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.
Paper-cuts
Chinese people have been making decorative objects out of paper for a very long time. Paper-cuts are often seen at traditional festivals and often have a hidden symbolic meaning. Modern artists are now taking the art-form in exciting new directions. We have step-by-step guides for making a range of interesting designs. Read more...
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…
Chinese Poetry The Chinese language is ideally suited for writing poems. The long history of Chinese has allowed poems written over two thousand years ago to still be appreciated today. The characters provide a concise method for conveying impressions and emotion. 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…
Thu 3rd Nov 2022Brother excluded from wedding An incident at Zunyi in Guizhou province has sparked much online debate.
It is here that a couple has chosen to go back to some age-old traditions for marriage.
One of the strangest of the many customs is that if you have a younger sibling (brother or sister) who marries before you do then you are excluded from the marriage ceremony. You are expected to hide away while everyone else was having fun.
Perhaps this tradition provides a strong encouragement to anyone delaying become married. Remaining single used to be a fairly rare event as marriages were typically arranged by parents without their children’s approval.
So in 2022 people are debating whether it is appropriate to bring this custom back again. What do you think?
Chinese wedding couple Not the actual married couple Read full story…
Year of the ... Most people are familiar with the twelve years and their animals. Chinese astrology is about the year of birth rather than the month of birth and so all people born in a particular year share some characteristics. Even to this day couples arrange birth of children to fall in 'lucky' years. Read more…
Chinese Chess The Chinese game of chess is rather different to the version used in the west. There are strong reasons to suppose that the Chinese game 象 棋 Xiangqi or 'elephant game' is closer to the original form. The absence of a 'queen' piece and the strange rules for 'cannons' make this a more challenging game than the version played in the West. Read more…
Tai Chi and Martial Arts When people think of China many will picture martial arts as these have been portrayed so widely in films and on TV. The various techniques were developed in the monasteries where active exercise was the perfect balance to long spells of meditation. Many ordinary Chinese practice Taichi each day to maintain health and suppleness. Read more…
All the tea in China Tea originates from China, it has been drunk there for thousands of years. It took a long time to find the best way to select the best varieties and process the leaves. Initially the very bitter flavor made it suitable only as a medicine. Our guide covers history of tea , its preparation, growing and appreciation. 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... ➚
Chinese fortune telling In ancient China the Emperor would do very little without consulting the Yi Jing (I Ching). The Imperial court had experts to interpret the answers given by this method of Divination. Because it produces a set for the 'present' and also a 'change' it is called the Book of Changes and contains explanations of the transformations. Our online free consultation uses the original yarrow stick method and is not random - you make decisions that guide the consultation. We provide a full translation of the great commentary on each of the 64 hexagrams. 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…
Chinese coolies 1845-1880 When African slavery was made illegal in the UK and US, employers turned to China for supply of labor. In some destinations the conditions were just as appalling as for the Africans. A technicality allowed employers to claim this was not slavery but Chinese were bought at markets and had little chance of returning home. This little known trade began in 1845 and lasted about 35 years before the Chinese and some foreign governments put a stop to it. Read more…
Imperial officials The prized job in dynastic China was as an Imperial official. As well as prosperity and a life of relative leisure an official received respect from the community. As anyone who passed the Imperial examinations could hope for such an appointment the posts were potentially open to all men. Read more…
A history of Chinese Painting China has a very long tradition of painting. Most painting is done with the same brush and ink as calligraphy. Landscapes are the most cherished but exquisite paintings of nature subjects and portraits are also well represented. Read more…
钱 qián money Made up of [钅 jīn metal radical 167, 戋 jiān narrow; small]Origin Can be thought of as a picture of two spears breaking up metal (gold) to make coins, however 'jian' (thin) is probably a rough phonetic Full information for 钱
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…
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…
Proverb
苦 尽甘 来
Kǔ jìn gān lái
Bitterness over, happiness arrives. At the end of suffering comes relief
After troubles comes happiness.
