Chinasage : All about China
China sage's information will be of use to anyone keen to learn more about the world's upcoming nation. We cover all aspects of China in hundreds of detailed pages which include all sorts of cultural traditions , descriptions of every Chinese province and all the dynasties . We hope you find ChinaSage the home for your study of China.
You can also check out your knowledge of China with our Quiz section .
Traditions
About Chinasage
We're building an extensive set of information all about China. We found other sites too detailed (such as Wikipedia) or just too old-fashioned. What we thought was needed was a carefully constructed site with strict editorial control so that everything is consistent and easy to navigate without clutter.
The name “Chinasage” came about because it can be read as either “China sage” (中 国 英 明 zhōng guó yīng míng ) or “China’s age” (中 国 时 代 zhōng guó shí dài ) , which promotes our new knowledge resource at a time when China has come of age in the world.
Ancient Coins
Ancient Chinese coins were round with a square central hole. These shapes reflect the ancient shapes of earth (square) and heaven (round). Coins were often used as lucky charms but they had a symbolic meaning too. For a complete history of coins in China please see our Chinese money section.
The central hole is called an eye 眼 yǎn. A particularly symbolic way to wish good fortune is to combine bats and coins (钱 褔 fú and together with the coins symbolizes ‘before your very eyes’ 福 在 眼前 迁 qiān means ‘promote, advance’ so money can symbolize a wish for advancement rather than wealth. A string of nine coins symbolizes continual happiness (as 九 久 New Year .
Read more...
Getting by in China There are many customs and traditions that you should know before traveling to China. Our customs page covers such things as giving gifts, banquets, sealing business deals and how to behave in public. A respect for age old traditions will impress your hosts who will appreciate your efforts to embrace the culture. Read more…
How to write Chinese characters Many Chinese spend a great deal of time studying calligraphy. To be able to write (or more accurately draw) Chinese characters requires lots of practice as well as knowing both the brush strokes and the order in which to make them. Read more…
The standing of women in China Attitudes to women have changed greatly in China over the centuries. The traditional subservient position of women in society was removed in only the last sixty years but there yet to be a woman appointed to the top rung of government. Our section describes the role of women down the centuries including the role of concubines and how some Imperial women bucked the trend. Read more…
Kites Along with many other things the Chinese lay claim to the invention of the kite. Kite flying remains very popular in China and many can be seen flying in public parks. In the past they have even been used for military purposes. Read more…
Symbols and Motifs Chinese arts and handicrafts are full of hidden symbols. Bats, goldfish, peonies and bees all give a specific meaning to a painting or decoration. Exploring the world of Chinese symbolism opens up a whole new layer of appreciation. Read more…
The Great Wall of China The iconic vision of the Great Wall snaking its way up mountainsides is known the world over. One of China's great accomplishments is the awe-inspiring Great Wall. Although it stands for China's enterprise and indomitable spirit, it in the end proved an expensive waste of effort. Read more…
Tai Chi and Martial Arts When people think of China many will picture martial arts as these have been portrayed so widely in films and on TV. The various techniques were developed in the monasteries where active exercise was the perfect balance to long spells of meditation. Many ordinary Chinese practice Taichi each day to maintain health and suppleness. Read more…
Traditional performance China has a great range of traditional performing arts: theater, opera, dance, shadow and glove puppetry and story-telling. Many of these have roots back in ancient times - over a thousand years. Mass media has reduced popularity of most forms but devoted practitioners are helping to keep the art-forms alive. Read more…
Cracking China book
Your A-Z key to understanding China
We are proud to announce a printed book all about China based loosely on this web site. It is a set of sixty topics in A-Z order covering everything from hair to kiwifruit, clapping to rhubarb, eunuchs to dragons. Buying a copy will help support Chinasage . Now available as a Kindle eBook for just $3.90.
Details... ➚
The building of China's railways The building of railways became a competitive scramble in the late 19th and early 20th century. Railways were seen as the key step to opening up inland China for trade. Britain, France, Germany, Japan and America all invested heavily in railway construction only for the the money to be lost in the following years of turmoil. Read more…
History
Dip into history Our history section has a page for each major dynasty, for the whole period from the time of myths and legends 5,000 years ago all the way through the Han, Tang, Song, Ming dynasties to the last great dynasty the Qing Read more…
Chinese porcelain Together with tea and silk, porcelain from China is its most famous export. Prized the world over, high quality porcelain commands high prices at auction. Like silk the secret of its manufacture was a closely guarded secret for centuries. Read more…
Warring States The second part of the Zhou dynasty was known for incessant warfare between kingdoms. It was a time of great importance to China as the philosophical traditions were developed that went on to dominate Chinese thinking in the next two thousand years as it was the time of Confucius and Laozi. Read more…
The Republic of China 1912-1949 The years 1912-49 marked the difficult transition from centuries of Imperial dynastic rule to that of a Republic. Sun Yatsen's dream of a democratic Republic was never achieved amidst the turmoil of the Japanese Occupation and then the Civil War with the Communists. Read more…
Ancient Coins
Ancient Chinese coins were round with a square central hole. These shapes reflect the ancient shapes of earth (square) and heaven (round). Coins were often used as lucky charms but they had a symbolic meaning too. For a complete history of coins in China please see our Chinese money section.
