More than 600 years ago, a formidable Chinese navy ruled the seas along China’s eastern and southern coastlines extending its superiority throughout the Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia to the Persian Gulf and East Africa. Between the period from 1405 to 1433, China’s Ming Dynasty launched seven voyages led by Admiral Zheng He to explore these vast regions, known to the Chinese as the Western Oceans. In the first installment of what will be a two-part feature, we’re going to unravel the mysteri...
Oct 13, 2022•15 min
Known in English as Emperor Taizong Receiving the Tibetan Envoy , the painting Bunian Tu depicts a meeting between Tang Emperor Taizong and Gar Tongtsen Yulsung, a special envoy sent by Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo to propose a marriage alliance with the Tang in the year 640. What it doesn’t show is how much bad blood there had been in the years leading up to this historically significant moment. Today, we’re going to talk about this traditional Chinese painting that has, despite its understated ...
Oct 05, 2022•15 min
In 1931, following the September 18th Incident in China, the Japanese occupied three provinces in Northeast China, including Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. It wasn’t long afterward that they turned their attention to Beijing, with an eye firmly set on the large collection of priceless cultural artifacts housed at the Palace Museum, located in heart of the city. Having failed an earlier attempt at looting the cultural relics back in 1894, during the first Sino-Japanese War, they came better pr...
Sep 29, 2022•15 min
Today we’ll have the second installment of our two-part feature where we discuss a nationwide archaeological project that challenges previous notions of Chinese civilization through scientific evidence to better understand all those ancient ruins left behind.
Sep 26, 2022•16 min
The “Origins Project" is a decades-long, multi-disciplinary research endeavor that aims to trace the development of Chinese civilization. The project involves some 400 scholars from across China and nearly 70 scientific research institutes, universities and local archaeological institutions. The project gives Chinese researchers opportunities to explore alternative approaches not only to decode China’s prehistory, but also to redefine the concept of civilization itself. In the first installment ...
Sep 22, 2022•14 min
When the first round of the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in Wuhan of central China’s Hubei Province in early 2020, many countries recognized its inherent risk to global health and began donating gloves, masks, hazmat suits – sending whatever they could to help combat the virus. Among the supplies sent from Japan were shipments from the organization that administers the HSK, otherwise known as the Chinese proficiency test, there in Japan. What they didn’t expect was that the Chinese phrase written...
Sep 19, 2022•13 min
Equivalent to an atomic bomb in terms of its destructive power, the Tianqi Explosion is considered one of three major mysteries in recorded history yet to be solved. If you’re into solving puzzles, the others two are a 3,600-year-old event called Mound of the Dead that occurred in ancient India and Russia’s Tunguska Event that occurred in 1908. Today, we’re going to tell some stories concerning a cataclysmic explosion that turned much of Beijing to rubble nearly 400 years ago. Historians estimat...
Sep 16, 2022•15 min
The tempestuous nature of the sea is a thing of legend – not only legend, but of gods. Just mention God of the Sea to a westerner, and you’ll conjure up images of Poseidon, reputed to be one of the most bad-tempered, moody and greedy of the Olympian gods. By contrast, the Chinese Goddess of the Sea is Mazu, a kind and compassionate lady watching over sailors, fishermen, and travelers. Today, we’re going to introduce Mazu, the most influential goddess of the sea in China, who is at the heart of a...
Sep 13, 2022•13 min
At the recently held cultural relic exhibition entitled “The Making of Zhongguo – Origins, Developments and Achievements of Chinese Civilization” at China’s Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, many of the exhibits were taken from the collection of the museum itself, and a significant proportion of those were related to Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, which lasted from 1644 to 1911. The exhibition featured antiques collected by the emperor, including some items he himself used ...
Sep 08, 2022•11 min
Earlier this year, residents in Beijing noticed a subtle shift taking place in the subway – on signs, the English word “station” has been replaced with “Zhan”, the Chinese pinyin. In some cases, English station names such as Olympic Park and Terminal 2 of the Capital International Airport have become “Aolinpike Gongyuan” and “Er Hao Hangzhanlou”, and thank goodness their English translations are still listed in brackets. This “pinyinization” campaign has caused a stir online, with many netizens ...
