All About Countries - China

China

1

Contents General Information

4

History 6 Nature 26 People 36 Economy & Transportation

48

Culture 59

Chinese Personalities Sun Tzu

62 63

Confucius 66

2

Tenzin Gyatso

70

Bruce Lee

73

Mao Zedong

77

Laozi

80

Chiang Kai-Shek

82

Jet Li

85

Deng Xiaoping

88

Na Li

92

China Travel

106

Beijing 107 Shanghai 112 Guangzhou 118 Hong Kong

121

Tibet 123 Taiwan 126 Other Places

Chinese cuisine

95

Gong Bao

96

131

Roasted Duck with Orange sauce (Pecking Duck) 97 Zhajiangmian 98 Chow Mein

99

General Tso’s Chicken

100

Yuanwei Xiaochi

101

Jiaozi 102 Ants in a tree (Mayi Shang Shu)

103

Chao Fan

103

Mango Pudding

104

Green Tea

105

*We do not claim any ownership for the images that have been included in the creation of these articles. The images were used for the sole purpose of having a better understanding of the topic that the texts speak about, in a purely educational manner. If one may consider that we have abusively made use of their images, please notify us on our email address and we will remove them. Most of the images were taken from these sources: wikimedia.org, pixabay.com, flickr.com, goodfreephotos, maxpixel.co.uk. *The texts are a compilation of information we gathered from various sources and translated them from many languages. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

3

General Information Location

China, officially the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国) is a country located in Eastern Asia. It is bordered by North Korea to the north-east,

by Russia and Mongolia to the north, by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the north-west and west,

by Afghanistan and Pakistan to the west, by India and Nepal to the south-west and by Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Macau to the south.

The country also has access to the East China Sea, to the South China Sea, to the Sea of Japan and to the Yellow Sea.

China covers an area of 9.596.961 km2, has a density of about 145 persons/km2 and has its capital in the city of Beijing, which hosts about 25.000.000 people (at the metropolitan level). The country’s national anthem is called 义勇军进行曲, which is translated as “March of the Volunteers” and was written by Tian Han, while the music was made by Nie Er. The country is organized as a unitary socialist one-party state and is divided into 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities, 2 special administrative regions and 1 claimed province. China’s total population counts about 1.376.050.000 persons, which ranks the country as 1st in the world by population. Other Chinese population living abroad can be found in countries like: Thailand (9.392.792), Indonesia (7.670.000), Malaysia (6.650.000), the United States of America (3.794.673) or Singapore (2.547.300). The official currency in China is the Yuan (CNY). The national day of China is celebrated on 1 October every year.

China had the largest economy in the world for most of the past two thousand years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the

4

introduction of economic reforms in 1978, China has become one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies. As of 2014, it is the world’s second-largest economy by nominal GDP and largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). China is also the world’s largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a recognized nuclear weapons state and has the world’s largest standing army and second-largest defense budget. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BCIM and the G-20.

Flag

The national flag of the Republic of China is a red flag with five yellow stars arranged near the flagpole, at the top. One of the stars, the nearest one to the flagpole is the biggest of all and it is surrounded by four smaller stars arranged in a semicircle. The flag has a ratio of 2:3 between width and length. The red colour represents the Communist revolution, while the five stars represent the unity of the Chinese people under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Sometimes, the flag is called “The red flag with five stars”, Wǔ Xīng Hóng Qí (五星 红旗).

The flag was designed by Zeng Liansong, a citizen of Ruian, Zhejiang. He made the project answering to the circular distributed by the Preparatory Commission of the New Political Consultative Conference (新 政 治協商會議 籌備會), Xīn zhèngzhì xiéshāng huìyì chóubèi huì) in July 1949, immediately when the Communists assumed power after the Chinese Civil War. 2.992 projects were received for the flag and Zeng’s project has entered the final along other 38 finalists.

The Yuan is the official currency in China

After several meetings and slight modifications, Zeng’s project was chosen as the national flag. The flag was hoisted in the center of the Tiananmen Square by the People’s Liberation Army on 1 October 1949 at the ceremony of proclamation of the Republic of China.

Other flags used by the PRC use a red background to symbolize the revolution along with other symbols.

According to the current government interpretation of the flag, the red background symbolizes the revolution and the golden colours were used to “radiate” on the red background. The orientation of the stars shows that the unity should go around a center.

In the original description of the flag by Zeng, the larger star symbolizes the Communist Party of China, and the four smaller stars that surround the big star symbolize the four social classes (the working class, the peasantry, the urban petite bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie) of Chinese people mentioned in Mao’s “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship”. The five stars that formed an ellipse represent the territories of China (including Outer Mongolia) which is shaped like a Begonia leaf. It is sometimes stated that the five stars of the flag represent the five largest ethnic groups. This is generally regarded as an erroneous conflation with the “Five Races Under One Union” flag, used between 1912 and 1928 by the Beiyang Government of Republic of China, whose different-coloured stripes represented the Han, Manchus, Mongols, Hui, and Tibetans.

field surrounded by fields of rice and, at the bottom, by a toothed wheel. The coat of arms was designed by Liang Sicheng, a famous architect, on the occasion of a competition held on the occasion of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China. The emblem, with evident Soviet symbolic influences, was chosen as the national coat of arms by the Central Government of the People’s Republic of China on 20 September 1950.

According to the official interpretation, the coat of arms refers to the Chinese flag. The meaning of the symbols is the following: “The red color of the flag symbolizes the revolution, while the yellow color of the stars represents the brilliant golden rays that radiate from the sun. The four smaller stars around the larger one stand for the unity of the Chinese people under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)”.

Another interpretation of the meaning of the five stars indicates the five main ethnic groups that make up the Chinese people. Another interpretation stands for the the four social classes and the Party. The rice fields refer to the Maoist philosophy of the agricultural revolution, while the toothed wheel represents the industrial workers. The set of these elements symbolizes the revolutionary struggles of the Chinese people starting with the 4 May 1919 Movement and the coalition of the proletarians who succeeded in founding the People’s Republic of China.

Coat of Arms

The coat of arms of the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国 国徽), Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó guóhuī) consists of the Tiananmen Gate, the main entrance from Tiananmen Square to the Forbidden City in Beijing, and above the gate five five-pointed stars, all of them placed in a red circular 5

History

The first Chinese dynasty that left historical records, the semi-feudal Shang, was positioned along the Yellow River in eastern China from the 18th century BC until the 11th century BC. Divinatory inscriptions on the bones during the Shang Dynasty is the oldest form of Chinese writing, found to date and is a direct predecessor of modern Chinese characters. Shang was conquered by Zhou, who ruled between the 12th and 5th centuries BC, until the centralized authority was slowly eroded by feudal warlords. Many independent belligerent states appeared due to the weakening authority of Zhou, entering a period of 300 years of springs and autumns, interrupted only occasionally by the Zhou Kings. Until the Warring States Period, from the 5th to 3rd century BC, there were only seven powerful sovereign states, across nowadays China, each state having its own king, ministries and armies.

The Warring States period ended in 221 BC, after the state of Qin conquered the other six kingdoms and founded the first unified Chinese state. King Zheng of the Qin State was proclaimed “First Emperor” (始 皇帝), Shi Huang, proceeded then to impose reforms throughout

6

China, in particular the forced standardization of the Chinese language, the standardization of measurement units, the standardization of the length of the spindle carrier and the standardization of money. The Qin Dynasty lasted only 15 years, crashing shortly after the death of Qin Shi Huang, since his authoritarian, legalistic and harsh policies led to widespread riots.

The subsequent Han Dynasty ruled China between 206 BC and 220 AD, creating a durable cultural identity, which has been stored until today in the Chinese population. The Han Dynasty has expanded considerably due to military campaigns initiated within the Empire, reaching the Korean Peninsula, Vietnam, Mongolia and Central Asia and also helped create the Silk Road in Central Asia. Han China has gradually become the largest economy of the ancient world.

The Dynasty adopted Confucianism, a philosophy developed during the Spring and Autumn Period, as the official state ideology. Despite official abandonment of the Legalism, the official ideology of the Qin Dynasty, the legalistic institutions and policies remained and were at the basis of Han governing.

Major military campaigns were launched to weaken the nomadic Xiongnu Empire, limiting its influence north of the Great Wall. Along with diplomatic efforts led by Zhang Qian, Han Empire’s sphere of influence has expanded to the states in the Tarim Basin, opening the Silk Road that connected China to the

Map of the Western Zhou Dynasty

Map of the Han Dynasty by 200 AD

West, stimulating a prosperous bilateral commerce and cultural exchange. To the south, several small kingdoms, from the extreme south of the Yangtze River valley, were formally incorporated into the empire.

Emperor Wu also sent a series of military campaigns against the Baiyu tribes, enclosing Minyue in 135 BC, Nanyue in 111 BC and Dian in 109 BC. Migration and military expeditions led to cultural assimilation of the south. They brought also the dynasty in contact with the kingdoms of Southeast Asia, introducing diplomacy and trade.

After the reign of Emperor Wu, the empire slipped into stagnation and declined gradually. From the economic point of view, the state’s treasury was excessive drained by military campaigns and projects, while land acquisition by the elite families gradually reduced the tax base. Different consort clans exercised control over the growing array of incompetent emperors and eventually the dynasty was briefly interrupted by Wang Mang’s usurpation. In 9 AD, the usurper Wang Mang claimed that the Mandate of Heaven advertised the ending of the Han Dynasty and started his own empire, founding the short-term dynasty, Xin.

Emperor Guangwu restored the Han dynasty with the support of landowners and families of merchants at Luoyang, east of the ancient capital Xi’an. Thus, this new era was called the Eastern Han Dynasty. With the

capable administration of emperors Ming and Zhang, the former glories of the dynasty were recovered, along with brilliant military and cultural achievements. The Xiongnu Empire was defeated decisively. Diplomat and General, Ban Chao extended the conquests beyond the Pamirs, to the shores of the Caspian Sea, thus reopening the Silk Road, bringing trade and foreign cultures, along with the advent of Buddhism in the empire. With the expansion of ties with the West, it is recorded in the Chinese sources the first of the two Roman embassies in China, which came by sea, the first one in 166 AD and the second one in 284 AD.

The Eastern Han Dynasty was one of the most prolific periods for science and technology in ancient China, especially for the historical invention of

The Silk Route

7

Emperor Guangwu

Emperor Wu

papermaking by Cai Lun (50 AD – 121 AD), and for the numerous contributions of polymath, Zhang Heng.

After Cao Cao reunified the north in 208, his son proclaimed the Wei dynasty in 220. Soon, Wei’s rivals, Shu and Wu proclaimed their independence, leading China into the “Three Kingdoms” period. This period was characterized by a gradual decentralization of the state that existed during the Qin and Han dynasties and the clans largely increased in power. Although the “Three Kingdoms” were reunified by the Jin Dynasty in 280, the structure was essentially the same until the Wu Hu uprising.

Taking advantage of the civil war in the Jin Dynasty, non-Han Chinese contemporaries (ethnic Wu Hu), controlled much of the country in the late 4th century and caused large-scale Han Chinese migration, south of the Yangtze River. In 303, the Di ethnic population has rebelled and later captured the Chengdu city, founding the state Cheng Han. Under Liu Yuan, the Xiongnu ethnics rebelled near today’s Linfen County and established the state of Han Zhao. Liu Yuan’s successor, Liu Cong captured and executed the last two Western Jin Dynasty emperors. “The Sixteen Kingdoms” were a number of non-Chinese dynasties, who ruled a short

period and had come to reign all over or just some parts of northern China in the 4th and 5th centuries. They involved several ethnic groups, including ancestors of the Turks, Mongols and Tibetan. Most of these nomadic peoples were, to some extent, “Chinezed” long before their ascent to power. In fact, some of them, especially the Qiang and the Xiongnu, already had permission to live in the border regions near the Great Wall since the late Han period.

Ethnic Hans managed to survive the military attacks by northern nomadic tribes such as the Xianbei, and their civilization continued to thrive. In southern China, there were heated and common debates at the courtyard between the monarch and nobles on the indulgence of Buddhism within the Empire. Finally, near the end of the era of “South and North”, both followers of Buddhism and Taoism have reached a compromise, becoming more tolerant with each other.

After the collapse of the Han Dynasty, there was a period of strife, known as the Three Kingdoms Period.

In 581 AD, China was reunified under the Sui Dynasty.

However, the dynasty crashed early, mainly due to its defeat in the Goguryeo-Sui War (598-614). Sui reunified (socio-political) China and set up many institutions that

8

were to be adopted by his successor, the Tang dynasty.

These reforms included the government system formed of “Three Departments and Six Ministries”, a standard currency, defense improving, expanding the Great Wall and official support for Buddhism. But as Qin, Sui overburdened resources at its disposal and crashed.

The Tang Dynasty was founded by Emperor Gaozu on 18 June 618. It was the golden age of Chinese

The 16 Kingdoms of China

civilization with significant developments in art, literature (especially poetry) and technology. Buddhism was the dominant religion for the common people.

Chang’an (today’s Xi’an), the national capital, was the largest city in the world at that time.

Since the second emperor, Taizong, military campaigns were launched to cease the threats coming from the nomadic tribes, the expansion of the borders 9

started and the neighbouring countries were forced to a tributary system. The military victories from the Tarim Basin made the Silk Road, connecting Chang’an with Central Asia and parts of the far west to remain open. In the south, the profitable trade routes began with shipping ports in cities such as Guangzhou. There was extensive trade with distant foreign countries and many foreign traders were established in Tang, stimulating a vibrant cosmopolitan culture. The Tang culture and social systems were admired and adapted by neighbouring countries such as Japan. Internally, the Grand Canal, was linking the political heart of Chang’an to the economic and industrial centers in the eastern and southern parts of the empire.

10

What led to the prosperity of the early Tang Dynasty was the strong centralized bureaucracy and effective policies. The government was organized in “Three Departments and Six Ministries” as to separately develop, review and implement policies. These departments were led by members of the imperial family, officials and scholars who were selected by Imperial Examination. These practices, which reached solidity in the Tang Dynasty, will be inherited by subsequent dynasties, with some modifications. The dynasty continued to flourish under Empress Wu Zetian, the only reigning empress in Chinese history and reached its zenith during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, who oversaw an empire that stretched from the Pacific Ocean

China during the Sui Dynasty

to the Aral Sea, having at least 50 million residents.

At the peak of the Empire’s prosperity, the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763), was a watershed event that devastated the population and severely weakened the central imperial government. Regional military governors, known as “Jiedushi”, earned the status of increasingly autonomous regions, although they were former subjects of the king, attacking the empire.

However, after the An Lushan Rebellion, the Tang civil society has recovered and prospered amid weak imperial bureaucracy.

From about the year 860, the Tang dynasty declined due to a series of riots inside the borders but also because of a former vassal state, the United

Nanzhao in the south. A military, Huang Chao, captured Guangzhou in 879, killing much of the 200.000 inhabitants, including most of the large colony of foreign merchant families over there. In the late 880, Luoyang was ceded to Huang Chao, and on 5 January 881, Huang conquered Chang’an. Emperor Xizong fled to Chengdu, and Huang established a new temporary regime, which was eventually destroyed by the Tang forces. Then, it followed another period of political chaos.

Under the following dynasties, Tang and Song, Chinese technology and culture have entered a golden age. The “An Shi” rebellion in the 8th century devastated the country and weakened the dynasty. The Song dynasty was the first government in history which issued the first

China during the Tang Dynasty

11

General An Lushan

Manchuria, Mongolia and parts of nowadays northern China. In 1115, the Jurchen Jin Dynasty stands out, annihilating the Liao Dynasty in 10 years. Meanwhile, in the nowadays provinces of northwest China: Gansu, Shaanxi and Ningxia, it was founded by the Tanguts tribes, the Western Xia Dynasty (1032-1227).

The Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) took over and Empress Wu Zetian, the only Chinese Empress conquered northern China following the wars with the paper money and the first political system of China that Song dynasty, fought between 1125 and 1234, capturing founded a permanent naval fleet. Between the 10th and the city of Kaifeng from the Song Dynasty, which 11th centuries, China’s population doubled, reaching to moved its capital to Hangzhou (杭州). The Southern about 100 million people, largely due to the expansion Song Dynasty also suffered the humiliation of having of rice production in the central and southern parts of to formally acknowledge the Jin Dynasty as suzerain. the Empire and due to food production surplus. The In the years that followed, China was divided between Song Dynasty also saw a flourishing of philosophy and the Song Dynasty, Jin Dynasty and the Tangut Dynasty art. The landscape and portrait paintings were brought of Western Xia. Southern Song experienced a period to new levels of maturity and complexity. Social elites of great technological development which can be gathered to admire works of art, sharing their own explained in part by the military pressure felt from the creations and selling precious works of art. The Song Dynasty saw a revival of Confucianism in response to the growing importance of Buddhism during the Tang Dynasty.

The period of political disunity between the Tang and Song dynasties, known as the period of “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms”, lasted little more than half a century, between 907 and 960. During this short period, when China was in all respects a multistate, five regimes succeeded one after another in rapid nucleus old imperial control of northern China. In the same period, southern and western parts of China were occupied by ten regimes, politically stable, so the period is also referred to as the “Ten Kingdoms”.

In 960, the Song Dynasty gained power in most of China and established its capital in Kaifeng (later known as Bianjing). Thus, it begins a period of economic prosperity, while the Khitans of Liao Dynasty ruled over 12

China under the Song Dynasty

north. This included the use of gunpowder weapons, which played an important role during the Song Dynasty naval victories against the Jins, in the Battle of Tangdao and the Battle of Caishi on the Yangtze River in 1161. Moreover, the first permanent Chinese navy was formed and saw the establishment of an office of Admiral at Dinghai in 1132, under the reign of Emperor Song Renzong.

The Song Dynasty is considered by historians as the pinnacle of classical China in both science and technology, with innovative scholar-officials such as Su Song (1020-1101) and Shen Kuo (1031-1095). There were intrigues at the court between political rivals, the reformers and the conservatives, led by Chancellors Wang Anshi, respectively, Sima Guang. Until the second

half of the 13th century, the Chinese have adopted the neo-Confucian philosophy teachings compiled by Zhu Xi. Major literary works were compiled during the Song Dynasty, such as the historical paper “Zizhi Tongjian” (Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government).

Culture and the arts flourished, with grandiose artworks such as “The view from both sides of Qingming” and “Eighteen songs of a Nomad Flute” with Buddhist painters such as prolific Lin Tinggi.

In the 13th century, China was conquered gradually by the Mongol Empire. In 1271, Mongol leader, Kublai Khan founded the Yuan dynasty. This dynasty has won the last bastion of the Song Dynasty in 1279. Before the Mongol invasion, the Song population was of about 120 million citizens. The population was

The “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms” period

13

The Jin Dynasty in blue

reduced to 60 million by the 1300 Census.

The Jurchen, founders of the Jin Dynasty were defeated by the Mongols, who then proceeded to conquer the Southern Song dynasty, in a long and bloody war, the first war in which firearms played an important role. During the era after the war, later called the “Pax Mongolia”, adventurous Westerners such as Marco Polo traveled all the way to China, bringing the first records about the wonders of China in Europe. During the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols were divided between those who wanted to stay and live in the steppes and those who wished to adopt the Chinese way of life.

