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CHINA
Shanghai
With links to 110 cities in 48 countries, the commercial, trading and transportation hub of Shanghai is the gateway to China for many travellers. Though rich in cultural heritage, the city’s prime calling card is its urban charm. The People’s Square and the banks of Huangpujiang River offer great sightseeing, business and shopping opportunities. You can shop in high-end venues for designer items or cruise through the backstreets to hunt for interesting trinkets, including a myriad of traditional Chinese handicrafts.
Sheshan Mountain, Dingshan Lake, Yangshan Deep Water Port and Chongming Island are great choices for day-trip escapes. The city enjoys a pleasant northern sub-tropical maritime monsoon climate with four distinct seasons.
The Bund
As a living gallery of world architecture, the Bund is a true symbol of Shanghai. Its dozens of historical buildings light up at night to make a dazzling spectacle.
Yuyuan Garden
A famous classical garden in South China, the Yuyuan Garden was built 400 years ago during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) by a Sichuan minister of finance named Pan Yunduan. Since the establishment of the People ’s Republic of China, it has been renovated several times and now enjoys state protection. The garden is divided into scenic sections with equally-as-scenic names, such as ‘Mountains and Forests in the City’, ‘Magnificent Woods and Beautiful Valleys’, ‘Historical Relics of Heralding Spring’, ‘Water and Rockery Scenery’, ‘Tops in the World’ and the ‘Inner Garden’.
Xintiandi
Xintiandi is a car-free shopping, eating and entertainment hub of Shanghai. It’s composed of an area of restored traditional shikumen (stone gate) houses built upon narrow alleys, which now support a modern shopping mall, a cinema complex and some adjoining houses serving as book stores, cafes and restaurants. Most of Xintiandi’s cafes and restaurants feature both indoor and outdoor seating. The area has an active nightlife on weekdays as well as weekends, although the scene tends to be more chilled out and romantic than raucous. Xintiandi means ‘New Heaven and Earth’ and is known as one of China’s first lifestyle centres.
Beijing
The capital of the People’s Republic of China and a cosmopolitan world city, Beijing’s history and current role make it a place where ancient and modern worlds blend. From the laneways of old Beijing, where you can witness centuries-old Chinese architecture, to the National Stadium, commonly known as the ‘bird’s nest’, the continuity, diversity and vitality of Beijing are always apparent.
The Forbidden City
Located in the centre of Beijing, the Forbidden City was the Imperial Palace of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Twenty-four emperors ruled from here and now it serves as the National Palace Museum, displaying treasures from the two dynasties. The entire palace is elegantly decorated, luxurious and splendid. It’s also been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The Great Wall of China
The Great Wall is a symbolic representation of the Chinese nation. It has a total length of over 19,000 kilometres and is one of the world's greatest and most recognised structures, spanning northern China from east to west. It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987. Construction began during the rule of Qin Shi Huang (246–221 BC) and was extended by subsequent rulers. Sections of earlier fortifications were joined together to form a united defence system against invasions from the north. Construction continued up until the Ming dynasty (AD 1368–1644), when the Great Wall became the world's largest military structure. Its historic and strategic importance is matched only by its architectural significance.
National Stadium (Bird's Nest)
Debuting for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the National Stadium’s main body is constructed by a series of steel trusses seamlessly woven around a bowl to form a ‘bird's nest’ shape, reminiscent of the beauty and harmony of nature. With its advanced energy-saving design and incorporated sustainability measures, the National Stadium is one of China’s large-scale environmentally friendly buildings.
China, one of the countries that can boast of an ancient civilization, has a long and mysterious history - almost 5,000 years of it! Like most other great civilizations of the world, China can trace her culture back to a blend of small original tribes which have expanded till they became the great country we have today.
It is recorded that Yuanmou man is the oldest hominoid in China and the oldest dynasty is Xia Dynasty. From the long history of China, there emerge many eminent people that have contributed a lot to the development of the whole country and to the enrichment of her history. Among them, there are emperors like Li Shimin (emperor Taizong of the Tang), philosophers like Confucius, great patriotic poets like Qu Yuan and so on.
Chinese society has progressed through five major stages - Primitive Society, Slave Society, Feudal Society, Semi-feudal and Semi-colonial Society, and Socialist Society. The rise and fall of the great dynasties forms a thread that runs through Chinese history, almost from the beginning. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st, 1949, China has become a socialist society and become stronger and stronger.
China has been a multi-religion country since the ancient times. It is well known that Confucianism is an indigenous religion and is the soul of Chinese culture, which enjoyed popular support among people and even became the guiding ideology for feudalism society, but it did not develop into a national belief. It makes the culture more tolerant to others, thus, many other religions have been brought into the country in different dynasties, but none of them developed powerful enough in the history and they only provide diverse people more spiritual support.
According to a latest survey, 85% of Chinese people have religious beliefs or had some religious practices and only 15% of them are real atheists. (The real atheists here refer to those who do not have faith in any religions nor had any activities related to religions or folk customs.) 185 million people believe in Buddhism and 33 million of them have faith in Christianity or Catholicism and believes in the existence of God. Only 12 million people are Taoists, although more than one hundred million have taken part in Taoism activities before. Thus, it is obvious that the Buddhism has the widest influence. The other major religions are Taoism, Confucianism, Islam and Christianity.
Buddhism
Buddha Statues in Yungang Grottoes, Datong
Chinese Religion PicturesBeing brought into China 2,000 years ago, it was gradually widely accepted by most Chinese people and developed into three sections, namely the Han, Tibetan and Southern Buddhism. Buddhism not only brought a different religion, but also brought a different culture. It influences the local culture on three main aspects: literature, art and ideology. Many famous poems have ideas from Buddhism and many Buddhist stone statues can be found, which show its huge influence. It also promotes the countries’ intercultural communications with foreign countries. In Tang Dynasty (618 - 907), Jianzhen traveled to Japan to spread Buddhism as well as Chinese culture. Xuanzang, who traveled to India to learn Buddhist doctrines, brought a plenty information on the language of the countries he had been to.
Now, Buddhism has developed into the most important religion in the country. The latest survey shows that 31% of the people who do not believe in this religion have participated in some Buddhist activities and about 17 million people have already become converts. Now more of those followers come from different walks of life such as the intellectuals, business elites and the common people. Recently, there is a new report, The Chinese Luxury Consumer White Paper 2012, jointly published by the Industrial Bank and Hurun Report, which shows that 39% of the intellectuals and businessmen have faith in Buddhism. Not only the number of the followers is increasing, and the education of Buddhism obtains more attention from the society. Under the Buddhist Association of China, 34 different levels of Buddhist academies as well as almost 50 magazines can be found. Now in mainland China, there are about 13 thousand temples and 180 thousand monks and nuns.
Han Buddhism: With 8,400 temples and 50 thousand monks, it is the largest branch on the mainland.
Tibetan Buddhism: As the second large sect, it has 3,000 temples and 120 thousand monks.
Southern Buddhism: Having 8,000 monks and 1,600 temples, this sect has the smallest scale.
Famous Buddhist Relics:
Potala Palace, Lhasa Yonghe Lamasery, Beijing
Jade Buddha Temple, Shanghai Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Xian
Mt. Wutai, Shanxi Temple of Soul's Retreat, Hangzhou
Longmen Grottoes, Luoyang Shaolin Temple, Henan
White Horse Temple, Luoyang
Confucianism
Statue of ConfuciusConfucianism, not a real religion, is just an ethical and philosophical system, which developed from Confucius’ thoughts and later was treated as a kind of belief to educate common people. It obtained its stable position under the reign of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty (202BC-220AD), and became the ideology of the society in the feudal system since then. Based on the Four Books and Five Classics, the traditions and principles in the Confucianism played an important role in the formation of Chinese people’s thinking patterns and teaching methods. For instance, Doctrine of the Mean can be seen on communications among people. Now, to some extent, where Chinese people stay or live, there will be Confucianism.
Confucianism has worldwide influence. In many countries and regions of world such the UK, USA, branches of Confucius Institutes are established in recent years to spread Chinese culture and expand the language. In China, you can find many Confucius temples, which is an important place for the candidates for important exams. In Beijing, They hang some red wooden plates with lucky words in the Confucius Temple in the hope of gaining high marks and a good future.
Famous Confucius Temples:
Confucius Temple in Qufu Confucius Temple in Beijing Confucius Temple in Nanjing
Taoism
The Immortals Worshipped by TaoismTaoism, with more than 1,800 years’ history originated in the Warring Period and came into being in Eastern Han Dynasty (25 - 220). Now about 300 Taoist Temples are scattered around China, in which about 30 thousand Taoists lived in. Around 5 Taoist schools exist in the country and two main sections are included in Taoism. In the 1,800 years, Taoism influenced the local culture deeply, especially on traditional medicine and literature. Based on some theories of alchemists such as Wei Boyang in Eastern Han Dynasty, different kinds of medicine prescriptions were created by Sun Simiao and many other doctors. In literature, many fictional characters are closely related with Taoism, such as the Jade Emperor. Apart from Mainland China, many Taoists live in Hong Kong, Macau and some foreign countries.
Chinese Food & Drink
Cooking Class
Stir-Fried Celery and Dried Tofu During a long period of production and living practice, China has made great contribution to the world on the aspects of food resource exploration, diet treatment, nutrition and health care, dishware design and cuisine aesthetics. Intellectuals in China have created countless dishes with apt names, aromas, flavors and colors, greatly enhancing the dining experience. During these four or five thousand years of development, Chinese cuisine appears various features in different periods and regions. Generally speaking, people in this country mainly live on the five common cereals and vegetables and added by a small supply of meat. This eating habit is formed by the mode of production which is centered by agriculture. Moreover, Chinese food makes cooked and hot food primary, which is related to the advance of culinary skills and early civilization of the country.
Chinese Tea
Classification Tea Culture Longjing Tea Tea Wares
Purple Clay TeapotWith a profound history of over 4,000 years, Chinese tea is regarded as an exquisite art form that requires sampling. Now it has become the national drink and one of the three soft drinks in the world (the other two are coffee and cocoa). It is from China that the tea planting techniques, processing, drinking methods and ceremony were directly or indirectly introduced to the world. So China is regarded proudly as the hometown of tea. The land can be divided into four growing regions: South China, Southwestern China, and Yangtze River's north and south banks. These vast planting areas widely grow various kinds of tea trees. Each kind requires unique tea sets to infuse the best flavor. The sets mainly include tea cup, pot and saucer. Their materials differ in porcelain, pottery, lacquer ware, glass, bamboo and wooden fish stone. What's more, tea ceremony is considered to be a good way to cultivate the minds. Through infusing, appreciating and tasting tea, people can nourish their inborn nature and promote friendship among each other.
Chinese Alcohol
Alcohol Classification Drinking Game Social Activities Drinking Vessels
Wine is indispensable to wedding ceremonies.Alcohol may be featured at sumptuous banquets to ease the expression of diners' thoughts and feelings. But in the long process of Chinese history, it is not only an objective existence but also a cultural symbol. China is one of the earliest countries in the world to make alcohol and the history can be traced back to prehistoric times. Since its appearance, it is not just a kind of drink, but is also endowed with spiritual and cultural value which reflects in social political life, literature, aesthetic idea and manner of life. From this point of view, to drink alcohol is actually to taste a culture. According to the historical records, as early as in the Shang Dynasty (16th - 11th century BC), Chinese people began to drink alcohol and use it to worship Gods. All kinds of alcohol except yellow rice wine developed greatly after the Han (206BC-220) and Tang (618-907) dynasties. Chinese alcohols have a wide variety of kinds. By the type of products, they can be divided into yellow rice wine, white wine, medicinal liquor, fruit liquor and beer. By the alcoholic content, they can be grouped into strong alcohol liquor, medium alcohol liquor and low alcohol liquor. In recent years, Chinese wine-making industry is prospering every day. Through thousand years of development, alcohol, as a basic necessity in people's life, has already melted into the resplendent Chinese civilization.
Chinese Arts and Crafts
It is common knowledge that China has a long history and glorious history in both arts and traditional crafts. These are just two of the many jewels in China's over five thousand-year culture. The arts and crafts are not only the embodiment of the people's longing for aesthetic beauty for themselves and as gifts for others, but also great treasures for China and the rest of the world. Many of the master artisans have had their skills handed down via one generation to the next so that only the offspring of such an artisan could learn the necessary skills required. The result being that they are the most valuable treasures both for a family and for the nation.
Of all the Chinese arts and crafts, the most representative are Bronze Vessels, Folk Toys, Embroidery, Calligraphy, Music, Opera, Painting, Cloisonne, Jade, Kites, Lacquer Ware, Paper-Cuttings, Porcelain, Pottery, Seals, and Silk. They are not only a vivid reflection of the culture of China but also the embodiment of both the local people, and of the nation itself.
Bronze Vessels invented some 5,000 years ago led the ancestors of modern China from the Stone Age into a new era - the Bronze Age. The bronzes produced being delicately decorated with a diverse range of designs and motifs and were widely used in many aspects of life, such as musical instruments, ceremonial offerings and weapons of war being of great significance in the history of China.
China Calligraphy - a highly stylized form of writing - has been developed by many eminent calligraphers of many different dynasties. Referred to as the 'four treasures of study' (writing brush, ink stick, paper, and ink slab) are regarded as the indispensable tools when writing.