The central hole is called an eye 眼 yǎn. A particularly symbolic way to wish good fortune is to combine bats and coins (钱 褔 fú and together with the coins symbolizes ‘before your very eyes’ 福 在 眼前 迁 qiān means ‘promote, advance’ so money can symbolize a wish for advancement rather than wealth. A string of nine coins symbolizes continual happiness (as 九 久 New Year .
Read more...
The South China Sea China lays claim to a vast area of sea as far south as northern Borneo. The sea contains two groups of islands: the Paracels and the Spratleys. China's claim is disputed by all the neighboring countries surrounding the South China Sea. The U.S. navy has recently provocatively sailed through the region and plans further naval maneuvers. Read more…
4th May 1919 The Chinese reaction to the Versailles Treaty was the major turning point in modern Chinese history. Widespread student protests throughout the country led to a change in government policy and a refusal to sign the treaty. It was a nationalist movement calling for solidarity against foreign exploitation that was eventually to lead to a militarized Guomindang as well as the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party. Read more…
Geography
China's diverse geography China has deserts, mountains, lakes, rain forests and almost every other type of geographical feature you can think of. Our geography section has pages for each individual province as well as the great Yangzi and Yellow rivers. There are also pages on climate, cities, population, ethnic people, airports and universities. Read more…
Hainan Island The island of Hainan is China's southernmost province. Many Chinese travel here for a holiday in the sun and recently some have been buying up holiday flats and houses. The tropical climate allows bananas and palms to flourish. Read more…
Chinese Universities We include a comprehensive guide to the top Universities in China giving details of student numbers, location, ranking and a bit about their history. Read more…
Interactive map of China We have overlaid a Google map of China with our own additional information: airports, cities and visitor attractions to make it a far richer way to explore this vast country. Read more…
The 13 Ming Tombs The tombs of the 13 Ming Emperors is one of the largest and most lavish burial complexes anywhere in the world. Like the Valley of the Kings in Egypt the tombs are scattered around a valley of 17 square miles and only one tomb has been excavated and was found to be completely intact. Read more…
Ancient province of Shandong The eastern province of Shandong sticks out into the Yellow Sea and has many historic attractions. It boasts the birthplace of Confucius and also the manufacture of Qingdao beer. The most sacred mountain in China - Taishan - has many ancient temples and memorials. Read more…
Ancient Coins
Ancient Chinese coins were round with a square central hole. These shapes reflect the ancient shapes of earth (square) and heaven (round). Coins were often used as lucky charms but they had a symbolic meaning too. For a complete history of coins in China please see our Chinese money section.
The central hole is called an eye 眼 yǎn. A particularly symbolic way to wish good fortune is to combine bats and coins (钱 褔 fú and together with the coins symbolizes ‘before your very eyes’ 福 在 眼前 迁 qiān means ‘promote, advance’ so money can symbolize a wish for advancement rather than wealth. A string of nine coins symbolizes continual happiness (as 九 久 New Year .
Read more...
Language
The Chinese Language The Chinese language is rightly treasured as the country's greatest accomplishment. Our language section introduces the language. The section includes some introductory lessons and a guide to writing the characters. Read more…
Ancient stone writings Stone steles form the most permanent of records. Over the centuries they have been used as memorials, reference libraries, calligraphy samples and poems. Visitors to China will have seen these revered inscriptions in all sorts of locations: mountains, houses, parks and museums documenting the lives and feelings of people over the centuries. They are a powerful and permanent expression of the continuity of Chinese history. Read more…
Chinese numbers Learning the numbers in Chinese is easier than in many other languages. In our complete guide to the numbers we include the traditions associated them. Do you know why 4 is unlucky but 8 lucky? Read more…
Three Character Classic The Three Character Classic (San Zi Jing 三 字 经 language primer for children who aspired to a scholarly life. It introduces the student to Chinese history, philosophy as well as the most common characters. It contains many exhortations for the student to study long and hard. Read more…
Desert
China is usually thought of warm and humid but the country has some of the hottest and driest deserts in the world. 20% of the land area ids classified as desert. The Taklamakan desert is a large desert in Xinjiang province, which is still a difficult desert to cross. Its Arabic name means something like 'abandoned place'. Read more…
Bits and Pieces
We need your help to keep the Chinasage web site growing. We'd love to keep this web site completely free of advertisements like Wikipedia. Please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber for however little or much you can afford. We have been running this campaign for two months and have so far raised only 10% of our target. So please help… or else advertisements will make a comeback!