This was the first dynasty to lead the entire 14

territory of China from Beijing (Dadu), as the capital city. Beijing was ceded to the Liao Dynasty in 938 with the “Sixteen Prefectures of Yan Yun”. Before this, it was the capital of the Jin Dynasty, but this dynasty has not ruled over all China. Before the Mongol invasion, Chinese dynasties reported about 120 million people, but after the conquest was completed in 1279, the census of 1.300 indicated about 60 million citizens.

While it is tempting to attribute this decline only to the major ferocious atrocities committed by the Mongols, historians today have different opinions on this topic.

Scholars such as Frederick W. Mote argue that the large numerical decrease reflects a failure of administrative

Zizhi Tongjian

reviweing rather than a real drop. Others, such as Timothy Brook, argue that the Mongols have created a system of serfdom among a large proportion of the Chinese population, causing many to disappear out of the total census, while other historians such as William McNeill and David Morgan argue that the bubonic plague was the main factor behind the population

decline in this period. In the 14th century, China suffered additional deaths due to epidemics of plague.

It is estimated that the Black Death killed 25 million people or 30% of China’s population.

A peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan Dynasty in 1368 and founded the Ming Dynasty.

Under the Ming dynasty, China has enjoyed another

Painting of the Mongolian Invasion of China

15

golden age, developing one of the most powerful naval army in the world, with a rich and prosperous economy in the midst of a flourishing of art and culture. This was the period when Zheng He led explorations on sea, reaching all the way to Africa. In the early Ming Dynasty, China’s capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing. During the Ming Dynasty, philosophers such as Wang Yangming, analyzed and extended the neoConfucianism, formulating concepts of individualism and innate morality.

The dynasty had a strong and complex central government that unified and controlled the empire. The role of the king became more autocratic, although Zhu Yuanzhang (Emperor Hongwu) continued to use what he called “The Great Secretariat” (内阁) to assist it the acts of the immense bureaucracy, including memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts as answers, reports of various types and tax records. It was the same bureaucracy that later prevented the Ming government to be able to adapt to changes in society and eventually led to the decline of the dynasty.

In the Yongle era, the expanding of China’s

influence beyond its borders was fiercely tried by requiring the sending of ambassadors to China as a tribute offer. A naval fleet was built, including a fourmasted ships of 1.500 tons. It created a standing army of 1 million troops (some estimates go up to 1,9 million).

Chinese armies conquered Vietnam for around 20 years, while the Chinese fleet sailed across the Chinese seas and the Indian Ocean, reaching to the east coast of Africa. The Chinese have gained influence in the eastern Moghulistan community. Several maritime Asian nations sent envoys with tribute for the Chinese emperor. Internally, the Grand Canal was expanded and proved to be a stimulus to domestic trade. There were produced over 100.000 tons of iron per year. Many books were printed using the movable printing press (using mobile characters). The Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City in Beijing, reached its current splendor.

In this period, Southern China’s potential was fully exploited. New agricultural crops were widely grown and industries such as those producing porcelain and textiles flourished.

In 1449, Esen Tayisi led an invasion of the Mongols from northern China, which culminated

Zhu Yuanzhang (Emperor Hongwu)

Emperor Yongle

16

Ming China

with the capture of Emperor Zhengtong at Tumu. In 1542, Mongolian leader, Altan Khan, began to harass China along the northern border. In 1550, he even reached the suburbs of Beijing. The Empire had to deal with Japanese pirates who attacked the southeast coast. General Qi Jiguang helped defeat these pirates.

The deadliest earthquake of all time, the Shaanxi earthquake from 1556 killed approximately 830.000 people, occurred during the reign of Jiajing. During the Ming Dynasty, it was performed the last contribution to the construction of the Great Wall to protect the empire

from foreign invasions. While the Great Wall was built in earlier times, most from what one can see today was built or repaired during the Ming Dynasty. The brick and granite work was enlarged, the watch towers were redesigned and along its length were placed cannons.

Urbanization increased as the population increased and the division of labor became more complex. Large urban centers such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the development of private industry. Particularly small industries have grown, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton and porcelain.

17

For most of the dynasty, the small urban markets from the centers of the empire proliferated. City markets mainly traded food, with some commodities, such as hairpins or oil. The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was the last imperial dynasty of China. Founded by the Manchus, previously known as “Jurchen”, they came from the north-eastern Ming territory, from outside the Great Wall. They have emerged as a major threat at the end of the Ming Dynasty, after Nurhaci united all the Jurchen tribes and established an independent state. In 1644, Beijing has been captured by a coalition of rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, a minor Ming official, who led a peasant revolt. The Last Ming Emperor, Chongzhen, committed suicide when the city fell. The Manchurian Qing dynasty formed an alliance with the Ming Dynasty general. Wu Sangui overthrew the short-lasted Shun dynasty, founded by Li, proceeding subsequently in taking over political control in Beijing, the city that became the new capital of the Qing Dynasty. The decades of Manchu conquest have caused enormous

18

losses of lives, drastically reducing China’s economy. In total, the Manchu conquest of China (1618-1683) cost up to 25 million lives. However, the Manchus adopted the Confucian norms of the traditional Chinese government and were considered as a Chinese dynasty.

The Manchus have implemented the “order queue”, forcing the Han Chinese to adopt the Manchu queue hairstyle and the Manchu-style clothing. The Han traditional clothing, or “Hanfu”, was also replaced by the Manchu-style clothing, “Qipao” (the Bannerman and Tangzhuang clothing). Emperor Kangxi ordered the creation of the Kangxi Dictionary, the dictionary of Chinese characters, the most comprehensive to date.

The Qing Dynasty set up the “Eight Flags” system, which provided the basic framework for the Qing military organization. The Bannerman were denied participation in trade and manual labour unless they were demanding a revocation status of their profession.

They were regarded as a form of nobility and received preferential treatment in terms of annual pensions, land

Manchu wrestlers competed in front of the Qianlong Emperor

Portrait of Emperor Kangxi

allocation and clothing.

In the next half of century, all the areas that were owned by the Ming Dynasty before, were consolidated under the Qing Dynasty. Xinjiang, Tibet and Mongolia were formally included in the Chinese territory.

Between 1673 and 1681, Emperor Kangxi suppressed the revolt of the three generals, in southern China, to which they were denied the status of their extensive hereditary fiefs granted by the former Emperor. In 1683, Qing organized an assault in southern Taiwan, stifling the rebellion of the “Grand Duchy of Tungning”, which was founded by loyalist Ming Koxinga in 1662, after the fall of Southern Ming and served as the basis for a continue Ming resistance in southern China. By the end of the reign of Qianlong, the Qing Empire was at its peak. China led more than a third of the world’s population and had one of the strongest economies in the world. If the surface is taken into consideration, this was one of the greatest empires in history.

The Qing Dynasty, which lasted from 1644 until 1912, was the last imperial dynasty of China.

In the 19th century, the Qing dynasty experienced the Western imperialism, following the Opium Wars (1839-1842 and 1856-1860) against the UK. China was forced to sign unequal treaties, pay reparations, allow extraterritoriality for foreigners and cede Hong Kong the British. The Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) led to the loss of influence in the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan being ceded to Japan. The Qing dynasty also began to deal with domestic unrest, which killed millions of people. Between 1850 and 1860, the failed Taiping Rebellion devastated southern China. Other major revolts were: the wars of clans Punti-Hakka (1855-1867), the Nien Rebellion (1851-1868), the Miao Rebellion (1854-1873), the Panthay Rebellion (1856-1873) and the Dungan revolt (1862-1877).

In the 19th century, the great Chinese wave of emigration began. To the losses caused by emigration, armed conflicts and natural disasters were added, such as the famine in North China between 1876-1879, which killed between 9 and 13 million people. In 1898, Emperor Guangxu drafted a reform plan to establish a modern constitutional monarchy, but was prevented by Empress Dowager Cixi, through a coup. The nefarious anti-Western Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901, has further weakened the Qing Dynasty. The Xinhai Revolution of 1911-1912 ended the Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China.

Frustrated by the opposition to reform the Qing court and by the weakness of China, young officials, military and students began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of a republic. They were inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-Sen. A revolutionary military uprising, the Wuchang Uprising, began on 10 October 1911 in Wuhan. The Provisional Government of the Republic of China was formed in Nanjing on 12 March 1912.

On 1 January 1912, the Chinese Republic was established and Sun Yat-sen, leader of the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist Party) was proclaimed as provisional president. However, his presidency was ceded later to Yuan Shikai, a former Qing general, who in 1915 has been self-proclaimed Emperor of China.

Facing popular condemnation and opposition from his own army, the Beiyang, Yuan was forced to abdicate and to restore the Republic.

After the death of Yuan Shikai, in 1916, China became politically fragmented. The government in Beijing was internationally recognized but practically, it 19

Qing China

20

The Wuchang Uprising established the Chinese Republic

was powerless because since the late 1920’s, the regional military leaders controlled most of the territory of the republic. In the late 1920’s, the Kuomintang, led

by Chiang Kai-Shek, was able to reunify the country under its control, with a series of military maneuvers and skillful policy, known collectively as the “Northern Expedition”. The Kuomintang moved the nation’s capital in Nanjing and has implemented the “tutelage policy”, an intermediate stage of political development presented in the San-Min Doctrine of Sun Yat-Sen, a plan for transforming China into a modern democratic state.

The 4 May 1919 Movement started as a response to the conditions imposed on China by the Treaty of Versailles that concluded World War I, but quickly became a nationwide protest movement response to the domestic situation in China. The protests were moral successful, leading to the fall of the cabinet and China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, especially for granting the territories of Shandong to Japan, which Germany had surrendered in 1914. The New Cultural Movement was driven by the 4 May Movement and it strengthened throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s.

The political division of China has made Chiang have an arduous battle with the Communist leaders against whom, the Kuomintang was still in war in 1927, the Chinese Civil War. This war was won by the Kuomintang, especially after the communists withdrew in the Long March, but only up to the Japanese aggression of 1936, the Xi’an Incident forcing Chiang’s army to confront the Japanese Empire.

The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, a theater of the Second World War has forced an uneasy alliance between the Kuomintang and the Communists.

The Japanese forces have committed numerous atrocities against civilians; more than 20 million Chinese civilians losing their lives in total. Chinese sources claim that the total casualties, military and civilian dead, wounded or missing amounted to 35 million people between 1931 and 1945. An estimated 200.000 Chinese were massacred in the city of Nanjing, only during the Japanese occupation. Japan surrendered unconditionally in 1945.

Taiwan, including the Pescadores archipelago, was placed under the administrative control of the Republic of China. China came out (technically) victorious but was devastated by war and in financial ruin. Mistrust between the Kuomintang and the Communists continued and led to the resumption of the civil war.

In 1947, a constitutional leadership was established, but because of the continuing political turmoil, many

Chiang Kai-Shek was the leader of the Kuomintang

provisions of the Chinese Republic constitution were never implemented in mainland China. In 1949, the Nationalist government forces withdrew to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-Shek and the majority of the KMT leadership and a large number of supporters. The Nationalist government took effective control of Taiwan at the end of the Second World War as part of the Japanese surrender, when the Japanese troops in Taiwan surrendered to the Republic of China troops.

Major battles of the Chinese civil war ended in 1949, when the Communist Party took control of most of the mainland and the Kuomintang withdrew offshore, reducing the Chinese Republic territory only to Taiwan, Hainan and the small islands surrounding them. On 1 October 1949, Communist Party Chairman, Mao Zedong, proclaimed the establishment of the Republic of China. In 1950, the People’s Liberation Army has managed to capture Hainan from the Nationalists and to occupy Tibet. However, the remaining nationalist forces continued to start riots in western China over the 1950’s.

Mao encouraged the population growth, 21

Situation in China in 1929: After the “Northern Expedition”, the KMT had direct control over east-central China, while the rest of China proper and Manchuria was under the control of warlords loyal to the Nationalist government.

and under his leadership, China’s population almost doubled, from about 550 million to 900 million.

However, the Great Leap Forward of Mao, an economic and social project reform of large scale, resulted in an estimated 45 million deaths between 1958 and 1961, mostly due to starvation. Between 1 and 2 million landowners were executed, being stigmatized as “counterrevolutionaries”. In 1966, Mao and his allies launched the Cultural Revolution, which brought a period of political criminalizing and social upheavals that lasted until Mao’s death in 1976. In October 1971, the Popular Republic of China was replaced by the Republic of China in the United Nations and took its place as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

After Mao’s death in 1976 and the arrest of the faction known as the “Gang of Four”, who were blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, Deng 22

Xiaoping took the power and led the country through major economic reforms. The Communist Party has weakened thereafter the government control over the private lives of their citizens and municipalities were abolished in favour of peasant land lease. This turn of events marked China’s transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open market environment. China adopted its current constitution on 4 December 1982. In 1989, the violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square student protests has brought international condemnation and sanctions against the Chinese government.

President Jiang Zemin and Premier, Zhu Rongji led the nation in the 1990’s. Under their administration, China’s economic performance pulled an estimated 150 million peasants out of poverty and sustained an average annual GDP growth of 11,2%. The country officially joined the World Trade Organization in

Japanese occupation (red) of eastern China near the end of the war and Communist bases (striped)

Communist leader, Mao Zedong

2001, maintaining its high rate of growth even under President Hu Jintao in 2000. However, the rapid growth has had a severe impact on the country’s resources and environment, and caused major human migration.

Living standards continued to improve, despite the recession in late 2000’s, but the centralized political control remains tight.

Preparations for the change of power, scheduled for 2012, were marked by factional disputes and political scandals. At the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, in November 2012, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao have replaced, as president and prime minister, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, officially taking the office in 2013. Under the leadership of Xi, the Chinese government has initiated efforts to reform the economy on a large scale, which had suffered from structural instability and slow growth. Xi’s administration announced also major reforms of the “only child” and the prison system politics.

23

Mao Zedong’s “Cultural Revolution” propaganda poster

24

The Dalai Lama is one of the most important figures from Tibet, China.

Deng Xiaoping with US President, Jimmy Carter

Nowadays China is the most industrialized country in the world and one of the largest energy consumers in the world (in the image is the Tianjin Power Plant)

25

Nature Landforms

With 9.71 million square kilometers, China is the 3rd country in the world by extension, after Russia and Canada and therefore offers a great variety of climates and landscapes. The point on the globe as far away as possible from the sea, at about 2.600 km is located in China, in the desert region of Xinjiang-Uygur. The south is divided between the plateau of Yunnan-Guizhou, with an altitude of between 2.000 meters to 550 meters, and the basins of the major rivers flowing through it.

Ideally, China can be split into six major regions: the northwest, Inner Mongolia, the northeast, northern China, southern China and the extreme south-western region.

The north-west is divided into three climatic zones: the cold north, the temperate central and the humid south. This region includes a north basin called “The Zungharia basin� that, despite being characterized by rocky and sandy areas, is a rather fertile area where farming is practiced thanks to the extensive irrigation systems. To the south, there is the Tarim Basin located between the high reliefs of the Kunlun. It includes the driest desert in all of Asia: Taklamakan.

The region of Inner Mongolia has a very dry climate and is located in the north-central part of China.

Inner Mongolia is a plateau characterized by deserts of sand, rock and gravel, which degrades into fertile steppes to the east. This region, bordered to the east by the large wooded Khingan chain, includes rolling plains divided by dry rocky floors. Its capital is Hohhot.

The north-east includes all Manchuria east of

the great Khingan chain: it is a vast and fertile plain surrounded by mountains and hills cut by many valleys and small slopes. To the south, there is the Liaodong Peninsula, whose coasts are rich in natural harbors. In the western part of the north east region, there are large desert areas.

The region of Northern China is located in an area bounded on the north by Inner Mongolia and on the south by the Yellow River basin. Here is the plateau of Loes, characterized by deep valleys, gorges and cultivated terraces, the Chinese lowlands, the mountains of Shandang and the harsh and inaccessible Southwestern reliefs.

Southern China embraces the valley of the Yangtze River and many parts of the south. The valley of the Yangtze River is a series of basins whose fertile alluvial soils are crossed by waterways and many lakes.

To the west lies the basin of Sichuan, a fertile hilly area, surrounded by irregular central highlands. The southern highlands are between the Tibetan mountains and the sea. To the east, stretch deforested and hilly areas subject to erosion can be found, while along the coast there are irregular south eastern highlands.

The extreme southwestern region is occupied

Taklamakan Desert

Dusk on the Yangtze River

26

Sunrise in the Yunnan-Guizhou plateau

The Hukou Waterfall of the Yellow River

by the plateau of Tibet, also known as the “roof of the world� which, located at an average altitude of 4.512 meters above sea level, is the region where you can find the highest mountains in the world, with fourteen peaks which rise above 8.000 meters, including K2 and Mount Everest. Morphologically diverse, constituted by

large rocky outcrops, interspersed with alluvial plains, salt lakes and marshes, the plateau is crossed by several mountain ranges from the Himalayas and bordered to the south by the Pamirs and the Karakorum in the west. Here lies the source of the Ganges. In summer, the Himalayas serve as a protective shield to the lower

Karakoram-West Tibetan Plateau

27

The Himalayas at the Chinese border with Nepal

monsoon clouds from the Indian and Nepalese sides.

Rainfall is therefore limited, present mainly in the months of July and August.

China is home to a large number of rivers and the three largest are: Huang He 黄河 (or the Yellow River), the Chang Jiang 长江 (or “Blue River”) and Xi Jiang 西 江 (or “West River”), which in the middle and lower parts of their course divide three major orographic axes of eastern China and have their origins in the Tibetan plateau.

The Yellow River originates from the Qinghai Mountains and runs through the territory of China for about 4.855 km, before flowing into the Pacific Ocean through the Shandong Peninsula. The Yangtze River is the largest river in China and the 3rd longest in the world. Also, it originates from the Qinghai Mountains, but it flows towards the south-east across areas so rich in mountain water that it provides a considerable extent.

The Xi Jiang was born on the Yunnan plateau, and is of a considerable importance from the agricultural point of view, given the subtropical climate of the irrigated regions. Guangdong flows into the Zhu Jiang River 28

or the Pearl River, which is another important river transportation artery with its delta that reaches the city of Canton and even beyond, towards other territories full of canals and dams.

About half of China’s rivers, including the longest three (Yangtze River, Yellow River and Xi Jiang), are flowing from west to east and they end in the Chinese seas open to the Pacific Ocean. A lesser amount of rivers are flowing into the Sea of Japan, while others are deprived of access to the sea and then they reach in the arid western and northern basins, where the water seeps into the ground, forming deep and important water reserves. The floods of the large rivers often bring disastrous consequences on human settlements or crops.

Climate

China is located in Eastern Asia. To the East, China is washed by the western seas of the Pacific Ocean. In mainland China, there are many types of climate. China’s maritime coast is stretching from the border with North Korea in the north to the Vietnamese

Guangzhou Pearl River

border in the south and has a total length of 14.500 km.

China is bordered by the East China Sea, the Korean Gulf, the Yellow Sea and the South China Sea. Taiwan is separated from the mainland by the Taiwan Strait.

Most of China is located in a moderate area with distinct seasons. There are many climate differences due to the monsoon climate, the extension of the dry surfaces and also because of the considerable differences in altitude. While in central and South-East China, the climate is generally warm and humid, in the north and northeast it is relatively dry. China reaches up to 35° latitude, which produces a large variation in terms of the regional climate. In many areas, summer is hot and rainy, with a high degree of moisture, while the winter is dry. In northern China, more than 80% of the precipitation falls in the summer months, but only 40% of the annual precipitation in southern China are occurring during the same period. In southeastern China, during the rainy season between July and September, typhoons occur frequently. North of Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) the winter is extremely cold.

