Category: Chinese customs

Today let's take a brief introduction of a famous Chinese movie named "Seediq Bale".Seediq Bale is a 2011 Taiwanese historical drama film directed by Wei Te-Sheng and produced by John Woo, based on Wushe Incident in central Taiwan in 1930. It took Wei Te-Sheng twelve years to design and involved twenty thousand actors from China and Japan. It firstly opened in Taiwan in September, 2011. Later on, this film won several awards of the Golden Horse Award, such as Best Feature Film, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Film Song, Best Sound Effects, etc.

Mysterious Tiger of Ancient Ba People

In ancient China, the White Tiger is a collection of seven stars in the western group of 28 Constellations (while the eastern, northern and southern seven-star groups are respectively called Gray Dragon, Black Turtle and Red Phoenix). The White Tiger is said to oversee the weapons and wars of mankind, and is known as a god of fighting and killing. During the wars of the Western Zhou (c.1100 BC – c. 771 BC) and Shang Dynasty (c.1600 BC – c. 1100 BC), a brave and resourceful army got high praise from King Wu of Zhou, thereby claiming the name of “huben” and “hushi”, both meaning “brave warriors.” These were warriors of the ancient Ba people. The tiger later became an important component of central Han culture.

Prehistoric Cultural Relics from Zhejiang Provincial Museum

How long is the Chinese culture? Maybe no one can answer the question. We only know that only in Zhejiang Province quite a lot of prehitoric cultural relics have been discovered, which can prove long history of China.

Magpie Dress

There is a small intermontane plain called a bazi in the Yunnan(云南Yúnnán) local dialect. Baofengba in Puning County is a village inhabited by the Hans. When I saw Luo Meiying, the township leader, she wore a typical peasant dress: a black cloth scarf wrapped apron on her head, a white tight jacket covered with a black lace vest, an embroidered apron around her waist, blue pants and embroidered cotton shoes. Sensing my curiosity, she told me that it was called a magpie dress because the black head and body and white wings.

White Deer Plain 白鹿原

Today let's take a brief introduction of a famous Chinese movie named "White Deer Plain".White Deer Plain is a 2012 Chinese movie directed by Wang Quan'an and based on the novel of the same name by Chen Zhongshi, a famous modern author in China. This is a movie starring by Zhang Fengyi, Zhang yuqi and Duan Yihong. It reflects the conflicts between Bai family and Lu family through three generations, with the background of Bai Lu Village on Guanzhong Plain in Shaanxi province.

Dragon and Tiger in folk art

The tiger is a popular theme in chinese folk art. One may encounter numerous images of tigers in almost all forms of folk art: paper-cuts, embroidery sculptre, new year prints and others.

Colours and Clothing in China

When it comes to clothes, we usually think about colours and styles. And people's preference differs.

Red Sorghum 红高粱

Today let's take a brief introduction of a famous Chinese movie named "Red Sorghum".The film Red Sorghum was adapted from Families of Red Sorghum, a novel by the famous Chinese author Mo Yan. It was shot in 1988, directed by Yimou Zhang and co-starred Jiang Wen and Gong Li. This film shows a quite strong style of Zhang and is considered as one of Zhang’s best works and the landmark of Chinese film industry. It received China Film Golden Rooster Award for the best feature-length film, best cameraman award, best music award and a best recording award in 1988. What is more, it won the 11th Hundred Flowers Award for the best feature-length film and the Golden Bear for the best- feature film on the 38th Berlin International Film Festival.

Interior Painting in Snuff Bottles

Snuff bottles are not native to China but were reportedly introduced from the West by Fr.Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit father who worked in Beijing in the early 17th century. Yet the art of interior painting in snuff bottles was born and developed in China and unique to the country.

About the origin of the Chinese script

It have been different stories about the origin of the Chinese script(汉字字型hànzì zìxíng), with nearly all ancient writers attributing it to a man named Cangjie(仓颉CāngJié).