Chinese Cloisonne is an enamel artwork with the primary color being blue. It is renowned for its use of high-quality material, complex manufacturing process and its use of bright and vivid colors.
Chinese Jade has a history of four thousand years. Jade symbolizes merit, grace and dignity and occupies a special position in people's consciousness. It is used both to decorate rooms, and as jewelry by people hoping for a blessing.
Chinese Embroidery originated in the Shang Dynasty (16th - 11th century BC), and now has four major traditional styles: Su, Shu, Xiang, and Yue. It is also an accomplished skill for the ethnic minority groups such as the Bai, Bouyei and Miao.
Folk Toys are items that have a long history and a combination of artistic appreciation and playful enjoyment, and endowed with numerous meanings that express the people's wish for a happy and contented life.
Chinese Kites being delicately made of paper and bamboo have numerous shapes such as swallow, centipede, butterfly etc. Regarded as an artistic marvel, the kite makers' skill in both painting and in the design of the kites' flexible flying movement are well renowned.
Lacquer Ware first appeared some 7,000 years ago with the primary colors being black and red. It is of various types and has a wide range of uses that makes it favored by people throughout the entire world.
Chinese Lanterns are to some extent the symbol of the country's extensive festival culture. With long history and interesting traditions, lanterns now have abundant variations, decorating many festive occasions.
China Music dates back to between 7,000 and 8,000 years ago. Featured with unique melodies within different dynasties and accompanied with traditional musical instruments.
Chinese Opera is recognized as one of the three oldest dramatic art forms in the world. It is a combination of music, art and literature and is characterized by the unique facial make-up, excellent acrobatics and has many different regional variations.
Chinese Painting is divided into three genres - figures, landscapes, and birds-and-flowers and each type has its distinctive characteristics. In addition, difficult skills are required to the painters.
Paper-Cuttings is diversified patterns cut into red paper with scissors. Different patterns such as monkey, flowers and figures can be cut vividly and perfectly by some female artisans in rural areas. People paste paper-cuttings onto their windows and other places to express their hopes and wishes.
Chinese Porcelain derived from the Shang Dynasty (16th - 11th century BC). It is characterized with fine texture, bright colors, and distinctive shapes and styles. Jingdezhen, located in Jiangxi Province is the Porcelain Capital of the world and attracts countless people from near and far to appreciate, and buy the choicest porcelain around.
Chinese Pottery has a history of over 8,000 years and known as the oldest artwork of human beings. The accomplishments in pottery works can be seen from Terra Cotta Warriors, in Xian, Shaanxi Province, and the Tricolor Glazed pottery of the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) and so on.
China Seals can be made of metal, jade, animal tooth or horn and caved with characters. It is a combination of calligraphy and engraving that people cherished in the old times and likes nowadays.
Shadow Puppetry is the general name for shadow play and the theatrical property used in the play. All of the vivid shadow puppets, including the figures and the scenes, are plane and made from leather. The shadows of these puppets are projected on to a white screen; meanwhile artists operate the puppets behind the screen to finish this traditional form of play. As a bright pearl of the Chinese folk art, shadow puppetry has a history of more than 2,000 years. Now it is still very popular. The delicate puppets are favored by tourists as souvenirs.
China Silk: A silkworm produces 1000 meters (3280 feet) of silk thread in its lifespan of just 28 days and is of great value. Major local silk products in China are Shu, Yun, Song Brocade and brocades by ethnic minorities such as the Zhuang and the Dong peoples are well renowned.
Ancient Chinese Architecture
Together with European and Arabian architecture, ancient Chinese architecture is an important component of the world architectural system. During its long development, it gradually formed into a style which featured timberwork combining stone carving, rammed earth construction, bucket arch buildings and many other techniques. Industrious Chinese laboring people created many architectural miracles such as the Great Wall, Forbidden City and the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
Forbidden City, Beijing
Badaling Great Wall, Beijing
Features: The most significant characteristic is the use of timber framework. Paintings and carvings were added to the architectural work to make it more beautiful and attractive. Ancient Chinese buildings have a long history which can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty (16th century BC - 771 BC). It has its own principles of structure and layout. Through the long development, many wonders have been created by industrious and clever laboring people. Ancient architectural miracles are innumerable ranging from Great Wall, White Horse Temple, Mogao Caves to Summer Palace and Forbidden City.
Intricate painted ceiling of a pavilion
Symmetrical layout of a courtyard
Ancient Chinese architecture is mainly timberwork. Wooden posts, beams, lintels and joists make up the framework of a house. Walls serve as the separation of rooms without bearing the weight of the whole house, which is unique to China. As a famous saying goes, 'Chinese houses will still stand when their walls collapse.' The specialty of wood requires antisepsis methods to be adopted, thus develops into Chinese own architectural painting decoration. Colored glaze roofs, windows with exquisite applique design and beautiful flower patterns on wooden pillars reflect the high-level of the craftsmen's handicraft and their rich imagination.
The layout of a courtyard complex is also unique to China. The main structure is located on the central axis of a court while less-important structures are located to the left and right. The whole layout is symmetrical. Compared with European architectural style which is open and shut, a courtyard is like a hand scroll of painting which should be unfolded little by little. The scenery is different in each courtyard. Even in moving several steps within the court yard, you will be surprised at the changing of prospects. Likewise from the interior of the buildings the view from no two windows is the same.
Education in China
A good education has always been highly valued in China, as the people believe that education ensures not only the future and development of the individual but also the family and the country as a whole.
Passed down from ancient times, the maxim from the Three-Character Scripture that says 'if no proper education is given to children, their nature will go bad' has proved to be true. The great master Confucius taught us that 'it is a pleasure to learn something and to try it out at intervals'. Similarly, numerous students have been convinced that 'reading books excels all other careers'. The records tell us that Mencius' mother became an example to millions of mothers who were keen for their children to be talented. - she moved her home three times in order to choose a fine neighborhood in which Mencius could be effectively influenced.
As far back as the Shang Dynasty (16th century BC - 11th century BC), inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells were the simple records of teaching and learning. In the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC - 771 BC), nobles built schools to teach their children, as their offsprings would be the officials of the future, while those who were gifted but of poor families could but dream of approaching state affairs. The development of education system led to a form of evaluation that became the means by which dynastic China appointed those with talents as officials. In general, this process can be divided into three periods - 'chaju' and 'zhengpi' in the Han Dynasty, the 'jiupin zhongzheng' system from Han to the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the Imperial Examination which survived from the Sui Dynasty (589 - 618) right through to the last feudal dynasty Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911).
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
Chinese history is long and complex—with records dating to around 1600 BC. Although the histories of Egypt and the Middle East are considerably older, cultural threads, exemplified in written language, architecture and other aspects of material culture, beliefs, and custom clearly link contemporary China to a distant past—more so than most contemporary cultures today. That cultural legacy has been at times a burden, but more often serves as a valued pool of philosophical, material, and spiritual traditions.
PART 2: THEMES IN CHINESE HISTORY
Among the important themes that characterize Chinese history are the pattern of dynastic rise and fall, intermittent aggression from northern aliens, varying degrees of openness to outside cultural influences, and the dynamics of stability and social harmony. All of these themes still bear on China’s stance and position in the world today. Being aware of China's history and traditional culture will enable us to better understand events presently unfolding in the country.
Map of China
Dynastic Rise and Fall
The Chinese record their own history as a succession of ruling dynasties that begins with the legendary Xia dynasty (2100-1600 BC), and ended in 1911-12 with the formation of the Republic of China–which was soon followed by the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. A dynasty is a succession of kings or emperors of the same family line. Although by the Qin dynasty (221 BC-207 BC) officials were appointed—eventually by participation in an examination system—the role of emperor was hereditary, in a succession that was ideally father to son. In many cases, however, other relatives, and on a few occasions even non-blood relatives, occupied the throne. Although Chinese history is regarded as a succession of dynasties, during certain parts of Chinese history the land area we call China today was under the control of a number of different kingdoms. After the fall of the great Han dynasty around 220 AD, China fell apart into many smaller kingdoms, and was only reunited over three hundred years later by the short, but powerful Sui dynasty (580-618 AD). During the Song dynasty (960-1279 AD), invading tribes set up the Jin and Liao kingdoms in northeast China, and a large kingdom of Tibetan-related peoples called Xixia existed in western China. Therefore, when thinking about Chinese history, it is important to imagine it as a complex picture of unity and disunity over a very long time span.
In a general sense, there was a pattern of dynastic rise and fall, often reflected in historical accounts, poetry, and other literature of China. According to the pattern, a dynasty is 1) founded by force during a period of disorder; 2) vigorous rulers create a stable, prosperous state that secures or extends the borders; 3) after a period of success and stability (which often entails population growth), leadership declines, wealth concentrates into fewer hands, and the population outstrips resources; 4) the dynasty collapses due to internal uprisings—sometimes coupled with foreign invasions; 5) after a period of weakness and disunion, the cycle starts again with dynamic leadership (sometimes foreign, as in the case of the Mongols and Manchus), often in a climate of lowered population and redistributed wealth.
This theme of dynastic rise and fall resonates especially strongly in the Han, Tang, Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Many poets used allusions to patterns and events in past dynasties to comment on situations in their own times. Even today modern Chinese look back on their history as they attempt to make sense of their emerging nation today.
Aggression from Northern Aliens and Other Non-Han States
Relations, often antagonistic, between nomadic Turkic and Mongol peoples of the northern steppes and forests and the settled agriculturalists of the North China Plain go back far into antiquity. Among the northern invaders were the Xiongnu and Xianbei, who were followed in later centuries by the Qidan (Khitan), Jurched, Mongol, Turk, and Manchu (Manju) peoples. During periods of division, small states appeared and disappeared in northern China on the borders with the steppes. This was especially so between the Han and Tang dynasties. During this time many such states had Creole-cultures that combined steppe and sedentary cultures. Among these peoples were a group known as the Toba, whose descendants were among the founders of the great Tang dynasty.
Xixia Tomb
Besides the northern steppes and northeastern forests, alien states existed at times in other border areas. Among these were the Tibetan empire in the west, the Nanzhao in the southwest, the Tangut (Xixia) empire of the northwest (in present-day Ningxia), and the Uygur kingdom farther to the north in Xinjiang. Many smaller kingdoms existed as well, including the little-known Parhae kingdom located in parts of present-day northeast China and North Korea.
Wang Zhaojun with pipa
Nomads on the northern steppe depended on trade with the agriculturalists for grain, cloth, metal tools, ceramics, and other items. In turn the agricultural peoples desired promises of peace from raiding parties, and demanded tribute in the form of horses, furs, gems, and other rarities from the steppe and forest nomads. In the course of diplomatic negotiations, Chinese states sometimes sent beautiful brides to far-off “barbarian” rulers on the steppe. One of the most famous was Wang Zhaojun of the Han dynasty, who lived many years among the Xiongnu. Her tomb mound lies near the city of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia.
In some cases, Chinese rulers attempted to play off rival groups of “barbarians” against each other; at other times, the border peoples created alliances to attack China. When the Mongols invaded China they had to defeat the Jin, who had already conquered the northern part of the Song dynasty, as well as the Xixia kingdom in the northwest.
The Great Wall near Beijing
At certain moments the nomadic peoples feared the strong Chinese armies, at other times the steppe people offered great enough challenges to the Chinese to stimulate the building of walls on the northern frontiers – culminating in the greatest “Star Wars” project of antiquity: the Great Wall. The wall, actually a series of smaller walls, reached its most advanced state during the Ming dynasty after the Mongols were driven from China.
Degree of Openness to the Outside
Due to its geographical location, China could limit contact with the outside world. Aside from the northern nomads (who were not a cultural threat to the Chinese), the deserts and mountains of the west and the oceans of the east allowed the Central Kingdom relative (and often peaceful) insulation from entities such as the Roman Empire, which was at its height during the Han dynasty. The Silk Road was a narrow thread across the northwest barrens that allowed a limited but steady flow of goods and ideas across Central Asia between the high cultures of the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and India. During the Tang period, China was at its most open stance in antiquity. Elements from the cultures of the West, particularly India were welcomed and took root within China’s borders.
After the Mongol invasions of the 13th centuries, China was for the first time under complete foreign control. When the Mongols were finally driven out in the mid-14th century, the rulers of the new Ming dynasty were more wary of foreign influences than emperors in the Tang period. By the mid-15th century the Chinese had made voyages to the coast of Africa, but in an inward turn the Chinese ships of exploration were ordered burned by the emperor and the Great Wall was refurbished.
As China began to lose ground technologically to the West, the Manchus invaded in 1644. Less than a century later, the British were warring with China over rights to peddle opium within China. By the turn of the 19th century, China was in danger of being cut to pieces by Western and Japanese imperialists. Over the centuries, ambivalence towards foreign contact developed. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries the principle of “taking what is best” from the outside was developed in an effort to import positive things from the West while keeping out influences thought to weaken or humiliate China.
The most recent expression of this open/shut dynamic was the near closing of mainland China to much of the outside world between 1949 and the late 1970s. Feelings derived from negative experiences with foreign contact still linger under the surface in China today.
