Chinese Culture

Chinese Kung Fu

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Chinese Kung Fu, also known as Wushu, is a traditional sports originated in ancient China, which is a remarkable combination of exercise, practical self-defense, and discipline which has become one of the more well-known parts of Chinese culture.

Chinese Kung Fu features dynamic and fluid motions. It is usually practiced with bare hands, while sometimes participants make use of some simple weapons like the cudgel.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, many sects of Chinese Kung Fu were created and thrived; probably the best known are Taichi, Xingyi Quan and Baguan Quan. Since the foundation of People’s Republic of China in 1949, Chinese Kung Fu has experienced a flourishing in popularity across the globe.

Shaolin Kung Fu

Shaolin Kung Fu (or Shaolin wushu) is one of the oldest and most widely-recognized forms of Chinese Kung Fu, combining Zen Buddhism with Kung Fu martial arts. Shaolin Kung Fu originated in Shaolin Temple in Dengfeng city in Hepan province, where loft peaks, verdant trees, crisp fresh air, and the tranquil atmosphere made for a perfect place to practice Kung Fu without distraction.

Tai Chi

Tai Chi, another style of Chinese martial arts, is widely known for its long history and inasmuch as it can contribute to a longer life, which has become a popular fitness activity outside of China. During a visit to China, you may see many people, particularly the old, are practicing Taichi in open areas in the morning.

Famous Actors

Bruce Lee, a famous Chinese-American martial artist and actor, has made great contributions to the development of Chinese Kong Fu. Since the release of his films which heavily feature martial arts, Chinese Kong Fu has dramatically increased in popularity all over the world.

With a history going back more than 5,000 years, China boasts a profoundly unique and diverse cuisine which is an integral aspect of Chinese culture. Chinese cuisine is characterized by its special seasonings, specialized cooking methods, diversified cooking materials, and distinctive flavors, making itwell known to citizens of the world.

Chinese cuisine has a number of different styles making up the Eight Culinary Traditions of China: Guangdong (Cantonese) cuisine, Shandong cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Fujian cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Anhui cuisine, and Zhejiang cuisine.  The first four are probably the best known and most influential and well known.

Sichuan Cuisine

Sichuan cuisine is a style of Chinese cuisine originated in the Sichuan Province of southwestern China. Sichuan cuisine is typically prepared with garlic and chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorn, zhitianjiao, peanuts, sesame paste, and ginger, which offers it bold flavor with particularly pungent and spicy notes. Sichuan cuisine is highly favored by native Chinese foreigners due to the spiciness and sourness it produces. The most famous dish of Sichuan cuisine is Hotpot soup.

Anhui Cuisine

Anhui cuisine is derived from the native cooking styles of the people of the Huangshan Mountain region in China and shares similarities with Jiangsu cuisine. Anhui cuisine places less emphasis on seafood but more on a wide variety of local herbs and vegetables. Due to its geography, Anhui province is endowed with fresh bamboo and mushroom crops, which comprise the main raw material for Anhui dishes.

Shandong Cuisine

Shandong Cuisine, also known as Lu cuisine, plays an important role in imperial cuisine and is widely eaten in North China, while it is less popular in the south. Shandong Cuisine is characterized by a variety of cooking techniques. Shandong cuisine makes great use of braised abalone, braised trepang, sweet and sour carp. Jiuzhuan Dachang and Dezhou Chicken should not be missed!

Fujian Cuisine

Fujian cuisine, also known as Min Cuisine, is one of the most famous Eight Cuisines in China.  Edible mushrooms and bamboo shoots are especially utilized to prepare the woodland delicacies. Fujian cuisine is often served in a broth or soup, which is prepared by braising, stewing, steaming and boiling.

Su Cuisine (Jiangsu, Huaiyang Cuisine)

Jiangsu cuisine, also known as Su Cuisine, is one of the major components of Chinese cuisine, which consists of the styles of Yangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou and Zhenjiang dishes. Jiangsu cuisine is characterized by its distinctive style, special taste, and unique cooking techniques, which makes it quite popular among chefs worldwide. For tasting authentic Jiangsu cuisine, if you are travelling around the region of the lower Yangtze river, make sure your trip includes trying dishes like Jinling salted dried duck, crystal meat (pork heels in a brown sauce), clear crab shell meatballs, Yangzhou steamed Jerky strips, and triple combo duck.

