Chinasage : All about China
China sage's information will be of use to anyone keen to learn more about the world's upcoming nation. We cover all aspects of China in hundreds of detailed pages which include all sorts of cultural traditions , descriptions of every Chinese province and all the dynasties . We hope you find ChinaSage the home for your study of China.
You can also check out your knowledge of China with our Quiz section .
Traditions
About Chinasage
We're building an extensive set of information all about China. We found other sites too detailed (such as Wikipedia) or just too old-fashioned. What we thought was needed was a carefully constructed site with strict editorial control so that everything is consistent and easy to navigate without clutter.
The name “Chinasage” came about because it can be read as either “China sage” (中 国 英 明 zhōng guó yīng míng ) or “China’s age” (中 国 时 代 zhōng guó shí dài ) , which promotes our new knowledge resource at a time when China has come of age in the world.
All the tea in China
Tea was the most important export that was weighed in the traditional Chinese unit of measurement called a 'catty'. It is known colloquially as the Chinese pound and is about 1.1pounds. In China it is known as the jin 斤 the word catty probably came from the Malay word. The modern weight is aligned to the metric system as exactly 500grams. The container for tea, a 'caddy', is believed to have been named after the measure.
Getting by in China There are many customs and traditions that you should know before traveling to China. Our customs page covers such things as giving gifts, banquets, sealing business deals and how to behave in public. A respect for age old traditions will impress your hosts who will appreciate your efforts to embrace the culture. Read more…
The Chinese Language Let's get you started with a few simple sentences and phrases in both spoken and written Chinese. We begin with key concepts and introduces the most common and useful words and phrases in Chinese. Read more…
Delicious Chinese food A fine Chinese meal is a carefully balanced mixtures of flavors, textures, colors and food types. Although Western fast food has made major inroads in the cities there is still a great appreciation of Chinese food as one of the finer pleasures in life. Etiquette at formal banquets is important for visitors to understand before visiting China. Each region in China has its own variations with local specialities, the cuisine in southerly Guangdong is very different from that of northerly Gansu. Read more…
Consult the Yi Jing We offer a free consultation for Yi Jing (I Ching) the Chinese system for fortune telling. It uses the ancient yarrow stick method and gives full information about the 'gua' (hexagram) that is chosen. The consultation takes account of user action - it is not random. Read more…
Chinese Tortures China since early Imperial times has had a system of brutal punishments for crime. Torture was routinely used to extract a confession and there was no defense attorney to help you. For high treason a particularly gruesome and painful death was devised - death by a thousand cuts. Even today China uses the death penalty more frequently than the rest of the world put together. Read more…
All Chinese Festivals Our extensive section on Chinese festivals gives the dates and backgrounds on over 30 of them. Our festivals page has full details of the origin and observance of each of them as well as a handy diary for when they will next fall. Essential when planning a trip to China. Read more…
Peony The peony is a frequent art motif in China. It is considered one of the best flowers of spring and was much loved by Empress Wu Zetian . Read more…
Cracking China book
Your A-Z key to understanding China
We are proud to announce a printed book all about China based loosely on this web site. It is a set of sixty topics in A-Z order covering everything from hair to kiwifruit, clapping to rhubarb, eunuchs to dragons. Buying a copy will help support Chinasage . Now available as a Kindle eBook for just $3.90.