Concerns of Government Stability
As explained in more detail in Module 3, social harmony was a key component of the ideas of Confucian statecraft. If rulers and subjects alike acted in proper accord with their positions, all would be well with the realm. It was up to the ruler to set the example by behaving properly so as to preserve the supernatural permission —or right to rule—known as the Mandate of Heaven. If a ruler was out of sync with the heavens, then chaos in society was sure to follow. What was feared most in this ideal system was instability and chaos. Instability was the result of any number of factors, including famine, invasion, unfair conscription of laborers and troops, over-taxation, and incompetent, corrupt, or malicious rulers. When conditions become unstable, popular uprisings can result that may prove difficult or impossible to quell.
Mao Zedong
According to legend, the empire of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, was brought down by a popular rebellion ignited by a group of workers on the Great Wall. Delayed because of a rainstorm, they were sentenced to death – but chose rebellion instead. In the first half of the 20th century, popular uprisings lead by Sun Yat-sen’s Nationalist Party brought down the Manchu government. Not long after, other popular forces, led by the Communists, took advantage of chaos within China caused by a weak central government, local warlords, and foreign invasion, to bring their movement to power over most of the territory in 1949. During the rule of Chairman Mao Zedong, particularly from 1966 to 1976, young minds and emotions were whipped into widespread chaos that endangered the vitality of the state. Today, with an eye to the past, Chinese leaders must consider the effects of their policies in terms of state stability.
PART 3: PREHISTORIC ERA
Prehistory
Peking Man's fossil skull and possible appearance
Evidence of early hominids has been found on a number of archaeological sites in northern and southern China. The most famous of these is the so-called “Peking man” (once labeled Sinanthropus pekinensis), who seems to be a variation of Homo erectus, a widespread hominid who lived between one million and 250,000 years ago. Besides Peking Man (now called “Beijing Man”), similar fossils were found near Lantian in Shaanxi and near the city of Liuzhou, in the mountains of Guangxi. A number of sites with stone tools from early Homo sapiens have also been discovered in northern China, though the exact relation between these early modern humans and the Chinese people is still being examined.
Liujiang Man's fossil skull, found in Liuzhou
Neolithic, or “New Stone Age,” cultures featuring early forms of agriculture, weaving, advanced stone tool technology, village organization, and ceramics date to at least 6,000 BC in China.
The best-known sites are from northern China in the Yellow river drainage and include the famous “Banpo Village” site near the ancient city of Chang’an (modern Xi’an). The village was surrounded by a protective ditch which enclosed a number of round-shaped earthen pit dwellings and a pottery making center.
Banpo Village
Banpo village was a part of a larger agrarian culture called “Yangshao” that existed in the North China Plain, and is characterized by unglazed yellow and red-colored pottery. Farther to the east, around the Shandong peninsula and farther south along the coast, was another early culture known as “Longshan.” Longshan culture was in many ways similar to Yangshao, though is identified with a style of black pottery. Both the Yangshao and Longshan potteries are important examples of the earliest Chinese pottery.
Yangshao Pottery
Longshan Pottery
Myth and Legend
Pan Gu
Each cultural area in East Asia has mythical accounts of the creation of heaven and earth, human beings, and civilization. Records of Chinese creation myths date to the Han dynasty (though certain elements may be much earlier). According to the accounts, in the earliest times there was undifferentiated murkiness. As things progressed, the light-weight substances rose and the heavy settled, resulting in the heavens and earth. The body of an early being, Pan Gu, metamorphosed into a myriad things, and thus the earth gained geographical features and was populated with plants and animals.
Nu Wa and Fu Xi, holding a gui (compass) and a ju (square)
Among the early beings were the male Fuxi and the female Nuwa. Nuwa created the first humans out of clay and Fuxi is said to be an early ruler. Other early rulers followed, including Shen Nong, who invented agriculture and, the Yellow Emperor, who invented pottery and the civilizing technology of writing.
Shen Nong tested hundreds of kinds of herbs
The early rulers Yao and Shun were regarded as model emperors because of their dedication to proper principles of succession and governing – with an emphasis on good leadership. Their successor was Yu, who is said to be the founder of the legendary Xia dynasty, supposedly founded in 2205 BC. Records from the Shang dynasty and archeological evidence suggest that Xia may have actually existed on the North China Plain, although teams of archaeologists have been searching for its remains for decades. No conclusive findings have been made, though Xia and Shang may have both been related to earlier Yangshao and Longshan cultures.
PART 4: EARLY FEUDAL ERA
Shang Dynasty (1600-1100 BC)
Tomb sites found in Anyang
Jiagu wen (oracle bone script), found in Anyang
Historians today feel that the Shang culture was likely similar to the earlier Xia kingdom and centered on dynasties of kings who presided over rituals and ruled over villages of peasant farmers. Remains of large tombs, and altars made using rammed earth technology (walls and foundations made by ramming wet earth within large molds – a practice still used to make adobe dwellings in parts of China today), indicate a high degree of social organization was needed to produce these structures.
An bronze vessel with a "tao-tieh" design, found near Anyang
Writings from the Han dynasty indicate that there were 30 Shang kings, and that succession was passed from elder to younger brothers as well as from father to son. Shang beliefs seem to have centered on ancestral spirits and a god known in the records as Shangdi, or “upper ruler.” The ruler was thought to have direct links to the powers on high. Rulers presided over a number of ministers who helped direct affairs of the palace, the realm, and ritual, as well as ranks of civil and military officials. Although rulers were typically male, Fu Hao, the wife of one ruler, is said to have been one of Shang’s most able military generals.
A chariot and horse skeletons, found in Anyang
The tombs at Anyang indicate that sacrifice to the heavens and ancestors were an important part of Shang ritual life. Among the grave goods are sophisticated bronze ritual vessels, skillfully cast in clay molds using techniques first developed for pottery production. A common artistic motif on the bronzes was the “glutton” or “tao-tieh”—a kind of supernatural beast with gaping jaws (see the design in the photo above). Offerings of food and drink were placed in these vessels during rituals. Many remains of human sacrifices have also been uncovered from the tombs at Anyang, including a few skulls with more Western features. Chariots uncovered in the tombs suggest at least indirect contact with Mesopotamian cultures.
Bronze heads with masks of bronze and gold found in Sanxingdui
In recent years Chinese archaeologists have uncovered a number of other early sites in southwest China. The Sanxingdui (Three Stars Cache) site near Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, may be contemporary with Shang. The site is noted for is large assemblages of bronze objects–quite unlike those found in Shang. Of particular note are hundreds of stylized bronze heads – many broken – and existing in various sizes. Most outstanding is an abstract, life-size image of what seems to be a ritual specialist. The findings at Sanxingdui and nearby sites raise more questions about early cultures in China than they answer. But one thing is clear. As research continues, a fuller picture of the early origins of Chinese culture will emerge.
Zhou Dynasty (1100-221 BC)
The Shang dynasty gave way to another kingdom called Zhou in 1100 BC. The Zhou were once part of the Shang realm, and were located on the northwest borders near present-day Xi’an. Referred to as “barbarians” in early accounts, the Zhou seem to have conquered the Shang with a force of only 50,000, after armies of the degenerate and oppressive Shang king joined the invading forces. Early rulers included King Wen (the “Cultivated”), who helped lay the foundation for the Zhou victory, and his son King Wu (the “Martial”), who carried it out. These two rulers embodied dual aspects of Chinese leadership incorporating both civil and martial strengths that would remain relevant for centuries.
Once Shang resistance was squelched by King Wu, a new order was put in place that evolved into a feudal system in which a central Zhou state developed relationships (by blood or marriage) with local lords all over the former Shang realm. Military prowess and accomplishment remained important attributes among the upper classes. Most people were farmers, and therefore serfs to various levels of local lords. There were also classes of craftsmen and traders.
Duke of Zhou
The early period of conquest and rule, called the Western Zhou, produced another exemplary leader named the Duke of Zhou. The Duke was instrumental in forming an efficient bureaucratic state and later in the Zhou period, the sage Kongzi (Confucius) held him in high regard for his proper conduct. According to the story, the Duke of Zhou was the brother of King Wu and upon Wu’s death was made regent for his son. After years of giving good advice and guidance to the future heir to the throne, the Duke of Zhou “did the right thing” and stepped aside when the young king was ready to assume power. Although he probably could have wrested the kingship for his own, the Duke of Zhou demonstrated that proper conduct (li) and virtue (de) were more important than personal ambition.
By 771 BC the Western Zhou had weakened due to natural disaster and ineffective leadership, finally collapsing under pressure from combined forces of western nomads and native Chinese. A popular legend tells that the last Western Zhou King would light signal fires to entertain his favorite concubine. In something like the “boy who cried ‘wolf’” story, he lit them one too many times, and the western part of the realm was over run.
Kongzi (Confucius)
Under a new king, Zhou forces reconstituted themselves in the eastern capital called Luoyang, in present day Henan province. One era of the new Eastern Zhou dynasty was known as the “Spring and Autumn” period (770-476 BC), famous for literature and rich philosophy, including the “Hundred Schools of Thought.” Confucianism, Daoism, Moism, the Yin-Yang School, and many other philosophies flourished in this period. Classic writings and compilations like the Daoist classic, the Daodejing, the Analects of Confucius, the Book of Songs, and Sunzi’s Art of War all date to this period. This was an age of cultural and philosophical development that later ages would see as the true cradle of Chinese civilization.
Mengzi (Mencius)
An important idea in Chinese statecraft that had evolved early in the Zhou era was refined in this period. Thinkers such as Mencius (Mengzi) explained that under the so-called “Mandate of Heaven” only good rulers could receive the mandate (permission) of heaven to rule. If a ruler acted in accord to the will of heaven, he would then remain in power and continue to serve for the benefit of the realm. If he failed in his duty, then the mandate would be withdrawn, and another ruler would come to power. Implicit in this formula was the peasant’s right to rebel if life became too intolerable. Under this theory, the early Zhou rulers legitimized their usurping of the Shang. In later ages, the theory would be invoked many times to justify government takeovers in China. The social structure also underwent change. The Zhou kings were weak and many local states were nearly independent powers. Social mobility was also greater, and the influence of powerful families closely related by blood to the rulers declined. Changes in land tenure changed as well, with peasants paying taxes (rather than just labor) to their lords and the development of freer exchange of land. Metal coins became widespread in an economy that involved extensive and increasingly complex trade networks. Technological innovations saw the increased use of cast iron in place of bronze, allowing for advances in mass production of farm implements and weapons—resources that would come into play in the final era of the Zhou dynasty.
Warring States bronze weapon: ge with beast face pattern
This last era was known as the “Warring States” period (475-221 BC). During this time, the individual Zhou states (which had their own armies) began full-scale struggles for power to rule and strategically ate each other up. By the end, only three states (Chu, Qi, and Qin) remained out of an original total of about seventy. The winning state was Qin. Located in the northwest, near the old Zhou homeland, the Qin had experimented with the principles of Legalism (fajia), which were promoted by the philosopher Han Feizi (d. 233 BC). Unlike the program of Confucius, Legalism distrusted human goodness, and relied instead on bureaucratic theories of organization enforced by strict codes of rewards and punishments. With the final collapse of the Zhou feudal system, Legalist principles were implemented in the establishment of a unified empire under the leadership of China’s first emperor, Qinshi Huangdi.
Qin Dynasty (221 BC-207 BC)
Qin Shi Huangdi
Although the Qin is the shortest of the major Chinese dynasties, it marks a transition point between the weak-centered feudal state of the Zhou era and the emperor-centered imperial states of succeeding dynasties. Innovations in the Qin laid the foundation for government structures that lasted, with some modification, down into the early 20th century, ending with the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911-12, 2,000 years later.
When the forces of Qinshi Huangdi, under the guidance of the Legalist thinker Li Si, took control of the Zhou territories, methods were employed to secure control over the realm. Setting himself up as an all-powerful emperor, Qinshi Huangdi’s power was absolute. Hereditary blood-ties were no longer a part of officialdom, and each position in the newly-created state bureaucracy could be filled as if moving individual pieces on a chess board. Local officials were strategically placed in areas where they had no local allies, requiring them to look to the emperor for support. Weights, measures, and written characters (which at the time had many local variants) were also standardized so that officials in all parts of the land could easily read all documents. The widths of cart axles were also standardized so that any cart could run on any of the earthen roads throughout the land, thus increasing the speed and efficiency of transport and taxation. The old states were re-divided into provinces and prefectures until the control of appointed officials, while the ruling families (those that survived) were ordered to the capital to deprive them of power.
Different characters for the word "horse" were standardized in the Qin period. The one on the bottom right is the standardized character of today.
Other attempts at control included the burning of all but one copy of each of the Confucian writings (213 BC). Though books on technical subjects were spared, more books were lost in the chaos at the end of the dynasty. Thus, much of the early learning was lost, though after the emperor’s death many books were recovered from surviving scholars who had memorized them by heart. Legend also says the emperor ordered several hundred Confucian scholars, seen as subversive to the new order, to be buried alive. Many other stories exist of the cruelty and excess of Emperor Qin.
Early Great Wall in today's Hebei Province
Hundreds of thousands of farmers were conscripted to work on public works projects, the most ambitious project being a series of walls across the northern frontiers. The tale of Meng Jiangnu, who searches for her husband’s bones along the Great Wall, is one of China’s most enduring folk tales. Conscripted labor also built a massive tomb near the modern city of Xi’an. Five huge armies of life-size terra-cotta warriors and horses were arranged around the tomb to guard the emperor in death. The tomb itself has yet to be opened by Chinese archaeologists, who wish to perfect their techniques before attempting to excavate a structure that legend says contains a detailed model of heaven and earth, complete with jeweled skies and mercury lakes. After the discovery of the terra-cotta armies in the late 1970s, a huge museum complex has been opened to the public, where hundreds of thousands of visitors can view the excavated remains of China’s first great empire.