The north-east parts have hot dry summers

and long and cold winters. Summers in the desert areas of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia are also hot and dry, while the winters are cold dry. In central China, summers are hot and humid, with lots of rainfall in the last summer months. In the lower regions of the Yangzi, winter is somehow milder than in the central areas of China, due to the loess mountains, or in Sichuan, which is surrounded by mountains. In the regions around Beijing, Xi’an and Zhenghou, there can arise sandstorms during winter and spring.

In the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau with an average altitude of 4.000 m, the summer is short, moderate and warm, while winters can be very cold: there is little rainfall during the year and differences between day and night temperatures are high. A mild climate with warm summers and cool winters generally prevails in the high Plateau Yunnan-Guizhou. Here, there is little rainfall and frosts are rare. Central China has a subtropical climate. Regular rains fall throughout the year, summers are long, hot and humid, while winters are short, with low temperatures.

29

30

Average Annual Precipitation in China

Climate types of China

Flora

China is also home to the most important

In China there is a great variety of forests. Both in wetlands in the Far East, the longest river, the Yangtze the north-eastern areas and in the north-western ones, River and the headwaters of two rivers of inestimable there are rising mountains covered with icy coniferous importance for hundreds of millions of people in forests where animals such as elks and black bears live, South Asia and Southeast Asia, which are the Ganges in addition to about 120 species of birds. In the more and the Mekong. However, 1/5 of China is covered by humid coniferous forests, bamboo groves often develop, deserts, mainly in the north-west of the country, and which are replaced, at higher elevations, by thickets of arid steppes cover vast areas of the Altai Mountains, rhododendrons, junipers and yews. The subtropical the Tian Shan and Kunlun in the far west, regions that forests, which dominate the central and southern China regions, are the kingdom of about 146.000 plant species, but also of the famous giant panda, the golden monkey and the South China tiger. Tropical rainforests and the monsoon, confined to Yunnan and Hainan, contain about a quarter of all plant and animal species in China.

The Chinese territory, the 3rd country in the world by extension, varies in altitude from the sea level to the east, to the summit of Everest (the highest mountain in the world), on the border with Nepal.

The southern regions bordering Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar are covered with tropical rain forests, while in Inner Mongolia on the permafrost of Da Hinggan Mountains grows something similar to the tundra vegetation.

31 Chinese Rose

can’t be touched by the monsoon coming either from the south-west and blocked by the Tibetan plateau, or from the south-east, where it doesn’t reach the area because of the considerable distance from the sea. This great diversity of topography and habitat has led to a remarkable development of plant and animal life.

The grasslands cover about a third of China’s total area. Of these, the largest and most fertile are concentrated almost all in Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, in some areas of Qinghai and Tibet. These grasslands are the main habitat for three endangered species: Przewalski’s horse, the Asiatic wild donkey and the Bactrian camel, the ancestor of the domesticated camels. Often, the wildlife come into direct competition with the domestic ones and therefore the carnivores present in the area are poisoned or caught with traps. Very frequent are also the fires deliberately made by man to increase the grazing areas. This practice has recently been banned by the government, but in the more remote areas the law is difficult to enforce.

The less tall wet coniferous forests may contain bamboo thickets. At higher mountain altitudes, the juniper and yew can be found, while the bamboo is being replaced by the rhododendron. The subtropical forests that predominates central and southern China

32

The Plum Blossom is the national flower of China

are supporting more than 146.000 species of flora.

Tropical humid and seasonal forests, although limited to Yunnan and the Hainan Island, contain a quarter of all species of animals and plants found in China. China has recorded more than 10.000 species of fungi, and of these, nearly 6.000 belong to the Dikarya Subkingdom.

Fauna

China is one of the 17 megadiverse countries,

Chinese Fringetree

Shenzhen National Park

Bamboo forest in Hunagshan

has over 34.687 species of animals and vascular plants, making it the 3rd most biodiverse in the world after Brazil and Colombia. China signed the Rio de Janeiro Convention on Biological Diversity on 11 June 1992 and became part of the Convention on 5 January 1993.

It later developed a national biodiversity strategy and action plan with a review, that were accepted by the Convention on 21 September 2010.

China’s fauna is very rich and varied. For

located in two of the world’s major ecological zones: Palearctic and Indomalaya. By an estimation, China

Tibetan Red Panda

33

The Giant Panda, China’s national animal

the protection of the rare flora and fauna elements, throughout China there are over 100 parks. Among the protected animals, the best known is the Great Panda.

The fauna that lives in forests is rare and adapted to the cold: thick furry mammals, especially brown bear, herbivorous animals that come in the winter out of the tundra, summer birds arriving from the south, ants and many mosquitoes in summer. The Taiga is rich in animals with fur like: the sable, squirrel, fox or ermine.

It’s the house of many bears, musk rats and wolves.

Lately, in the natural sanctuary of Mount Gaoligong, from the Yunnan Province, southwest China, it was discovered a primeval forest, formed of a species of tree called the Taiwan flousicina. According to the administrator of the natural sanctuary, the forest extends on a surface of over 200 hectares. This tree has a height of 40 meters. A forestry expert told a correspondent that the Taiwan flousicina is a Class B protection tree in China. Apart from Taiwan, the tree is spread throughout the Lingchang and Fengqing counties of the Yunnan Province. Its crown is conical and the crust is brown-gray. The superficial layers of wood are yellow and white, while the core is brown and red. The wood mass is light and soft. The wood is 34

tough as nails, having straight fibers and being easily processed. It is a precious tree, used for decoration. The tree grows rapidly and has a high economic value. The trees discovered on Mount Gaoligong are propagated by seeds. In the Fengqing County in 1918, there were 31 species, with over 300 trees and in the Fengxiang village there is only one species of trees, each with an average age of over 400 years.

China is the country outside the tropics with the highest biodiversity. China’s wildlife shares its habitat and supports the acute pressure of the largest populations of human in the world. At least 840 animal species are threatened, vulnerable or endangered, at a local level in China, mainly due to human activities such as habitat destruction, pollution or hunting for food, fur and ingredients for traditional Chinese medicine.

The endangered wildlife is protected by law and since 2005 the country has over 2.349 nature reserves covering a total area of 149,95 million hectares, 15% of the total area of China. China has over 32.000 species of vascular plants and is home to a variety of forest types.

Cold conifer forests predominate in the north of the country, supporting species such as moose, the Tibetan bear and over 120 species of birds.

Moose in the plains of China

Tibetan Mastiff dog

35

People Language

The most commonly spoken languages in China belong to the Sino-Tibetan language family. There are also several major linguistic groups within the Chinese language itself. The most spoken dialects are Mandarin (spoken by 70% of the population), Wu (including Shanghainese), Yue (including Cantonese and Taishanese), Min (including Hokkien and Teochew), Xiang, Gan and Hakka. Other languages spoken widely by ethnic minorities include: Zhuang, Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur, Hmong and Korean. Standard Mandarin, a dialect based on the Beijing dialect is the national and official language of China and is used as “lingua franca” between people coming from different linguistic backgrounds.

Classical Chinese, the standard form of writing

36

in China for thousands of years, made possible the writing communication of Chinese speakers of different languages and dialects, unintelligible. Vernacular Chinese writing or “Baihua” is the writing standard based on Mandarin and was first popularized in the Ming dynasty novels. It was adopted with significant changes in the early 20th century, as a national standard. Classical Chinese is still part of the high school curriculum and is thus intelligible to some extent, for many Chinese. Since the promulgation by the government in 1956, simplified Chinese characters became the official standardized writing system used to write in Chinese in mainland China, replacing the previous traditional Chinese characters.

In 1932, a consolidated ruling from a local variant of Mandarin Chinese spoken near Beijing was officially adopted as the so-called standard Mandarin ( 普通话 or “common language”). Standard Mandarin later became the official language of the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and is also recognized in Singapore and Malaysia. It is above all one of the six UN official languages.

Chinese Dialect Groups

China’s Linguistic Map

The writing of the Chinese is based on a system of characters whose origin dates back to engravings on oracle bones dating back to before the Bronze Age. The writing system was standardized for the first time in the 3rd century BC, during the time of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. Despite having undergone a natural evolution over the centuries, the writing system based

on characters remained largely intact over the years. In the 1950’s, China introduced a reform of the writing system with the adoption of the so-called simplified characters. This writing system is used in the People’s Republic of China and Singapore. Taiwan and Hong Kong still use traditional characters. Each Chinese character may have different pronunciations depending 37

on the speaker’s language, but its meaning does not change.

The standard Chinese is also equipped with an official Romanization system called “hànyǔ pīnyīn”, which allows people to transcribe the pronunciation of Chinese characters using the standard Latin alphabet.

Mandarin provides around 415 syllables that can be pronounced by applying four different tones. Besides the standard Chinese, regional and local dialects variants there are other languages, widespread especially in the outer regions, some of which are recognized by the state as the second official minority languages, in particular in the special administrative regions: Mongolian in Inner Mongolia, Tibetan in Tibet, Uyghur in Xinjiang and then Korean and Kazakh.

Traditional Chinese (Simplified Chinese: 上 古 汉语; Traditional Chinese: 上古 汉语; Pinyin: Shànggǔ Hànyǔ), sometimes known as “Archaic Chinese” was the spoken language of the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC-256 BC), in which they were written texts which include inscriptions on bronze artifacts, the Shījīng poetry, the Shūjīng history and portions of the Yìjīng (I Ching). Phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters provide clues to their pronunciation. Pronunciation of the characters borrowed from Chinese in Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean also provide valuable information about ancient Chinese. Traditional Chinese sometimes used flexible forms. It possessed a sound system in which the aspiration or rough breathing was used to differentiate consonants, but probably the Chinese language wasn’t using the nowadays tones. Efforts to reconstruct the ancient Chinese language were submitted by Qing

38

Countries where Chinese is the official or co-official language

dynasty philologists. Some of the early Indo-European loans in Chinese language were 蜜-mi for “honey” 狮-Shi for “lion”, and perhaps also 马-ma for “horse” 犬-quǎn for “dog” and 鹅-é for “goose”. The source said that the reconstruction of ancient Chinese is only an attempt and in no circumstances a definitive action, thus no conclusions can be drawn.

Religion

Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Chinese constitution, although religious organizations which do not have a formal approval from the government may be subject to persecution by the state. Religious demographic estimates in China may vary. A 2007 survey showed that 31,4% of the Chinese over 16 years were religious, while a 2006 study found out that 46% of China’s population was religious.

The officially recognized religions, and managed at the state level, are in a number of five types of

Map of the Sinophone World

A Religious Map of China (Red-Traditional Chinese Religions; Blue-Mongolian Shamanism; YellowBuddhism; Green-Islam; Light Purple-Ethnic indigenous religions; Light Green-Dongbei folk religion)

doctrinal religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Protestantism, Catholicism and Islam. Taoism developed in China since the 1st and 2nd centuries. Buddhism spread throughout the country and was introduced from India, starting from the 6th century. Christianity and Islam are found in China as minority religions, the second being most prominent among some non-Han ethnic groups, the most numerous being the Hui and the Uyghur. Orthodox Christianity was not recognized as an official religion because of the government’s fear that external policies from Russia might gain influence within the country. The religious framework of the country, however, is more complex, once you look at the situation outside the official recognition.

Over the millennia, the Chinese civilization was influenced by different religious movements. The Chinese concept of “San Jiao” (“three doctrines” or “three religions”) includes Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and historically speaking, they had a significant impact in shaping the Chinese culture. Elements from these systems of belief are often embedded in popular religious traditions and folklore. An opinion survey

made in 2008 over the villagers in the rural areas of six provinces, showed that: “More than two-thirds of the self-proclaimed faithful or religious people (or 31,09% of all sampled villagers) don’t or can’t clearly identify with their faith ... These people believe that there are supernatural powers that dominate or strongly influence the fate of human beings, and they believe that their fate can be changed by offering sacrifices to gods or ancestors. These beliefs and practices are often deeply rooted in the traditional Chinese culture and customs of the local communities.”

Ancestor worship is one of the clearest expressions of Confucianism, the thought that more than any other has influenced and still influences the morals and behavior of the Chinese. Although not among the recognized doctrines, its influence on Chinese morality is tangible through the propagation of values like: respect for parents, relationships between men and women, children’s education and virtuous behaviour patterns. In recent years there has been a rediscovery and reinvention of the Confucianism process that takes shape in a variety of initiatives and study groups, both 39

Taoist influence across China

religious and political, of which it is worthy of note the establishment in 2015 of the Holy Confucian Church of China (中华 孔 圣 会 - Zhonghua Kǒngshènghuì) which aims to be a national body to all these currents.

In China, there are also several ethnic minority groups that maintain their indigenous religious traditions.

According to statistical data from 2010, 70% of the Chinese practice the traditional religion, including 13% who practice Taoism at different levels. The adherents to Buddhism are around 14%.

As for Tibetan Buddhism and Catholicism it must be remembered that while the official recognition allows the religious practice to the believers of these

40

religions, on the other hand it entails the obligation to swear allegiance to the state from religious hierarchies.

They are managed by framed institutions at the state level, whose members are required to swear allegiance to the republic. The 14th Dalai Lama, Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso and his Panchen Lama (the authority in charge of the choice of the Dalai Lama’s successor) are not recognized as religious authorities by the Chinese government, which chose its own Panchen Lama. As for the Catholicism, the Chinese state does not recognize the bishops appointed by the Holy See, which are often made subject to restrictive measures, and instead claims for himself the right to

Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China

Buddhist influence across China

appoint them. Chinese Catholics faithful to the Catholic Church of Rome are therefore forced to celebrate their rites in secret.

A survey conducted by Horizon Research Consultancy Group, in 2007, noted that people who identify themselves as Buddhists make up 18 to 19% of the adult population in China, while Christians comprise around 3 to 4% and Muslims make up about 1%. Some of the ethnic minorities in China are practicing their own ethnic unique religions: Unique Dongba is the traditional religion of the Nakhi people, Moism is the religion of the Zhuang populations, while Ruism is the faith of the ethnic Qiang people. The traditional indigenous religion of Tibet is Bon, but most Tibetans are practicing Tibetan Buddhism in the Vajrayana form. A recent survey done in 2015 by the American Institute of Public Opinion Win / Gallup International Association showed that only 14% of Chinese said they were religious and the rest of them declared themselves atheists or non-religious.

World Heritage

On UNESCO’s list there can be found 35 cultural objectives, 11 natural objectives and 4 mixed objectives in the People’s Republic of China: Cultural Objectives: • Ancient Building Complex in the Wudang Mountains • Ancient City of Ping Yao • Ancient Villages in Southern Anhui – Xidi and Hongcun • Capital Cities and Tombs of the Ancient Koguryo Kingdom • Classical Gardens of Suzhou • Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces • Dazu Rock Carvings • Fujian Tulou • Historic Centre of Macao • Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace, Lhasa • Historic Monuments of Dengfeng in “The Centre of Heaven and Earth” • Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing and Shenyang • Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties 41

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 42

Kaiping Diaolou and Villages Longmen Grottoes Lushan National Park Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor Mogao Caves Mount Qingcheng and the Dujiangyan Irrigation System Mount Wutai Mountain Resort and its Outlying Temples, Chengde Old Town of Lijiang Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang’anTianshan Corridor Site of Xanadu Summer Palace, an Imperial Garden in Beijing Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion in Qufu Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial Altar in Beijing The Grand Canal The Great Wall Tusi Sites West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou

Folk sects influence across China

• Yin Xu • Yungang Grottoes • Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape Natural Objectives: • Chengjiang Fossil Site • China Danxia • Huanglong Scenic and Historic Interest Area • Hubei Shennongjia • Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area • Mount Sanqingshan National Park • Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries - Wolong, Mt Siguniang and Jiajin Mountains • South China Karst • Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas • Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area • Xinjiang Tianshan Mixed Objectives: • Mount Emei Scenic Area, including Leshan Giant Buddha Scenic Area • Mount Huangshan • Mount Taishan

• Mount Wuyi

Demographics

The birth rate is 12.3 ‰, but in comparison to all European countries, it is one of the lowest in the world, while the death rate stands at 7.1 ‰. The fertility rate is 1,55 children/woman, one of the lowest values worldwide as well. Because of the one child policy, China now has the highest rate of population aging in the world. Although the law of the second child policy was adopted since 1 January 2016, a survey showed that only about 1 million Chinese couples want a second child. For the coming years, the population will decrease.

By 2100, the population will decrease by more than 400 million. As the Chinese economy is growing bigger, the birth rate will decrease more. The vast majority of Chinese couples want only one child.

Approximately 16,60% of the population is under 14, 70,14% are aged between 15 and 59 years and 13,26% are over 60 years. The population growth rate

for 2013 was estimated at 0,46%. Although a middleincome country according to Western standards, China’s rapid economic growth has brought hundreds of millions out of poverty since 1978. Today, only about 10% of the Chinese population lives below the poverty line, surviving on less than 1 US $ a day, a rate that fell down a lot from 64% in 1978. Unemployment in urban areas in China fell to 4% by the end of 2007. Currently, the unemployment rate in urban areas is about 4,1%.

With a population of over 1,3 billion people and the depletion of natural resources, the Chinese government was very concerned about the pace of the population growth and tried in 1979, with mixed results, to implement a strict family planning policy, known as “The One Child Policy”. By 2013, this policy used to limit families to have only one child, with small exceptions for ethnic minorities and more flexibility in rural areas. An important relaxation of this policy was adopted in December 2013 when the

China’s Population Density as of 2010

43

government allowed families to have two children if one of the parents was the only child of his family.

China’s family planning minister indicated in 2008 that the one-child policy will be maintained at least until 2020. There was some opposition to the policy of the only child, especially in rural areas, primarily because of the need for labour in agriculture, but also because of the traditional preference for baby-boys. Families who violate the law, are often lying at the census. Data from the 2010 census suggest that the fertility rates can now be around 1,4.

The One-Child policy, together with the traditional preference for boys may contribute to an imbalance in the sex ratio at birth. According to the 2010 Census, the sex ratio at birth was 118,06 boys for every 100 girls, a value much bigger than the normal value of

44

about 105 boys to 100 girls. The 2010 census showed that men account for 51,27 % of the total population.

However, China’s sex ratio is more balanced than it was in 1953, when men accounted for 51,82 % of the total population.

China officially recognizes 56 distinct ethnic groups, of which the most numerous are the Han Chinese, who constitute about 91,51% of the total population. Han Chinese, the largest group in the world, outnumber other ethnic groups in each division of the province, except for Tibet and Xinjiang. Ethnic minorities represent about 8,49% of the Chinese population according to the 2010 census. Compared to the 2000 census, the population of Han people increased by 66.537.177, or 5,74%, while the combined population of the other 55 national minorities increased

Ethno-Linguistic Map of China

by 7.362.627 people, or 6,92% . In the 2010 census, there were recorded a total of 593.832 foreign people living in China. The largest such groups were from South Korea (120.750), USA (71.493) and Japan (66.159).

