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CULTURE Tea Culture
Festivals
Qin Qi Shu Hua
Literature
Music
Cuisine
Tea Culture
Chinese tea has a history of over 5,000 years, during which a
series of unique tea culture have come into being, covering from
tea plant cultivation and conservation, tea-leaf picking to processing
and sampling tea. Tealeaves are mainly produced in the southern
area to the Yangtze River for mild climate and fertile ground there.
Tea culture is one of the common traits shared by all the 56 ethnic
groups in China. Many Chinese people believe that a day is not perfect
without a cup of tea. Either in the warm southern mountain area
or on the frozen northern grassland, stuff like Gongfu tea, buttered
tea and milk tea are all among the favorite drinks. Furthermore,
both ancient and modern Chinese people tend to indulge in elaborating
on poems, essays, dances and dramas on the tea.
Festivals
Festivals occupy an important position in the Chinese life. Although
they offer sacrifices to gods on festivals, the gods are actually
of secondary importance.
The most important of all the festivals, of course, is the "spring
festival," and even on this day, the offerings are intended
for people to consume, and the gods are believed to raise no objection
to this. Chinese also call Spring Festival ”°Guo Nian”±. The word
"Guo" in Chinese has both the meaning of "pass-over"
and "observe". The word Nian, which in modern Chinese
solely means "year", was originally the name of a monster
beast that started to prey on people the night before the beginning
of a new year. There is a legend about ”°Nian”±.
The 15th day of the first lunar month, the first full moon after
the Spring Festival, is the occasion for the Lantern Festival. It
is customary to eat special sweet dumplings called yuanxiao and
enjoy displayed lanterns during this festival. Yuanxiao, round balls
made of glutinous rice flour stuffed with sugar fillings, symbolize
reunion. The custom of enjoying lanterns at this time of the year
dates back to the first century, and has continued to be popular
through China up to present.
The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar
month.It is generally believed that the festival originated to celebrate
the memory of the ancient patriotic poet Qu Yuan.
"Zhong Qiu Jie" which is also known as the Mid-Autumn
Festival, is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the
lunar calendar. Mid-Autumn is a time for family members and loved
ones to congregate and enjoy the full moon - an auspicious symbol
of abundance, harmony and luck. Adults will usually indulge in fragrant
moon cakes of many varieties with a good cup of piping hot Chinese
tea, while the little ones run around with their brightly-lit lanterns.
Qin Qi Shu Hua
Culture is omnipresent. Qin (a Chinese stringed instrument somewhat
like zither), qi (Chinese chess or go), shu (calligraphy) and hua
( painting) are the four most popular traditional forms of entertainment.
The point is not how good you can get; rather, it is the mood and
atmosphere these activities build up for the player. It is a tempering
of the character. There is dao ( literally, way or path; norm, principle)
for everything. Playing Chinese chess or go, for example, is not
just for winning. In the processing of playing, one can learn the
art of self-composure and the spirit of detachment to fame and gain.
Literature
China has a rich literary tradition. Much of it is inaccessible
to western readers for less of translation. And much of the Chinese
literary heritage (particularly its poetry) is untranslatable, though
many of the most important Chinese classics are available in translation.
The essential point to bear in mind when discussing Chinese literature
is that prior to the 20th century there were two literary traditions:
the classical and the vernacular. The classical tradition was the
Chinese equivalent of a literary canon, largely Confucian in nature,
consisted of a core of texts written in ancient Chinese that had
to be mastered thoroughly by all aspirants to the Chinese civil
service, and was the backbone of the Chinese education system, it
was nearly indecipherable to the masses. The vernacular tradition
arose in the Ming Dynasty and consisted largely of prose epics written
for entertainment.
For western readers it is the vernacular texts, precursors of
the contemporary Chinese novel and short story, that are probably
of more interest. Most of them are available in translation and
provide a fascinating insight into life in China centuries past.
Music
Legend assigns the birth of Chinese music to the reign of the semi-mythical
Shang emperor Huangdi in 2697BC. Traditional Chinese music uses
a 12-tone system that is markedly different from the traditional
Western scale. Major traditional instruments include the zither
(guqin), the lute (pipa), the horizontal flute (dizi), the vertical
flute (xiao), the ceremonial trumpet (suona), and the two-stringed
viola (huqin).
However these days, a visitor to China is more likely to encounter
Taiwanese or Hong Kong pop songs than traditional tunes. And Sino-pop
has developed into a genre to itself, Cui Jian and Dou Wei are names
of distinction among the performers of Chinese pop.
Cuisine
As Chinese proverb says "Food is the first necessity of the
people." Food is indispensable for the survival of human beings.
Cuisine forms an inseparable part of a nation's culture. Chinese
cuisine culture has a long history and also a profundity of its
variety. Chinese cooking is popular all over the world.
The cuisine is well-known as one of the three best cuisines of
China, the other two are Sichuan and Huaiyang cuisine. Thanks to
the large-scale emigration from Guangdong (Canton) to elsewhere
in the world, Cantonese become the best-known Chinese cuisine.
Cantonese food is characterized by its great variety, and its delicate
spices and freshness of ingredients.
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