Terra-cotta warriors found in the Qin Emperor's tomb
That empire came to an end soon after the emperor died while on a tour. Legend says that his decaying body was covered with fish on the journey home so that news of his death would not spread. Uprising and rebellion soon followed however, and none of his weak, young successors were able to hold onto power. This ultimately ushered in the rise of the great Han dynasty—China’s first long-lasting empire, based on many of the principles developed during the Qin.
Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD)
The majority ethnic group in China today is called the “Han nationality.” The name derives from the first great empire that lasted over four hundred years at about the same time as the Roman Empire (though the two states knew very little about each other’s existence). The Han empire was founded in the chaos after the fall of the Qin by a rebel leader known as Liu Bang, or by his reign name (given after his death), Han Gaozu (Kao Tsu). The early years of the Han were ones of consolidation of power.
At the start, power was shared to some degree with local kings, but as time went on and the bureaucracy was revitalized along lines similar to the Qin, the emperor’s power grew. Legalist theory was also gradually replaced by a re-vitalization of Confucianism. This eventually resulted in the strengthening of the role of the “Son of Heaven” and in a more moderate state in terms of what we would call “human rights.” Social classes included the ruling imperial family, civil bureaucrats, landed gentry (who acted as small-scale local powers), farmers, artisans and craftsmen, and merchants.
Great advances were made in intensive agriculture, including crop rotation, fertilizers, and new techniques in the use of draft animals. Town and country were linked in a more advanced agrarian economy, and many farmers had sideline activities such as textile production. There were also attempts (not always successful) to keep tax burdens on peasants low. This was done in part by creating state monopolies on high-consumption essentials such as salt, iron, and alcohol in order to temper the growing economic wealth of the merchant-class. Graves of the Han dynasty gentry class offer a wealth of insights into everyday life, as scale clay models of everything from prosperous houses, to ample kitchens, to well-stocked courtyards, to nursing farm animals were interred with the dead. The borders of the Han grew, with advances along the Silk Road towards Central Asia, and large scale migrations into southern China.
Han Emperor Wu Di
After the founders, the greatest Han emperor was Wu Di (Wu Ti), who reigned from 141-87 BC. The role of the emperor as a model of virtue who worked for the good of the people was expanded under his reign. Confucian philosophy also advanced, including the idea offered by Dong Zhongshu that nature would give signs such as earthquakes or floods if a ruler was losing the “Mandate of Heaven,” and speculated on the inter-relations between the heavens, earth, and mankind. In 124 BC, an examination system was set up that offered an opportunity to males of any respectable background to elevate their (and their family’s) positions in life. It also served as a way to get true talent into the system. Much of what we know about early Chinese history comes from the writings of the historian Si Maqian (died c. 85 BC), who dedicated his life despite being castrated for displeasing the emperor to researching and editing the surviving writings of the past. Buddhism arrived from India by the first century BC and gradually grew in popularity.
Throughout the Han era the Xiongnu on the northern borders were a threat dealt with first by warfare and then by a policy of diplomacy and appeasement that included Chinese brides. Under Wu Di, the borders were expanded in a series of wars against the Xiongnu and command posts were established on the Korean peninsula in 108 BC.
As time went on, however, the wars with the Xiongnu and other border peoples grew costly, lifestyles at the court grew lavish, and the tax burdens on the populace increased. After Wu Di’s death attempts were made to rectify the situation, but eventually a usurper named Wang Mang came to power. He was the nephew of Empress Wang — one of a number of women who held powerful, but temporary positions during the Han.
Once Wang Mang took over the throne and attempted to institute social reforms by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. His reforms included the re-division of landholdings, freeing of slaves, social welfare and revolving credit programs for the poor and farmers, taxes on the use of firewood and natural resources, and reinstitution of government monopolies on certain goods. In practice, most of the reforms were not effectively instituted, or had the effect of adding even greater economic pressures on the populace. He also launched costly, disastrous campaigns against the Xiongnu.
Xiongnu invaders crossing a river
Eventually both the upper-class gentry and the greater population vehemently opposed the attempted reforms. As the young government de-stabilized (possibly due in part to a traumatic shift in the course of the Yellow River in northern China), popular revolts led by the Red Eyebrows brought the death of Wang Mang and an end to his experimental rule. The historian Wolfram Eberhard notes that Wang was decapitated while reading ancient scriptures in his chambers, and his skull preserved for two hundred years.
After Wang’s death, the Han dynasty was revived by surviving members of the Han imperial line and returned to its former glory, though the capital in Chang’an (modern Xi’an) was moved eastwards to Luoyang. By about 189, however, the realm was again on the road to crisis and collapse. Wars with borders peoples like the Xiongnu and Xianbei, internal problems with powerful military cliques, weakening leadership in the imperial court, and more popular revolts – this time by the Yellow Turbans and other groups— finally weakened the dynasty, which collapsed in 220 AD, ushering in a period of in which China was in a state of disunion for about three hundred years. As Professor J.A.G Roberts has observed, Rome fell at nearly the same time – and for similar reasons (especially pressure from nomadic peoples) –though Europe was never reunited in the same way again.
Period of Disunion and Alien Empires(220-581 AD)
Map of the Three Kingdoms
With the fall of the great Han dynasty, the Middle Kingdom ceased to exist. For the next three and a half centuries numerous small kingdoms rose and fell on the lands that were once all Han. First among these were three kingdoms, two southern ones called Shu Han (in present-day Sichuan) and Wu (in the Yangzi basin), and a northern one called Wei. Battles and intrigues between the rulers of these states constitute the plot of China’s greatest historical romance, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi). The northern Wei state had a population of about 29,000,000, making it by far the largest state. Among its population were 19 groups of Xiongnu who had been allowed to settle in China near the end of the Han. There was relatively little encroachment on the northern frontier at first, since alliances among the nomadic tribes themselves had recently fallen apart, and were yet to be reunited under a charismatic leader. During this period the Wei actually forged an alliance with the early Yamato state in Japan to attack hostile nomad groups on the Korean peninsula.
As time went on, these kingdoms collapsed and large numbers of demobilized Chinese soldiers began farming and offering various trades on the northern borders. In turn nomads of Turkish, Xiongnu, Xianbei, Tibetan and other ethnic backgrounds allied and took control of adjacent areas. Cultures interacted over time, and a series of small states rose and fell. Some attempted to follow Chinese models of rule, many others gave their loyalties to charismatic rulers (a nomad attitude) whose kingdoms fell apart at their deaths.
During the fourth century a Tibetan leader created a large domain in western China. This was followed later in that century by a large state that ruled northern China and contiguous areas into the mid-sixth century. The state was a multi-ethnic federation populated by the Toba people, whose leaders had adopted many aspects of Chinese tradition.
In the south there were fewer kingdoms, although cultural mixing between ethnic Chinese and southern aboriginal peoples also took place. Northern immigrants were forced to adopt diets less rich in meat and higher in soybeans, fruits, and leafy vegetables as well as adopt southern techniques of wet rice farming instead of the dry-land wheat production of the north. In some instances, even the southern regions were subject to raids from the northern nomads.
Written records of the period of disunion are mostly from Chinese language sources—often written by intellectuals at the service of “barbarian” overlords. The most important intellectual and spiritual trend of the long era was that of Buddhism and monks continued to enter the Chinese regions on both northern and southern trade routes.
PART 5: THE GREAT DYNASTIES
Sui Dynasty (580-618 AD)
China was finally reunited under the efforts of a capable and thrifty military leader from the northwest named Yang Jian, also known by the reign title, Wen Di. His dynasty would be known as Sui. Like the earlier Qin dynasty, however, the Sui was short and severe, but garnered many accomplishments.
Today's Grand Canal
The Sui revitalized old connections throughout the empire and revived institutions of control that would be further embellished by the great Tang dynasty that followed. Among the accomplishments of the Sui was the building of the Grand Canal that linked the thriving cultures of southern China with those of the north, near his new capital at Luoyang. The canal acted as an inland watery highway, especially useful for the transport of grain.
Strains were placed upon the Sui treasury by wars with alien peoples on the northeast border, including attempts to defuse an alliance between the Korean state of Koguryo and nomadic Turkic allies. Leadership also became a problem after Yang Jian’s son, Yang Guang, or known by his reign title, Yang Di, took the throne. Although he is responsible for the success of the Grand Canal, historians and popular literature have not been kind to his memory. A case study in imperial decadence, the emperor was known for high living and lavish expenditures on parties, palaces, and lengthy trips through the exotic southern reaches of his realm.
Stories of Yang Di’s well-known “pleasure tour” throughout the lower Yangzi delta are still told by storytellers in China today, and became the subject of racy vernacular romances by the 17th century. Legend suggests that he had the custom of being drawn through the streets in a carriage pulled by unclad young men and women, who would unceremoniously topple upon each other when the ruler pulled back on the reins.
Losing support of the gentry landholders, the Sui economy eventually waffled and uprisings began. Retreating to the south, Yang Di was eventually assassinated (at the hand of his most trusted general’s son, while bathing) in 618 AD and the empire was again dissolved. In the meantime, however, a capable general named Li Yuan and his brilliant, but ruthless son, Li Shimin had managed to position themselves for conquest and rule of their own dynasty—the Tang.
Tang Dynasty (618-906 AD)
Emperor Taizong, Li Shimin
Chinese historians regard the Tang dynasty as both a revival of the best of the Han dynasty and the high point of power and culture in Chinese history. An open, cosmopolitan era, the Tang was a time when cultural influences and ideas streamed into China on the Silk Road, and China became a model for emerging kingdoms in Korea and Japan. Its capital, Chang’an at times had a million inhabitants and drew peoples of many faiths and ethnicities from all over the accessible world. Art and literature flourished in the Tang period, and it was the peak moment of Chinese lyric poetry.
Li Yuan, a military leader of possible Toba background founded the Tang. Allied for a period with threatening Turkish nomads, he and his son Li Shimin, toppled the weak Sui government and ruthlessly took control. In the process, Li Shimin killed his elder brothers who were conspiring against him), as well as many other rivals. Once assuming control Li Shimin, also known as Tai Zong, went on to become one of the most effective emperors in Chinese history, leading a strong, stable, and influential state.
Tang pottery in Shanghai museum: Westerner on camel
The walled capital of Chang’an (modern Xi’an) was a bustling city filled with foreign merchants who arrived on the Silk Road, though the sometimes capital of Luoyang was still an important city. Chang’an was divided into over 100 districts, including those for pleasure and living quarters of the foreign merchants—which included Turks, Sogdians, Indians, Jews, Manicheans, Zoroastrians, and Nestorian Christians. Music and dancing from Central Asia were popular in the pleasure quarters—often performed by exotic foreign women. Such areas were frequented by scholars and officials and are described in the poetry and literature of the era. Markets were filled with exotic fruits including grapes, melons, and lichee nuts (brought by “pony express” from southern China). Silks, damasks, satins, jade, agate, coral, pearls, rubies, rare woods, furs, and precious metals were all traded in and out of the city. Southern ports in far-away Guangdong welcomed traders from countries all around the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia, including Arab and Persian traders from the Middle East.
The civil and military bureaucracies were revived and expanded under the Tang. Below the emperor were civil officials and military leaders, largely drawn from powerful gentry (large, hereditary landowners) families. Middle-level positions were filled by men from provincial gentry families and those who did well in the civil service examinations that were reinstituted in the Tang. The greater populace was comprised of farmers, artisans, craftsmen, and traders. Large armies were deployed on the northern borders and local armies and militias were filled with peasant farmers.
Three white pagodas in today's Dali, once the Nanzhao Kingdom's capital
Military campaigns were carried out against Turks in the northwest and eventually against Korean states in the east, Tang forming a special relationship with the kingdom of Shilla. Chinese influence on Japan (in the Nara and Hei’an periods) was also great at this time. On other fronts, in the seventh century the Tibetan state became very powerful to the west, and a large kingdom called Nanzhao arose in what is now southwest China and parts of Southeast Asia.
Land was an issue from the very beginning in the Tang. One of the first acts of the new rulers were attempts at land reform. In an attempt to weaken the holdings of powerful gentry landholders, land was re-divided, giving farmers equal shares of land – a system that had been tried in earlier times, including Wang Meng’s experiments in the Han and for a while in the Toba kingdom. This “equal field” system offered both advantages (land to till) and disadvantages (taxes and corvee labor) to the peasants. Over time, many moved to the less-restricted south, eroding the tax base. Another old system called “baojia” (collective households) was tried. In this system, the farmfolk were divided into five family groups responsible for submitting their taxes and annual labor quotas (for state projects). Even this proved ineffective, and the attempts at land reform gradually diminished as the gentry regained power over more lands.