Cantonese Cuisine

Cantonese Cuisine, also known as Yue cuisine, is another major component for Chinese eight cuisines, which enjoys a long history and a good reputation both home and abroad. The most typical Cantonese dish is dim sum, bite-sized small hearty dishes, which are prepared with frying, steaming, stewing, and baking. Other Cantonese dishes like rice rolls, lotus leaf rice, turnip cakes, buns, shui jiao-style dumplings, stir-fried green vegetables, congee porridge, and soups are also quite popular among Cantonese cooks.

Hunan Cuisine

Hunan cuisine, also known as Xiang cuisine, features hot and spicy flavor, fresh aromas, and deep color, which makes itself quite favorable among cooks. Xiang cuisine is commonly prepared with traditional cooking methods like stewing, frying, roasting, braising, and smoking. The region of Hunan is blessed with diverse agricultural resources, which makes for a wide variety of ingredients to utilize.

Zhejiang Cuisine

Zhejiang cuisine, commonly known as Zhe cuisine, is of the Eight Culinary Traditions of China, which is characterized by its non-greasy taste, soft flavor, and mellow fragrance. Zhejiang cuisine is mainly composed of four styles, namely Hangzhou style, Shaoxing style, Ningbo style, and Shanghai style, each of which has its own ingredients. Hangzhou style is rich in bamboo shoots, Shaoxing style, freshwater fish, Ningbo style seafood, and Shanghai style dim sum.

With a rich history of more than 5,000 years, China enjoys many traditional festivals that you may encounter on a trip to China such as the Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day (Qingming Festival) to the Dragon Festival and Mid-autumn Day, each with its own significance and features. After learning about them, you will have a more well-rounded appreciation for Chinese culture.

Spring Festival

The Spring Festival is one of the most important festivals in China, which is from the first to the 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar.  In some respects, the Spring Festival is to China, what Christmas to America. About one month ahead of the Spring Festival, people will begin preparations for it, including cleaning house, shopping and cooking food in anticipation. When celebrating the festival, people will hang red lanterns on doors, and set off firecrackers.

Another important part of the Spring Festival is family reunions as people who live far away from home will return home to be with their families. At dinner, the young offer their best wishes and toast to their elder’s health and happiness.

On the first day of the festival, children will dress in their new clothes and pay a new year’s visit to their relatives, then they will give them new year’s money. In the following days, people will visit relatives and friends, and express their good wishes to the next year to each other. The last day, on the 15th day of the festival is the Lantern Festival.

Since Spring Festival is a traditional Chinese festival, there are still some taboos about it. During Spring Festival, unlucky behaviors and words should be avoided because it is believed bad things may happen if certain words are spoken. Such words as “bad,” “dead,” “kill,” “ache,” and the like are not welcome. Moreover, water should not be sprinkled out of the house, which may bring bad luck to the new year. Also when holding fragile articles like plates, cups, and glasses, one should be particularly careful and never break them. What’s more, neither sweeping the floor nor cutting hair is welcome during the spring festival. In addition, different regions of China have their own taboos on the Spring Festival.

Mid-autumn Day

Mid-autumn day, anther traditional festival in China, is celebrated on August 15th in the lunar calendar every year. On the mid-autumn day, the full moon will appear, which symbolizes reunion in Chinese cultures, so the mid-autumn day is also called Reunion Festival. Since mid-autumn day is an important festival in China, there are some traditional customs for this festival.

Moon Worship

Moon worship is a quite time-honored tradition in China, which could be traced back to the Zhou dynasty in ancient Chinese history. This tradition has been passed down from generation to generation. In modern times, people usually display moon cakes as well as other fruits on the table in the yard. After the moon has “eaten” the moon cakes, they will return to the table and eat the moon cakes with family members to pray for health and happiness.

The delicately-shaped moon cake is a must-have for the Mid-autumn Day, which is made of flour filled with various kinds of fillings like nuts, eggs, beans, and fruits. Since full the moon symbolizes family reunion in Chinese reunion, moon cakes are usually round-shaped. That is why eating moon cakes on the mid-autumn day often makes some Chinese feel homesick.

Lantern Festival

Lantern Festival is another important festival in China, which is celebrated on the 15th of the first month in the lunar calendar every year. The Lantern Festival marks the end of the Spring Festival. The Lantern Festival of 2019 falls on Tuesday February 19th. There are some traditional customs and activities for Lantern Festival, as well.