Details... ➚
Paper money
As China invented paper it is perhaps not surprising that the Chinese were the first to introduce paper money . It was over 1,000 years ago that the use of 'flying money' became widespread. It started off as paper IOUs but only with government support and control did it become trusted by the people. Read more…
History
Dip into history Our history section has a page for each major dynasty, for the whole period from the time of myths and legends 5,000 years ago all the way through the Han, Tang, Song, Ming dynasties to the last great dynasty the Qing. Read more…
The Qin Dynasty The brief spell of rule by the Qin (only 15 years) defined much of what we now about China. The totalitarian rule of Qin Shihuangdi set common standards for all sorts of things across his new vast empire including measurements and the Chinese script. Read more…
Ancient states and kingdoms within China Before the Qin empire was formed China was split into several distinct kingdoms or states. These names are often mentioned in old tales and histories. There are also other kingdoms that split off from China for brief periods. Read more…
Mandate of Heaven The emperor ruled China not by individual right but because he possessed the 'Mandate of Heaven'. When this is lost by mis-management, ill fortune or corruption he loses the mandate and the people have the right to depose him. Read more…
先 xiān first; before 儿 ér legs radical 10]Origin Consists of a small plant on top of legs and has the meaning of 'advance' and hence be first Full information for 先
Superpower China An in-depth overview of the position of China in the world and its likely future. Is China on track to become the leading world super-power as it once was? For thousands of years China was by any measure the top nation on Earth, and so it seems natural that after 150 years of turmoil China will become the leading country again. We speculate on what this might mean to China and the rest of the world. Read more…
The Long March The epic tale of the struggle of thousands of soldiers over thousands of miles of challenging terrain has been held up as the chief heroic episode in the early days of the Communist party. It was during the Long March that Mao Zedong emerged as leader with his own vision for the future of China. Read more…
Geography
China's diverse geography China has deserts, mountains, lakes, rain forests and almost every other type of geographical feature you can think of. Our geography section has pages for each individual province as well as the great Yangzi and Yellow rivers. There are also pages on climate, cities, population, ethnic people, airports and universities. Read more…
Yellow River The valley of the mighty Yellow River was the cradle of Chinese civilization. The heavy load of silt that turns the waters 'yellow' creates rich farming land in the lower stretches. It is the second longest river in China after the Yangzi River . Read more…
All about the provinces that make up China For each of the 33 administrative regions (provinces and major cities) we give a brief history, guide to visitor attractions as well as airports, universities, climate and major towns and cities Read more…
China's Silk Road The silk road from China leading to India and also through Central Asia to the Middle East was the longest trade route by land. It allowed early contact between the Roman Empire and China when silk was in great demand in Rome. The trade brought great prosperity to the cities of Central Asia such as Samarkand and Bactra. Read more…
Chinese Cities We have all the important statistics on all the major cities in China. Gives Population, Chinese name and shows map of location within China as well as calculating distances to any other Chinese city. Read more…
Cracking China book
Your A-Z key to understanding China
We are proud to announce a printed book all about China based loosely on this web site. It is a set of sixty topics in A-Z order covering everything from hair to kiwifruit, clapping to rhubarb, eunuchs to dragons. Buying a copy will help support Chinasage . Now available as a Kindle eBook for just $3.90.
Details... ➚
Testimonial
“Your website-Chinasage- is an excellent source of information about china. In fact it is exhaustive and has rich information on everything one wants to know..!! Congratulations and Regards..!!!
Unsolicited comment from a genuine Chinasage visitor.
Language
The Chinese Language The Chinese language is rightly treasured as the country's greatest accomplishment. Our language section describes the language and its history. The section includes some introductory lessons and a guide to writing the characters. Read more…
Chinese numbers Learning the numbers in Chinese is easier than in many other languages. In our complete guide to the numbers we include the traditions associated them. For example, do you know why 4 is unlucky but 8 lucky? Read more…
Traditional and Simplified When you start learning Chinese you soon across the fact that there are two written forms still in use, the simplified form used in China and the old, traditional form still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and other overseas Chinese communities. With 4,000 years of use the written Chinese language has many archaic features. On the formation of the Peoples' Republic an ambitious reform of the script was instigated which has made the learning of the characters far easier. Read more…
Cantonese Language The Cantonese language or 'Yue' language is still spoken by over 50 million people in Southern China (Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong and Macau ). Although the written form is very similar to Mandarin the spoken language is very different. Read more…
China's only female ruler Empress Wu Zetian of the early Tang The shrewd and ambitious Empress Wu Zetian [624-705] came to rule China soon after the Tang dynasty had begun. Her legacy is still debated by some historians but it seems the brutality with which she is admonished was quite normal for the time period. For over 40 years she directed China's policies firstly as the Emperor Gaozong's wife and then in her own right. She championed the adoption of Buddhism in China and equal rights for women. Read more…
Chinese porcelain Together with tea and silk, porcelain from China is its most famous export. Prized the world over, high quality porcelain commands high prices at auction. Like silk the secret of its manufacture was a closely guarded secret for centuries. Read more…
Bits and Pieces
We need your help to keep the Chinasage web site growing. We'd love to keep this web site completely free of advertisements like Wikipedia. Please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber for however little or much you can afford. We have been running this campaign for two months and have so far raised only 10% of our target. So please help… or else advertisements will make a comeback!
To read more and take out a subscription simply click on the Patreon Patreon
Many thanks, much appreciated.