Empress Wu Zetian
A number of colorful rulers and other palace figures populate Tang history. Among these is Empress Wu Zetian, arguably the most powerful woman in Chinese history. She came to the imperial court as a concubine of Li Shimin, but later had a relationship with his son, Emperor Kao Zong. She eventually became his empress (forcing him to divorce his wife), and succeeded in placing her son on the throne. She later deposed him and placed herself in power as emperor of her own Zhou Dynasty, which lasted form 690-701. According to Wolfram Eberhard, this was in part possible because women in the Tang had more freedom of movement than in earlier and later times due to lingering attitudes from the nomad kingdoms in the period of disunity. Once in control, Wu Zetian, in an attempt to consolidate her power, moved the capital east to Luoyang, away from the powerful gentry families of Chang’an. She instituted reforms in the examination system and government– making it more difficult to succeed solely on family connections and women were allowed to take civil service examinations to become officers in the court. She also promoted the interests of her allies, the Buddhists. Many monasteries became very rich. Huge temples and a massive iron pagoda were built with government support. A good administrator, the country was strong under her rule, though in constant threat from the Turks. Nevertheless, historians have been unkind to Empress Wu, traditionally describing her as evil and debauched. In recent years, her accomplishments have begun to be better appreciated.
Painting by Wang Xuyang: peasant rebellion lead by Huang Chao at the end of the Tang Dynasty
Empress Wu was eventually forced from power and the Tang was restored. Soon after, the Emperor Xuanzong came to power. He was a capable ruler who fortified China’s northern borders by the establishment of nine military command zones staffed by his appointees. He also made reforms in government administration, finances, and attempted to deal with problems of grain transport and taxation of the peasants. In his later years, however he became infatuated with a young concubine Yang Guifei. Their love affair is one of the most popular tragic love stories in China. During this period, one of the border commanders, a man of mixed-nomad stock named An Lushan, ingratiated himself with Yang Guifei and later fomented a rebellion that ended in 763 and marks the decline of Tang power. Although Tang was still in many ways a well-run state, after the An Lushan rebellion, a crisis in leadership ensued. The borders weakened, as did the imperial treasury, and rebellions ensued. Eventually smaller military states began to appear in north China. Eventually Tang fell apart, ending a great period of openness, creativity, and power.
Second Period of Disunion (906-960 AD)
The decades after the fall of the Tang dynasty are known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, referring to a succession of small states. It was a time of division between north and south and of rapidly changing administrations. By 960 AD, China was again reunited in the Song dynasty.
PART 6: SHIFT TOWARDS "MODERN TIMES"
Song Dynasty (960- 1279 AD)
The Song marked a period of transition in more “modern” forms of society as many of the powerful gentry families of the Tang period crumbled and a new era of social mobility for males of all classes began. The new leaders brought the military under control and strengthened the civil side of the government with modifications in the civil service examinations. As J.A.G. Roberts has noted, the society was becoming more a meritocracy, with less emphasis on family background.
Chinese garden architecture in the Yangzi delta
As described in Module 1, development of new styles of urban life was associated with a growing middle-class due in large part to an increasingly sophisticated economic system that allowed the growth of merchant guilds and revived the use of money (which had declined in the previous eras). In part, this development was due to a shift in focus to the Yangzi delta, which had been growing in population for centuries and had been made more accessible due to the canal links to the north. The delta cities of Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Yangzhou all became important economic and cultural centers, and today offer some of the finest examples of Chinese garden architecture in existence . Scholars in these cities advanced the arts of landscape painting and poetry during this period. Many technological advances also occurred in the Song, including the widespread introduction of printing, advanced military devices employing gunpowder, irrigation techniques, watermills, and so forth.
One less “modern” change was the increased restrictions on the activities of women within and without the home. Widows, for instance, were discouraged from re-marrying. Although many women were engaged in household textile production, they were seldom allowed to leave the home except for occasional visits to temples or to attend certain festivals. The relative freedoms of the Period of Disunion and the Tang were replaced by a stricter system of clan and household management that gave more power to male heads. Neo-Confucianism, which developed in the Song, served in part to define women’s roles in society.
Although in many ways developments in the Song set new directions for the development of urban, mercantile lifeways that carried into the early twentieth century, as a whole the era was militarily weak and subject to invasion. Indeed, the Song is divided into two parts –the Northern Song (960-1127 AD) and Southern Song (1127-1279)—because of such invasions. By 960 the Jurched, a people from the northeast had conquered the lands north of the Yangzi River, setting up a large state called Jin. A Tibetan-related group known as the Tanguts established another state, called Xixia in the northwest in present-day Ningxia. In the southwest, a successor to the Nanzhao kingdom still held sway. As a result of the Jin invasion, the capital (located in the northern city of Kaifeng) moved to the southern city of Hangzhou, which for a time numbered over one million inhabitants. Although the Song continued in the south for over a hundred years, it too eventually fell to the Mongols in 1279, who moved against the Southern Song years after the forces of Genghis Khan had defeated the Jin.
Mongol Interlude (1271-1368)
An overview of the Mongol era in East Asia is included in the Timeline in Module 1. After the destruction of the Jin and Xixia states (of which 90% of the population was decimated), the Southern Song finally submitted to the Mongols in 1271. The Mongols had superior military organization and a better grasp of the advances in military technology (such as siege engines, primitive rockets, and simple cannons) than previous northern invaders—and for the first time China fell completely under foreign rule. As Wolfram Eberhard has noted, for the next 631 years, China would be under the control of foreign invaders for 355 years and under Chinese rule for only 276.
Khubilai Khan
Khubilai Khan, who had spear-headed the defeat of the Southern Song, founded a dynasty in China known as Yuan, and declared himself emperor. In order to keep the realm under control, he instituted a system of ethnic stratification that put Mongols of various origins at the top, other northern peoples such as the Uygurs and the surviving Tangut were in second place, while northern Chinese (who had a long history of interaction with the steppe people) were in the third position of trust, and the southern Chinese in the last. Many government and clerical positions were staffed with people from the northwest and Central Asia—especially Uygurs from the now Islamic areas of Xinjiang— who learned both Chinese and Mongolian. Most Chinese, especially in the rich Yangzi river valley were shut out of governmental appointments. Some scholars, like Guang Hanqing, released their creative energies by writing dramas, an art form that appealed to both the Chinese and their Mongol overlords.
Summer Palace in Chengde
As the Yuan dynasty progressed the economy weakened as large amounts of wealth left China in the hands of foreign merchants who were allowed many advantages over their Chinese counterparts. Pressure was also put on peasants by Chinese gentry who had been allowed to keep their lands and by Mongols who were given tracts of land as part of the spoils of war. The government also needed tax revenues and corvee labor for massive public works projects, such as the overhaul of the old canal system, which was now needed to transport rice from the fertile south to the more barren north. A huge new capital was built –today known as Beijing. Even Beijing was too hot for the Mongol rulers, and a special summer palace (in Tibetan style) was built farther north in Chengde, near the old Mongol homelands. As the economic system weakened and some Mongols became disenchanted with a sedentary lifestyle, popular discontent grew. After about eighty years, ruling China became increasingly difficult. The Mongols were finally driven out by a peasant rebel named Zhu Yuanzhang, who had found common cause with the patriotic Chinese gentry. Zhu would become emperor of the Ming dynasty—the last Han Chinese dynasty in imperial history. Take a look at Inner Mongolia today.
Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
Zhu Yuanzhang
As noted, the Ming (“bright”) dynasty was the last imperial dynasty ruled by Han Chinese. Once Zhu Yuanzhang (also known by the reign name Hongwu) ousted the main Mongol forces, he declared himself emperor. He moved quickly to gain military control of the whole country, in many ways following Yuan styles of military and government organization. It was not until 1390, however, that the final Mongol holdouts were driven from southwest China. Occasional Mongol raids still perplexed the Ming even in the 16th century.
In order to re-staff and reinvigorate the government bureaucracy, Zhu revived the civil service examinations and set up government-sponsored schools throughout the land to help examinees ground themselves in the Confucian Classics. He also experimented with new tax policies by introducing a system by which local gentry were responsible for tax-collection in their local areas; farm households were organized in groups of ten with mutual responsibility for taxes and labor for public works projects.
Forbidden City, Beijing
Zheng He's ship and Columbus' ship
His grandson, the Yongle Emperor moved the capital from Nanjing, in the south, to the site of the former Mongol capital, Beijing. Here, he built the massive Forbidden City between 1402 and 1421 that still stands beside Tian’anmen Square. Yongle also led a number of military expeditions into the remaining Mongol realms as a deterrent show of force. Besides re-furbishing the Grand Canal system to improve grain transport he commissioned the Moslem eunuch Zheng He on seven voyages across the Indian Ocean to the east coast of Africa and ports in the Arabian Sea. One detachment of his men actually made a pilgrimage to Mecca. Although the massive fleets of over 300 ships – including several huge treasure boats ten times the size of Columbus’ Santa Maria—must have inspired awe and respect in all who encountered them, for some reason Yongle lost trust in the enterprise (and Zheng He) and ordered the fleets burned. China thus lost its initiative as a commercial, sea-faring power. Years later in the dynasty, Japanese pirates would constantly raid the Chinese coast.
Zheng He's seven expedition routes
Other events marked a shift inward. The Mongols again proved a threat, actually capturing the reigning Ming emperor around 1448. The eventual result was a re-vamping of the Great Wall, which was initially formed from several existing walls and rebuilt and fortified along the borders of the northern steppe. Due to relatively stable times and advances in agricultural techniques, by 1600 the population had reached 150,000,000. New strains of hardier and faster-growing rice were developed and new crops such as the white potato, sweet potato, maize, peanuts, and hot peppers were arriving from the New World via the Portuguese, Dutch and other Europeans who were now taking control of the world’s sea routes.
Jesuit Matteo Ricci, wearing Chinese scholar's clothes
Portuguese Jesuit priests (a highly learned sect of the Catholic Church) were the first sea-faring Europeans to arrive in China during the Ming, making contact in 1514. By 1582, the famous Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who (like Marco Polo in the Yuan dynasty) learned Chinese and even wore Chinese clothing. Chinese intellectuals shared knowledge of astronomy and invention with the Jesuits, who in turn introduced aspects of European mathematics and science of the day. Printing became even more widespread than in the past and a wide variety of books, including vernacular short stories and romances, found ready markets in urban areas.
Eventually the combination of a decline of leadership (coupled with corrupt eunuchs around the imperial court), a de-stabilization of the economy due to an influx of foreign silver, population growth, abusive tax policies, and popular rebellion weakened the Ming. Among the rebels was one Li Zicheng, who in 1644 managed to capture the father of a Chinese commander, Wu Sangui. Instead of submitting to Li Zicheng, Wu allied himself with Dorgon. Dorgon was a leader of the Manchus, a people who lived in the rich forests of Manchuria—what is now northeast China and part of North Korea. For several generations the Manchus, descendants of the old Jurched peoples, had been scheming to invade China under capable leaders such as Nurhaci (1559-1626). After Wu Sangui aided the Manchu forces in breaching the Great Wall they entered and soon took command of all China.
PART 7: FROM 1644 - PRESENT
The Manchus established the Qing dynasty in 1644 AD, which lasted over two hundred and fifty years, far longer than the Mongol occupation. The Manchu empire extended China’s borders to their greatest extent in history, bringing allies such as Tibet and the northwest regions of Xinjiang under direct Chinese rule. Incredibly strong in its earlier years, the dynasty declined by the early 19th century from a combination of rapidly rising population, incompetent rulers, inner revolt, and outside forces that arrived by sea, rather than by the traditional land routes. In 1911-12 the dynasty collapsed, replaced by China’s first attempt at setting up a Western-inspired republican government.
Population growth in Qing Dynasty
For generations before the takeover, Manchu leaders, such as Nurhaci and Abadi, studied Chinese culture and history in preparation for their invasion. Related to the populations of the ancient Jin state, the Manchu "banners", as they called their military units (in Mongol tradition), were composed of Manchus, Mongols, mercenary Chinese, Koreans, and other ethnic groups. Once the Manchus took hold of power, they instituted a system that kept much of the Ming system of rule intact and allowed many Chinese to continue to serve in office. Eventually a dual administration system was developed, with both Chinese and Manchu filling complementary government positions (something like the dual nature of the Communist Party and People’s government today). In many cases, local order was kept by the Chinese gentry.
Manchurian Eight Banners of Qing Dynasty
All imperial documents were written in both Chinese and Manchu, though as the years passed, Chinese became the de facto court language. Nevertheless, attempts were made to preserve Manchu culture. Immigration into the Manchu heartland was at first forbidden, males in the realm were required to shave the front of their heads and grow a long, plaited queue, new dress styles demanded that garments fasten from the side, and Manchu women were forbidden to adopt the Chinese fashion of foot-binding (in which long cloth tapes were wound around a young woman’s feet in order to shape them into small “golden lotuses”.) Instead, upper-class Manchu women wore high platform shoes and distinct, elaborate headdresses.
Manchu women's clothing and hair styles
Emperor Kangxi
Two early Manchu emperors brought the Qing dynasty to its peak. These rulers were Kangxi and his grandson, Qianlong. Kangxi ruled for 55 years (1667-1722) during a time of great expansion. Qianlong left the throne after a reign of sixty years, a few years before his death. Under Qianlong the borders of China grew to their largest in history. Much of the expansion into lands on the northern and western borders seem to have been made to create buffers from perceived threats of overland invasion. Culturally, the Qing strongly censored historical and literary accounts for any anti-Manchu sentiments or romances such as Outlaws of the Marsh that might incite anti-government sentiment. On the other hand, Kangxi authorized the creation of a comprehensive dictionary, encyclopedias of knowledge, and huge compendiums of ancient writings. European learning continued to be introduced into China, including Western methods of painting employing perspective. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century a number of great works of fiction were produced, as well as large numbers of plays. In all, the reigns of Kangxi and Qianlong were times of intense activity among the intellectual class, which included Han Chinese and increasing numbers of Manchus raised in the traditions of the scholar-officials.
