...The varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family.[a] The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, but may be even more varied. There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese (depending on classification scheme), of which the most spoken, by far, is Mandarin (about 960 million), followed by Wu (80 million), Yue (70 million) and Min (70 million). Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and the Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms and some degree of intelligibility. All varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese (Putonghua/Guoyu/Huayu) is a standardized form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the official language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. The written form of the standard language (中文; Zhōngwén), based on the logograms known as Chinese characters (汉字/漢字; hànzi), is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese (the prestige variety of Yue) is influential in Guangdong province and Cantonese-speaking overseas communities and remains one of the official languages of Hong Kong (together with English) and of Macau (together with Portuguese)...
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...Chinese Culture(中国传统文化) Ghulam Abbas Kan (3115999115) Email id:abbasalmani591@hotmail.com School of Electronic and information Xi’an Jiaotong University. INTRODUCTION: Culture itself is a relatively large concept. Generally speaking, culture is a kind of social phenomenon, and it is the product of people's long-term creation. At the same time, it is a historical accumulation of social history. The general culture is the sum of all the material and spiritual wealth created by human beings. Exactly speaking, culture refers to a country or a nation's history, geographical conditions, traditions, customs, way of life, literature, art, normative behavior, ways of thinking, values, and so on. According to the definition of British anthropologist Edward teller, culture "includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and as a member of the society the ability and habits that complex whole". Its core is as spiritual products of all kinds of knowledge, this matter is spread. Culture is a phenomenon peculiar to human beings. Culture is created by people, being unique.The culture is the product of human social practice. Chinese traditional culture is the civilization evolution and exchange integrated a reflect the national character and style of the national culture is nation in the history of all kinds of thoughts and ideology of the overall characterization, refers to the living in the area of Chinese nation and the ancestors created and inherited from generation to generation...
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...B Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” is an article from The Wall Street Journal. The sender Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School in USA, is comparing the Chinese upbringing to the Western way of upbringing. Mrs. Chua is trying to explain to the receiver, western parents, that there are pros and cons when you look at the Chinese way of educating children, but she also shows, that it leads to good results. The argumentation, in Mrs. Chua’s article is open. By using the open argumentation is gives Mrs. Chua the chance to show of her own opinion. And thereby reveal a little bit of herself to the reader. “For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother the first hour is the easy part. It’s hours two and three that get tough.” Here Amy is arguing which of the cultures that is the strictest when it comes to the children’s after school activities. Later on in the text she even gives an example of how she makes her own children practice. “Lulu could not do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over.” In this paragraph on page 9, we can see how she is clearly in favor of the Chinese method, which she uses herself. Amy Chua uses all of the known forms of appeal to convince the reader. Mrs. Chua starts out with the logos appeal form. “..there are tons of studies out there...
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...Richard Rokosz CHIN 3801 March 11, 2016 Midterm 1. There are some perennial subjects in Chinese or Japanese poetry, for instance, love, nature, celebration of life, etc. Discuss one subject: How have different poets in different historical periods approached the subject? For instance, how is love depicted by different poets? Chinese poetry has since the beginning featured the subjects of love, nature and celebration of life as recurring topics. Almost every poem we’ve analyzed and discussed in class has included references to one or more of these subjects. Nature is the perennial subject that has resonated with me most, as it has encompassed the majority of metaphors and comparisons in the poetry we’ve read. Chinese and Japanese poetry metaphorically incorporate animals and the seasons. The animals will often represent humans. Their actions also symbolize different human actions. In no other cultural tradition has nature played a more important role artistically than in that of China. Since China’s earliest dynasty, real and imagined creatures of the earth (serpents, cicadas, and dragons) were gifted with special powers. In the Chinese imagination, mountains were also infused with sacred power since ancient times. They attracted the rain clouds that watered the farmer’s crops. They concealed herbs used for medicines, magical fruits, and minerals that held the promise of longevity. Mountains with caves and grottos were viewed as gateways...
