The Chinese classics or canonical texts are the works of Chinese literature authored prior to the establishment of the imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC. Prominent examples include the Four Books and Five Classics in the Neo-Confucian tradition, themselves an abridgment of the Thirteen Classics. The Chinese classics used a form of written Chinese consciously imitated by later authors, now known as Classical Chinese. A common Chinese word for "classic" literally means 'warp thread', in reference to the techniques by which works of this period were bound into volumes.
Chinese culture is one of the world's oldest cultures, originating thousands of years ago. The culture prevails across a large geographical region in East Asia with Sinosphere in whole and is extremely diverse, with customs and traditions varying greatly between counties, provinces, cities, towns. The terms 'China' and the geographical landmass of 'China' have shifted across the centuries, before the name 'China' became commonplace in modernity.
The Yongle Encyclopedia or Yongle Dadian Chinese leishu encyclopedia commissioned by the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty in 1403 and completed by 1408. It comprised 22,937 manuscript rolls in 11,095 volumes. Fewer than 400 volumes survive today, comprising about 800 rolls, or 3.5% of the original work.
The small seal script is an archaic script style of written Chinese. It developed within the state of Qin during the Eastern Zhou dynasty (771–256 BC), and was then promulgated across China in order to replace script varieties used in other ancient Chinese states following Qin's wars of unification and establishment of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) under Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.
The Nanjing Museum is located in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu in East China. With an area of 70,000 square metres, it is one of the largest museums in China, with over 400,000 items in its permanent collection. Especially notable is the museum's enormous collections of Ming and Qing imperial porcelain, which is among the largest in the world.
Huang Zongxi, courtesy name Taichong (太冲), was a Chinese naturalist, political theorist, philosopher, and soldier during the latter part of the Ming dynasty into the early part of the Qing.
The Tiandihui, the Heaven and Earth Society, also called Hongmen, is a Chinese fraternal organization and historically a secretive folk religious sect in the vein of the Ming loyalist White Lotus Sect, the Tiandihui's ancestral organization. As the Tiandihui spread through different counties and provinces, it branched off into many groups and became known by many names, including the Sanhehui. The Hongmen grouping is today more or less synonymous with the whole Tiandihui concept, although the title "Hongmen" is also claimed by some criminal groups. Branches of the Hongmen were also formed by Chinese communities overseas, some of which became known as Chinese Freemasons. Its current iteration is purely secular.
The Siku Quanshu, literally the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, was a Chinese encyclopedia commissioned by the Qing dynasty's Qianlong Emperor in 1772, and completed in 1782. It is the largest collection of books in imperial Chinese history, comprising 36,381 volumes, 79,337 manuscript rolls, 2.3 million pages, and about 997 million words. The complete encyclopedia contains an annotated catalogue of 10,680 titles along with a compendiums of 3,593 titles. The Siku Quanshu surpassed the 1403 Yongle Encyclopedia created by the previous Ming dynasty, which had been China's largest encyclopedia. Complete copies of the Siku Quanshu are held at the National Library of China in Beijing, the National Palace Museum in Taipei, the Gansu Library in Lanzhou, and the Zhejiang Library in Hangzhou.
The literary inquisition, also known as speech crime (以言入罪), refers to official persecution of intellectuals for their writings in China. The Hanyu Da Cidian defines it as "the ruler deliberately extracts words or phrases from intellectual's writings and arbitrarily accuse him in order to persecute him" ("旧时谓统治者为迫害知识分子，故意从其著作中摘取字句，罗织成罪"). The inquisition took place under each of the dynasties ruling China, although the Qing dynasty was particularly notorious for the practice.
Gu Yanwu, also known as Gu Tinglin, was a Chinese philologist, geographer, and famous scholar-official in Qing dynasty. He spent his youth during the Manchu conquest of China in anti-Manchu activities after the Ming dynasty had been overthrown. He never served the Qing dynasty. Instead, he traveled throughout the country and devoted himself to studies.
The Wenjin Ge is a former imperial library built in 1773 by the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty inside the Chengde Mountain Resort in Chengde, China. A copy of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries was originally stored in this library.
Alive is the second album by Chinese folk singer Sa Dingding, released in 2007.
The Wu Chinese people, also known as Wuyue people, Jiang-Zhe people (江浙民系) or San Kiang (三江), are a major subgroup of the Han Chinese. They are a Wu Chinese-speaking people who hail from southern Jiangsu Province, the entirety of the city of Shanghai and all of Zhejiang Province, as well as smaller populations in Xuancheng prefecture-level city in southern Anhui Province, Shangrao, Guangfeng and Yushan counties of northeastern Jiangxi Province and some parts of Pucheng County in northern Fujian Province.
All Men Are Brothers is a 2011 Chinese television series adapted from Shi Nai'an's 14th century novel Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. The series is directed by Kuk Kwok-leung and features cast members from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The series was first broadcast on 8TV in March 2011 in Malaysia.
Much traditional Chinese art was made for the imperial court, often to be then redistributed as gifts. As well as Chinese painting, sculpture and Chinese calligraphy, there are a great range of what may be called decorative or applied arts. Chinese fine art is distinguished from Chinese folk art, which differs in its style and purpose. This article gives an overview of the many different applied arts of China.
Hu Zhengyan was a Chinese artist, printmaker and publisher. He worked in calligraphy, traditional Chinese painting, and seal-carving, but was primarily a publisher, producing academic texts as well as records of his own work.
Li Yin, also known by her courtesy name Jinsheng (今生) and her art names Shi'an (是庵) and Haichang Nüshi(海昌女史) or kanshan Yishi(龛山逸史), was a Chinese calligrapher,courtesan, painter, and poet during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. She was noted for her illustration of flowers and birds. Artwork produced by her was sought after during her lifetime, resulting in as many as forty imitators in her area producing fakes of her works.
Word Of Honor, previously titled A Tale of the Wanderers (天涯客), is a 2021 Chinese costume streaming television series co-produced by Ciwen Media, and Youku, directed by Cheng Zhi Chao, Ma Hua Gan, and Li Hong Yu, written by Xiao Chu, adapted from the danmei novel "Faraway Wanderers" (天涯客) by Priest. It starred Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun in the leading roles. The series aired on Youku from February 22 to May 5 with 36 episodes, plus a short bonus clip shows what happened after the end of the main series.
The Wenlan Pavilion, also known as the Imperial Wenlan Library, Imperial Library or Wenlan Ge, is a library and garden located in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. The library was one of the seven major collections of books built by the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty to house the Siku Quanshu and the only surviving one among the southern collections.
Huang Zongxi's Law, or Theory of Huang Zongxi, is an observation made by Huang Zongxi (1610–1695) on how the burden of the peasants often increased rather than decreased during the various dynasties in Chinese history when attempts were made to reduce it. This theorem was summarized and named by the Chinese historian Qin Hui.