By the late 18th century, however, there were signs of decline, signaled by an uprising in Shandong of the White Lotus Sect, a Buddhist-inspired underground organization that had previously been involved in rebellions. Abuses by local officials seem to have been the cause. As Qing leadership waned in the early 19th century, the population was outgrowing the means to sustain itself and rebellions occurred. Large numbers of people, especially in the newly-settled southwest, were living on very marginal land. This was due in part to the earlier introduction of crops like sweet potatoes and tobacco that could be grown in poor soil.
The Opium War
Trade frictions grew with the European powers, especially Britain. British merchants had long sought to right trade imbalances with China – the Chinese had little need for anything more than silver from the West, selling porcelain, silk, and tea in return. Eventually the British began illegally importing Indian opium into China, with the help of corrupt Chinese middlemen in specially designated coastal trade zones. When the Qing government moved to halt the illegal trade by burning confiscated opium, British traders petitioned their government for redress. British gunboats fired on Chinese positions along the coast, out-gunning the crude Qing cannon. The result of this so-called Opium War (1839-1842) was humiliation for the Qing government and a series of unequal treaties, including the Treaty of Nanjing that ceded the port of Hong Kong to the British in 1842.
August 29, 1842, signing the Treaty of Nanjing
Taiping Rebellion
While foreign influence began to grow on Chinese soil, internal pressures mounted, finally erupting in the devastating Taiping Rebellion that raged from the early 1850s until 1864, leaving an estimated 30 million dead in its wake. The rebellion began in the southern province of Guangxi, and was led by a visionary of Hakka ethnicity named Hong Xiuquan. After failing at the local civil service examinations, Hong studied with foreign missionaries. He had a vision that pronounced him the younger brother of Jesus Christ, who was sent to earth to create a kingdom of “great peace.” Disenchanted peasants of several southern ethnic groups pledged themselves to his cause, giving up their property (which was then fairly redistributed), as well as opium, tobacco, alcoholic beverages, gambling, prostitution, polygamy, and foot-binding. Men and women were equal in the movement and soldiers lived a communal lifestyle. It is interesting that the grandfathers of several of the later Communist revolutionaries of the early twentieth century were Taiping rebels. As the movement grew in force it swept through southern China and nearly took the southern capital of Nanjing. The rebellion was weakened by contradictions among the Taiping leadership. Qing government forces, now partially Westernized in military hardware and tactics (though still behind Japan), finally put down the rebels with the help of European soldiers.
Empress Dowager Cixi in formal Manchu dress (note the platform shoes)
By the end of the 19th century it was becoming clear to many in China that serious changes must be made in order to save Chinese sovereignty in the face of aggressive European—and eventually Japanese—imperialists. Although a “self-strengthening movement” had some success in military reform, the reforms were hindered by weak imperial leadership. By the end of 1890s the imperial throne was under the influence of a former concubine known as the Empress Dowager Cixi. In response to foreign naval threats, she squandered funds on a large marble pleasure boat, now a tourist attraction at the Summer Palace in Beijing. After losing the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 (fought over control of Korea), it became clear to all that Chinese power was little more than a shadow of the past. Reformers, including Kang Youwei, finally convinced the imperial government to institute experimental reforms in government and military in the spirit of the reforms that had all too clearly yielded results in the Meiji Reformation in Japan. The “One Hundred Days of Reform” (named for how long the reform lasted) were too much of a threat to the conservative imperial order, and its leaders were either beheaded or fled to Japan.
Boxers fighting with European and American armies
Things soon went from bad to worse. Another massive uprising, caused by famine and unstable social conditions, erupted in Shandong, in northern China. This movement was led by the so-called Righteous Order of Harmonious Raised Fists (Boxers, for short). The Boxers, who included de-mobilized soldiers, went on an anti-foreign rampage in 1898. A number of foreigners were killed, and armies of seven European countries and the United States fought off Boxer attacks throughout northern China. In the melee the imperial library was looted and huge amounts of treasure and antiquities were taken from China by foreigners, who eventually demanded indemnities for their losses. More pressure was brought to bear on Chinese territory, and a fierce battle between Russia and Japan (which won) was fought in 1904-1905 for territories in northeast China.
The Yuanming Yuan Garden was destroyed by foreign troops in 1900
Sun Yat-sen
By 1905, the imperial system was in a state of near collapse—the civil service examinations were abolished in that year. Reform and revolutionary movements were rising both within and outside of China, with many young revolutionaries under the influence of ideas they had learned in Japan and the West. Among these was Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who helped organize the revolutionaries that eventually ignited a rebellion in the city of Wuhan in the Yangzi Valley. Although Sun was outside China at the time, he soon returned and was elected as president of the newly declared Republic of China—a modern-style, Western-inspired government that was supported by a variety of social classes that all wished to see the Qing come to an end. Within a month, however, Sun stepped aside and Yuan Shikai, head of the Beijing military, was elected as president. The new government was unable to take control of the whole country, and local military governors began assembling their own spheres of influence. By 1915 Yuan Shikai declared himself emperor, but died a few months later. Other leaders followed, but could not stop the growth of warlord states that set up local power bases much as small states arose after the collapse of earlier dynasties. Sun Yat-sen founded an opposition government in southern China supported by his followers, the Nationalist Party.
An oil painting of May Fourth Movement, 1919
By 1919, following ill-treatment of China under the Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI, a movement arose among students and intellectuals at the new Beijing University. This so-called May Fourth Movement was an intellectual and spiritual revival among educated, urban Chinese already exposed to many Western ideas and technology. Protests marches were held—and some students were shot by government soldiers. The students called for reforms in government, science, and culture—all similar to modernizations made in Japan over fifty years before.
Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi)
After the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), a young military man who had received training in the Soviet Union, took control of the Nationalist Party. He quickly moved against the warlords on the Northern Expedition in 1927, and was quite successful in gaining control of parts of eastern China. His efforts were complicated, however, by the rise of the Chinese Communist Party, founded in 1921 by a handful of young revolutionaries inspired by the success of the of the Soviet Union, founded in 1917. Pushed underground by the Nationalists, the Communists retreated to mountain lairs in southern China, where they perfected their reform movement in neglected peasant areas.
Red Army soldiers on the Long March
5,000 mile-Long March
By the late 1920s, the Japanese were threatening northeast China, where they set up a puppet-state in old Manchuria. A prolonged movement against the Communist strongholds by Nationalists in 1934 caused the Communists to pick up and walk 5,000 miles through the extreme terrains of southwest and western China. The Long March took over a year and only 20,000 of the original 100,000 participants survived the march, which ended in a place called Yan’an in the mountains of Shanxi province, not far from the ancient Qin capital of Xi’an. Among the marchers were the eventual founders of the People’s Republic of China in 1949: Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. For a time in 1936, there was talk of a united front of Nationalists and Communists against the Japanese.In the so-called the Xi’an Incident Nationalist generals Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, with the support of the Communist leader Zhou Enlai, kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek and forced him to join a united front with the Communists against the Japanese. This united effort, however, eventually fell through.
Live victims were used by Japanese soldiers for bayonet practice in Nanjing
By 1937, the Japanese had invaded deep into China, bombing Shanghai and committing horrendous atrocities on the population of Nanjing. The Nationalist government, wracked by corruption and lacking in resolve, lost many troops in battles trying to protect the coastal cities. The government eventually retreated inland up the Yangzi River, finally creating a base in Chongqing, Sichuan province. Meanwhile, the Communists, from their base in Yan’an spread their influence among peasants across northern China and penetrated behind Japanese lines using sophisticated guerilla warfare tactics.
China during civil war: a Red Army man helping refugees
As the Anti-Japanese War (1936-1945)—what the Chinese call WWII—was drawing to an end, the United States, which supported the Nationalist cause briefly entertained the idea of a coalition government between Communists and Nationalists, and even sent a mission to Yan’an in 1944. Once the war was over in 1945, however, the US aided the Nationalists by helping them move troops to northeast China to accept the Japanese surrender, and check the advancing Russians who were interested in regaining ports and railway lines in Manchuria. Despite US support of the Nationalists, the Communist following (due in part to the common cause they had with the peasants in resisting Japan) was strong enough that they eventually won the civil war and drove Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists to the island of Taiwan, which had been under Japanese control for over eighty years. In October 1949, Mao Zedong stood on the terrace in front of the Forbidden City in Beijing and declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Mao Zedong announcing the creation of the P.R.C. on October 1, 1949
Anti-Rightist campaign, 1957
The early years of the People’s Republic saw land reforms and steps toward feeding, housing, and providing medical care to an estimated 400 million people in a country ravaged by over a century of almost constant war and rebellion. Mao Zedong, the major thinker behind the Communist revolution, was made Chairman of the Communist Party. By the late 1950s, questions began to arise among intellectuals and common people alike over certain of Mao’s policies, which were also challenged by some other Party leaders. In 1957, the government asked for constructive criticisms on its policies in a political movement known as the Hundred Flowers Campaign. The criticisms were more than Mao had gambled on and he soon launched a counter-revolutionary movement called the Anti-Rightist campaign, which resulted in the stigmatizing or imprisonment of many intellectuals and students who had offered even the most innocent suggestions.
Great Leap Forward: melting down metal objects for steel
Communal dining hall during the Great Leap
This began a prolonged era of periodic, government induced political movements that wracked and divided Chinese society into the late 1970s, with occasional repercussions as late as the 1980s. In 1958, in response to inner-party criticisms of the Anti-Rightist campaign—which some moderate Communists thought had gone too far, Mao launched a movement called the Great Leap Forward. During this period, Mao cut relations with the Soviet Union, which had been supplying technical support to China since 1949. Throughout the country over 700,000 People’s Communes were created in a furthering of land reforms already instituted in the early 1950s. Communal housing and kitchens were set up all over and the populace was burdened with the task of melting down any metal objects they could lay their hands on in homemade smelters in order to help China raise its steel production to that of Britain within five years. Needless to say, this project failed – China was not going to rapidly overtake the developed countries, regardless of an initial wave of Socialist zeal over the project. Since everyone was involved in steel production, harvests failed and by 1961 over 30 million people (Chinese statistics!) had starved, many in areas where local officials had inflated grain production figures reported to a bean-counting government.
Young Red Guards singing in praise of Chairman Mao
By 1963, Mao had been skillfully shunted aside by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, leaders who suggested that experiments with basic capitalist production might be useful for development. Within a few years, however, Mao had rallied his many allies, and began a movement that indoctrinated the young people of China to believe that they were the vanguard in a new movement against counter-revolutionaries in the schools and government offices. This was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Many were publically criticized in the Cultural Revolution
By 1966, huge rallies of young Red Guards were trekking (sometimes over a thousand miles) or riding free trains to massive rallies in Tianan’men Square in Beijing in hopes of glimpsing Chairman Mao as he spoke to them. Violence broke out as Red Guard groups “struggled” against “reactionary” teachers and officials – some of whom were beaten to death by over-zealous students, or committed suicide out of shame after public rallies in which degrading signs were hung around their necks and pointed dunce caps placed on their heads.
Parades were held to send off urban young people to rural areas
By 1968, the Red Guard movement was out of control and factions fought among themselves to prove their loyalty to Mao. Eventually the Red Army interceded, and large numbers of students and urban youths were sent to rural areas to “learn from the peasants.” Life on the communes was not easy for many city youths and older counter-revolutionary intellectuals. The peasants, who often had no clear idea of what was going on in the cities, often resented the sudden arrival of groups of city-raised young people.
Nixon meeting Zhou Enlai, 1972
By the early 1970s, a group called the “gang of four,” which included one of Mao’s wives, Jiang Qing, took control of the country as Mao aged. During the early 1970s, US President Richard Nixon and his aide, Henry Kissinger, began secret talks with the PRC leadership. These talks eventually led to a ping-pong match between Chinese and American athletes. Ultimately, in 1972, Nixon visited China, meeting with Premier Zhou Enlai (a respected diplomat who stayed the course through years of chaos), and a senile Chairman Mao.
"gang of four" on trial, 1980
With Mao’s death in 1976 (the same year as the death of Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and a terrible earthquake in Tangshan that killed 250,000 people) the Cultural Revolution came to an end with the capture of the “gang of four” by the Chinese army. By 1980, reformer Deng Xiaoping (who stood only 4’9”) used his political skills to come to power. Jailed three times by Mao, he was always considered a creative intellect, due in part to several years spent in France in his youth. By the early 1980s, Deng had systematically set China on a new course towards a more open, economically viable society. Abandoning radical Maoist ideas on communal economy, the new plan was to create “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Although finding a new direction was sometimes difficult, in all the process was carried out in a very systematic way, combining socialist and previously taboo capitalist principles.
Deng Xiaoping
As a first step, the people’s communes were dissolved, and a “household responsibility” system was put in place in the rural areas. Now, instead of laboring for “work points” farmers could control what they raised and keep a large share of the profits. Land was re-divided under renewable contracts and sideline productions of animals, fruit, and other items were again allowed and encouraged. Once the rural economy was stimulated, more liberal policies were launched in the cities, and small private businesses staffed by “unemployed youths” with older advisers were encouraged. On a larger scale joint ventures were allowed between government companies in some coastal cities and foreign firms. An experimental capitalist city called Shenzhen was built near Hong Kong. Lessons learned there were later applied to other cities.
