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From: Xinhua news

Its taken the British to bring to Beijing artifacts of ancient Rome, Greece, Africa and Egypt. While the British Museums touring exhibit Treasures of the Worlds Cultures has left many people in the Chinese capital in awe, the collection of 272 ancient artifacts have also raised a number of concerns and questions. Why are there no Chinese artifacts and to which civilization do the objects really belong? After visiting the exhibition at Beijings Capital Museum, 19-year-old Wang Wei had a typical reaction: I was really shocked by the beautiful artifacts from the different cultures, but why are there no Chinese antiques? Im sorry I couldnt see Chinese artifacts collected by the British Museum.

A Chinese cultural official, who would not give his name, said whether the Chinese artifacts collected by British Museum should be returned to China is a sensitive issue and the two museums avoided touching it.

More than 20,000 Chinese artifacts including paintings, textiles, jade and metal objects are housed in the British Museum. Most of them were robbed or purchased for pennies more than 100 years ago.

The British Museum has been under pressure in recent years from Greece, Egypt and China as they have requested the return of artifacts to the original countries. So far all requests have been refused by the British Museum.

At the opening ceremony of the show in Beijing, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, said, The intention of the British Museum is to bring the whole world into one building.

The British Museum is not a museum of the whole world, but a museum for the whole world, said Macgregor.

Guo Xiaoling, curator of the Capital Museum, said, Its not a bad thing for the artifacts, if they are well preserved, to be in the British Museum, since the artifacts are the cultural heritage of all human beings.

But they should return a part of the huge collection of the Chinese antiques as a gesture of friendship. That will make Chinese people very happy, Guo added.

According to the agreement signed by the British Museum and the Chinese cultural heritage authorities, more treasures from British Museum will be shown in China in the future in cooperation with the Palace Museum and the National Museum of China. China will also send treasures to Britain.

Treasures of the Worlds Cultures is held at the Capital Museum until June 5.

The collection includes a 3,000-year-old mummy, an ancient statue of Dionysos and a 2,100-year-old gold pendant featuring Aphrodite and Eros.

Each of the 272 items is a masterpiece from the British Museums vast collections and together they demonstrate the long history of human civilization worldwide, Guo said.

The two and a half month exhibition will give Chinese an opportunity to enjoy the collection of a world class museum without going abroad, Guo said.

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Kunqu is China’s oldest, most influential folk opera, respected as the sister of the Opera of Peking. On May 18, 2001 Kunqu was honoured by UNESCO as one of 19 outstanding forms of cultural expression in the world.

Tradition says that Kunqu was created by artists in the Kunshan area more than 700 years ago. Being popular in Jiangsu, kunqu then spread to Zhejiang and other southern provinces after the Ming Dynasty, and was improved by artists including Wei Liangfu and Liang Zhenyu. Later kunqu was introduced to Beijing, and became one of two official forms of drama of the imperial court before it became popular nationwide.

Kunqu’s uniqueness lies in the combination of poetry, music, song and dance, making it difficult to perform but enjoyable to watch. Accompanying instruments include drums, the San Xian and Pi Pa stringed instruments, and wind instruments such as flutes, Shengs, Xiaos. Many famous Peking Opera players were also great performers of kunqu. But to be a kunqu performer, a grasp of more skills in both song and performance were required to give a good performance in kunqu.

1. Phonics – Pinyin
2. Four Tones

Statics show there are about … well… several thousands Chinese charaters, for daily use, just 2,000 – 3,000 would be just fine. And among them, some are vital as keyword, some are not somefrequently used.

In this picture, at the very beginning, the shorter stroke above the longer one is an indication of something above the horizon, and that was the original meaning of “above” or “upward”. Pronunciation in
mandarin is “shang 4″.

If we know the previous one, this time it should be easy. this character stands for “below” or “beneath”. Its pronunciation is “Xia 4″

These two Chinese characters are everyday use, not only in positioning but also, like a very thick book, in 2 volumes, we would like to arrange them in this way:

This the LEFT in Chinese, as we can see, at the beginning, it stands for the left hand. “Zuo 3″

And opposite to the left is RIGHT. “You 4″

Now, if we can put these four characters together, it means everywhere.

