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 history , including all the dynasties. We hope you make 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.
Southern refuge
When northern China was overrun by Khitans and then Mongols 800 years ago the Imperial Song family moved to Hangzhou . It proved to be a peaceful and prosperous time for 150 years. In memory of this period some scenes of Hangzhou are still to be found in the long corridors of the Summer Palace , Beijing.
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…
Three Character Classic The Three Character Classic (San Zi Jing 三 字 经 language primer for children who aspired to a scholarly life. It introduces the student to Chinese history, philosophy as well as the most common characters. It contains many exhortations for the student to study long and hard. Read more…
A history of Chinese Painting China has a very long tradition of painting. Most painting is done with the same style of brush and ink as calligraphy. Landscapes are the most cherished but exquisite paintings of nature subjects and portraits are also well represented. Read more…
Symbols and Motifs Chinese arts and handicrafts are full of hidden symbols. Bats, goldfish, peonies and bees all give a specific meaning to a painting or decoration. Exploring the world of Chinese symbolism opens up a whole new layer of appreciation. Read more…
Spirit Ways to Imperial Tombs For 2,000 years illustrious people had an elaborate underground burial tomb. Although many tombs have been looted over the ages, the spirit ways or sacred ways with rows of stone sculptures have often survived. Read more…
Chinese 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. Read more…
Chinese Silk Along with porcelain and tea, silk is one of China's important innovations. The secret of this great invention was closely guarded for centuries. Fabulous fine cloth was an important export as far back as the early Roman Empire and it was in Rome where a law was passed to ban the wearing of silk. 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... ➚
Air travel in China Here we list all China's main airports , giving information on location, facilities and easy to use distance calculator so you can plan a complex itinerary around China. We also give useful visitor information about air transport in China. 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…
Foreigners in China China was exploited by foreign powers from the end of the Qing dynasty to the foundation of the PRC in 1949. The establishment of foreign enclaves within most Chinese cities one hundred years ago led to many frictions with the foreign powers, particularly Britain. The treaty port system forcibly opened up cities to foreign trade in late Qing dynasty China. Read more…
Warring States The second part of the Zhou dynasty was known for incessant warfare between kingdoms. It was a time of great importance to China as the philosophical traditions were developed that went on to dominate Chinese thinking in the next two thousand years as it was the time of Confucius and Laozi. 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…
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…
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…
Testimonial
“I love this my daughter struggling with college ,I'm sending her a
proverb each day I also have one tattooed on my wrist do to a struggle in my life.
Unsolicited comment from a genuine Chinasage visitor.
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…
Yangzi River The mighty Yangzi River is the longest in China and third longest in the world. It has carried huge quantities of people and goods over the centuries. Many great cities lie close to its banks: Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanjing and Shanghai. Read more…
Best China Sights In this page we give information on the top attractions all over China to tempt you to explore further. Each attraction is clearly marked on a map and further information on each place is readily available. From furthest Heilongjiang to Hong Kong and Lhasa to Shanghai we have selected the top travel highlights. Read more…
Interactive map of China We have overlaid a Google map of China with our own additional information: airports, cities and visitor attractions to make it a far richer way to explore this vast country. Read more…
Southern refuge
When northern China was overrun by Khitans and then Mongols 800 years ago the Imperial Song family moved to Hangzhou . It proved to be a peaceful and prosperous time for 150 years. In memory of this period some scenes of Hangzhou are still to be found in the long corridors of the Summer Palace , Beijing.
Copper foundation
The home of the Buddhist rulers of Tibet is the Potala Palace (Potala literally means Buddha's mountain) in Lhasa. Like many places in China it is subject to strong earthquakes so the palace needed foundations that would not shatter. Rather than wood or stone the builders poured molten copper into cracks in the rock. The copper is slightly pliable and so copes well with earth tremors. Read more…
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…
A survey of Chinese literature As both the book and printing were invented in China it is not surprising that Chinese literature has a long and distinguished history. There are a number of very famous novels from before the time of Shakespeare including The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin. Read more…
Chinese Character Details The history and structure of many common Chinese characters is a fascinating study. In this section we look in details at a few hundreds of them. 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…
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... ➚
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…
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…
Southern refuge
When northern China was overrun by Khitans and then Mongols 800 years ago the Imperial Song family moved to Hangzhou . It proved to be a peaceful and prosperous time for 150 years. In memory of this period some scenes of Hangzhou are still to be found in the long corridors of the Summer Palace , Beijing.
Chinese coolies 1845-1880 When African slavery was made illegal in the UK and US, employers turned to China for supply of labor. 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…
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…
Chinese fortune telling In ancient China the Emperor would always consult the Yi Jing (I Ching) before making important decisions. 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 commentaries for each of the 64 hexagrams. Read more…
Power and Prosperity during the Tang dynasty When the dynasties of China are brought to mind, the Han, Tang and Ming are generally considered the greatest. In the Tang dynasty China was undoubtedly the only world super-power with huge cities and great achievements. Tang poetry is considered the finest. Influence of China spread to Japan and far to the west reaching the Aral Sea and Pakistan. Read more…
Traditional style Suzhou house and garden, Jiangsu
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 15 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 definitions 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.