Tiananmen Square protests, 1989
Changes came fast and expectations rose faster. By the late 1980s, unrest developed among idealistic students on campuses in Beijing and Shanghai, with complaints of government corruption and calls for more democracy and a swifter pace of openness and modernization. By the spring of 1989, over 90 days of protests in Tian’anmen Square resulted in what the Chinese government considered a popular uprising in which a number of soldiers were killed and burned, stimulating a brutal response which resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of civilians, including some students.
Yang Liwei, China's first "Taikonaut"
After several years of retrenchment, economic policies were reaffirmed in the spring of 1992 and China entered a stage of rapid economic growth. After Deng’s death in 1997, the reforms progressed even more rapidly, averaging 8-9% a year economic growth into the early 21st century. In the same year Hong Kong was returned to China and became a special administrative zone. A new area of Shanghai called Pudong marked Shanghai’s economic rebirth, more and more government companies became private, and foreign investment skyrocketed. This included participation by Japan and Taiwan (which had successfully modernized its economy by the early 1980s, instituting democratic reforms in the late 1980s). Stock markets were founded and became a passion for everyday citizens. Millions of peasants streamed into urban labor markets, forming a huge “floating population” of over 150 million temporary workers. New forms of popular culture spread throughout the land by television, a relatively liberalized film industry, and the Internet. Universities began charging tuition and some students took part-time jobs (unthinkable before the late 1980s). Health care became expensive, and declined, along with other social services like education, in some rural areas. A new optimism fueled by opportunity and intense competition ignited in young people across the nation. Corruption found new outlets in the dynamic economic environment. Despite enforcement (with some slackening) of the “one-child” birth control policy in force since the late 1970s, China’s population reached 1,300,000,000 by 2004. China joined the World Trade Organization in 2002 and became more integrated into the world economic scene. China’s first “taikonaut,” Yang Liwei orbited earth in 2003, and plans were soon announced for a future lunar mission. What the future holds for China remains to be seen, but will no doubt have worldwide repercussions.
Beijing History
Beijing is one of the four ancient cities of China (together with Xian, Luoyang, Nanjing), the best preserved, and famous around the world. Beijing is also known as a cradle of humanity. As early as 700,000 years ago, Peking Man lived in Zhoukoudian area of Beijing.
Beijing City was established over 3,000 years ago and was called Jin City in the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC - 771 BC). Ever since Emperor Qin united China in 221 BC, Beijing has played an important role in north China. It was the capital city in the Liao (916-1125), Jin (1115-1234), Yuan (1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. During these 800 years, 34 emperors lived and ruled here. The world renowned Forbidden City was built during this period. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, World War I broke out. Beijing became the focus of invaders. The war disrupted the society. Many residences of royal families were robbed and burned down. After that, the whole country was reduced to the status of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. It wasn't until October 1st, 1949 that the People's Republic of China was founded. Beijing is known as the capital city of the prosperous new country which has flared into importance in Asia.
Beijing Attractions
Beijing, the heart of China, is always the first choice of travelers who are willing to know a time-honored and developed city of China. It has been the political, economic and cultural center of China for over 800 years from the Yuan Dynasty. The numerous royal buildings with long history endow it with incomparable charm, not only the 'Nation's Best' but also the 'World's Best'. On the other hand, as the host city of the 2008 Olympic Games, this oriental ancient city presented her best fashion fascination to the world.
Top Attractions
Forbidden City
The magnificent Forbidden City is the largest and the best-preserved imperial palace complex in the world. It has 9,999 rooms in flourishing period with just a single room short of the number that ancient Chinese belief represents 'Divine Perfection' and surrounded by a moat six meters deep and ten-meter high wall. For five centuries, this palace functioned as the administrative center of the country.
Great Wall in Beijing
The Great Wall of China is one of the 'Eight Wonders of the World' and is enlisted in the World Heritage Directory. This immense wall was built to keep out invaders as well as to retain the inhabitants. It spans five provinces from Shanhaiguan Pass in the east to Jiayuguan Pass in the west, looking like a gigantic dragon across deserts, grasslands and mountains. In the downtown area, it is possible to climb Badaling Great Wall.
Tiananmen Square
The solemn and respectful Tiananmen Square is the largest central city square in the world, which serves not only the city's symbol but also the whole of China. This immense courtyard is surrounded by a variety of significant edifices such as the Tiananmen Tower, Great Hall of the People, Mao Zedong Memorial Hall, Monument to the People's Heroes and National Museum.
Imperial Gardens & Mausoleums
It is the capital city of several Dynasties. Therefore, besides the spectacular imperial palaces, it also possesses the most luxurious royal gardens—the well-preserved Summer Palace with an area of 727 acres, the elegant Beihai Park and the destroyed Old Summer Palace. On the other hand, those Emperors also constructed spectacular mausoleums for themselves. The Ming Tombs of the 13 emperors should be the most excellent necropolis.
Summer Palace Ming Tombs
Altar of the Moon Altar of the Sun Beihai Park Eastern Qing Tombs
Old Summer Palace Western Qing Tombs
Temples
Due to religion was always related with the supreme imperial power, it at one time served as the focus of religious life with lots of beautiful temples. The Temple of Heaven, where the Emperors paid homage to the glory of heaven, is the largest group of structures in the country dedicated to rituals. To be opposite, the Altar of Earth was used to worship the God of the Earth. The Great Bell Temple, where the Emperor prayed for rainfall in the Qing Dynasty.
Temple of Confucius Temple of Heaven Yonghe Lamasery
Altar of Earth Big Bell Temple Eight Great Sites Park
Five Pagoda Temple Hongluo Temple Ordination Terrace Temple
Ox Street Mosque Pool and Mulberry Tree Temple Temple of Azure Clouds
Temple of Cloud Dwelling Temple of Great Awakening Temple of Recumbent Buddha
Temple of Vast Succour White Cloud Temple White Dagoba Temple
Historical Sites
If you would like to experience the local life, there is a great deal of Hutongs and Courtyards distributed for your choice. The Prince Gong's Mansion should be the most magnificent courtyard, which was the residence of an official and then a prince. Other famous historical sites include the Bell and Drum Towers, the Colored Glaze Factory (Liulichang) Street for people interested in Chinese calligraphy, painting or other artwork, the Lugou Bridge carved with marvelous stone lions.
Hutongs & Courtyards Prince Gong's Mansion Shichahai
Ancient Observatory Bell and Drum Tower Peking Man Site
Imperial Academy Marco Polo Bridge
Modern Scenic Spots
Thanks for the 29th Summer Olympics, the city has been well-known for travelers all over the world. This hospitable metropolis has been mixed with lots of modern elements, which is also a new part for its mysterious orient civilization. There are so many representative buildings displaying this international metropolis, such as the National Stadium and the National Aquatics Center for 2008 Olympics and the Century Monument.
National Stadium National Aquatics Center 798 Art Zone
Aquarium Aviation Museum Beijing Zoo
Capital Museum CCTV Tower Chinese Ethnic Culture Park
Grand View Garden Happy Valley Military Museum
Museum of Natural History National Art Museum National Centre for Performing Arts
North Putuo Film & TV City World Park Working People’s Cultural Palace
Natural Beauties
For a peaceful and interesting stroll, please visit the beautiful parks. Located at the back of the Forbidden City, the Jingshan Park is an ideal place for an overview of the city, which was also an imperial garden in ancient time. The Fragrant Hills Park has the most beautiful red maple leaves in every autumn. The Taoranting Park is a wonderful workmanship of Chinese ancient and modern architectural skills. The Stone Flower Cave is an astonishing karst park.
Fragrant Hills Park Jingshan Park Jingdong Grand Canyon
Botanical Garden Chaoyang Park Longqing Gorge
Phoenix Hill Nature Park Purple Bamboo Garden Stone Flower Cave
Taoranting Park Ten Ferries Western Hills National Forest Park
Beijing Facts
English Name: Beijing, Peking
Chinese Name: 北京 (běi jīng)
Government: Municipality; Capital of China
Location: Northern China (39°54′N, 116°23′E)
Beijing History
Area Code & Zip Code:
Area Code: 010; Zip Code: 100000
Airports:
Capital International Airport,
Nanyuan Airport
Railway Stations:
Railway Station, South Railway Station, West Railway Station
Suburban Districts:
Changping Daxing Dongcheng Fangshan Fengtai Huairou Mentougou Miyun Pinggu Shijingshan Shunyi Tongzhou Yanqing
Beijing, Jing for short, is a metropolis in northern China and the capital of China. Lying 102km (70miles) west of Bo Hai Sea, it borders Hebei Province to the north, west, south, and for a small section in the east and Tianjin to the southeast. Beijing is a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and motorways passing through the city. It is also the destination of many international flights arriving in China. Beijing is regarded as the political, educational, and cultural center of China.
Jinshanling Great Wall
With a history of more than 3,000 years, Beijing has been an integral part of China's history. There is scarcely a major building that doesn't have at least some national historical significance. Being the capital of China for about 850 years, it is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, offering China's most wonderful array of attractions. No other city in the nation attracts more travelers.
As the saying goes, one who fails to reach the Great Wall is not a true hero. Without visiting the Great Wall, no trip to Beijing or the country is complete. The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in northern China, built, rebuilt and maintained between the 5th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders from Xiongnu attacks during various successive dynasties.
At the heart of Beijing is the Forbidden City, home to the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the largest palace complex of the nation and the world. The Forbidden City also hosts the Palace Museum with imperial collections of Chinese art. The Forbidden City is, by any measure, a must-see site in Beijing.
Siheyuan (Courtyard houses) and hutong (alleys) only grow in charm as they decrease in size. Courtyard houses are typical of houses of northern China, a full embodiment of the Chinese philosophy of "the unity of man and nature." Courtyards visitors can see today were mainly built from the Qing Dynasty to 1930s. Hutong is the most typical type of old lanes. More than 7,000 alleys are scattered throughout the city, each has a story to tell. Those narrow lanes twist through older sections and form an open-air museum where you can happily wander aimlessly for hours. To experience the old Beijing, a Hutong tour is a must.
Forbidden City
Tiananmen Square
Old Beijing is wonderful and amazing while New Beijing is fantastic and exciting. Economic reform and the preparation of the 29t Olympic Games have accelerated the pace and scale of change and outfitted the city with a sense of modernity. Present-day Beijing offers an endless mixture of theatres, discos, bars, business centers, all kinds of restaurants and shopping malls that will delight visitors.
798 Art Zone, the exhibition center of modern Chinese art, hosts the annual 798 art festival. The International Music Festival was initiated in 1998 and held in the city each year. Beijing boasts more than a hundred shopping malls, including the traditional shopping areas like Wangfujing, Qianmen Dashilan, and Xidan and the newly emerged business areas like Guomao, Oriental Xin Tian Di and Zhongguancun Square. If you search for international trade clothing, you can not miss Xiushui and Yaxiu.
Want a drink in the evening? Just find a bar and relax. Beijing has many bar streets and bar areas with colorful neon lights calling for those bar lovers of the night. Besides drinking in a bar, visitors can go to listen to Peking Opera at night. Peking Opera is a form of traditional Chinese theatre which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. It is extremely popular in the capital and has come to be regarded as one of the cultural treasures of China.
Seven hundred yeas ago, amazed by his unbelievable description of China, people asked Marco Polo whether his stories were true. He answered: What I have told you was not even half of what I saw. Actually, what was mentioned above is only a fraction of Beijing that awaits visitors from all over the world.
Great Wall of China
The Great Wall, one of the greatest wonders of the world, was listed as a World Heritage by UNESCO in 1987. Just like a gigantic dragon, the Great Wall winds up and down across deserts, grasslands, mountains and plateaus, stretching approximately 8,851.8 kilometers (5,500 miles) from east to west of China. With a history of more than 2000 years, some of the sections are now in ruins or have disappeared. However, it is still one of the most appealing attractions all around the world owing to its architectural grandeur and historical significance.
Great Wall Facts:
Chinese Name: 长城/万里长城
Chinese Pinyin: Cháng Chéng/Wàn Lǐ Cháng Chéng
Length: 8,851.8 km (5,500 miles)
Construction Period: About 2,000 years from the Warring States Period (476 BC - 221 BC) to Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
Beijing Dining
Cuisines from many different cultures permeate the Beijing dining scene. With literally thousands of restaurants available, dining choices are practically unlimited. And the best part is that you can splurge at a fancy restaurant or dine supremely well (any much more cheaply) at any of the smaller family-run operations located all over the city.
Beijing Specialties:
Beijing Roast Duck
It is said that there are two things that you must do when visiting Beijing: One is to enjoy the roast duck and the other is to take a stroll on the Great Wall. There is simply quite nothing like a perfectly roasted duck with bronzed crispy skin and tender, succulent meat. There are literally dozens of restaurants that serve this famous dish, but perhaps the best known are Quanjude and Bianyifang.
Imperial Court Food
Imperial Cuisine has evolved over time to be enjoyed by all of the country's people, characterized by complex preparation techniques, the freshest ingredients and elaborate presentation including colorful vegetable carvings. It is the foundation of Beijing cuisine. Probably the finest expression of classic imperial cooking is the Tan Jia cuisine served at the Beijing Hotel.