China has over 160 cities with populations of over one million, including 7 megacities (cities with a population of over 10 million inhabitants): Chongqing, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Shenzhen and Wuhan. By 2025, it is estimated that the country will have 221 cities with over one million inhabitants. There is a different ranking when considering the total municipal populations, which includes the suburban and rural populations. The great “commuting population� of migrant workers are making the censuses in urban areas very difficult. The figures below represent only the long-term residents. The Chinese administrative

divisions are split into 5 levels but only the 1st level will be shown in the table below. We will only mention the 5 levels here: 1st there is the Provincial Level, 2nd it is the Prefectural Level, 3rd is the County Level, 4th is the Communal Level and finally, the 5th is the Village Level.

The top 20 largest cities from China can be seen in the following table: Rank City Region Population 1 Shanghai Shanghai 20.500.000 2 Beijing Beijing 17.500.000 3 Chongqing Chongqing 12.000.000 4 Guangzhou Guangdong 11.000.000 5 Shenzhen Guangdong 10.500.000 6 Tianjin Tianjin 10.000.000

A vector illustration of infographic elements for traveling to China

45

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Wuhan Dongguan Hong Kong Foshan Chengdu Nanjing Shenyang Hangzhou Xi’an Harbin Suzhou Qingdao Dalian Zhengzhou

Hubei Guangdong Hong Kong Guangdong Sichuan Jiangsu Liaoning Zhejiang Shaanxi Heilongjiang Jiangsu Shandong Liaoning Henan

7.700.000 7.300.000 7.100.000 6.800.000 6.400.000 6.300.000 5.750.000 5.600.000 5.400.000 5.200.000 4.100.000 4.000,000 3.950.000 3.700.000

The People’s Republic of China is divided into 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities, 1 claimed province and 2 special administrative regions as it can be seen in the following table:

46

Province Anhui (安徽省) Fujian (福建省) Gansu (甘肃省) Guangdong (广东省) Guizhou (贵州省) Hainan (海南省) Hebei (河北省) Heilongjiang (黑龙江省) Henan (河南省) Hubei (湖北省) Hunan (湖南省) Jiangsu (江苏省) Jiangxi (江西省) Jilin (吉林省) Liaoning (辽宁省) Qinghai (青海省) Shaanxi (陕西省)

Capital Hefei Fuzhou Lanzhou Guangzhou Guiyang Haikou Shijiazhuang Harbin Zhengzhou Wuhan Changsha Nanjing Nanchang Changchun Shenyang Xining Xi’an

People’s Republic of China Province Population

Shandong (山东省) Shanxi (山西省) Sichuan (四川省) Yunnan (云南省) Zhejiang (浙江省) Autonomous Region Guangxi (广西壮族自治区) Inner Mongolia (内蒙古自 治区) Ningxia (宁夏回族自治区) Xinjiang (新疆维吾尔自治 区) Tibet (西藏自治区) Municipality Beijing (北京市) Chongqing (重庆市) Shanghai (上海市) Tianjin (天津市)

Jinan Taiyuan Chengdu Kunming Hangzhou Nanning Hohhot Yinchuan Ürümqi Lhasa -

Special Administrative Region Hong Kong (香港特别行 政区) Macau (澳门特别行政区) Claimed Province Taiwan (台湾省)

China’s Population Distribution

Hong Kong Macau Taipei

47

Economy & Transportation Economy

Since 2013, China is the 2nd largest economy in the world in terms of nominal GDP, the total amount being about 9.3253 trillion $, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of China. If the purchasing power parity (PPP) (worth 12.405 billion $ in 2012; 14.9614 trillion $ in 2013) is considered, then China’s economy is again second only to the US economy. In 2013, the GDP per capita was of about 10.253 $, while the nominal GDP per capita was of 6.853 $. In both cases, China is positioned after 90 countries out of 183 listed by IMF, in the global ranking of GDP per capita.

Since its establishment in 1949 until the end of 1978, China had a Soviet-style centrally planned economy. After Mao’s death in 1976 and the end of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping and the new Chinese leadership began to reform the economy and to move towards a mixed trade oriented economy under a single-party management. Agricultural collectivization was disbanded and the agricultural land was privatized, while foreign trade has become a new concern, leading to the creation of special economic zones. The inefficient

48

China’s Economy

SOE’s have been restructured and the unprofitable ones were closed immediately, resulting in a massive loss of jobs. Modern China is mainly characterized as having a market economy based on private property and is one of the most important examples of state capitalism.

The state still dominates the “column” strategic sectors like the heavy industry or energy production. Yet the number of private companies has expanded greatly, with about 30 million private businesses registered in 2008.

USA vs China economy comparison

China’s Export Tree Map

Since the economic liberalization began in 1978, China has been among the fastest growing economies worldwide, relying heavily on investment and exports.

According to the IMF, the average annual growth of China’s GDP between 2001 and 2010 was of about 10,5%.

Between 2007 and 2011, the growth rate was equivalent to that of all G7 countries combined. According to the Global Growth Generators Index, announced by Citigroup in February 2011, China had a very high rate of growth in the group. The high productivity, low labor costs and relatively good infrastructure have made China a global leader in industrial production. However, the Chinese economy is very intensive and inefficient energy consumer. China, which has become the largest energy consumer in the world in 2010, relies on coal to supply more than 70% of its energy needs and surpassed the US as the largest importer of oil in the world in September 2013. However, China’s economic growth and industrialization have affected the environment

and at the beginning of 2010, its growth started to slow down amid issues of domestic investments based on loans, decreased international demand for Chinese exports and economic globally difficulties.

In the online sector, the e-commerce industry in China grew more slowly than in the EU and the US with a significant development occurred since around 2009.

According to Credit Suisse, the total online transactions in China rose from an insignificant amount in 2008 to around 4000 billion RMB (660 billion $) in 2012.

“Alipay” has the largest market share in China with over 300 million users and had less than half of the Chinese market for online payments in February 2014, while the share of “TenPay” is about 20%, and “China UnionPay” has slightly more than 10%.

China is a WTO member and is the largest trading power in the world, with a total value of 3.87 trillion $ in international trade in 2012. Foreign exchange reserves reached 2,85 trillion $ by the end 49

of 2010, an increase of 18,7% over the previous year, making its currency reserves, by far the largest in the world. As of 2009, China holds a sum of foreign debt to the US, estimated at around 1.600 billion $. China holds more than 1,16 trillion $ in US treasury bonds, being the largest foreign holder of US foreign debt. In 2012, China was the largest recipient in the world of foreign direct investment (FDI), attracting 253 billion $.

China also has investments abroad totaling 62,4 billion $ in 2012 and a series of major takeovers by Chinese companies to foreign firms. The undervalued exchange rate of China has caused tensions with other major economies, the country being also criticized for the manufacturing in large quantities of counterfeit goods.

The population of China’s middle class (if it is defined as a social class with an annual income between 10.000 and 60.000 $), has reached more than 300 million people by 2012. According to Hurun Report, the number of billionaires in US dollars in China increased from 130 in 2009 to 251 in 2012, making China the second country with the highest number of billionaires in the world. Chinese domestic retail was worth more than 20 billion Yuan (3,2 trillion $) in 2012 and had an annual growth of over 12% in 2013, while the luxury goods market has expanded greatly, with 27,5% of the

50

worldwide share. However, in recent years, China’s rapid economic growth has contributed to the raise of a serious consumer inflation, leading to an increase in government regulation. China has a high level of economic inequality that has grown in recent decades.

In 2012, China’s Gini coefficient was 0,474.

Tourism has become an important factor in improving the international competitiveness of the country. The tourism sector has increased significantly in recent years and in 2007 it accounted for 6,1% of the GDP and it is estimated that in 2020 it will contribute with 11%. In addition, in 2012, the government doubled the number of visas, to reach 500.000 issued visas in order to enable an increase in tourism. In 2010, China was the 3rd most visited country in the world with over 55,7 million foreign visitors. In addition, in 2012, about 740 million Chinese traveled within the country’s borders. China is the second country in the world with the most places declared as part of the UNESCO World Heritage, with 45 behind Italy. The main tourist destinations are: the Great Wall, the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum, the Mountain Guilin, Yangtze River, the Potala Palace, the Jiuzhaigou Valley and others.

Pudong Financial District in Shanghai

The Potala Palace is one of the most visited objectives of China

Shanghai Stock Exchange

51

China’s Oil Reserves and Demand

Transportation

Since the late 1990’s, China’s national road network has been expanded significantly by creating a network of highways, known as the “National System of Main Highways” (SNAP). In 2011, the highways in China reached a total length of 85.000 km, being the longest highway system in the world. Car ownership of personal property is growing rapidly, surpassing the US as the largest car market in the world in 2009, with a total car sales of over 13,6 million units. Analysts predict that the annual automobile sales could rise to 40 million by 2020. A side effect of the rapid growth of the road network in China has been a significant increase of road accidents, as a possible reason some citing the poor implementation of traffic laws. Only in 2011, about 62.000 Chinese died in car accidents. In urban areas, bicycles remain a common way of transportation, despite the increasing prevalence cars. In 2012, there were about 470 million bicycles in China.

Railways in China, state-owned, are the busiest in the world, manipulating a quarter of the freight 52

and passengers transportation in the world. Due to high demands, the system is regularly subjected to overcrowding, especially during holidays and festive periods such as “Chunyun” during the Chinese New Year. The Chinese railway network transported an estimated total of 1,68 billion passengers only in 2010.

The high-speed railway in China, built since the early 2000’s, in 2013 had a network of 11.028 km and was the longest high-speed rail network in the world. The Shanghai Maglev Train, which reaches 431 km/h, is the fastest commercial train service in the world.

Of the more than 100.000 km of Chinese rail network, about 10.000 km are destined for the highspeed trains. In December 2012, China ushered the longest line of high-speed railway in the world, creating a link between Beijing-Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong. China intends to operate about 16.000 km of railway lines for high-speed trains until 2020. High capacity systems (“Big Metro”), are also in a rapid course of development in major cities in China, in the form of networks of underground subway systems or

Highway in China

High-Speed Train at the Qinhuangdao Railway Station

53

Shenzen Metro Map

54

Taipei Metro in Taiwan

The Xinshisu Train The Shanghai Metro

light rail. China’s own satellite navigation system, called “BeiDou” is also in a development status, starting to provide commercial navigation in Asia in 2012 and is planned to have a global coverage by 2020. From May 2014, twenty Chinese cities have urban public transport systems, with a dozen of other cities that will reach by 2020. The Shanghai Metro, the Beijing subway, the subway in Guangzhou, the MTR Hong Kong and the Shenzhen Metro are one of the longest and busiest in the world. The metropolitan network was built in the following order: Beijing (1969), Hong Kong (1979), Tianjin (1980), Shanghai (1995), Guangzhou (1999), Shenzhen (2004), Wuhan (2004), Nanking (2005) and Chongqing (2005).

In 2013, more than two thirds of airports under construction worldwide were in China and Boeing expects that the Chinese fleet of commercial aircraft assets to increase from 1.910 in 2011 to 5.980 until 2031. However, 80% of China’s airspace remains limited

A bus in China

for military use only, while 8 of the 10 worst performing airlines in terms of delays from Asia were Chinese.

According to statistics from 2011, Beijing International Airport is not only the busiest airport in the country but also the second busiest in the world, with a passenger traffic of 78.675.058 people. The second most important one is the Hong Kong International Airport, the 10th most transited international airport with 53.328.613

Tram in Hong Kong

55

Air China is the national air carrier of the country

56

Sky Plaza at the Hong Kong International Airport

Beijing International Airport

passengers. The 3rd and 4th most important are the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, also being the 19th and 20th most transited airports in the world, with 45,04 and 41,44 million passengers respectively.

China has more than 2.000 ports, 130 of which are open to foreign ships. The major ports, including river ports accessible by ocean-going ships, are Beihai, Dalian, Dandong, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Haikou, Hankou, Huangpu, Jiujiang, Lianyungang, Nanjing, Nantong, Ningbo, Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, Rizhao, Sanya, Shanghai, Shantou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Weihai, Wenzhou, Xiamen, Xingang, Yangzhou, Yantai, and Zhanjiang.

China has 16 “major” shipping ports with a capacity of over 50 million tons per year. The combined China’s total shipping capacity is in excess of 2.890 million tons. By 2010, 35% of the world’s shipping is expected to originate from China. The seven largest port terminals are Dalian, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Qinhuangdao and Shanghai. Additionally,

Hong Kong is a major international port serving as an important trade center for China. In 2005, the Shanghai Port Management Department reported that the Shanghai port became the world’s largest cargo port, processing cargo topping of over 443 million tons and surpassing the port of Singapore. The Port of Shanghai is presently undergoing significant upgrades. The Shanghai Model Port Alliance is responsible for many of the upgrades that are expected to make Shanghai’s port more automated, minimizing the loss of goods and time while helping customs collect more accurate tariffs. If the Shanghai project is successful, there is an interest in replicating the process in other Chinese ports.

China has 110.000 kilometers of navigable rivers, streams, lakes, and canals, more than any country in the world. In 2015, the traffic on the inland waterways has grown to 3.459 billion tonnes, a cargo turnover of 1.331 trillion tkm. It has trebled since 2006. The main navigable rivers are: the Heilong Jiang, Yangtze River, Xiang River, Pearl River; Huangpu River, Lijiang River and Xi Jiang.

57

Haikou Port

58

Taxi in Shanghai

Culture Chinese Proverbs

1. When you drink the water, remember the spring. ( 饮水思源。) 2. Dig the well before you are thirsty. (未雨绸缪。) 3. If you don’t want anyone to know, don’t do it. (若要 人不知，除非己莫为。) 4. If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. (忍得一时之氣， 免得百日之忧。) 5. Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still. (不怕慢,就怕停。) 6. If heaven made him, earth can find some use for him. (天生我材必有用。) 7. A book holds a house of gold. (书中自有黄金屋。) 8. A diamond with a flaw is worth more than a pebble without imperfections. (宁做有瑕玉，不做无暇 石。) 9. Deep doubts, deep wisdom; small doubts, little wisdom. (疑惑深，智慧深；疑惑浅，智慧浅。) 10. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. (授人 以鱼不如授人以渔。) 11. Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself. (师 傅领进门，修行在个人。) 12. A bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers. (赠人玫瑰，手有余香。) 13. A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. (书是 随身携带的花园。) 14. Studying is like rowing upstream: no advance is to drop back. (学如逆水行舟，不进则退。) 15. A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. (鸟儿唱歌不是因为它 们有了答案，而是因为它们有歌要唱。) 16. A gem will be polished without carving and polishing, nor a man perfected without trials. (玉不 琢、不成器。) 17. Each generation will reap what the former generation has sown. To enjoy the benefits of the hard work of one’s predecessors. (前人栽树，后人乘凉。) 18. A filthy mouth will not utter decent language. (狗嘴 里吐不出象牙。) 19. A thousand cups of wine do not suffice when true friends meet, but half a sentence is too much when there is no meeting of minds. (酒逢知己千杯少，

话不投机半句多。) 20. Do good, reap good; do evil, reap evil. (善有善报， 恶有恶报。)

Chinese Holidays Holiday New Year (元旦) Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) (春节) Lantern Festival (元宵节) Zhonghe Festival (Dragon Raising its Head) (中和节) Losar International Women’s Day (国 际妇女节) Arbor Day ( 树节) Qingming Festival (Chinese Memorial Day) (清明节) Labour Day (劳动节) Youth Day (青年节) Children’s Day (六一儿童节) Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwujie) (端午节) CPC Founding Day (建党节) China National Maritime Day ( 中国航海日) Army Day (建军节) Double Seven Festival (七夕) Spirit Festival (Ghost Festival) ( 中元节) Mid-Autumn Festival (Moon Festival) (中秋节) Victory over Japan Day Memorial Day National Day (国庆节) Chongyang Festival (重阳节) Nanking Massacre Memorial Day

Period 1 January 1st day of 1st lunar month 15th day of 1st lunar month 2nd day of 2nd lunar month Variable (in February) 8 March 12 March 5th Solar Term (usually 4, 5 or 6 April) 1 May 4 May 1 June 5th day of 5th lunar month 1 July 11 July 1 August 7th day of 7th lunar month 15th day of 7th lunar month 15th day of 8th lunar month 3 September 30 September 1 October 9th day of 9th lunar month 13 December 59

Chinese celebrating with the famous Chinese Dragon at the Nan Hua Temple

Chinese Traditional Wedding Dress

60

Chinese New Year Market

Chinese traditional costumes during the Chinese New Year of 2009

Traditional Chinese Ceramic Toys

Lantern Festival in Shanghai

Tibetan Monks

61

Chinese Personalities

62

Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu (b. 544 BC in Qi state – d. 496 BC) was a Chinese general, military strategist, and philosopher who lived in the Spring and Autumn period of ancient China. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of “The Art of War”, a widely influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and Eastern philosophy. Aside from his legacy as the author of “The Art of War”, Sun Tzu is revered in Chinese and the Culture of Asia as a legendary historical figure. His birth name was Sun Wu, and he was known outside of his family by his courtesy name Changqing. The name Sun Tzu by which he is best known in the West is an honorific which means “Master Sun”.

Historians have questioned about whether or not Sun Tzu was a Chinese traditional character. The Chinese traditional writings mention that he was a Chinese general of King Wu and lived between 544 and 496 BC. According to the traditional writings, Sun Tzu was born in Qi and became King’s Wu General. His victories inspired him to write “The Art of War”. The period in which he lived was a period of wars between 7 nations: Zhao, Qi, Qin, Chu, Han, Wei and Yan, all of which were seeking to control China. A legend tells us that King Wu tested Sun Tzu by ordering him to train a harem of 180 concubines and turn them into soldiers.

Sun Tzu divided the concubines into 2 companies, naming the two favourite concubines of the Emperor as commanders. When Sun Tzu gave the first order, the two concubines began to laugh. Sun Tzu said that in this case, the General is responsible to ensure that the soldiers understand the given orders. He gave the order once again and the concubines began to laugh once more. Then, Sun Tzu ordered the execution of the Emperor’s two favorite concubines. After both concubines were executed, other officers were selected to replace them, after which both companies have executed the given orders without problems.

“The Art of War” had the original name of “Sun Tzu Ping Fa”. In the book, there is described the philosophy of war, the management of conflicts and last, but not the least, how to win battles. The book includes not only the original writings of the first author, but it also contains the clarifications of Li Quan and Du Mu’s military philosophy. “The Art of War” is a masterpiece of military strategy and was frequently cited by generals

Sun Tzu

and academics from all the world since its publication.

The book is not only popular among generals and academics, but is very appreciated by politicians and business people as well. In spite of the title, “The Art of War” unveils planning strategies in public administration as well. In the text, there are explained military strategies, but also diplomatic strategies and the relations with other states.

“The Art of War” has influenced many notable people in history. The historical writings mention that the first emperor of unified China, Qi Shin Huang considered the book as invaluable. The book arrived in Japan in 760, and became very popular among the Japanese Generals. Historians claim that even Napoleon studied Sun Tzu’s book. Chinese communist leader, Mao Zedong credited his victory over Chiang Kai-Shek in 1949 to “The Art of War” book. During the Gulf War of 1990 General Norm Schwarzkopf Jr. and General Colin Powell applied the principles of Sun Tzu.

At the beginning of the 12th century, many scholars began to challenge the actual historical 63

Statuary group of Sun Tzu and his generals

existence of Sun Tzu, for the reason that he is not mentioned in the “Zuo Zhuan”, the Chinese chronicle written in narrative form that speaks of the most known personalities that lived during the Spring and Autumn period. Often debated is also related to the author of “The Art of War”, which is attributed, according to skeptics, not to Sun Tzu, but to other military strategists, such as Wu Zixu, Sun Bin, an anonymous author, or others.

