Tag: Dialogue

What Do You Like Least About Living In China?

Expats living in China can have unrealistic expectations of what life here should be like, often based on rather warped memories of their home countries. (Whenever I’m frustrated by bureaucracy I think back to the American Department of Motor Vehicles and feel grateful that there’s no place like home.) We can also forget that living as an expat in other countries can be equally, if not more, challenging. Of course that doesn’t mean that people living in China – locals or foreigners – can’t have legitimate complaints or peeves about living here; nor do a few complaints about crowded subways or lack of orderly queues make you an enemy of the state. Sometimes it helps to get things out – a little complaining among friends can potentially stave off an outburst against strangers later – so we asked you…

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Main Tourist Attractions in Beijing

Tian’anmen Sguare Situated in the center of Beijing, the Tian’anmen Square is 880m long from south to north ,and 500m wide from east to west, with an area of 440,000sq m. It is the largest square in the city center in the world. The Monument to the People’s Heroes and Chairman Mao Memorial Hall stand in the center ;on the western side of the square is the Great Hall of the people. On the eastern side is the National Museum of China; on the south stand the Zhengyang Gate and Qianmen Embrasured Watchtower, and on the northern side the Tiananmen Gate-tower and the Palace Museum. The Tian’anmen square is imposing, spectacular, tidy, symmetrical and full of power and grandeur. At dawn every day, the five-star red flag the national flag of the People’ Republic of China, is being raised slowly and solemnly.

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Qibo of China

Qibo(岐伯Qí Bó), was a mythological(based on or told of in traditional stories; lacking factual basis or historical validity) Chinese doctor, employed by the Huangdi(黄帝Huángdì) as his minister. It is said that he was enlightened with the knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine by an ethereal being from the heavens.

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Yuefu 乐府 Songs of the Music Bureau

The yuefu 乐府 "[songs of the] Music Bureau" is a poetic genre prevalent during the Han period 汉 (206 BC-220 CE). In this narrow sense it is called Han yuefu 汉乐府. It introduced both a new kind of shape (five-syllable verses) and new contents at a social and often very personal level into Chinese poetry. The yuefu was so popular that Han period yuefu were imitated by later poets until the mid-Tang period 唐 (618-907). The term Han yuefu often includes ancient, i. e. anonymous songs (gushi 古诗) from the Han period which are, from the origin and the content, actually no yuefu songs. Examples of these songs can be found in the collection Gushi shijiu shou 古诗十九首.

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Style and Art of Writing

In style and art of writing, both early and later mythical stories are superb. Classical Chinese is extremely concise. A few hundred, even a few dozen words are enough to tell a story complete with dialogue and behavioral and psychological descriptions. Take The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains. After he heard that the Foolish Old Man of North Mountain had begun digging the Taihang and Wangwu Mountains.

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