Local Snack
Fancy Beijing snack is a must in tasting the authentic Beijing flavor. These dishes emanate from many different cuisines, but the Chinese Muslim influenceis the most apparent. There are probably 200 varieties of snacks in Beijing. Most of the snacks can be found throughout the city. Here, let us begin a snack tourto seek most delicious snacks of Beijing. Snack Streets
Restaurants Recommendations:
Chinese Cuisines & Restaurants
Besides of the eight cuisines, most of regions and minorities in China also have their own particular cuisines that supply customers with more choices. For example, the delicate Shanghai, Huaiyang and Chaozhou cuisines, the unconstrained Shaanxi, Shanxi and Dongbei cuisines as well as the exotic Moslem and Uygur cuisines. In Beijing, it is easily to find such a kind of restaurant for dinner. Here is a bilingual menu which can help ordering dishes in restaurants.
Western Restaurants
In addition to the thousands of Chinese restaurants, there are also lots of places serving foods from all over the world. You can basically get any type of food you want here, if you know where to find it.
American Brazilian French Germen Italian Russian Swiss & Scandinavian
Asian Restaurants
Are you still looking for the special food which could suprise you by totally different flavors? Why not try an Asian restaurant in Beijing?
Japanese Korean Indian Indonesian Thai Vietnamese
Hot Pot
You will never be disappointed to look for various kinds of food. For the cold weather, Hot Pot is a good choice to try. It is no wonder that some love to have in summer too. Hot pot is so popular nationwide.
Sea Food
Seafood is a special dish in east and south part of China. It is well liked around the country with its fresh and special flavor.
Fastfood
Apart from KFC, McDonald's and other well-known western fastfood shops, there is no lack of Chinese, Japanese and special flavor (such as curry) fastfood restaurants in Beijing, some of which are chain shops.
Vegetarian Restaurants
Like fastfood is for people in a hurry, the increasingly fashionable vegetarian dishes are for vegetarians or persons who love this healthy dining style, but not only for those vegetarians for the religion's sake. Merits and Virtues Vegetarian House is a time honored brand in Beijing that was first founded in Shanghai. Absolutely, there are more vegetarian restaurants listed on page for references.
Muslim Restaurants
Feature food from Chinese ethnic minorities contributes a lot to Beijing's colorful dining culture. Characterized by its fresh yet dense flavor, Muslim Cuisine is also known as Islamic cai and Hui cai, the best dish of which is Whole Sheep Banquet which has won wide praise.
Cafeterias
Helping oneself in Cafeterias is a popular and free dining style favored by multitudes of people. Many BBQ restaurants and cafes are of this kind. Here are many excellent cafeterias getting well spoken. For specialty cafeterias, Golden Jafuar, Amazon and Max's Cafeteria are all sound ones.
Buffets
If tired of big dishes all the time, buffets offering desserts, milk tea, ice cream and takeaway coffee are comfortable choice. One can sit and enjoy in the small but delicately decorated shops or buy some drinks and candies by the way while roaming about. If interested in old Beijing culture, tea house is a perfect choice where listening Beijing Opera and other folk art performances is enjoyable as tasting the tea aroma.
Special Flavor
Some Special Flavor restaurants are enveloped in romantic atmosphere and they are ideal places for appointment between lovers. There are also other restaurants listed here in terms of food style to provide another way for customer to choose where and what to eat.
Beijing Shopping
As the capital city of the Five Dynasties of China, Beijing has a history of over thousands of years. It was known as a metropolis with developed businesses and a prosperous economy since ancient times. Many skillful craftsmen settled the area long ago, and passed down their excellent skills generation by generation. We can still find the traditional handcrafts with typical eastern features in the many business streets and markets. Cloisonné, Ivory Carving, Jade and Lacquer are known as the four best traditional handiworks of Beijing. In addition, Curios, Silk, Pearls, Snuff Bottles with Pictures Inside, and Artificial Flowers are also worth buying and well liked by tourists. Candied Fruits and confectionaries of all kinds will make your mouth water, and are wonderful presents for friends.
Beijing Nightlife
Beijing will not only ensure that you have a full and interesting day but will also present you with colorful choices when darkness falls.
Beijing Opera PicturesTraditional performances such as the Beijing Opera, acrobatic shows and dramatic performances in the teahouses are popular with the more mature visitors to the city, while the younger generation seems to favor the snack markets, pubs, clubs and cafes. For the stranger who wishes to become acquainted with the city, a stroll along Chang'an Street to Tian'anmen Square is highly recommended.
One place that cannot be omitted when considering the nightlife options for the old Beijinger is the Tianqiao (Overbridge) Area. In actual fact it is not a bridge but a location popular for gathering to eat, drink and to enjoy the entertainments and amusements on offer there. Tianqiao has been a favorite venue for ordinary folk since the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). This area was also the cradle of Chinese folk culture and art where many original folk performances such as acrobatics and music were devised. The area has changed somewhat over the centuries but the quality of the entertainment here continues to be of a high standard. Two of the most famous venues are the Tianqiao Theater and Tianqiaole Tea House (the name means Happy Overbridge) and it can be found at No.113 in Beiwei Lu, Xuanwu District). The theatre specializes in modern song and dance performances while by contrast the teahouse offers the more traditional arts of Beijing Opera, Acrobatics, Martial Arts as well as folk songs. Visitors to China may be a little apprehensive about going to the opera but it is an experience not to be missed as the performances are really quite spectacular, including as they do music, dance, acrobatics and spectacular costumes.
Other places to explore Chinese folk culture include the Laoshe Tea House (3F, building 3, Xi Da Jie, Qianmen, Beijing), where you can experience the famous Chinese tea culture and find a quiet place to relax and maybe do some reading. There is also the Liyuan Theater (inside Jianguo Hotel, Qianmen, at No. 175 in Yongan Lu) here there are nightly performances at 19:30 pm of genuine Beijing Opera and other folk performances. One need not be concerned about language difficulties with Chinese opera and drama as both make considerable use of mime. The opera often has subtitle boards displaying a translation. As a result they are quite easy to understand.
Chinese acrobatics have a long history and is one of the most popular art forms among Chinese people. Performers have achieved worldwide fame for their wonderful skills and marvelous acts. Acrobatic Shows can be seen at the Wansheng Theatre, 95, Tianqiao Market, Xuanwu District beginning at 19:15pm every evening.
Other traditional Chinese performances such as puppet shows, exotic ballet, opera, concert and modern drama are put on every day in Beijing. Full details are published in the daily newspapers and information is usually available at your hotel's reception desk. We recommended some popular places for such performances here:
Huguang Huiguan Ancient Opera Building
Address: 3, Hufang Lu, Xuanwu District
Beijing Concert Hall
Address: 1, Xinhua Bei Jie, Xicheng District
Beijing People's Art Theater
Address: 22, Wangfujing Da Jie
Sanlitun Pub Street and the surrounding Embassy Area in Chaoyang District is also a must for many foreign visitors and young people. The various bars attract the staff from the Embassies and white-collar workers alike. Here you will find rock-and-roll, hip-hop and Jazz among the many activities. This is a good place to see first-hand something of modern China after a day of exploring its historical past.
VICS
Location: in the east inside of the North Entrance of Gongti, Chaoyang District
Opening hours: 20:00 - 03:00
Cost for ticket: 30 Yuan at weekend, 20 Yuan on Wednesday (Lady's night) and women can enjoy cocktail for free at that night (excluding special activities)
Music: Hip-hop, R&B
JJ Bar
Address: A2, Chaibang Hutong, Andingmennei Da Jie, Dongcheng District
Opening hours: for 24 hours
Average cost per person: 20 Yuan - 30 Yuan
Hugo Club
Address: B143, Xiwai Da Jie, Haidian District
Opening hours: from 09:00 until late
Banana
Address: 22, Jianguomenwai Da Jie, Chaoyang Distrcit
Opening hours: 20:30 - 04:00 from Sunday to Thursday and 20:30 - 05:00 on Friday and Saturday
Cost for ticket: 20 Yuan from Sunday to Thursday and 30 Yuan on Friday and Saturday
Understandably, as the nation's capital, Beijing is also its cultural center and the Capital Theatre, the Beijing Concert Hall, the China Folk Culture Palace each offer the very best of entertainment adding greatly to the wide choice of nightlife pastimes in the city. Program details and ticket prices as well as addresses of the various venues can usually be found in the current 'Beijing Daily'.
Every city has its night market and Beijing is no exception. When the curtain of darkness falls, the snack handcarts come alive. Dongdan Street, Xidan Street, Donghuamen Gate and Longfusi Temple area are the main four night market areas. Snacks include Beijing specialities as well as many that are traditional in other parts of the country, some of which are from minority districts.
It is hard to give details of all the nightly activities to be found in Beijing. However, for foreign visitors in particular, we would highly recommend a leisurely stroll along the Chang'an Street to observe the scene as one of your nightlife choices. Maybe you would like to do this in style by hiring a rickshaw, what could be more in keeping with the ambiance than that? The street extends all the way to the Forbidden City and Tian'anmen Square. The palace complex in shadow has an ethereal beauty that is all its own and that is certain to evoke sentiments of the past glory, mystery and intrigue that was once Imperial China.
Beijing Weather
Beijing has four discernible seasons - short windy spring, long hot summer, cool pleasant autumn but long chilly winter. July and August temperatures can exceed 40 C (104 F). January can dip to -20 C (-4 F).
There are frequent sandstorms in spring, and that makes September and October, when all considered, the best time to visit Beijing. Brief introduction to the four seasons in Beijing will help you have a better understanding about the climate and practical tips for traveling in different time of the year.
Beijing is a city with more than 3,000 years of recorded history and a centuries-old glorious evolution. Evidence of human ancestry dating back to 700,000 years ago has been found in such places as Zhoukoudian in the southwest part of Beijing, where the remains known as 'Peking Man' were found.
While the city's origins can be traced back to over 2,000 years ago, its true significance came about in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC-771 BC). During this time the emperor gave the feudal lords under his rule plots of land. One of these plots of land (or feod), called 'Ji City', was the capital of the kingdom 'Ji' at that time. This city was the earliest in Beijing history. By the time of the Eastern Zhou Period (476 BC-221 BC), the kingdom Ji no longer existed, being replaced by the kingdom 'Yan'. However, Ji was still the capital city at that time.
From the time the Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified China in the year 221 BC, Beijing became a strategic place and local kaiserdom center in the northern part of China. From the year 581 to 618 (Sui Dynasty), Beijing was called 'Zhuo' and had a population of 130,000 people. From 618 to 907 (Tang Dynasty), Beijing was called 'You'. During these two dynasties, it was not only a strategic military place but also the major trade center.
In the year 938 of Liao Dynasty (916-1125), the city became the alternate capital of the kingdom of 'Liao' which was founded by the minority ethnic group Qidan who lived in the northeast of China. Because Beijing of that time was located in the south part of their kingdom, it was renamed 'Nanjing' (in Chinese, 'Nan' means 'in the south place').
In 1115, the Nvzhen ethnic nationality perished the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) to set up the Jin Dynasty (265-420) and founded its capital Beijing, which was called Zhongdu of Jin. The golden Imperial Palace, an extremely grand luxurious construction, was established in Zhongdu at that time. This was the first time in Beijing history that the city became a truly significant capital. The world-famous Marco Polo Bridge (Lugou Bridge) was built at that time during the Jin Dynasty.
In 1267 Kublai Khan, the leader of the Mongolian ethnic minority, gave an order to construct a new city in the northeast suburbs of Zhongdu. Four years later, Kublai Khan, ascending the emperor's throne in the new city, under construction at that time, established the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). The building of the city was finished in 1276 and became the capital of the Yuan Dynasty. The Italian traveler Marco Polo wrote in his travel notes that he considered it to be the 'incommensurable city even in the world'.
The current name 'Beijing' comes from more than 500 years ago during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). In 1403, Zhu Di captured the throne. After that, he moved the former capital to Beiping and then changed its name to Beijing. In 1406, the Ming Dynasty reconstructed Beijing city. The original imperial palace built during the Yuan Dynasty had been burned down during the time when Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan Dynasty. The imperial palace reconstructed in the Ming Dynasty is the Forbidden City at present in Beijing. The construction, design, structure and other aspects of this building epitomize the excellent quality of Chinese architecture in ancient times.
After the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) immediately seized hold of Beijing, the city was called 'Shuntian Prefectural Capital'. During this period, the botanical garden was constructed. The Summer Palace, Old Summer Palace and many other botanical gardens were built at that time. The Summer Palace, that has the beautiful views of rivers and lakes characteristic of small towns of northern China, has retained its appearance. On October 10, 1911, the Bourgeois Democracy Revolution erupted in China, and in next year's February, the emperor of Qing Dynasty was forced to announce his abdication thus ended the last Chinese feudal dynasty and the history of Beijing as the imperial capital was over.
As the important gateway of China, Beijing was military land and the scene of many battles in Chinese history. The chaos caused by war was continuous and the sovereignty of the city was changed many times, making Beijing a city which has undergone much balefulness and adversity.
On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was established and Beijing once again became the newborn capital of China. The history of the old city had turned a new page. A city's history is the history of a country. As the imperial capital city of several generations and today's capital of China, Beijing is the miniature of Chinese history and present actuality. Beijing is an archaic city with 3,000 years' brilliant civilization but simultaneously is also a city that glows with beauty and youth. Now Beijing is appearing in the world in its grand, lovely, fresh and modernized guise, and changing with each passing day.
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