Similarly, the only battle historically attributed to Sun Tzu, the one of Boju, doesn’t mention his name among the various combatants. Many modern historians have also alleged anachronisms between the time when Sun Tzu would have traditionally lived and the military culture of his time. The breadth of arms mentioned in the text and their organization, the references to the use of the crossbow, which came into use towards the end of 64

the 5th century BC, the references to the theory of the Five elements and certain linguistic usages, according to all of these interpretations, “The Art of War” should be dating between 400-320 BC, during the Warring States Period.

America’s Asian conflicts against Japan, North Korea or North Vietnam brought Sun Tzu to the attention of the American military leaders. The Department of the Army in the United States, through its Command and General Staff College, has directed all units to maintain libraries within their respective headquarters for the continuing education of personnel in the art of war. “The Art of War” was mentioned as an example of works to be maintained at each facility, and the staff duty officers were obliged to prepare short papers for presentation to other officers on their

readings. Similarly, Sun Tzu’s Art of War is listed on the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program. However, the United States and other Western countries have been criticized for not truly understanding Sun Tzu’s work and not appreciating The Art of War within the wider context of Chinese society.

Daoist rhetoric is a component incorporated in “The Art of War”. According to Steven C. Combs in “Sun Tzu and the Art of War: The Rhetoric of Parsimony”, warfare is “used as a metaphor for rhetoric, and that both are philosophically based arts.” Combs wrote “Warfare is analogous to persuasion, as a battle

for hearts and minds.” The application of “The Art of War” strategies throughout history is attributed to its philosophical rhetoric. Daoism is the central principle in “The Art of War”. Combs compared the ancient Daoist Chinese to the traditional Aristotelian rhetoric, notably for the differences in persuasion. Daoist rhetoric in the art of war warfare strategies is described as “peaceful and passive, favoring silence over speech”. This form of communication is parsimonious. Parsimonious behavior, which is highly emphasized in “The Art of War” as avoiding confrontation and being spiritual in nature, shapes basic principles in Daoism.

A copy of “The Art of War” written on bamboo

65

confucius

Confucius (b. 28 September 551 BC in Zou, Lu State, Nanxinzhen, Qufu, Shandong, China – d.

479 BC in Lu State) was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history. The philosophy of Confucius emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity.

His followers competed successfully with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin Dynasty. Following the victory of Han over Chu after the collapse of Qin, Confucius’ thoughts received official sanction and were further developed into a system known in the West as Confucianism.

The moment of Kǒng Zǐ’s birth (Confucius) on the historical scene in the late 6th century BC, meant the onset of a philosophical tradition that dominated

66

the Chinese culture for the next hundreds of years and had an overwhelming influence on all the Chinese departments of thinking from spirituality and ethics to medicine and science. The Master (Tzu) hadn’t left us any written works, but his ideas, comments and the interpretations made to the works that constituted the heritage of the ancient Chinese culture (The Book of Changes, The Book of Poetry, The Book of Documents, The Book of Rituals, The Book of Music and the Annals of Spring and Autumn) were compiled by his disciples in 20 books. Trying to understand Confucius may be hampered by the lack of proper documents, as well as by the clutter of legends and traditions surrounding his personality, some exalted and some annoying.

Confucius apparently was born sometime in 551 BC in the small state of Lu, located in the province of nowadays Shantung. He may have had an aristocratic ascendancy, but according to various sources, he hasn’t lived a plentiful life, but on the contrary, thing which led him to empathize with the ordinary people and to disregard the nobles that were interested only in maintaining the power, which was essentially of military

Confucius

Painting of Kǒng Zǐ from 1770

origin. Confucius wasn’t a pacifist, however. He believed that there were times in which moral people needed to take action in order not to be enslaved, but not by using force, as by using a sense of justice and power. Basically, he believed that an army can’t fight well enough if the soldiers do not believe in the rightness of the cause. In addition, he often claimed that the origin doesn’t matter as much as the attitude and behavior, so that anyone could aspire to become a “chiin tzu” (gentleman).

Confucius cherished the hope of reforming the world. Initially, his ideas were well received by a small group, constituting perhaps what you might call today the first Chinese private school, a place where the main goal was the moral and intellectual cultivation. Unlike the traditional system under which obedience and submission were taught, Confucius taught his followers that they must play a dynamic role in the governing of the state, not to stick to being the simple instruments of the leader. The education that Confucius offered to his disciples had more than all a practical value.

During the revolt by Gongshan, Zhong You had managed to keep the duke and three viscounts together

at the court. Zhong You was one of the disciples of Confucius and Confucius had arranged for him to be given the position of governor by the Ji family. When Confucius heard of the raid, he requested that Viscount Ji Huan allow the duke and his court to retreat to a stronghold on his palace grounds. Thereafter, the heads of the three families and the duke retreated to the Ji’s palace complex and ascended the Wuzi Terrace.

Confucius ordered two officers to lead an assault against the rebels. At least one of the two officers was a retainer of the Ji family, but they were unable to refuse the orders while in the presence of the duke, viscounts, and court. The rebels were pursued and defeated at Gu. Immediately after the revolt was defeated, the Ji family razed the Bi city walls to the ground.

The attackers retreated after realizing that they would have to become rebels against the state and against their own lord. Through Confucius’ actions, the Bi officials had inadvertently revolted against their own lord, thus forcing Viscount Ji Huan’s hand in having to dismantle the walls of Bi (as it could have harbored such rebels) or confess to instigating the event by going against proper conduct and righteousness as an official.

If the leaders are so concerned about the sacrifices to their ancestors, then why they don’t drive their interest upon the people as well? If the ministers behave with courtesy to each other, why they don’t do the same with the common man? Each should be regarded as an important guest and officials should behave towards the people as if they commit a great sacrifice. It can be easily noticed that his ideas largely contradicted to the conventions of his era. In fact, his entire ethics is based on the conception of human nature, which doesn’t regard it as a separate entity from the social environment, as well as the society is not a metaphysical stand-alone body. Man is essentially a social person, shaped by the society, but he in turn is determined by the behaviour of each individual. Being moral means to actively participate in the community. The conventions on which they are based are fundamental for the correct operation, but they must be understood. This ethics of duty, the basis of the individual morality, encompasses two fundamentally virtues: the self-denial of our selfish nature and the acceptance of what is right and proper.

Respect for tradition, human sympathy, love for the others, fairness, probity, the exhortation to do good are nothing more than just a reflection of the laws that govern the universe.

Another important concept in the Asian philosophy is “tao”, the way, having no mystical 67

Confucius Statue in front of a Chinese Temple

overtones, however. Tao includes an individual code of ethics on the one hand and on the other hand, the government to watch over the welfare of every human being. Rejecting loyalty towards the nobles, Confucius proposes the loyalty to the principles. Despite the absence of a dogma, many Confucians ended their lives as martyrs, trying to defend the way taught by their master by criticizing the rulers in the name of the greater good. The good leaders and top officials are the wise ones, regardless of their social background. Confucius asks his disciples to defend the people, to help them, to instruct them. The people should act according to the liability and responsibilities that the social functions involve.

What is remarkable regarding the Confucian philosophy is the lack of religious mysticism, which is replaced by a pragmatic humanism. Confucius didn’t claim to own any absolute truth, but rather he insisted upon the aspiring to it by the methods of observation and analysis. The omniscience and omnipotence of the universe are replaced by the wealth of experience, the selection of good and its sequel to achieve the freedom and happiness that the human nature tends towards.

But how is this human nature? In Confucius’s 68

vision it is neither good nor bad. Firstly, Confucius advocates for human equality. Secondly, he considers that people desire happiness, which often remains only at the level of a desideratum. If happiness is good and man is a social being, it means that if everyone would think about the welfare of the whole, there are more likely chances to achieve a state of good. In his conception, when the truly virtuous man seeks success, he thinks about the other’s success as well. In order to reach this social harmony, education is absolutely necessary and it must be widespread so that the most prudent can stand in leadership positions at the government of the country.

His teachings had a great impact, because almost half of his disciples were able to obtain important positions in the state.

But the extent of his legacy looms after his death, when his doctrine is gradually integrated into the imperial ideology. Even some of the communist revolutionaries claim his importance to the revolutionary tradition. In the West, his impact was greater than we can imagine, because he became an iconic figure during the Enlightenment. If we were to look for the secret of his magnetism, most likely it would be his insistence on the primacy of the human values. “Wisdom

means to understand the others, virtue means to love them.” Trusting in the power of thought and morality, Confucius believed that humanity can only find its happiness in a cooperative community of free people.

But freedom is gained through reason, critical thinking

and acting according to principles that can serve both the individual and the community. The dogmas restrict the truth. “Unless one always wonders: How can I act right?, then I do not know what sense does he have”, said Confucius.

Temple of Confucius in Beijing

69

Tenzin Gyatso

Tenzin Gyatso (b. 6 July 1935 in Taktser, Amdo, Tibet, China), the shortened for of Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, born as Lhamo Thondup, is the current Dalai Lama. Dalai Lamas are important monks of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, which is nominally headed by the Ganden Tripas. From the time of the 5th Dalai Lama to 1959, the central government of Tibet, the Ganden Phodrang, invested the position of Dalai Lama with temporal duties.

The Dalai Lama is considered to be the successor in a line of tulkus who are believed to be the incarnations of Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, called “Chenrezig” in Tibetan. The name is a combination of the Mongolic word “dalai” meaning “ocean” (coming from the Mongolian title “Dalaiyin qan” or “Dalaiin khan”, translated as “Gyatso” in Tibetan) and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning “guru, teacher or mentor”. The Tibetan word “lama” corresponds to the better known Sanskrit word of “guru”. Lhamo Thondup was born in Taktser, Tibet. He lived in a family of peasants, together with a sister and three older brothers.

His family had a small farm where they grew horses, sheep, goats and chickens. Agricultural speaking, they cultivated barley and potatoes. The family lived in a typical Tibetan house made out of stone and mud.

A couple of men and monks from the Tibetan government visited Taktser in 1940. The old Dalai Lama, leader of one of the main branches of Tibetan Buddhism and head of the Tibetan government, died that year. This team went in the search for his reincarnation. Young Tenzin was thought to bear the old Dalai Lama’s reborn soul. But they had to submit him to a test. They established several pairs of objects that were placed in front of the boy, such as eyeglasses, canes and prostrations. Lhamo chose an object that belonged to the old Dalai Lama, and the monks were convinced that they had found the next Dalai Lama. Lhamo traveled to Lhasa, where he was educated by Buddhist monks and then honored as the spiritual leader of the country, in the Potala palace of Lhasa.

His instinct for study and curiosity for the world surrounding Tibet led him to permanently broaden his knowledge, including the studies of English, science and mathematics, but the most important part of his 70

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

education was made in the traditional Tibetan manner, as described later in his autobiography. The main purpose of the Tibetan system is the widening and cultivation of the mind through a variety of knowledge. Regarding the advanced secular education standards, the curriculum includes theater, dance and music, astrology, poetry and composition. Superior training courses include the art of healing, Sanskrit, dialectics, arts and crafts, metaphysics and philosophy of religions. Among these “five elevated topics”, as they are called, the latter is considered the most fundamental. His Holiness began his education at the age of 6 years old and at 25 years old he received his doctorate in Buddhist philosophy.

Periodically, he was examined by the professorial circles at the main monastic universities: Drepung, Sera and Ganden. The final examination was held in Jokhang, Lhasa, in front of the congregation of teachers.

In 1950, aged just 15 years old, became the head of the Tibetan state and government at the same time when the popular Chinese army troops entered into Tibet by the force of arms. Dalai Lama spent the next decade by appealing to international aid in an attempt to avoid a total conquest by the Chinese forces. 80.000 Chinese soldiers invaded Tibet. In 1959, Dalai Lama had to flee the country, traveling for several weeks, going over the Himalayas, the highest mountains in the world and reaching India. His parents and brothers went with him, like many of his teachers and other Tibetan government officials. They made their way to Dharamsala, now called “Little Lhasa”, where the Tibetan government in exile was founded. Dalai Lama continued to work for the rights of people. In 1965, the United Nations voted a decision regarding Tibet.

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted three resolutions in 1959, 1961 and 1965 in order to respect the human rights of the Tibetans by the People’s Republic of China, honoring their independence. Dalai Lama built over 50 large settlements for Tibetan refugees in India and created a

Tibetan school system that had the objective to learn children the Tibetan language, history, religion and culture. He founded several cultural institutions that preserved 2.000 years of Tibetan art. He helped restore more than 200 monasteries in order to keep alive the Buddhist teachings.

In 1989, Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to find a non-violent solution to the conflict with China. He continues to travel, talking to world leaders and ordinary people. His message of peace urges the people to live a life with compassion for others. Dalai Lama believes that “in today’s world”, each nation is strongly independent and interconnected. In these conditions, destroying your enemy means your long-term destruction. He claims that everybody needs his neighbor. Dalai Lama often says: “I am just a simple Buddhist monk, no more, no less”. Living in a small cottage in Dharamsala, he wakes up at 4 AM to meditate and to attend prayer. He concludes each day with many prayers. Dalai Lama has worked hard over the years to bring compassion and kindness into the people’s hearts, even for the Chinese government, after all they have

Dalai Lama talking with former U.S. President, Barrack Obama in 2014

71

of the world. In his public appearances, the Dalai Lama seeks to convey his tireless message of love, compassion and non-violence, as well as the universal sense of responsibility for the destiny of this world, for peace.

The 14th Dalai Lama supported the possibility that his next incarnation could be a woman. As an “engaged Buddhist” the Dalai Lama has an appeal straddling cultures and political systems making him one of the most recognized and respected moral voices today. “Despite the complex historical, religious and political factors surrounding the selection of incarnate masters in the exiled Tibetan tradition, the Dalai Lama is open to change,” author Michaela Haas wrote. “Why not? What’s the big deal?”

In 2014, Tenzin Gyatso recommended that after his death, another Dalai Lama not to be chosen anymore because the institution has lost its significance: its importance was the political power, which now it no longer has. After 450 years of the Dalai Lama institution, it is no longer necessary because Tibetan Buddhism has a very good organization, has monks with exceptional education, so they no longer depend on a certain individual.

His Holiness, Dalai Lama in the Senate of Poland

done to his people. For him, this is the only way to bring peace in Tibet and the world. His writings are extremely popular. The art of happiness has sold over 1.200.000 copies worldwide.

In recent years, many Western universities have awarded him the title of Doctor Honoris Causa in recognition of the importance of his writings on Buddhist philosophy and the role that his personality played in the ecumenical dialogue and the maintenance of harmony between the great religions of the world.

During the journeys he has made abroad, His Holiness has strongly advocated for the need of mutual respect and better understanding between the different faiths 72

Tenzin Gyatso explaining something to a group of people

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee (b. 27 November 1940 in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, USA – d. 20 July 1973 in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong), by his real name Lee JunFan, was a Hong Kong, Chinese and American actor, martial artist, philosopher, filmmaker, and founder of the martial art, Jeet Kune Do. Lee was the son of Cantonese opera star, Lee Hoi-Chuen. He is widely considered by commentators, critics, media, and other martial artists to be one of the most influential martial artists of all time, and a pop culture icon of the 20th century. He is often credited with helping to change the way Asians were presented in American films.

An US citizen from the moment of birth, the Little Dragon, as he was to be called, has benefited from the help of a relatively rich family in those days.

His father, Li Hoi Chuen, was the co-leader of a troupe of Cantonese opera and a renowned film actor in the growing world of Chinese immigrants. His mother, Grace Li, had a more impressive background, belonging to the To Hung clan, one of the richest and most influential families from Hong Kong. His childhood was happy and carefree, little Li Jun-Fan being aware of his magnetism and charm. At the age of 3 years old, his parents returned to Hong Kong in order to better supervise the affairs and future projects. To the disappointment of his father, the baby born in the fire zodiac didn’t have the slightest inclination for making money. Instead, his native lure for wrestling, fights and scandals drew money for fines and compensation from senior Li’s pocket.

Although his parents enrolled him in the best schools from Hong Kong, the future Bruce Lee has already made friends with a gang of petty criminals and diligently learned the street language. Street battles in Hong Kong are tougher than in many other places, not only because here is the headquarters of the dreaded Triads. In the dangerous world of juvenile delinquency, Lee entered at the age of 13 years old. His strong character, coupled with his courage and innate leadership ability, propelled him soon to order a small gang of thugs where he belonged. Here he learned a creed to which he would remain faithful his entire life “Winning is everything: the style and rules do not matter in the fight.”

Bruce Lee

In a 1967 interview, Bruce recalls: “What would have happened if during a scandal, I would not have had the band with me? I decided then to learn Kung Fu to be able to defend myself.” His father decided to enroll his turbulent offspring to the Taijiquan courses, Wu style.

Taji boxing is a complex and esoteric style that has much to do with cultivating the internal Qi energy, relaxation, reflection and meditation. Many of the precepts from the Taiji philosophy of Bruce Lee appeared later. But the little rascal just wanted to fight. He sook a more effectively style to liquidate his opponents.

Through master Wu Ta-Chi, his Taiji teacher, Bruce came in contact with none other than Yip Man, the last great master of the Wing Chun style. This small but deadly fighter had barely take refuge in Hong Kong from communist China, bringing with him the secrets of six generations of fighters. Lee trained with old Yip Man for 5 years, a period in which he won a few boxing championships, as well as the championship title at Cha Cha dancing. The violent life and the many enemies that Bruce created around him, caused his father to 73

Bruce Lee in 1946

send him to the United States. At the age of 18 years old, Li Xiao Long reached San Francisco with 100 $ in his pocket, plenty of championship titles and a suitcase of dreams. A pragmatic spirit, the first thing he did on US soil was to change his name to Bruce Lee, convinced that Americans will not have the memory to remember a long and complicated Chinese name.

After he spent several months working as a waiter in the restaurant of Ruby Chow, a friend of his father, Bruce Lee decided that he didn’t come to America to serve meals, so he consequently graduated from Edison Technical School in Seattle. Attracted by philosophy and acting, he enrolled at the University of Washington, which he abandons however after three years and a half. In the Little Dragon’s life, his future wife, Linda Emery already appeared and he desired to show to the white man the mysteries of the Chinese martial arts. In consequence, his ambition and unseen fighter qualities propelled him directly in the TV series “The Green Hornet”.

He received regular roles in television series 74

like Batman, Longstreet, Ironside or Here Comes the Brides. He planned to launch a series by himself, which would portray the wanderings of a Shaolin monk. The show would be called “The Warrior” and Bruce Lee would have to play the leading role. Warner Bros stole his idea and distrustful of Lee’s qualities, they renamed the show to “Kung Fu” series, giving him the leading role to David Carradine, an actor with no training in martial arts.

Disappointed, Lee returned to Hong Kong.

There, among those of the same race and culture of him, he would come to know success. “The Big Boss” (1971) was the film that turned him into an instant Chinese hero and an international star. In just one month he grossed 3,197 million $, a huge sum in those days. In “Fists of Fury” (1972), Lee restored the wounded honor of the Chinese that were humiliated in the years of Japanese occupation during the Second World War. It remains anthological the sequence in which Chen Chen, the character played by Lee, breaks with a jumping leg a board located at the entrance of a park. On the board, the Japanese had written: “Entry prohibited to dogs and Chinese.”