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...July 3, 2010 Dear Diary, My life as a Chinese American Many of my ancestors paved the way for me to become a Chinese American. In the late 1850’s is when the first wave of Chinese immigration entered into the United States. The Chinese who entered the United States were called the Gold Mountain Guest. The Chinese called the United States, Gold Mountain, in the event that they may become rich. This gold rush started in Sutter’s Mill, Sacramento, CA. As the gold diminished, they just came to simply work. They were discriminated against in their wages, they were paid less than everybody else and was treated with violence. My name is Kim Lee, and I was born to Su Lee and Chang Lee on December 24, 1985 in China. When I first came to the United States, I did not know what to expect. My parents told me of the many struggles that the Chinese had to overcome to become Chinese Americans and I felt very afraid. My parents still live in China, while I came to the United States to attend College. I was accepted into the University of San Francisco, where I am currently attending school. I live in a small part of town called China Town. China Town is a segregated part of San Francisco where the Chinese Americans such as myself live. Most Chinese who come to the United States settle here on the West Coast, California being one of the biggest states to house Chinese Americans. Some of the same prejudice that my parents warned me about, still exist in the United States today....
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...THE CHINESE MANAGEMENT Confucius on Management History has shown that China is a significant creator and repository of great philosophies, yet we know little of Chinese philosophies on leadership. With China becoming a global economic and political force, we need to learn from and to understand Chinese leadership philosophies. We must also consider that China is now in the process of blending its tradition, customs and practices with Western concepts and ideas. In the business world, it is the blending of its wisdom and Western practices. Successful leadership behavior of today's more culturally diverse workforce is one of the most important challenges organizations face. CHINA The People's Republic of China today seems to be entering the modern world, coming out of the shadow of the warlords, the 20-year struggle between communism and nationalism, and the Cultural Revolution. Moves are afoot to shift the Chinese economy more toward the market-oriented end of the spectrum. China’s 1978 open door policy initiated rapid economic development, and consequently exposed china to a flood to Western management practices. CHINA 2 China is a country of old and new and one that is in transition. With the rise of China in the global economy, it has never been more important for business leaders to understand Chinese leadership philosophies and practices. Ancient Chinese thinking and Western ideas have shaped the development of leadership styles in China. Leadership theories (paternalistic...
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...“ Why Chinese mothers are superior” Liliana Martin/w204551844 PSYC 2314: Mon-Tues 10:30-1:00 Summer 2015 “Chinese mother are superior” after hearing this quote it makes me feel angry and it makes me feel like if I was from a race or a country where we are less than or unworthy of being a mother as if my mother that is Mexican was underneath every Chinese mother. My first thoughts are; “Yes! Chinese people might be smarter and more stable than us Americans, I have heard about how Chinese parents are extremely disciplined and strict on the way they raise their children” but I have never thought they were better than my parents. I have never thought about anyone in particular being better than any other person but after reading this article” why Chinese mothers are superior” I can honestly say that Chinese mothers have an excellent way of raising their children and perhaps they have better styles on raising their children. I don’t consider them being superior but I do agree that many of their mother techniques are superior. From generations and generation’s Chinese mothers have always strict to their children, a lot more strict than the average person. China, with over 1.370537 billion people (including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) as of April, 2011, is without doubt the most populous country in the world. It is also the oldest race in the world. Chinese government is almost as strict as mothers are with their children. It is a communist country where there is only one...
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...that the culture follows. Many cultures have changed greatly over the centuries, but China’s remains very similar to its roots around the family and authoritarian. Unlike western cultures, much of the Chinese etiquette continues to be very rigid. Understanding and putting into practice the manners and etiquettes of Chinese culture will help a person to create new friendships, rather than enemies, and be accepted by more people within the country. These manners and etiquettes cover behavior in public, dining, conducting business, and even gift giving. In public Chinese people are very formal in their behaviors. Public displays of affection such as kissing, hugging, making eye contact, or hand holding are strongly discouraged; however, hand holding amongst friends of the same sex commonly occurs. Personal space is given very little concern within China, especially during national celebrations when most people go out, and the streets become very crowded from the largest cities to the smallest rural villages. People meeting will often shake hand and/or bow to each other, regardless of their acquaintance level. A Chinese person will typically avoid making eye contact. Making eye contact may be considered rude and signify anger or defiance. When meeting someone new Chinese people will often ask about a person’s age, marital status, and children. They consider this to be...
