Asian And Islamic Civilization

Greetings everyone. My name is Ching Mao Sheng. So in this post i'll continue about the Civilization Of China! There'll be a video at the latter post. Do check it out yeah! ~cheers~

Civilization Of China

Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest civilizations.The written history of China can be found as early as the Shang Dynasty (c. 1700 – 1046 BC), although ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian (ca. 100 BC) and Bamboo Annals assert the existence of a Xia Dynasty before the Shang. Oracle bones with ancient Chinese writing have been dated to the late Shang Dynasty around 1200 BC. Much of Chinese culture, literature and philosophy further developed during the Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BC). Much of The Zhou Dynasty began to bow to external and internal pressures in the 8th century BC, and the kingdom eventually broke apart into smaller states, beginning in the Spring and Autumn Period and reaching full expression in the Warring States period. This is one of multiple periods of failed statehood in Chinese history (the most recent of which was the Chinese Civil War).

In between eras of multiple kingdoms and warlordism, Chinese dynasties (or more recently, republics) have ruled all of China (minus Xinjiang and Tibet and in some eras, including the present, they have controlled Xinjiang and/or Tibet as well). This practice began with the Qin Dynasty: in 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang united the various warring kingdoms and created the first Chinese empire. Successive dynasties in Chinese history developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the Emperor of China to directly control vast territories. The conventional view of Chinese history is that of alternating periods of political unity and disunity, with China occasionally being dominated by Inner Asian peoples, most of whom were in turn assimilated into the Han Chinese population. Cultural and political influences from many parts of Asia, carried by successive waves of immigration, expansion, and cultural assimilation, are part of the modern culture of China.

The Culture and Community

Since ancient times, Chinese culture has been heavily influenced by Confucianism and conservative philosophies. For centuries, opportunities for social advancement could be provided by high performance in the prestigious Imperial examinations, which were instituted in 605 AD to help the Emperor select skilful bureaucrats. The literary emphasis of the exams affected the general perception of cultural refinement in China, such as the belief that calligraphy and literati painting were higher forms of art than dancing or drama.

A number of more authoritarian and rational strains of thought were also influential, with Legalism being a prominent example. There was often conflict between the philosophies – for instance, the individualistic Song Dynasty neo-Confucians believed that Legalism departed from the original spirit of Confucianism. Examinations and a culture of merit remain greatly valued in China today. In recent years, a number of New Confucians have claimed that modern democratic ideals and human rights are compatible with traditional Confucian values.

The first leaders of the People's Republic of China were born into the traditional imperial order, but were influenced by the May Fourth Movement and reformist ideals. They sought to change some traditional aspects of Chinese culture, such as rural land tenure, sexism, and the Confucian system of education, while preserving others, such as the family structure and culture of obedience to the state.

Today, the Chinese government has accepted numerous elements of traditional Chinese culture as being integral to Chinese society. With the rise of Chinese nationalism and the end of the Cultural Revolution, various forms of traditional Chinese art, literature, music, film, fashion and architecture have seen a vigorous revival,and folk and variety art in particular have sparked interest nationally and even worldwide.

Language and Writing System of China

Chinese is spoken by about 1.3 billion people mainly in the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China (a.k.a. Taiwan), Singapore and other parts of Southeast Asia. There are also communities of Chinese speakers in many other parts of the world. The different varieties of Chinese are known as (fāngyán), which is translated as 'regional languages', 'toplects', 'dialects' or 'varieties'. The English term dialect normally refers to more or less mutually intelligible varieties of a single language, though the distinction between dialects and languages is often for sociological and political reasons rather than linguistics ones. Chinese people generally refer to Chinese as a single language with a number of different dialects or varieties. As there is little mutual intelligiblity between the different varieties of Chinese and as a result, some non-Chinese linguists refer to them as separate languages.

A distinction is made in Chinese between spoken and written language. In China the written form of Chinese, which is perceived as being uniform throughout the country is referred to as (zhōngwén), while the terms (yǔ) or (huà) are used in the names of spoken varities of Chinese, e.g. Mandarin Chinese is known as (hànyǔ) = "Han language", or (pǔtōnghuà) = "common language" in China, and elsewhere it is refered to as (guóyǔ) = "national language" or (huáyǔ) = "Chinese language". The word (hàn) is used to refer to the Chinese people and comes from the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD).

Chinese is written with characters (hànzì) which represent both sound and meaning. Words in Chinese can be made up of one of more syllables and each syllable is represented by a single character. There are relatively few different types of syllable in spoken Chinese - about 1,700 in Mandairn, compared to languages like English with over 8,000 - yet there are tens of thousands of characters. As a result there are multiple characters for each syllable, each of which has a different meaning. This type of writing system is known as semanto-phonetic, logophonetic, morphophonemic, logographic or logosyllabic.

Religion and Philosophy

Confusianism

Buddhism China

Daoisme

Moism

Legalism

Islam

Early Dynasty Rule

Chinese tradition names the first dynasty Xia, but it was considered mythical until scientific excavations found early Bronze Age sites at Erlitou in Henan Province in 1959. Archaeologists have since uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs in locations cited as Xia's in ancient historical texts, but it is impossible to verify that these remains are of the Xia without written records from the period. The Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the Chinese interior from incursions by nomadic pastoralists of the northern steppes.

The first Chinese dynasty that left historical records, the loosely feudal Shang (Yin), settled along the Yellow River in eastern China from the 17th to the 11th century BC. The oracle bone script of the Shang Dynasty represent the oldest forms of Chinese writing found and the direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters used throughout East Asia. The Shang were invaded from the west by the Zhou, who ruled from the 12th to the 5th century BC, until their centralized authority was slowly eroded by feudal warlords. Many independent states eventually emerged out of the weakened Zhou state, and continually waged war with each other in the Spring and Autumn Period, only occasionally deferring to the Zhou king. By the time of the Warring States Period, there were seven powerful sovereign states, each with its own king, ministry and army.

Politics

The People's Republic of China, along with Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, and Cuba), is one of the five remaining Communist states in the world but simple characterizations of China's political structure since the 1980s are no longer possible. The PRC government has been variously described as communist and socialist, but also as authoritarian, with heavy restrictions remaining in many areas, most notably on the Internet, the press, freedom of assembly, reproductive rights, and freedom of religion. Its current political/economic system has been termed by its leaders as "Socialism with Chinese characteristics".

Contribution of China Civilization in Various Fields of Human Needs

Chinese Classic Literature

· Poetry

· Prose

· Drama

· Fiction

China Art

· Classical Music

· Calligraphy

· Arts

· Construction

Chinese Science and Technology

· Astronomy

· Mathematics

· Medicine

· Optics

· Alchemy

· Paper

· Printing

· Explosives

· Compass

Alright, I think that's all from me now. Thank you so much for viewing our blog. Bye!

Prepared By: Ching Mao Sheng

Asian And Islamic Civilization

Thursday 29 March 2012

Introducing our team members

Homemade Video Part 5

Part 5 Civilization Of China