Roughly equivalent to: The darkest hour is just before the dawn.
All about Chinese proverbs
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…
Relations between Korea and China A history of the long and eventful history of Chinese relations with Korea. Chinese settlement first began two thousand years ago and at times since then China has intervened in Korean affairs, most recently in the Korean War 1950-53. Read more…
Beijing Read all about Beijing the historic and bustling capital city of China. Our description includes a detailed map of the central area and travel guides to all the important attractions: Forbidden City; Summer Palace; Temple of Heaven; Beihai Park; Ming Tombs and Tiananmen Square . Read more…
The South China Sea China lays claim to a vast area of sea as far south as northern Borneo. The sea contains two groups of islands: the Paracels and the Spratleys. China's claim is disputed by all the neighboring countries surrounding the South China Sea. The U.S. navy has recently provocatively sailed through the region and plans further naval maneuvers. 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…
Chess without Queens
One of the main differences between the Chinese Chess and 'western' Chess games is that Chinese chess does not have a queen. Many chess players do not like the queen as a chess piece - it is too powerful and will often exchange queens early on. This suggests the Chinese form is in some ways the better form. Read more…
Language
The Chinese Language The Chinese language is rightly treasured as the country's greatest accomplishment. Our language section introduces the language. The section includes some introductory lessons and a guide to writing the characters. Read more…
Chinese characters Some Chinese characters have their origin 10,000 years ago. The very old forms are simplified pictures of objects and animals. Later more abstract notions were represented in a simple way. Now there are a total of 200,000 distinct characters but fortunately only 2,000 for everyday life. 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. Do you know why 4 is unlucky but 8 lucky? Read more…
Online Chinese Dictionary Have a word or character to look-up? Use our free and extensive online dictionary . Read more…
Proverb
羊 质虎 皮
A goat in a tiger's skin
Someone not living up to outward appearance. Looking fierce but actually timid.
Roughly equivalent to: All that glisters is not gold.
All about Chinese proverbs
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 button below, it will take you to the Patreon web site where you can subscribe simply and securely.
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…
Paper-cuts
Chinese people have been making decorative objects out of paper for a very long time. Paper-cuts are often seen at traditional festivals and often have a hidden symbolic meaning. Modern artists are now taking the art-form in exciting new directions. We have step-by-step guides for making a range of interesting designs. Read more...
Chinese Cities 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…
The governance of modern China Governing 1,400 million people is no mean feat. China's structure of government is a power pyramid with the President at its head. In theory the people elect representatives who decide policy, in practice the ruling elite are rarely challenged by the democratic process. However the strong military involvement in government has been on the wane for over 25 years. Read more…
Traditional medicine in China Thousands of years of seeking cures to illness in China has led to a wide range of traditional medicines and procedures being discovered. Nowadays traditional medicine is used for minor ailments and when western medicine offers no solution. 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…
Wed 18th Jan 2023Chinese New Year 2023 The new Chinese New Year begins on 21st January 2023 - the start of Chinese year 4721 in the traditional calendar .
In Chinese astrology the rabbit or hare holds a position of honor as it is considered a friendly, gentle animal that is good at getting along with people. People born in a year of the rabbit/hare are gifted, elegant and ambitious as well as being proficient at business.
With the relaxation of Covid restrictions there is likely to be a very busy time of annual migration of millions of Chinese as they visit their families after years of restrictions. The public holidays last from 21st January for the full week until 27th January. Many will take extra leave to extend the holiday. Noted anniversaries in 2023 include the death of the first great Chinese poet Qu Yuan in 278BCE (2,300 years ago), and the first Chinese moon landing back in 2013 (10 years ago) which launched the Yutu ‘Jade Rabbit’ robot .
Wishing everybody 新 年 快 乐 xīn nián kuài lè – A happy and prosperous new year.
Read full story…
Hong Kong station
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 hovering the mouse over the character will pop up a box showing further information about it.
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.