Basic fact about Chinese characters

The America poet Ezra Pound once said, “The easiest language in the world for writing poetry is Chinese.” And in the words of E.E.Cummings, another American poet, “Chinese poets are painters.”

Here we try to illustrate to you some of the forms and structures of Chinese characters.

Each Chinese character has a form of its own, a story of its own. Each character is a unity of form, sound and meaning. Hard as it is, but maybe a little story for each of them, should make it eazier for you to understand. Note, not every Chinese know the stories, but we were taught to remmember them from kindergarten age.

Now guess the meaning of the following characters:

First time, it could be a littel hard. The first one stands for Sun (day), and the second one stands for Moon or lunar (Month). But when put them together, like:

They stand for Day and Month, that is the time past by…

Now, something eazier maybe:

Okay, the first one is the Mountain, and the second one is the river.

Well, maybe we can put them together, like:

Mountain, River, Sun and Moon…Space and Time, that is Universe…

The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, usually in February or March in the Gregorian calendar. As early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), it had become a festival with great significance.

This day’s important activity is watching lanterns. Throughout the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Buddhism flourished in China. One emperor heard that Buddhist monks would watch sarira, or remains from the cremation of Buddha’s body, and light lanterns to worship Buddha on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, so he ordered to light lanterns in the imperial palace and temples to show respect to Buddha on this day. Later, the Buddhist rite developed into a grand festival among common people and its influence expanded from the Central Plains to the whole of China.

Till today, the Lantern Festival is still held each year around the country. Lanterns of various shapes and sizes are hung in the streets, attracting countless visitors. Children will hold self-made or bought lanterns to stroll with on the streets, extremely excited.

‘Guessing lantern riddles’ is an essential part of the Festival. Lantern owners write riddles on a piece of paper and post them on the lanterns. If visitors have solutions to the riddles, they can pull the paper out and go to the lantern owners to check their answer. If they are right, they will get a little gift. The activity emerged during people’s enjoyment of lanterns in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). As riddle guessing is interesting and full of wisdom, it has become popular among all social strata.

People will eat yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day, so it is also called the ‘Yuanxiao Festival.’ Yuanxiao also has another name, tangyuan. It is small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour with rose petals, sesame, bean paste, jujube paste, walnut meat, dried fruit, sugar and edible oil as filling. Tangyuan can be boiled, fried or steamed. It tastes sweet and delicious. What’s more, tangyuan in Chinese has a similar pronunciation with ‘tuanyuan’, meaning reunion. So people eat them to denote union, harmony and happiness for the family.

In the daytime of the Festival, performances such as a dragon lantern dance, a lion dance, a land boat dance, a yangge dance, walking on stilts and beating drums while dancing will be staged. On the night, except for magnificent lanterns, fireworks form a beautiful scene. Most families spare some fireworks from the Spring Festival and let them off in the Lantern Festival. Some local governments will even organize a fireworks party. On the night when the first full moon enters the New Year, people become really intoxicated by the imposing fireworks and bright moon in the sky.

An important activity during the Spring Festival is Bai Nian (to pay a New Year call). People start to pay New Year calls from the lunar New Year’s Day, that is, the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar.

On the morning of the lunar New Year’s Day, people get up very early and call on others. The earlier one does so, the more sincere he is. Moreover, people wear new clothes and a new cap, symbolizing that a new year has begun.

The younger generation should call on their elders first, such as the grandfather, grandmother, father, and mother, wishing them ‘Good health’ and ‘Long life’. Then the elders give children some money in a red envelope as a New Year gift. After that, people call on their relatives, friends and neighbors. As ‘big tangerine’ is a homonym for ‘very lucky’ in Chinese, so people often present red big tangerines as a gift while paying a New Year call.

And ever since the Ming Dynasty in the 14th century, ordinary people have begun to exchange greeting cards.

Nowadays, people also use telephones and e-mails to pay New Year calls.