To read more and take out a subscription simply click on the Patreon Patreon
Many thanks, much appreciated.
Tue 20th Sep 2022Patreon pictures Thanks to the generous donations from Chinasage's Patreon ➚ sponsors we've just added quality photographs to many of our pages.
Although you can get images of all sorts of thing for free you do still have to pay for quality, particularly for specialist subjects. This time we have used 123rf for the new images who claim to have 200 million images to choose from. It takes a long time to make a choice and then they all need editing for usage, tagging and finally putting on the appropriate place on our hundreds of pages. We hope you will agree that they make a significant improvement.
New Year dragon, Shanghai Read more…
Ancient Coins
Ancient Chinese coins were round with a square central hole. These shapes reflect the ancient shapes of earth (square) and heaven (round). Coins were often used as lucky charms but they had a symbolic meaning too. For a complete history of coins in China please see our Chinese money section.
The central hole is called an eye 眼 yǎn. A particularly symbolic way to wish good fortune is to combine bats and coins (钱 褔 fú and together with the coins symbolizes ‘before your very eyes’ 福 在 眼前 迁 qiān means ‘promote, advance’ so money can symbolize a wish for advancement rather than wealth. A string of nine coins symbolizes continual happiness (as 九 久 New Year .
Read more...
The governance of modern China Governing 1,400 million people is no mean feat. China's structure of government is a power pyramid with the President at its head. In theory the people elect representatives who decide policy, in practice the ruling elite are rarely challenged by the democratic process. However the strong military involvement in government has been on the wane for over 25 years. Read more…
Relations with Taiwan - the One China Policy An exploration into the current debate about the status of Taiwan. A look into the complex history and some thoughts on the future. Read more…
Buddhism in China Buddhism came into China from northern India over a thousand years ago and within a short space of time became the dominant religion. There are still very many Buddhist temples dotted all over China that have managed to survive into modern times. The Buddha lived his life in Nepal, on China's doorstep and preached mainly of the relief of suffering by resisting desires of all kinds. Read more…
Precious Jade Jade is highly valued in China, and much of Asia, above gold and diamonds. The gemstone that is harder than steel can be carved into exquisite shapes. Read more…
Bailin temple 柏林 禅寺 in Shijiazhuang, HebeiFanghong ➚ available under a Creative Commons license ➚
Conventions
We use a consistent style for links within Chinasage. An internal link taking you to another page within our site is shown like this while a link to a page on any other web site is shown like this ➚ .
We use Chinese characters wherever appropriate. Most browsers should display both the characters and the pinyin correctly. We highlight any use of the older Wade Giles system for 'spelling' characters. Except where stated all characters are the modern simplified form used in the People's Republic rather than the traditional ones (pre-1970s). To help you learn Chinese characters many of the very common characters are highlighted thus: 中
Dates are given using the BCE/CE ➚ (Before Common Era and in Common Era) year convention rather than BC/AD. If a date is not followed by BCE or CE it should be taken as CE.
Authorship
All the text on the Chinasage web site is my own, I do not copy and paste from other web sites. I research each topic from a number of authoritative sources (mainly books ). The only exception to this are quotations and image credits. All text is our copyright and can not be used/copied without my permission. I am independent of any other company or government, the opinions expressed are my own. I do not receive funding or backing from any agency or organization .
Teacup Media (China History Podcast)
I am delighted to be able to promote links to Laszlo Montgomery's excellent Teacup Media ➚ series created over the last 14 years. Laszlo Montgomery ➚ has in depth knowledge of building commercial contacts with China over 30 years. The set of 290 podcasts totals 150 hours of audio commentary which covers every conceivable topic in Chinese history. Highly recommended.
Acknowledgments
I am extremely grateful to the many people who have put their photographs online for anyone to adapt and use. Without them this site would be very drab. If I am not using the image license correctly please let me know. I am grateful to Kim Dramer ➚ for permission to use her short videos all about Chinese culture and traditions. Patreon subscribers have supported the web site and allowed us to amongst other things purchase some quality images of China for use here. Some pages use Javascript ➚ to create special effects such as our airport table and calendar . I am grateful to the original authors for providing their code to be used and adapted by anyone else. The online Chinese dictionary uses the definition from the CC-CEDICT project ➚ for which I am grateful for a generous free license. Sound files kindly provided by shtooka.net ➚ under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License.
Feel free to contact Chinasage to point out any errors, omissions or suggestions on how to improve this web site.
If you would like to support my work and keep us independent become a Patreon or make a Donation via Paypal.