For “Way of the Dragon” (1972), Lee spared no effort to outdo himself. For the action scenes, he called Unicorn Chan and as a second director, he used Ricky Chick. The film set a series of records: Bruce Lee became the first Chinese actor who started his own film production company, was the first Chinese film shot in Europe and Lee used for the first time double nunchaku screen techniques. Bruce was on this occasion the first Chinese producer, main star, writer and director of his own films. For Lee, the concepts behind all traditional fighting methods seemed somewhat stiff, formal and impractical. He started to add to the Wing Chun sessions, weights workout to develop his strength, jogging to increase his resistance, stretching for flexibility and others. In parallel, Lee was attracted to the study of various forms of martial arts in his desire to create an effective, 100% method. He studied and adopted in this direction elements of English boxing, fencing, judo, wrestling, Tae Kwon-Do, Muay Thai, Choy Lee Fut, Tang Lang Quan, Hung Gar.

For instance, Lee struck 500 times a day in a bucket filled with sand to harden his fingers and fists.

His body looked like a wild panther camouflaged in the expression of a human body. Joe Weider, the founder of modern bodybuilding, said: “Bruce Lee was the most defined body I’ve ever seen.” In his library, Bruce Lee housed no less than 14 specialized papers

Bruce Lee with his son, Brandon in 1966

75

about bodybuilding, physiology, anatomy, gymnastics, weightlifting and physical therapy. To work hard muscle groups, he invented a host of devices that bears his name today. The explosion and speed of his movements were proof that the Little Dragon reached to the optimum stage of the Qi energy control. Otherwise you can’t explain performances like those in which Lee’s movements of struggle were so nimble that they could not be captured by a camera with 24 frames per second, and the cameramen were forced to film him with 32 frames per second cameras. Also, Bruce Lee could blow up grains of rice in the air and catch them with Chinese chopsticks. He was able to break through a small box of Coca Cola with his fingers. Think that in that era, fizzy drinks were closed in steel boxes, much tougher than the nowadays aluminum cans.

To be capable of such performances, the Little

Dragon gave great attention to his daily diet. His wife recalls in her memoirs that Lee prepared a daily fresh juice after his own recipe made from apples, celery, carrots and a few plants from China. Not missing from his diet were pollen, lecithin granules, unpasteurized milk, wheat germ oil, along with huge amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables that were consumed daily. Bruce Lee avoided at all costs flour products baked in the oven, arguing that they were full of useless calories for the effort he made. At the age of 32 years old, on 22 July 1973, the Little Dragon passed away taking with himself the secret of his own death. The avalanche of assumptions and variations of the cause of death, which followed the official investigation, has only deepened the mystery. The official conclusion was that Bruce Lee died of a cerebral edema caused by an acute rejection response against the Equagesic analgesic.

Bruce Lee’s statue in Kowloon, Hong Kong

Bruce Lee wax statue at Madame Tussauds

76

mao zedong

Mao Zedong (b. 26 December 1893 in Shaoshan, Hunan, China – d. 9 September 1976 in Beijing, China) also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary and founding father of the People’s Republic of China, which he ruled as an autocrat styled the Chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949, until his death in 1976.

His Marxist-Leninist theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

Mao Zedong was born in the Hunan Province, China, into a relatively prosperous family of peasants.

He was a guerrilla communist leader who fought a civil war for twenty-two years in order to conquer the most populated country in the world and then led it for another twenty-six years in a special type of communism, marked by his personal touch. Mao received a good education, studying the Chinese classics. Between 1911 and 1912, Mao was a soldier in the nationalist army.

Later, he moved to Beijing, where he came into contact for the first time with the revolutionary ideology. In 1918 and 1919, Zedong studied Marx and Engels while working as a library assistant at the Beijing University and became a devoted political activist. Other important influences on Mao Zedong were the Russian Revolution and, according to some researchers, the Chinese literary works: “Outlaws of the Marsh” and “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”.

Mao Zedong tried to undermine the alliance of imperialism and feudalism in China. He believed that the Kuomintang is vulnerable both economically and politically and thus the revolution can’t be led by nationalists. In 1920, Mao Zedong led several labor strikes based on his studies of propagation and contemporary organization of labor movement.

However, these strikes were successfully defeated by the government, and Mao fled from Changsha, Hunan after being labeled as a radical activist. He pondered over these failures and finally has realized that the industrial workers can’t lead the revolution because they are only a small part of China’s population, and the unarmed fighting of the labor people could not solve the problems related to the imperial and feudal suppression.

Mao began to depend on the Chinese peasants, who later became staunch supporters of his theory of

Mao Zedong

violent revolution. This dependence of rural people rather than the urban proletariat to instigate violent revolutions, distinguished Mao from his predecessors and contemporaries. Mao Zedong himself came from a peasant family, and so he has cultivated a reputation among farmers and peasants, thus converting and integrating them to Marxism.

At 1 July 1921, Mao attended the founding meeting of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai.

The party has kept close relations with the Kuomintang (Nationalists) until Chiang Kai-Shek took the lead, and broke dramatically the relations with the Communists, in 1927. Chang’s decision triggered a civil war that lasted, with interruptions, about twenty-two years and would end with Mao’s victory. Mao returned to its roots, at the county, and began to excite and win support for the communists in villages. Chiang’s Kuomintang remained the party with more supporters in the cities.

Mao organized a series of riots, most notably being the “Autumn Harvest Uprising”. All of them however, were suppressed with brutality. He withdrew in the Jinggang 77

Mao Zedong in Yan’an in 1944

Mountains, where he founded a guerrilla army.

In 1931, Mao Zedong conquered a part of Jiangxi and founded the Chinese Soviet Republic. His peasant guerrillas transformed then in the Red Army and Mao became the de facto leader of a rebel state.

In 1934, Chiang Kai-Shek, who fought hard to destroy the local warriors and unite the country, has decided to eliminate this last enclave of resistance. He surrounded the separatist republic with 700.000 people, resulting in Mao’s lose of half of the people. The remaining 100.000 pierced the lines of the nationalists fled to northeast.

Over the next two years, they traveled almost 10.000 km in the famous “Long March”, up to Yan’an, on the border with the Soviet Union, where they were safe.

Mao consolidated his position in the party.

In 1937, Mao’s Communists retained an uneasy 78

peace with the Nationalists during the Second World War. Both sides fought against the Japanese invaders.

Mao was more active, acting from his base at Yan’an.

After the Second World War was over, Mao broke the peace with the Nationalists after the Japanese surrendered and the civil war resumed. During the war years, the communists had become stronger, so it took only four years to push Chiang Kai-Shek over the Strait of Formosa, in Taiwan. Mainland China was now in the hands of Mao. After the end of the Second World War, the US continued to support Chiang Kai-Shek, who was now ready to fight against the People’s Liberation Army led by Mao Zedong in the Chinese civil war for the control of China. US support was an aid to defeat communism worldwide. Also, the Soviet Union provided quasi-secret support to Mao (as a neighbor,

million people.

In 1960, the rivalry between China and USSR, a rivalry for the leadership of the communist world, has sparked a Sino-Soviet rift. The communist nomenclature tried to marginalize Mao, and he answered in the late 1960’s with the launch of the Cultural Revolution, when the Red Guards went crazy. Revolution torn China’s society apart and millions of people have terribly suffered or died. Mao, now old and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, has encouraged the development of a personality cult. His image with his famous peasant tunic appeared everywhere, as well as all sorts of inscriptions with quotations from his speeches. On 9 September 1976, Mao Zedong died in Beijing, China.

He once said: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

Painting of Mao in front of a crowd

being more than just a military ally, in order to avoid an open conflict with the US) delivering weapons to the Communist Party of China, although relevant Chinese sources recently indicated that the Soviet “deliveries” were not as great as previously believed, and have fallen steadily in a short time, not reaching the promised aid.

In the year 1949, Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China. China was again free from any foreign domination and united once more, however, the country has fallen prey to a peculiar form of important Marxist ideology, which later became known as Maoism.

Between 1958 and 1961, Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” took place, which consisted in China’s massive rural reorganization into commons, thing which resulted in a nationwide famine spread and the death of over twenty Mao Zedong youth art sculpture

79

Laozi

Laozi (b. 6th to 5th century BC in the Zhou Dynasty – d. 531 BC in the Zhou Dynasty) was an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He is known as the reputed author of the “Tao Te Ching” and the founder of philosophical Taoism, and as a deity in religious Taoism and traditional Chinese religions. Although a legendary figure, he is usually dated to around the 6th century BC and reckoned a contemporary of Confucius, but some historians contend that he actually lived during the Warring States period of the 5th or 4th century BC. A central figure in Chinese culture, Laozi is claimed by both the emperors of the Tang dynasty and modern people of the Li surname as a founder of their lineage.

Laozi’s work has been embraced by various antiauthoritarian movements as well as Chinese Legalism.

Lao Tzu was born in the Ch’u State and was a contemporary of Confucius (6th century BC). He was a curator of the royal library of Ch’u, where he would have met with Confucius, with who he had a famous dialogue about rites. This dialogue highlighted the major differences between Taoism and Confucianism, differences that some deny, claiming that Taoism and Confucianism complement each other like the yin-yang couple.

Lao Tzu bore the family name of Li and the surname of Erh, which means “ear”. Often he can be found in various accounts named Li Erh. After his death, his surname was replaced by Tan, which means “long ears”. From this point of view, believes James Legge, we can deduce that his first name was given after a physical feature of his ears. Lao Tzu subsequently withdrew from public life, disgusted by the dynastic decline. Going towards West, he would have met with the guard of a gorge, Yin Xi, who would have asked him to write a manual of wisdom. Lao Tzu composed thus his famous “Tao Te Ching”, a book written in two parts with over 5.000 characters, where he speaks about Tao and its particularities (Te).

Philosophically, Lao Tzu would have been concerned about the need to remain anonymous, not to manifest himself in public, a vision contrary to the Confucian one. He would have developed Tao and Te, according to Ch’ien’s statement. Many specialists believe that the “Tao Te Ching” would not have been the work of Lao Tzu, but a group of intellectuals who 80

Laozi

chose anonymity and baptized the book “Lao Tzu”.

In fact, Lao Tzu is not a proper name, but rather a nickname. But tradition assigns this work to Lao Tzu. To the information related above, there can be added a few myths that supported the magical powers of the master: he was born much later, and at his birth, a fallen star was seen. He would have lived about 200 years.

We know nothing about Laozi’s fate once he wrote the mentioned book. However, an interesting story, because it talks about the funeral of Lao Tzu, was given to us by Chuang Tzu, his famous disciple. James Legge concludes that this story is nothing else but another fantasy of Chuang Tzu: “to offer the opportunity to determine how the life of a Taoist should be, in his opinion, and as himself Lao Tzu had failed in this way”.

Lao Zi left behind the image of a great character.

Miraculously conceived at the passage of a comet or when his mother ate a plum magic, he was born with white hair and beard, hence the name of old (Lao) and had very long lobes ears, a sign of wisdom. Lao Tzu was an archivist at the court of the Zhou state. Confucius recognized him as a master and as an extraordinary human being. He has left the country when he would have been aged 160 years, having enough of the country’s political disputes. He went westwards astride a buffalo and when he reached the border, he wrote “A Book about the Way” and “Virtue” at the request of a guard, then he continued his journey. Nobody knows what has become of him, but some believe that he didn’t die or reincarnate, but reappears in various forms to transmit the Dao to the people.

Left-libertarians have been highly influenced by Laozi. In his 1937 book “Nationalism and Culture”, the anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist Rudolf Rocker praised Laozi’s “gentle wisdom” and “understanding of the opposition between political power and the cultural activities of the people and community”. In his 1910 article for the Encyclopedia Britannica, Peter Kropotkin also noted that Laozi was among the earliest proponents of essentially anarchist concepts. More recently,

Statue of Lao Tzu in Quanzhou

anarchists such as John P. Clark and Ursula K. Le Guin have written about the conjunction between anarchism and Taoism in various ways, highlighting the teachings of Laozi in particular. In her rendition of the “Tao Te Ching”, Le Guin wrote that Laozi “does not see political power as magic. He sees rightful power as earned and wrongful power as usurped... He sees sacrifice of self or others as a corruption of power, and power as available to anyone who follows the Way. No wonder anarchists and Taoists make good friends.”

Statue of Laozi at Tai Lake

81

Chiang Kai-Shek

Chiang Kai-Shek (b. 31 October 1887 in Fenghua, Zhejiang, Qing Dynasty – d. 5 April 1975 in Taipei, Taiwan Province, Republic of China) also romanized as Jiang Jieshi and known as Jiang Zhongzheng, was a Chinese political and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975.

Chiang was an influential member of the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party, and was a close ally of Sun Yat-sen. He became the Commandant of the Kuomintang’s Whampoa Military Academy and took Sun’s place as leader of the KMT following the Canton Coup in early 1926. Having neutralized the party’s left wing, Chiang then led Sun’s long-postponed Northern Expedition, conquering or reaching accommodations with China’s many warlords.

Chiang Kai-Shek was born in Fenghua, during the Qing Dynasty, in 1887. He was a politician and military leader who unified China after the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty and led the country to victory against Japan, but lost the power then, four years later, to the Communists. He founded nationalist China on the island of Taiwan. Born into a modest family of merchants, in an isolated village full of farmers, Chiang has enrolled at a military college in Paoting, in northern China. Between 1907 and 1911, Chiang entered the Tokyo Shinbu Gakko, a military college. The future Chinese revolutionary leader, Sun Yat-Sen was one of his classmates. He was part of the Japanese army, and was impressed by the discipline of the Japanese soldiers and their ability to endure very difficult conditions. He returned to China in 1911, in Shanghai more exactly, once with the outbreak of the revolution.

In 1912, Chiang Kai-Shek took part in the overthrow of imperial China and the founding of the Chinese Republic. Only 5 years later, he became the military adviser of Sun Yat-Sen. Later, he joined Sun’s Kuomintang Party (KMT), the nationalists who were fighting for the control of China against the leading regional warriors. In 1923, Chiang became the 1st military adviser of Sun and was sent by the leader in the USSR, to ask help from the Soviets because the nationalist government was under siege. Upon his return, he was appointed to command the newly created Whampoa Military Academy.

In 1926, just one year after Sun’s death in 1925, 82

Chiang Kai-Shek

Chiang became commander in chief of the nationalists and a powerful figure in the party. He launched a military expedition to the North to destroy the warrior leaders, leading the victorious nationalist army in Hankou, Shanghai and Nanjing. In a dramatic turn of events, Chiang decided to split from the communists, giving thus birth to a long civil war, which eventually would prove fatal. Chiang won control over the Kuomintang quite quickly, and by 1928, he conquered Beijing and proclaimed himself head of the nationalist government of Nanjing and supreme commander of the Chinese

Chiang Kai-Shek with his wife, Mei-Ling Song and American Lieutenant General Stilwell in Burma in 1942

nationalist forces.

Chiang’s international position was strengthened by his third wife, a very beautiful woman. After he broke up with his first two wives, Kai-Shek married to Mei-Ling Song, the daughter of a tycoon media from Shanghai. Mei-Ling had studied in the United States and was Christian. Chiang decided to embrace the same religion as his wife. It turned out that Mei-Ling had an extraordinary talent for public relationships, which was actually the reason for the image that Chiang had externally. In 1928, Kai-Shek defeated the regional warrior leaders, thus unifying China. In 1936, Chiang was kidnapped by a rival nationalist general and forced to end the civil war in order to fight the Japanese, who conquered Manchuria in 1931 and were ready for an assault on China.

Chiang Kai-Shek started the war against the Japanese in 1937, but the truce between the nationalists and communists was not really respected at its full terms. Chiang moved his capital to Chongqing after the Japanese captured Nanjing and once the Sino-Japanese war became part of the Second World War, he began playing an important role on the world’s great stage.

Nationalist China began to be seen as a strong opponent of Japan, and the General with monk figure, dressed in plain clothes, began to socialize with Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill. In 1942, he was appointed as supreme commander of the Allied forces in China. However, the allies have never had total confidence in him, suspecting that he was always more interested in the struggle

against the communists than the war against Japan. In 1943, Chiang attended to the Cairo Conference and in 1945, World War II finally came to an end.

After the war, the power brought with it corruption and complacency, and China was still largely feudal. Chiang mercilessly crushed the warrior leaders, but hadn’t destroyed their strongholds. Peasants, which represented 90% of the population, still didn’t have anything concrete in the new country and Chiang had no plan for them. He didn’t got involved in the war and let his troops become “rusty”. After the war was over, Chiang failed to reach an agreement with the Communists, and the civil war reignited. After four years of hard struggle, in which at least five million people have perished, Chiang was expelled from China by a professional army trained in many battles, led by Mao Zedong.

Chiang withdrew in 1949 in Taiwan, where he established a loose dictatorial regime. The last years of his life were overshadowed by the decision of his former allies, Japan and the United States, which recognized mainland China. The first decades after the Nationalists moved the seat of government to the province of Taiwan were associated with the organized effort to resist against Communism, which was by then known as the “White Terror”, during which about 140.000 Taiwanese were imprisoned for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang. Most of those prosecuted were labeled by the Kuomintang as “bandit spies” (匪諜), meaning spies for Chinese Communists, and were eventually punished.

Believing that corruption and lack of morals were key reasons that the Kuomintang lost mainland China to the Communists, Chiang attempted to purge the corruption by dismissing members of the KMT accused of graft. Some major figures in the previous mainland Chinese government, such as H. H. Kung or T. V. Soong, exiled themselves to the United States.

Though politically authoritarian and, to some extent, dominated by government-owned industries, Chiang’s new Taiwanese state also encouraged economic development, especially in the export sector. A popular sweeping “Land Reform Act”, as well as American foreign aid during the 1950’s, laid the foundation for Taiwan’s economic success, which became one of the Four Asian Tigers. He nevertheless left behind the prosperous island of Taiwan, which has developed an original democracy. Chiang led Taiwan as a peaceful dictator until his death. On 5 April 1975, Chiang KaiShek died in Taipei, Taiwan.

83

84

Chiang Kai-Shek ensured the leadership of the Kuomintang

Jet Li

Jet Li (b. 26 April 1963 in Beijing, China), by his official name Li Lianje, is a Chinese film actor, film producer, martial artist, and retired Wushu champion.

He is a naturalized Singaporean citizen. After three years of intensive training with Wu Bin, Li won his first national championship for the Beijing Wushu Team.

After retiring from Wushu at the age of 19, he went on to win great acclaim in China as an actor making his debut with the film Shaolin Temple (1982). He went on to star in many critically acclaimed martial arts epic films, most notably as the lead in director Zhang Yimou’s 2002 “Hero” and the “Once Upon A Time in China” series, in which he portrayed folk hero Wong Fei-Hung.

The youngest from a family with five children, Li Lianje’s father died when he was only two years old.

Being the youngest, any risky activities were banned for his personal safety, so that only with the beginning of school, he had contact with other children of his age.

At the age of 8 years old, he already was a great scholar, especially good at physical education, where he was used as an example for other pupils. In the summer of 1971, he began practicing Kung-Fu, but he didn’t have any vocation for it at the beginning. While the school closed for holidays, in order to prevent young people to go out and to make disorders, the same school sent the scholars to what is now called Beijing Sports and Exercise School, the Beijing sports school. The boys were arbitrarily assigned to different sports and Jet accidentally was distributed to the Wushu classes, a set of martial styles, known outside of China by the name of Kung-Fu, which begins, in principle, with a soft and very choreographic version.