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...In Chinese thought, the world is populated by a vast number of spirits, both good and evil. Such spirits include nature demons, evil spirits or devils, and ghosts. Evil spirits are believed to avoid light and many rituals involving fire and light have developed, such as the use of bonfires, firecrackers, and torches. Evil spirits are also traditionally believed to travel in straight line, which explains many curvy roads throughout China. If a spirit is not kept happy, perhaps because it had a bad death, an improper burial or has no descendents to perform the proper rituals, it becomes a ghost (sometimes called a "hungry ghost," a term with Buddhist origins). Ghosts may attack human beings to prompt them to meet the ghosts' needs or at least to draw attention to their plight. Ghosts receive the most attentions during Ghost Month, the seventh month in the Chinese lunar year, and especially during the Ghost Festival on the fifteenth day. The Hungry Ghost Festival has its roots in the Buddhist festival Ullambana, and also in Daoist culture. In the Tang Dynasty, the Buddhist festival Ullambana and its traditional festivities were mixed and celebrated on one day. Thus, the Ghost Festival has a special meaning for all Buddhists. The Chinese believe that the dead become ghosts who roam between Heaven and Earth on the day of their death. Spirits without descendants to make offerings to them are fed during the ghost festival, so that they may not cause trouble to the living. This...
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...Final Project: Art Timeline The Art of Chinese Painting “Landscapes” Axia College University of Phoenix Art /101 Chinese paintings can be found dating as far back as the Neolithic period. These paintings incorporate a combination of Western and Chinese painting styles. There is one category of Chinese painting that has increasingly become more interesting to artist and viewers. It is Chinese landscape painting. “Chinese Landscape painting is the most popular style of painting in the rich artistic legacy of traditional China” (Art Realization, 2005). This particular category of painting includes two schools of painting, Northern and Southern. The Northern school includes professional and court painters, while the Southern school includes amateur and gentle man painters. (Ethnicpaintings, 2011). Artist expressed themselves by painting the natural world around them. The view of nature allowed people to seek comfort and safety. Dong Qichange was a controversial politician regarded as an outstanding Chinese landscape painter. He was born in 1555 in what is known today as Shanghai, China. In addition to being a painter he was also a calligrapher and theoretician. His most remarkable contribution to art was introducing new ways to present thoughts in painting landscape views. Thus, you have the Northern and Southern styles of art. The Northern school of art taught about obtaining truth through art, and the Southern School stressed...
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...Chinese Calligraphy In China, the style in which an individual writes has long been believed to communicate something essential about his or her personality, intellect, and abilities. Even today it is a common presumption that one can “read” the identity of the person through his or her handwriting. The European term calligraphy means “beautiful writing”, and reflects an interest in ornamenting words on the page; most European calligraphy is highly stylized, regular, and decorated with flourishes, which in themselves are lacking in personal expression. Calligraphy in the West was always considered a minor art and tended to curb spontaneity, producing fairly static forms. In China, however, this was far from the case; the most widely practiced writing styles favored spontaneity, and the brush was thought to act like a seismography in recording the movements of arm, wrist, and hand. East Asian calligraphy was established as a “high art” form well before the Tang Dynasty. It has continuously enjoyed a high status among the arts ever since, and is practiced today by many people, including every school-aged child. While writing is thought by the Chinese to communicate, perhaps better than any other art form, the cultural values and circumstances of its maker, calligraphy seems to be one of the most remote and inaccessible arts to the outsider who does not read Chinese. It was during the Tang Dynasty that calligraphy first began to flourish as an art from. By the Later Han, the...
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...How Heroine Was Made --The Evolution of the Legend of Hua Mu Lan in Chinese History Essay 3 Ruining Jin His 425 July 27, 2014 Professor Shana Brown In this module, we learned many heroic females in ancient East Asia. Though the stories of these females vary dramatically through a vast historical period, the function of these stories are alike: descriptions of heroines--such as poetry, drama, fictions, folktales, etc.--all function to meet the need of ideological requirement to better serve the political purpose of certain groups by that time. This essay is going to examine the specific principal and value embodied by Hua Mulan in a historical review, and arguing that Hua Mulan and her tale is still affecting the youngster due to the latest revision and reinterpretation from a nationalism/patriotism perspective. According to Kua & Idema, the tales of Hua Mulan all come from one text: 木兰诗 (Mu Lan shi). In this 62 lines, 332 characters poem, Hua Mulan is depicted as a brave female who substituted her father to fulfill the Khan’s conscription demand. She concealed her true gender in the military, fighting along with other soldiers as a “man” for several years. After their triumph, she was provided a high position in the government by Khan as a reward. However, she rejected this proposal and asked for a return back home. Not until she arrived home did her true identity as a female revealed to the other soldiers. This is the main story line that seldom changes during...