Watching Lanterns

During the Lantern Festival, splendid lanterns shows are displayed and lanterns of different shapes can be seen everywhere, attracting no small amount of visitors. Accompanying lanterns, various fireworks are lit, which explode into different shapes in the night sky.

Guessing Riddles

Guessing lantern riddles is another important part of the Lantern Festival. Each lantern contains a riddle which people will guess. If someone has an answer to a riddle, he can pull the paper from the lantern and ask the organizers to verify the answer. If the answer is right, then little gifts would be awarded. Since this intellectual activity is very exciting and interesting, guessing riddles during the lantern festival is quite popular among many people, old and young, men and women.

Folk Dances

Another common activity during the festival is the exciting folk dances, such as Lion Dance and Walking on the Stilts. In the Lion Dance, two dancers are dressed as a large lion, one as the lion’s head, the other as the loin’s tail. The dancers perform coordinated and rhythmic steps and timed to the music of loud gongs and drums.

Sometimes it jumps, sometimes it roars. Another representative folk dance during the Lantern Festival is walking on the stilts. The performers’ feet are bent onto the stilts and they walk on stilts. Dressed up gorgeously, the performers impersonate different animals, monks, clowns, fishermen and others.

Eating Yuan Xiao

As for food, people usually eat ball-shaped sweet dumplings in this festival, also called Yuan xiao in Chinese, which is made of glutinous rice flour with different fillings. Hence, the Lantern Festival is also called Yuan xiao Festival.

Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Festival, another traditional festival in China, falls on the May 5th in the lunar calendar every year, which is celebrated to commemorate an ancient patriotic poet named Qu Yuan. Customs pertaining to this festival are:

Eating Rice Dumpling (Zong zi)

On the Dragon Boat Festival, people will eat triangle-shaped rice dumplings, “zong zi” in Chinese, which is made of rice filled with different fillings like dates, nuts, and beans. Many families made rice dumplings at home by themselves. After the rice dumplings are prepared, people will wrap the rice with reed leaves into triangle-shape and then boil it.

Dragon Boat Racing

Another important activity during this festival is holding Dragon Boat races in honor of the great poem Qu Yuan. In a dragon boat race, a competition is held between the teams. The one who reach the final destination first is the winner. It was said that the winning team would bring a bountiful harvest and happiness to the people of their village.  Typically, a team member stands in front of the boat and beats the drum to keep the pace for the other team members.

Making Fragrant Handicrafts for Children

Additionally, people will hang a special wormwood named Ai on the front door to drive out evil spirits. Moreover, women will make handicrafts with different ships and fill them with special fragrant ingredients. When finished, they will hang the delicate handicraft on the childrens’ necks to pray for their health and happiness.

Chinese Valentines’ Day

The Chinese Valentines’ Day, also known as Double Seventh Festival, is another traditional festival in China, which is celebrated on July 7th in the lunar calendar every year and is particularly popular among young people.

When it comes to the origins of the holiday, it was told that there was a poor cowboy, who felt in love with a weaving girl, 7th daughter of the Emperor of Heaven. They lived a happy life together and had two children. When the Emperor of Heaven heard this, he got angry and took the weaving girl back to heaven, while the cowboy held the hands of the weaving girl tightly. Seeing this, the Emperor of Heaven drew the silver river with his hairpin between them and they were separated eventually. The weaving girl was forced to move to the star Vega and the cowboy moved to the star Altair. They are allowed to meet only once a year on the day of 7th day of July lunar month.

It was said that on the Double Seventh Day, people could see the weaving girl and cowboy’s reunion on the Silver River. If you hide yourself under the fruit trellis, you might overhear the conversations between cowboy and weaving girl on this night.

On Chinese Valentine’s Day, people in love usually go to the Matchmaker’s Temple to pray for their love and for the possibility of marriage. Those still single will do the same thing, to ask for good luck of love in the Matchmaker’s temple. On this romantic night, girls usually set tables with fruits displayed to pray for intelligence and love.

Tomb-Sweeping Day

Tomb-sweeping Day, also known as Pure Brightness Day, is one of the most important traditional festivals in China, which usually falls onto 4th, 5th or 6th of April. On tomb-sweeping day, people will visit their ancestors’ graves and mourn for the dead, burn incense, offer food and paper coins. They will also clean the grave area, including removing weeds growing around the tomb and removing dust. After that, some flowers are also presented.

During the days around Qingming, everything is recovered and refreshed, so many outdoor activities like traveling around, flying kites and planting trees are taken up by many people.