In late summer, from the thousands of students, only twenty of these were allowed to routinely attend the Wushu classes. 5 of these children were coming from the same school as Jet Li’s. He himself regularly attended the afternoon classes, becoming a reason of pride for the school. Once he passed the increasingly tough selections, he became a regular pupil of the academic institute, but soon realized that thus was not an easy job: while his peers went home to play after school, he used to spend his free time by training hard even outdoors during the cold winter in Beijing.

In 1972 in Jinan, Shandong Province, it was

Jet Li

held the first Chinese national Wushu competition of the Cultural Revolution from the 1970’s. There were no categories of awards, but simply a single best performer award, which Li won at the tender age of 9 years.

The same year in China, it was held the Table Tennis Championships (Ping-Pong): in those years of political awakening for China, every event was taken seriously. So for this occasion, there were organized demonstrations of the various Chinese arts: dance, Peking Opera and of course the Wushu and Wing Chun martial arts. Jet Li was found to be part of the Wushu team, and had to train relentlessly: a less than perfect execution wasn’t to be accepted.

The championship was held in the big stadium from Beijing, and there were several authorities present at the tournament, as the Minister of Defence and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Jet’s group also met the then Premier, Zhou Enlai, who complimented them for the excellent execution. From that moment, young Li was permanently transferred to the Beijing sports school, where he trained harder and harder every day. Since the school was also a tourist attraction, all the young people were always be prepared to offer demonstrations of Wushu to the tourists.

85

In 1974, after severe selections, Li became part of the group of the 30 best athletes of Chinese Wushu, which had to represent China (and the other 20 million Wushu athletes) in a demonstration tour in the United States, in the cities of Honolulu, San Francisco, New York and Washington. The group also performed at the White House, where young Li posed next to Henry Kissinger for the official photo of the event. Years later, Li said that on that occasion the then president Richard Nixon approached him and when he complimented him, the president asked him if he wanted to become as big as his bodyguard. Li’s answer was that he didn’t want to defend one person, but the billion Chinese countrymen.

Thereafter, the Times magazine has published the article about the event, which also wrote that the Chinese educate their children to give nationalist responses. Later, when American presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter visited China, Li was invited to be part of the welcoming committee. In 1975, in Beijing were held the Chinese National Games, the first edition after the Cultural Revolution: Li Liangje, at 12 years old, found himself competing against people in their

Chinese Poster with Jet Li

twenties or even thirties. Preliminary selections were held in Kumming, in the Yunnan Province, and Li took the first place in all 5 races. But in the semi-finals he got injured with his own sword. Not realizing the cut on his forehead, he continued the execution until the end, then he found himself even half full of blood. Once the wound was medicated, the doctor recommended him not to participate in the finals, but Li insisted, and without any bandages he participated and won the final, beating more famous athletes than him. From 1976 to 1979 he travelled around the world with the Beijing Wushu Team, giving Wushu demonstrations.

In 1979, Jet Li became famous with the movie Shaolin Temple (少林寺 or Shao Lin), of Chang Hsin Yen and Zhang Xinyan. The product was very successful in the Chinese Republic and some other countries (except for Taiwan, where it was banned). The film had two more sequels, Shaolin Temple 2: Kids from Shaolin (Shao Lin 少林 小子 or Xiaozi, 1983) and Shaolin Temple 3: Martial Arts of Shaolin (南北 少林 or Nan bei Shao Lin, 1986), directed by Hong Kong master Liu Chia Liang, whose relationship with Li will not be entirely rosy, since the director opposed to the use of 86

Li Lianje in 2006

stunt doubles, but the young star didn’t mind instead.

Eventually the director’s judgment will change: “Do not harm the boy!”, he told the press.

After many failures, in 1991, Tsui Hark, one of the most famous directors and production in Hong Kong, called Jet Li to play the character of master Wong Fei Hung in the film “Once Upon a Time in China” ( 黃飛鴻 or Wong Fei-hung). The character of the physician and martial arts master Wong Fei Hung, who lived towards the end of the 19th century, is very dear to the Asian public, so the character became the star of more than 100 films shot in a few decades, played by actors like Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Vincent Zhao and Kwan Tak-Hing. Jet Li had a heavy burden to bear, but his performance remains among the best of the character.

Along Sammo Hung, he starred in “Evil Cult”.

Another big name is Corey Yuen, who directed him in 6 films and choreographed him in 11 movies. Since the beginning of 2000, the two worked together constantly.

In 2001, Jet Li played in “Kiss of the Dragon”, a FrancoAmerican co-production, which saw him between producers like Luc Besson. The film enjoyed a great success in Europe, making Jet Li’s name even more known to the public. In the same year, he played in the movie “The One”, his first fiction film, but had a

lukewarm reception at the box office. He returned to America in 2007 and played along with Jason Statham in “Rogue Assassin”, and the following year he again assumed a negative role in the film directed by Rob Cohen, “The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”, the third chapter of the saga that began in 1999 with “The mummy”. In 2008, he interpreted along with Jackie Chan in the movie “The Forbidden Kingdom”. In 2010, he was among the protagonists of the film “The Expendables”, directed by Sylvester Stallone. He appeared once more in the 2012 sequel “The Expendables 2” of Simon West and in the 2014 “The Expendables 3”, by Patrick Hughes. Thus, he took part in all the three movies of the Expendables saga created by Sylvester Stallone.

Li is a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism. His master is Lho Kunsang. In 1987, Li married Beijing Wushu Team member and “Kids from Shaolin” co-star Huang Qiuyan, with whom he has two daughters, Si and Taimi. They divorced in 1990. Since 1999, he has been married to Nina Li Zhi, a Shanghai-born, Hong Kong-based actress. He has two daughters with her also, Jane, born in 2000 and Jada, born in 2003. In his free time he likes to play badminton and table tennis, ride his bicycle, read and meditate. He collects rare Tibetan beads. He claims that he never gets bored in his free time.

Jet Li speaks at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin, China in 2008

87

Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping (b. 22 August 1904 in Guang’an, Sichuan, Qing Empire – d. 19 February 1997 in Beijing, China) was a Chinese revolutionary and statesman. He was the paramount leader of China from 1978 until his retirement in 1989. After Chairman Mao Zedong’s death, Deng led his country through far-reaching market-economy reforms. While Deng never held office as the head of state, head of government or General Secretary (that is, the leader of the Communist Party), he nonetheless was considered the “paramount leader” of the People’s Republic of China from December 1978 to November 1989. As the core of the second-generation leaders of the Communist Party of China, Deng shared his power with several powerful older politicians commonly known as the Eight Elders.

88

The son of a landowner, Deng went in 1919 with Zhou Enlai in France under the “Mouvement TravailÉtudes” program, where he worked in a shoe factory in Montargis and at Renault for five years. In 1924, he became a member of one of the Chinese Communist Party cells. Upon returning towards China, he spent three years in Moscow. After he returned to China, he organized a professional training center, a military band made up of peasants and, finally, “The Seventh Red Army” in Guangxi. He became a political commissar, founded the “Red Star” newspaper and early joined Mao’s faction within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During the “Long March”, Mao proposed him for the post of President of CCP. In 1952, he was appointed deputy prime minister, while in 1956 he was appointed general secretary of the CCP. During the “Cultural Revolution”, Deng, who allegedly was accused of wanting to reintroduce the capitalist system in China, was one of its victims. He was appointed by the Red Guards as “poisonous big plant”, “main root of the

Deng Xiaoping

reactionary bourgeois line” and was caricatured with the head of a dog and a pig’s snout. Deng was rehabilitated, being reappointed as deputy prime minister, about a year and a half after Lin Biao, CCP deputy, died in 1971 after a plane crash. In January 1975, he was elected as Vice Chairman of the CCP, and two weeks later he became the Chief of the Staff.

Having inherited a country torn by social and economic problems caused by the “Cultural Revolution” and other mass political maneuvers of Mao Zedong’s era, Deng was the core of the second generation of the Chinese Communist Party rule. Deng claimed that China was in the first stage of socialism, so the party’s objective was to improve the socialism in a Chinese style. This interpretation of Marxism reduced the role of ideology in economic thinking and lead to more effective political and economic decisions. Renouncing to the communist ideology values, even if not at the entire Marxist-Leninist inheritance, Deng decreed that “socialism does not mean dividing poverty”. His

theoretical acceptance of the market economy rules was: “Planning and Economy market are not essential differences between socialism and capitalism. A planned economy is not the definition of socialism, because there is planning in capitalism as well. There is also market economy in socialism. Planning and market economy are both control levers of economic activity.”

Improving the relations with the outside world was the second important goal of Deng Xiaoping’s reform program. But the most important changes were internally, namely: social, political, and most obviously, economic ones. Deng’s reform objectives were expressed by the “Four directions of modernization”: agriculture, industry, science-technology and military. The strategy to achieve the level of a modern type industrialized nation was called “socialist market economy”.

Unlike other Chinese leaders, such as Hua Guofeng, Deng believed that no political theory must be rejected just because it was not associated with Mao, and unlike other more conservative leaders, such as

Deng Xiaoping with US President, Jimmy Carter

89

Chen Yu, Deng didn’t oppose the reforms just because they respected the principles of the capitalist economy.

His flexibility in thinking was highlighted by political statements such as: “We must not be afraid to adopt the most advanced management methods applied in the capitalist countries ... The essence of socialism is the liberalization and development of production systems ... Socialism and economy market are not incompatible ... Deviation to the right must worry us, but most importantly, we need to worry about our deviation to the left.”

Although Deng provided the support for his theoretical and political reforms, it is recognized by historians that few of them were designed by himself.

For example, Premier Zhou Enlai initiated years ago “The four directions of modernization”. In addition, many reforms have been implemented by local leaders under the gaze of the often lenient central authorities.

The success of these reforms led to their widespread introduction, leading thus ultimately to their implementation at a national level. Many reforms were inspired by the experience of the “East Asian Tigers” (a term that designated the economies of Taiwan, Hong

90

Kong, Singapore and South Korea). It has a striking contrast to Mikhail Gorbachev’s “Perestroika” model in which most of the reforms were designed by their mentor. Deng’s implementation reforms took place from the bottom to the upper scale as opposed to that of the USSR where they were implemented from the top to the bottom, which ultimately proved as a successful factor.

Deng’s reforms included the introduction of the centralized management type of planned economy by the technocrats with economic studies, abandoning the Mao’s campaign style of economy. This type of management was based on market mechanisms, unlike the Soviet model. Deng encouraged the decentralization in agriculture and the development of individual households. Locally, material incentives and not the political speeches were used to motivate the workforce, being even allowed to farmers to sell the products obtained from their own harvest on the open market.

These reforms were a success, achieving a real industrial revolution in China. They were the reverse of Mao’s isolationist economic policy. China decided to accelerate the modernization process

Deng Xiaoping with George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford in 1975

by increasing the volume of transactions with the outside world, in particular to obtain technology from developed countries, like Japan and the Western world. The consequence was the achieving of “the four directions of modernization” goals by attracting foreign investment funds and sending people to specialization in management, marketing and technology, leading thus to an accelerated economic development. Deng founded a number of special economic zones where foreign investment and market liberalization were encouraged, thus attracting many foreign companies.

In the past 20 years, China’s economy maintained its trend of accelerated growth, increasing its economic strength. In 2003, the global economic volume of China located it on the 7th place in the world and the volume of foreign trade located it on the 4th place. Following the constant development of its economy, China has passed the stage marked by shortages and entered into a period of economic material abundance. Important issues were resolved for hundreds of millions of people: food and clothing. Deng has withdrawn from the Politburo in 1987 and left his last official post (Chairman of the Military State Commission) in March 1990.

Following Deng’s reforms, China had even after his death an annual economic growth of 8%, having one

of the highest growth rates in the world. The inflation from the years following the Tiananmen demonstration repression, was also combated. Political institutions have become a guarantee of stability after Deng replaced the peasants-Revolutionaries with educated technocrats.

Social problems eased once with the increasing living standards. Deng’s reforms have left however a number of issues still unresolved. As a result of his reforms towards a market economy, it became obviously in the mid-1990’s that many state-owned enterprises (owned by the central government and not by local authorities) were not profitable and had to be closed in order not to become real black holes of the economy. Moreover, the benefits from the agricultural reform exhausted the income, and the agriculture became stagnant, leaving the Chinese leaders to look for new mechanisms to develop the rural areas, otherwise risking the emergence of mass social problems. Although he devised a political system based on a single party, a system that has managed to sustain an economic growth over a very long period, it is obvious that this model was far from being worthy of emulation, proof being the serious social problems from communist China, problems which culminated in the Tiananmen protests of 1989, crushed in blood by the Chinese Army.

Deng Xiaoping with US President, Gerald Ford

91

Na Li

Na Li (b. 26 February 1982 in Wuhan, Hubei, China) is a Chinese former professional tennis player, who achieved a career-high ranking of world No. 2 on the WTA Tour on 17 February 2014. Over the course of her career, Li won nine WTA singles titles, including two Grand Slam singles titles at the 2011 French Open and 2014 Australian Open. Li’s rise to prominence came after those victories, which made her the first and only Grand Slam singles champion from East Asia and Asia as a whole. Prior to this, she had already become the first player representing an East Asian and Asian country to appear in a Grand Slam singles final, a milestone she achieved at the 2011 Australian Open. Li was also the runner-up at the 2013 Australian Open and 2013 WTA Tour Championships, a three-time quarterfinalist at Wimbledon and a semifinalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and 2013 US Open.

Na Li was born in Wuhan, China. Her mother’s name is Li Yanping (李豔萍), while her father’s name is Li Shengpeng (李盛鵬), who was a professional badminton player and later worked as a sales representative for a famous company in Wuhan. Her father died of a cardiovascular disease when she was only 14 years old, but her mother didn’t say anything for a few weeks in order not to affect her game. At the age of 6 years old, she followed her father’s steps in badminton, but at 8 years old, Na was persuaded by coach Xia Xiyao of the youth tennis club from Wuhan to practice this sport. She became a professional tennis player in 1999.

At the end of 2002, Li left the national tennis team to study part-time at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), where she also obtained a degree in journalism.

On 27 January 2006, she married Jiang Shan, who became her personal coach. In 2008, she decided to quit the Chinese tennis system and to take the career into her own hands. Until 2012, she was forced to give to the Chinese state about 8% of her earnings thanks to her results, but in the same year, the sanction has been lifted. Na Li has a rose tattoo on her chest, but she kept it hidden for many years, because tattoos are not widely considered acceptable in China, particularly for women. On 19 January 2015, Na Li announced that she and her husband were expecting their first child. She gave birth to her daughter, Alisa on 3 June 2015.

92

Na Li

In the Roland Garros tournament, Li reached the championship as the No. 6 in the Pre-Classification, where she defeated in the first round Czech, Barbora Zahlahova-Strycova (6-3, 6-7, 6-3). In the second round, she defeated Spanish, Silvia Soler Espinosa (64, 7-5), while in the third round Li crushed Romanian, Sorana Cirstea in a comfortable 6-2, 6-2. In the 4th round, the Chinese tennis woman beat Czech, Petra Kvitova by 2-6, 6-1, 6-3, while in the quarterfinals, she defeated Belarussian Victoria Azarenka by 7-5, 6-2. In the Semifinals she did the same with Russian Maria Sharapova 6-4, 7-5. On Saturday, 4 June 2011, Na Li became the Roland Garros tournament champion after beating the defending champion, Italian Francesca Schiavone by 6-4, 7-6, thus becoming the first Asian player to win a tournament of Grand Slam.

In the Wimbledon Championship of 2012, Li defeated Ksenia Pervak of Kazakhstan, falling in the second round against Romanian Sorana Cirstea.

In the Olympics, Li came close to a good chance of winning a medal, after the last Olympics, but ended the

Na Li at the 2009 US Open

93

competition prematurely, by failing to defeat Slovakian, Daniela Hantuchova in the first round.

During the grass season of 2013, Li played in just two tournaments, the first one being the Eastbourne tournament, where she reached the quarterfinals, but lost against Russian Elena Vesnina. From there, she went to Wimbledon where she also reached the quarterfinals, losing to Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland. In the US tour, Li arrived in the semifinals of Toronto and Cincinnati, losing to Sorana Cirstea in the first tournament and to Serena Williams in the second one. In the US Open, Li defeated Olga Govortsova, Sofia Arvidsson, Laura Robson, Jelena Janković and Ekaterina Makarova to arrive for the first time in the semifinals of this Grand

94

Slam. In the US Open semifinals, she was defeated by Serena Williams.

Na Li began the 2014 year by winning the Shenzhen tournament against Peng Shuai by 6-4, 7-5.

She also won the Australian Open by 7-6, 6-0 against Dominika Cibulkova in one hour and 37 minutes. Na Li extended her negative record in Melbourne by not winning against any of the top ten rivals in those two weeks. Having not played since Wimbledon due to a left knee injury which required surgery, Li announced her retirement from professional tennis on 19 September 2014. She ended her career ranked world No. 6 by the Women’s Tennis Association. That year, she was named one of ESPNW’s Impact 25.

Na Li at the 2011 French Open

Chinese cuisine

95

3. Once the time expired, heat 2 tablespoons of peanut oil into a wok and put the chicken together with the Gong Bao marinade all in that state (in a large proportion it will blend with the meat).

4. Fry the chicken pieces on all sides, then remove Ingredients: them on a plate.

• 1 skinless and boneless Chicken breast (550g) 5. In the same wok, heat the last tablespoon of oil. Put • 75 g unsalted roasted peanuts the garlic passed through the press, the hot pepper • 165g cucumber pieces (sliced) and ginger (chopped).

• 1 carrot 6. After a few seconds (about 10 seconds), add the • 25g Chili pepper white part of the green onion (sliced as well). Add • 2-4 teaspoons chili sauce the carrot and leave them for a couple of tens of • 12g ginger seconds.

• 125g green onions 7. Put back into the wok the browned chicken pieces • 5 large cloves of garlic along with 50 ml of hot water. Let it come to a boil • 1 tablespoon of Maizena and put the remaining peanuts and soy sauce (2 • 1 tablespoon rice vinegar tablespoons).

• 4 tablespoons soy sauce 8. After one or two minutes, add the green parts of the • 4 tablespoons peanut oil onions (sliced). Mix gently.

• 1 tablespoon Brown sugar 9. Put sauce pepper (first 2 teaspoons, taste and, if • Salt and pepper necessary, in place one to two teaspoons).

10. The Gong Bao chicken must be spicy, but you must decide the degree of hotness!

Steps: 11. Put some salt, put a little pepper and the cucumber 1. Dice the chicken breast into cubes. Put the cubes into (partially peel it, cut it in half lengthwise, remove a bowl with rice vinegar, brown sugar, 2 tablespoons the seeds and cut the pulp into cubes). Stir and turn of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon peanut oil, Maizena and a off the fire. little salt and pepper.

2. Stir so that the chicken is bathed in the marinade 12. Serve the chicken immediately with a garnish of boiled rice (without spices, just with a little salt). evenly. Cover and leave to cool at least 30 minutes.

96

Gong Bao

then dry it thoroughly with paper towels.

2.

Bring to a boil the water with the soy sauce, honey, Roasted Duck with rice wine and lemon, then let it simmer for another Orange sauce (Pecking 20 minutes over low heat.

