do something like that, if other countries would found out about what was going on in China maybe they would be able to help and less people would die. But, it was not in China's interests for everyone to find out.

Movie....

What really surprised me is the part where they showed how hard people worked in the fields to produce something for the government. But, the most shocking part is that they were not paid for this, and they believed that it is okay. Government choose very good tactic of saying that it is like farming their own land, it is for their own good. It is scary how much government controlled people of China.

Movie...

An interesting fact about great Chinese leader is that he was teaching his family not to get used to luxury. This is very uncommon for western civilizations. In our culture we always can pick out people who are wealthy, because they have luxury cars, houses and clothes. In China, if you would see Mao walking down the street by himself you could probably not even notice that he is a wealthy leader of this country. Here is another example of how different Asian culture and mentality is.

Movie

What impressed me about movie is how many people showed a real deep sorrow at the funeral of their leader. Those people never knew him personally, but they were crying like it was someone they knew really well. This shows how different the mentality and relationships towards another person (especially a leader) is in China. I don't think you could see anything like this in western countries, i personally watched many documentaries about countries and their leaders and politics, but i have never seen people to react like that to the death of their leader....There was just as many people at the funerals....some were crying....but not as emotionally as in China.