Chinese culture loosely

Chinese culture

North China hotel exterior by night

You can’t ignore China: more than a country, it’s a civilization, and one that has continuously recycled itself, not much perturbed by outsiders, for three millenia. Its script reached perfection in the Han dynasty, two thousand years ago, and those stone lions standing sentinel outside sleek new skyscrapers are built to a three-thousand-year-old design. Yet this ancient culture is now undergoing the fastest creative and commercial upheaval the world has ever seen, with Hong Kong-style skylines rearing up across the country. This dizzying modernisation is visible in every aspect of Chinese life, and it is the tension and contrast between wrenching change and continuity that makes modern China such an endlessly fascinating destination.

Read more about  the Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644) and Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911).

Wangfujing Street is one of the busiest streets in Beijing, with nearly 100,000 visitors daily (August 2008).

The first thing that strikes visitors to the country is the extraordinary density of its population. In central and eastern China, villages, towns and cities seem to sprawl endlessly into one another along the grey arteries of busy expressways. These are the Han Chinese heartlands, a world of chopsticks, tea, slippers, grey skies, shadow-boxing, teeming crowds, chaotic train stations, smoky temples, red flags and the smells of soot and frying tofu.

Move west or north away from the major cities, however, and the population thins out as it begins to vary: indeed, large areas of the People’s Republic are inhabited not by the “Chinese”, but by scores of distinct ethnic minorities, ranging from animist hill tribes to urban Muslims.

North China

Here, the landscape begins to dominate: green paddy fields and misty hilltops in the southwest, the scorched, epic vistas of the old Silk Road in the northwest, and the magisterial mountains of Tibet.

While travel around the country itself is the easiest it has ever been, it would be wrong to pretend that it is an entirely simple matter to penetrate modern China. The main places to visit – the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Terracotta Army and the Yangzi gorges – are relatively few considering the vast size of the country, and much of China’s historic architecture has been deliberately destroyed in the rush to modernize. Added to this are the frustrations of travelling in a land where few people speak English, the writing system is alien and foreigners are sometimes viewed as exotic objects of intense curiosity – though overall you’ll find that the Chinese, despite a reputation for curtness, are generally hospitable and friendly.

Chinese wedding culture

The Chinese wedding culture in modern and contemporary times has been undergone constant evolvements and innovations, presenting the characteristics of a rich combination of western and eastern cultures and both traditions and fashions.

Chinese wedding culture

In China, young people's marriages used to be completely arranged by their parents. In some areas, the boy's parents would invite a matchmaker to make the proposal to the girl's family. This was the proposal making procedure.

If the engagement is confirmed, then an experienced person will be invited to choose a proper date for the wedding ceremony. The chosen date is believed to be an auspicious one.

Welcoming the Bride Chinese wedding culture

During the period between the wedding date settlement and welcoming the bride, the boy's family would customarily urge the girl's family to send her dowry in for bridal chamber decoration, otherwise the wedding could not be held on schedule.

On the wedding day, the bridegroom's family would welcome the bride to the wedding in a bridal sedan accompanied by a wedding procession

Chinese wedding culture honeymoon

The wedding dinner is a banquet held for celebration of marriage. During the dinner, friends and relatives gather together to congratulate the newlyweds with blessings of eternal love and a precious son and give their gifts and red packets. The guests, in turn, will be treated with wine and cigarettes and wedding candies. The gifts and money received by the couple are recorded on a red-cover book for later reference of requital.

The first month after wedding is called honeymoon, which signifies the beginning of conjugal love. The custom was originated in Britain. The newlyweds often choose to travel in their honeymoon, through which they can enjoy their sweet and undisturbed life as well as the fun of traveling.

Master Hong Yi

Religion
Buddhism is one of three most important religious believes throughout China. It has become the important part of Chinese philosophy, culture, tradition and even the language of Chinese people. It reshapes Chinese people deeply and also gives China a profile of mystery and loyalty. Buddhism is not the local religion but unprecedentedly flourishing in China since its first arrival in China in the late period of Eastern Han Dynasty.

Master Hong Yi was the most famous master of Buddhism in modern China. Hong Yi (1880–1942) also well known as Li Shutong, was a Chinese Buddhist monk, artist and art teacher. He also went by the names Wen Tao, Guang Hou, and Shu Tong, but was most commonly known by his Buddhist name, Hong Yi. He was a master painter, musician, dramatist, calligrapher, seal cutter, poet, and Buddhist monk. By the way, he was one of four most famous Buddhist masters in modern China. Today, his influence has been reached the whole East Asia. In Hangzhou Normal University, there is an themed academic institution named Master Hong YI . Feng Zikai Research Center in memory of Li Shu Tong and his famous student Feng Zikai.