3. Catch the duck with a metal hook from the top.

Duck) 4. Keep it over a large bowl and baptize it well with Ingredients: the hot mixture (use the mixture 3-4 times until the • 1 whole duck (thawed overnight in the refrigerator) entire amount of liquid is completely finished and • 1 liter of water the duck changes its colour to brown) • 3 tablespoons soy sauce 5. Hang it in a dry, cool, well ventilated place and let • 1 lemon (sliced) it be aired for at least 5-6 hours (or even overnight • 3 tablespoons honey if you have time), turning it occasionally so all parts • 150ml rice wine (Sake or you can use dry vermouth) would be well ventilated.

Chinese pancakes 6. After the hours spent in the dry climate, the duck • 280g flour will change its texture radically, her skin becoming • 280-300ml very hot water dry and looking like a plastic or parchment.

• 2-3 tablespoons of sesame oil 7. Approximately 30 to 40 minutes before taking the Sweet-spicy orange sauce duck from the dry place, turn the oven to 240°C. • 4-5 oranges environments (fresh, compote or even 8. When the oven has reached 240°C, place the duck jam) on the spike of a roast (if you have something like • 4 cloves of garlic (finely chopped) this in the oven) or with the breast side up on a roast • 1 medium onion medium (finely chopped) tray with grill (so it won’t stay in the fat that will • 1 tablespoon fresh ginger (grated) drain) and place it in the oven.

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce 9. After 15 minutes reduce the temperature to 180°C • 1/2 teaspoon hot chili sauce and leave the duck in the oven for another 70 Steps: minutes (total time in oven 15 + 70min) and then 1. Wash the duck, clean the excess fat (including the remove and let it rest for 10-15 minutes, covered in cavity) and the remains of feathers (if needed), and an aluminum foil.

Pecking Duck

97

10. For the Chinese pancakes - Pour hot water over the flour and knead it for about 8 minutes, until the dough gets an elastic consistency and a silky surface.

Cover with a damp kitchen towel and let it rest for about 30 minutes.

11. Knead the dough for another 1 min and then roll it into a roll of about 45x2.5cm and cut it into 18 equal pieces (about the size of a ping pong ball).

12. Put flour on the worktop and paddle, then work with two by two pieces.

13. Dip the bottom of one of the pieces in sesame oil and then place it over the other, pressing lightly with the palm.

14. Run the paddle over the two pieces one another until you get a pancake about the size of a CD (attention at the edges, don’t make them too thin otherwise they will stick).

15. Bake the pancakes in a hot but dry pan until brown spots appear on both sides.

16. Let them cool slightly, then peel the two pancakes (they will have a browned, dry side and a sticky soft one and because of the sesame oil they will fall slightly from one another).

17. Keep them covered with a damp cloth to serve them (you can reheat them in the microwave when the duck is ready).

18. For the orange sauce - Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and leave them for about 20 minutes over medium heat, stirring constantly.

19. Finally mix them well in blender or with a vertical mixer and eventually give the resulted sauce through a sieve to get a finer texture and let it cool.

20. After the duck has cooled down (after about 15 minutes) take a sharp knife and try to cut the skin in chunks as large as possible, which then you will cut into strips of about 3-4 cm and place them on a plate.

98

Zhajiangmian

Zhajiangmian Ingredients: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

300g boneless pork (shoulder, thigh, muscles, steak) 1 teaspoon hot pepper paste 20g ginger (peeled and finely chopped) 1 tablespoon brown sugar 1 piece star anise 2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce 1/2 teaspoon Sichuan pepper (whole grains) 1/2 fennel seeds 2 black cardamom pods 1 tablespoon rice oil Rice noodles (for garnish) 1 green onion (chopped in fine slices)

Steps:

1. Cut pork into thin strips, chop the ginger in thin slices, then chop the green onion into thin slivers.

2. Put the wok on high heat, then add the oil and through the rotation of the wok make it so that the oil reaches the pan’s walls.

3. When the oil begins to smoke, add the hot pepper paste.

4. Cook on high heat, stirring all the time until the oil becomes reddish and the pepper paste is dissolved.

5. Add the following into the wok: the ginger, brown sugar, pepper, fennel seeds, anise, the black cardamom pods and continue cooking, all at high heat, stirring constantly for approximately 30 seconds, so as to melt the sugar and the spices to begin to release their aroma.

6. Add the meat and cook at high heat, stirring all the time for about 1 minute.

7. Once the meat has changed its colour, pour water in the wok (not too much, enough to cover the meat).

8. When the water begins to boil, add the soy sauce, rice wine and stir.

9. Let it boil over medium heat for approximately 2025 minutes.

10. When the meat is tender and the sauce has reduced take the wok off the heat.

11. Prepare the rice noodles according to the packet instructions, put them on the plate, then add, over the pieces of meat covered in sauce.

12. Garnish with sliced green onions and enjoy this delicious sweet-spicy pork.

Chow Mein

Chow Mein Ingredients:

• 400g boneless chicken breast (without skin, sliced very thin) • 1 teaspoon of 5 Chinese flavors • 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce • 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce (or to taste) • 1-2 teaspoons starch • 200g noodles (usually of rice or wheat) • 1/2 red bell pepper (peeled and cut into strips) • 2 spring onions (chopped) • 100g fresh mung bean sprouts • 4 tablespoons brown sesame oil • 1 tablespoon peanut oil (or sunflower) • 2-4 tablespoons light soy sauce • Fresh coriander leaves (to serve)

Steps:

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

1. Pour the starch with a little soy sauce or water in 9.

a bowl. This way it will better integrate into the marinade.

Marinade the chicken in a large bowl with the starch mixture, mix the five flavours, the dark soy sauce and the hot pepper sauce for about 20-30 minutes.

Cook the noodles in boiling water and rehydrate them for 3 minutes. Drain and cool under running cold water to stop the cooking process.

Then sprinkle them with a little sesame oil and mix.

In this manner they will not stick between them and the sesame oil will give them a special taste.

Heat a wok over medium heat. Add the peanut oil and heat it.

After it begins to smoke slightly, add the meat and cook very quick at high heat for 1 minute, stirring so that it will brown evenly.

Add the peppers and the bean sprouts and stir. Cook for another 1 minute.

Add in the wok the noodles and stir. Quickly fry them for 1-2 minutes. Add the soy sauce, pouring it on the walls of the wok, add the remaining sesame oil, the green onion and the coriander.

Serve immediately the hot, steaming recipe.

99

General Tso’s Chicken

General Tso’s Chicken Ingredients:

• • • •

1 teaspoon wine vinegar 5 tablespoons of tomato juice 1 teaspoon starch 1 teaspoon water

Steps: 3 boneless chicken thighs (without skin) 1. Cut the chicken thighs into cubes, put them in a 3 spring onions bowl and add all the ingredients for the marinade 4 cloves of garlic over them.

5 sheaths of dried chili (original recipe says 8 but 2. Mix well and put everything in the fridge for 20 you can do it at your own risk!) minutes.

• 5 tablespoons of oil (for frying) 3.

Mix all the sauce ingredients into a bowl and set For the marinated chicken: them aside.

• 1/3 teaspoon salt 4.

The green onion must be cut into pieces of 5 cm • 2 tablespoons soy sauce length. Separate the white part from the green one.

• 2 teaspoons rice wine The white one will be used at first. The green one • 2 teaspoons starch will be used at the end of the cooking.

• 2 tablespoons water 5. Break the dried chili pods in two pieces. If you want For the sauce: the food to be hotter, use the seeds of the peppers.

• 3 tablespoons sugar 6. Crush the garlic.

• • • •

100

7. In a frying pan fry the chicken pieces in hot oil.

8. After they got a golden color, take them out and set them aside.

9. In the wok pour a tablespoon of oil and add the garlic, chilies and the white part of the onion. Cook everything for a couple of seconds.

10. Add the fried chicken pieces.

11. Let everything on the fire for about a minute in order for the ingredients to combine their flavours with the chicken, then add the tomato sauce earlier made.

12. After a few seconds when the sauce thickens, take the wok from the heat because it is already done!

Finally, add the green onions.

Yuanwei Xiaochi Ingredients:

• Half a chicken breast (cut into cubes) or pork meat • Half a carrot (cut into rods)

• 3 Chinese sliced aromatic mushrooms (you can replace them with Champignons, Pleurotus or anything else) • Grated ginger • A pinch of chili powder • Few strips of red pepper • A tablespoon of oil • Green onions (as many as you want) • Salt • A package of Chinese noodles

Steps:

1. Fry the chicken pieces together with the carrot rods in oil until crisp (In a pot).

2. Add 2 bowls of water with salt, the ginger and chili powder and let it boil for 10 minutes.

3. Then add the cut pepper strips and the noodles and leave everything for 3-4 minutes.

4. Finally add a tablespoon of soy sauce and a teaspoon of rice vinegar. Add the green onions as well.

5. Note! Not sure if this is the original Chinese recipe.

This is the closest one found.

Yuanwei Xiaochi

101

Jiaozi Ingredients:

For the dough: • 370g flour • 200 ml hot water • 1 pinch salt For the filling: • 200g of chopped Chinese cabbage • 400g of pork or turkey200g chopped Shiitake or Mun mushrooms (if using them dried, soak in hot water for 20 minutes to rehydrate) • 1/2 teaspoon salt • 1 tablespoon grated ginger (or chopped) • 6 spring onions • 1 egg • 2 garlic cloves • Pepper (to taste) • 1 and ½ tablespoons soy sauce • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil • 1 tablespoon sesame oil • 1 tablespoon rice vinegar • 1 red pepper (to taste) For the sauce: • Light soy sauce • 1 tablespoon grated sugar

102

• • • •

Rice vinegar 1 teaspoon finely grated ginger Chili 1 teaspoon sesame oil

Steps:

1. Prepare a soft and elastic dough formed out of hot water, 1 pinch of salt and flour. Place in a zipper bag and let it rest for 15-20 minutes.

2. For the sauce, mix all the ingredients in the desired proportion, so that the taste would be balanced.

3. Prepare the filling by mixing all the ingredients in a bowl and kneading them vigorously. Season the filling to taste.

4. On the floured worktop, the dough is split into two.

The half you don’t need should be resealed. Roll the dough to the worktop with a rolling pin into a thin sheet of 1 mm. Discs are cut with a round shape with a diameter of 10-12 cm.

5. The leftovers from the cutting are to be kept in a bag.

At the end knead it a little, let it rest for 15 minutes and stretch it again.

6. In the center of each disc put a teaspoon of filling, moisten the edges with water and shape the dumplings as shown in the picture above.

7. Jiaozi dumplings are cooked either steamed, fried or boiled. For the fried variant, heat a little oil in a pan, place the dumplings and cook just until the

Jiaozi

base turns golden.

8. Add 150 ml of water and put the lid on. Cook for 6-7 minutes until they penetrate.

9. Serve hot with the sauce prepared previously.

Ants in a tree

Ants in a tree (Mayi Shang Shu) Ingredients: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

300g minced pork 200g noodles 5 dry wood ear mushrooms 2 spring onions 1 piece of ginger 2 cloves garlic 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 2 chilies Sichuan pepper 1 teaspoon starch 2 tablespoons light soy sauce 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce 1 teaspoon rice wine 1 teaspoon chili oil (if you don’t, supplement with another sheath of chili) • 2 teaspoons sesame oil

leave for 5 minutes, then pass them through cold water and drain.

4. Finely chop the chili, ginger, garlic and the onion.

Separate the white part of the onion from the green one.

5. Heat 1/2 teaspoon pepper and one teaspoon sesame oil in a wok.

6. Over the hot oil add the finely chopped chili peppers.

7. Then add the white part of the onion, ginger, garlic and the Sichuan pepper.

8. The vast majority of Sichuan cuisine recipes require this kind of pepper, so it is also called Sichuan pepper.

9. Fry everything for a few seconds then add the minced meat previously prepared. Sauté until it begins to form a sauce.

10. Cut the wood ear mushrooms and add them to the meat mixture.

11. Add the rice noodles drained of water, and over them the light soy sauce and the remaining chili oil.

12. Mix everything well so that the pieces of meat should be mixed with the noodles. Transfer everything to a platter.

13. Sprinkle everywhere with freshly ground pepper and then add the green onions.

Chao Fan Ingredients: • • • • • • • •

2 spring onions (finely chopped) 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon salt Pepper 2 or 3 tablespoons oil 2 cups of cooked rice (at least one day ago) 2 tablespoons soy sauce Ham or any type of meat finely chopped

Steps:

1. Remove by hand the pelleted rice that were made by the boiling and cooling of the rice.

Steps: 1. The dry wood ear mushrooms are placed to soak in 2. Beat the eggs as for scrambled eggs.

3. Fry the eggs in the pan stirring constantly but don’t a bowl of water. dry them. Fry the meat as well. Then pour them into 2. The minced meat is put into a bowl and salt is a bowl and wash the pan added over it, 1 teaspoon of soy sauce, rice vinegar, 4.

Add 2 or 3 tablespoons of oil and then add the rice.

1 teaspoon of sesame oil and starch. Mix well and Fry for 2-3 minutes, until the rice is hot. leave it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

3. Sink the noodles in a pot with boiling water and 5. Add soy sauce. Mix everything but be careful not to 103

Chao Fan

crush the rice grains.

6. Add the egg and green onions over the rice and mix Steps: well. Fry a few more minutes.

1. Grate the zest of a lime and set aside. Squeeze the 7. If you want to add the small pieces of meat (chicken, juice and collect it in a bowl. Scrape the vanilla pork or shrimp) separately fry the meat in a pan seeds from the pod. with soy sauce, sugar and rice wine and combine at 2. Choose a ripe mango fruit. Take off the mango’s the end the bits of meat with the rice. kernel and skin, then chop the pulp and put it in a blender. Add the lime juice over the resulted purée (if you like it sweet, you can add a little powdered Mango Pudding sugar) then pass it through a fine sieve to become very fine.

3. Half of the mango puree will be divided into 4 Ingredients: glasses that will be put in the freezer, while the rest • 150 ml tapioca pearls of the puree will be kept aside.

• 165 ml Coconut milk 4. Measure an amount of cold water 6 times bigger the • 450 ml cow milk volume of the tapioca beads. If you use 150 ml of • 1 lime tapioca, then you should measure 750 ml of water.

• 1 mango Beware, though, if the tapioca pearls are larger, • 1 vanilla pod around 3-4 mm in diameter, it’s better to use 7 times • Brown sugar (to taste) their volume.

• Mint (for decoration) 5. Place the tapioca pearls in a saucepan and add the 104

cold water. Place on medium heat, heat up and stir constantly with a spoon until the mixture thickens like a polenta.

6. Overturn the “polenta� into a thick colander thick and rinse under cold water, stirring slowly until the tenacious water disappears and it remains in the colander just the tapioca beads.

7. Place the tapioca pearls in a saucepan and add the coconut milk, cow’s milk, lime zest and the vanilla seeds.

8. Place the pan on the heat and simmer, stirring gently until all the tapioca pearls become translucent and the milk becomes slightly irreverent. Do not expect to be very thick, the composition has to be semiliquid.

9. Pour into glasses the tapioca pudding over the already solidified mango puree, so that it will remain place in the glasses to add the remaining puree over.

10. Allow the pudding to cool to room temperature, then add the remaining mango puree and some fresh mint leaflets. Refrigerate before serving.

Mango Pudding

Green Tea

105

China Travel

106

Beijing

Temple of Heaven

107

Mao Zedong’s Mausoleum

Fayuan Temple

The Ancient Forbidden City

View of the Forbidden City from the Coal Hill Park

108

Central Business District

Beijing Ancient Observatory

Beihai Park

Beijing Zoo

Beijing Summer Palace

109

Marble Boat

Beijing’s National Stadium

110

Beijing Capital Museum

Tiananmen Square

Temple of Confucius

Beijing Stadium

The Lama Temple

111

Shanghai

Longhua Temple and Pagoda

112

Shanghai Financial District at night

Nanjing Road

113

China Art Museum

Qibao Town

Shanghai Museum

Shanghai Science and Technology Museum

Jade Buddha Temple

114

Tianzifang

Oriental Pearl Tower

People’s Square

115

116

World Financial Center (left) and the Jin Mao Tower (right)

Yu Garden

Lujiazui District

117

Guangzhou

Canton Tower

118

Bright Filial Piety Temple

Pearl River

119

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Former Site of Whampoa Military Academy

Yuexiu Park

Shamian Island

120

Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street

Hong Kong

Kowloon Clock Tower

121

Victoria Harbour

Hong Kong

Hong Kong by night

Po Lin Monastery

122

Tian Tan Buddha

Tibet

Mount Everest seen from Tibet

123

Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet

Tibetan People on the high plateaus

124

Lalu Wetlands

Tibetan Plateau

125

Taiwan

Taipei 101

126

Rainbow Village

Sun Moon Lake

127

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

Miramar Ferris Wheel

128

Dragon & Tiger Pagodas

Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum

Longshan Temple

129

National Palace Museum

Taiwan Presidential Building

Fort Zeelandia

130

Chimei Museum

Other Places

Lingyin Temple

131

Saint Sophia Orthodox Cathedral in Harbin

132

Chinese Great Wall

Another View of the Chinese Great Wall

133

Great Wall of China at Jinshanling

Zhangjiajie National Park

Old Town of Lijiang

134

Rice terraced fields of Weng Jia Shan Longjing in Hunan

Grand Lisboa and Casino Lisboa in Macau

Guiyang, skyline at Jiaxiu Pavilion on the Nanming River

135

Xi’an City Wall

Xi’an Bell Tower

View of the Li River and the Elephant Trunk Hill in Guilin

Yuantong Temple in Kunming

136

The Terracotta Army in Xi’an

Tianmen Mountains

Road on the Tianmen Mountain

Natural Arch and Stairway in the Tianmen Mountains

Anshun Bridge at night

Anshun Bridge in Chengdu

137

Xinjiang Mountains

Huangshan Mountains

138

Walkway on Gulangyu, Xiamen

Sea Goddess of Mercy in Sanya

Mandarin Oriental Luxury Resort in Sanya

Suzhou Canal

Hupao Spring (Dreaming of the tiger spring) in Huangzhou

139

Five Fingers Peak of Huangshizhai

Xi’apu Mudflat

Fenghuang ancient town in Hunan

140

Yalong Bay in Hainan

Thousand Buddha Mountain in Jinan

Confucian Temple in the Chongming District

Heaven Lake in the Changbai Mountains

Hongcun Ancient Village

141

Echoing Sand Mountain and Crescent Lake in Dunhuang

Shennongjia Virgin Forest

142

Huangguoshu Waterfall

Chengdu Mountain Resort

WuYuan county in Jiangxi

Hiking Trail at Mount Lu

Lingshan “Five Signets” Palace

143

Sand Dunes of the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia

Hukou Waterfall

144

Five Flower Lake in Jiuzhaigou

Qinghai Lake

Thousand Island Lake

Laozi stone statue in front of Mount Qingyuan

Yungang Grottoes in Shanxi

145

Reed Flute Cave

Nalati Grasslands

Longmen Grottoes

Nanxi River

146

Lake Karakul and Mount Kongur

Lugu Lake in Yunnan

147

Leshan Giant Buddha Statue

Stone Forest

148

Erhai Lake in Yunnan

Pangong Tso

149

Longsheng Yunhe Rice Terraces

The Three Pagodes of Dali

150