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...Chinese In the beginning , the heavens and earth were still one and all was chaos. The universe was like a big black egg, carrying Pan Gu inside itself. After 18 thousand years Pan Gu woke from a long sleep. He felt suffocated, so he took up a broadax and wielded it with all his might to crack open the egg. The light, clear part of it floated up and formed the heavens, the cold, turbid matter stayed below to form earth. Pan Gu stood in the middle, his head touching the sky, his feet planted on the earth. The heavens and the earth began to grow at a rate of ten feet per day, and Pan Gu grew along with them. After another 18 thousand years, the sky was higher, the earth thicker, and Pan Gu stood between them like a pillar 9 million li in height so that they would never join again. When Pan Gu died, his breath became the wind and clouds, his voice the rolling thunder. One eye became the sun and on the moon. His body and limbs turned to five big mountains and his blood formed the roaring water. His veins became far-stretching roads and his muscles fertile land. The innumerable stars in the sky came from his hair and beard, and flowers and trees from his skin and the fine hairs on his body. His marrow turned to jade and pearls. His sweat flowed like the good rain and sweet dew that nurtured all things on earth. According to some versions of the Pan Gu legend, his tears flowed to make rivers and radiance of his eyes turned into thunder and lighting. When he was happy the sun shone...
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...OVERSEAS CHINESE TABLE INTRODUCTION: Defining overseas Chinese 4 UNDERSTANDING OVERSEAS CHINESE A. History and cultural background 1. Southeast Asia 2. North America 3. Europe 4. Chinatowns B. The reasons for immigrating abroad 1. Political reasons 2. Economic and social reasons C. Current status 1. Population distribution 2. Southeast Asia a. The overseas Chinese’s paradox b. The Indonesian case 3. The United States 4. Europe BUSINESS WORLD OF CHINESE A. Rise of Global Chinese Companies & Huaqiao B. Regional Analysis 1. Asia 2. The United States 3. Europe C. Size of Chinese Capital Worldwide SUCCESS OF OVERSEAS CHINESE A. The Business Style B. The Downside of their Business Style THE CHANGES IN THE OVERSEAS CHINSESE SOCIETY A. Old and New Generation: How are they Different? B. The New Business of the New Generation C. The New Trend in the Chinese Immigration CONCLUSION A. Future Outlook of the Hua Qiao B. The opportunity to work with Overseas Chinese: WCEC 2005 in Seoul Introduction Defining overseas Chinese Overseas Chinese are ethnic Chinese people who live outside of China. China, in this usage, may refer to Greater China including territory currently administered by the rival governments of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China as per traditional definitions of the term prior to the Chinese civil war, or only to the People's Republic of China by some quarters. In addition, the government of the Republic of China granted residents...
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...china has some policy to protect minority groups, and opposed to Han chauvinism, that makes minority groups’ power and life greater and even much better than Han's people. And it makes people confuse, why protect minority groups are so important?And what is the different between Chinese nationalism and minority groups’ nationalism? Main body Chinese nationalism What is nationalism? Nationalism is a combination of national self-identification developed in the process of one group of people interacting and intercommunicating with other peoples, a strong common consciousness, and it is the most powerful political idea of the past two centuries. Then, what is Chinese nationalism?Chinese nationalism can be dividing into two parts, one is Chinese nationalism, and another is minority nationalism. In china, minority groups always be seen as vulnerable, so Chinese communist party have some policy to protect their interest, it purpose for every ethnic groups in china are equality, harmony and liberty. Chinese nationalism has drawn from extremely diverse ideological sources including traditional Chinese thinking, American progressivism, Marxism, and Russian ethnological thought.In early 1900's, there was a Chinese Revolution led by sun...
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