Tue 20th Sep 2022Patreon pictures Thanks to the generous donations from Chinasage's Patreon ➚ sponsors we've just added quality photographs to many of our pages.
Although you can get images of all sorts of thing for free you do still have to pay for quality, particularly for specialist subjects. This time we have used 123rf for the new images who claim to have 200 million images to choose from. It takes a long time to make a choice and then they all need editing for usage, tagging and finally putting on the appropriate place on our hundreds of pages. We hope you will agree that they make a significant improvement.
New Year dragon, Shanghai Read more…
All the tea in China
Tea was the most important export that was weighed in the traditional Chinese unit of measurement called a 'catty'. It is known colloquially as the Chinese pound and is about 1.1pounds. In China it is known as the jin 斤 the word catty probably came from the Malay word. The modern weight is aligned to the metric system as exactly 500grams. The container for tea, a 'caddy', is believed to have been named after the measure.
Mountainous Tibet The mountainous province of Tibet forms the highest possible land border between India and China. On the border with Nepal is the world's highest mountain: Mount Everest (or Qomolangma). Tibet's unique culture is a key attraction to visitors. Read more…
Corona virus outbreak 2020 All about the worrying outbreak of coronavirus in Hubei province, China in early 2020. History of the outbreak , symptoms, status and common myths on how to protect yourself. Read more…
The Lay-Osborn Flotilla of 1862-63 After China's defeat in the Opium Wars it is amazing that China then chose to buy a naval force from its former enemy Britain. Although boats were duly made, China refused to take delivery of them and Anglo-Chinese relations went into further decline. Read more…
Giant Pandas of China The emblematic Giant Panda acts as China's ambassador in many leading zoos around the world. A captive breeding program has proved effective in bringing the cutest of animals back from the brink of extinction. Read more…
Dragons, master of rain and water The Chinese dragon is no fire-breathing monster, in China they are regarded as powerful but benevolent. As dragons are masters of rain, water and sea they need to be brought on your side if you want a good harvest, and so they need suitable offerings. The Dragon Boat festival is when everyone seeks to appease the dragon kings. Read more…
Printing using movable wooden block Chinese characters
Conventions
We use a consistent style for links within Chinasage. An internal link taking you to another page within our site is shown like this while a link to a page on any other web site is shown like this ➚ .
We use Chinese characters wherever appropriate. Most browsers should display both the characters and the pinyin correctly. We highlight any use of the older Wade Giles system for 'spelling' characters. Except where stated all characters are the modern simplified form used in the People's Republic rather than the traditional ones (pre-1970s). To help you learn Chinese characters many of the very common characters are highlighted thus: 中
Dates are given using the BCE/CE ➚ (Before Common Era and in Common Era) year convention rather than BC/AD. If a date is not followed by BCE or CE it should be taken as CE.
Authorship
All the text on the Chinasage web site is my own, I do not copy and paste from other web sites. I research each topic from a number of authoritative sources (mainly books ). The only exception to this are quotations and image credits. All text is our copyright and can not be used/copied without my permission. I am independent of any other company or government, the opinions expressed are my own. I do not receive funding or backing from any agency or organization .
Teacup Media (China History Podcast)
I am delighted to be able to promote links to Laszlo Montgomery's excellent Teacup Media ➚ series created over the last 14 years. Laszlo Montgomery ➚ has in depth knowledge of building commercial contacts with China over 30 years. The set of 290 podcasts totals 150 hours of audio commentary which covers every conceivable topic in Chinese history. Highly recommended.
Acknowledgments
I am extremely grateful to the many people who have put their photographs online for anyone to adapt and use. Without them this site would be very drab. If I am not using the image license correctly please let me know. I am grateful to Kim Dramer ➚ for permission to use her short videos all about Chinese culture and traditions. Patreon subscribers have supported the web site and allowed us to amongst other things purchase some quality images of China for use here. Some pages use Javascript ➚ to create special effects such as our airport table and calendar . I am grateful to the original authors for providing their code to be used and adapted by anyone else. The online Chinese dictionary uses the definition from the CC-CEDICT project ➚ for which I am grateful for a generous free license. Sound files kindly provided by shtooka.net ➚ under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License.
Feel free to contact Chinasage to point out any errors, omissions or suggestions on how to improve this web site.
If you would like to support my work and keep us independent become a Patreon or make a Donation via Paypal.