Sep 05, 2022•13 min
“I want to give my love an unforgettable gift. The question is what?” This is a challenge many guys face but few get right. Perhaps they can draw some inspiration from a young official that lived some 27 hundred years ago. He came up with a stunning piece of art that not only was likely a hit with his lady, but also the world for generations to come. Instead of the gold or silver one would expect, his gift was a cast bronze wash basin. Today, we are going to talk about an ancient bronze washing ...
Aug 31, 2022•12 min
Imagine for a moment what life might be like if 16th-century sailors and explorers hadn’t introduced potatoes to Europe. How different would your dinner look? More importantly, would your ancestors have survived? The discovery of the potato and its introduction to the continent’s colonial powerhouses by the likes of Sir Walter Raleigh or Christopher Columbus – depending on what history books you read – was pivotal. Potatoes provided a stable, easily cultivated food source that prevented famine a...
Aug 29, 2022•10 min
To this day, there are altogether 195 designated historical artifacts on the list of the National Cultural Heritage Administration that can never leave Chinese soil. Among them, 20 are paintings, a genre most susceptible to gradual damage with the passage of time. Luckily for visitors to the cultural relic exhibition entitled “The Making of Zhongguo – Origins, Developments and Achievements of Chinese Civilization” held recently at China’s Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, they had...
Aug 25, 2022•12 min
Four decades ago, a retired national martial arts champion debuted in a movie about how Shaolin monks saved a Tang emperor from a warlord. The movie, called Shaolin Temple , was an overnight success. This big-screen blockbuster not only propelled its leading actor Jet Li from a mere martial arts master to a full-fledged movie star, but it also made “Shaolin” a household word around the world. The Shaolin Temple is arguably the most famous Buddhist temple in China, renowned for its Kungfu warrior...
Aug 22, 2022•11 min
In 1971, Zhang Fengxiang, a farmer in the Ongniud Banner in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region happened to dig out an “iron hook” while planting trees near his home. He immediately gave it to his four-year-old brother to play with. The child tied a rope to the artifact and dragged it along the ground for fun. Eventually, the “rust” on its surface chipped off to reveal the shiny and translucent jade underneath. It is China’s First Jade Dragon, one of the most representative artifacts of Hongsha...
Aug 19, 2022•13 min
For more than 13-hundred years, this treacherous and winding path that meanders through the mountains and valleys of southwest China has been trod by human feet and horse hoofs helping to bridge the Chinese hinterland with the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Along this unpaved and rugged commercial passage, livestock and commodities flowed back and forth: tea, salt and sugar flowed into Tibet, while horses, furs and other local products flowed out. This ancient trade route, which first appeared dur ing t...
Aug 15, 2022•8 min
For more than 13-hundred years, this treacherous and winding path that meanders through the mountains and valleys of southwest China has been trod by human feet and horse hoofs helping to bridge the Chinese hinterland with the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Along this unpaved and rugged commercial passage, livestock and commodities flowed back and forth: tea, salt and sugar flowed into Tibet, while horses, furs and other local products flowed out. This ancient trade route, which first appeared during th...
Aug 11, 2022•9 min
Today, we’re going to talk about how a small seal from the Western Jin Dynasty has born witness to the ups and downs of the Qiang people and the gradual integration of northwestern minorities that helped to build the great Chinese nation of today.
Aug 08, 2022•13 min
The 40-episode costume drama series A Dream of Splendor , starring A-list actress Liu Yifei, has gathered hundreds of millions of views since it began streaming in June. Today, we’re going to talk about how a popular TV drama highlights the tea contests that emerged during the Tang Dynasty, flourished in the Song and helped inspire tea culture in Japan.
Aug 04, 2022•13 min
China is home to a long-established and flourishing tea culture. In many ways, Japanese culture is fundamentally influenced by China. In its earliest form, Japanese tea practice was no more than a duplicate of Chinese tea culture, but over time, it gradually took on its own features, leading to the formation of the uniquely Japanese “way of tea”. Today we will introduce how the Japanese tea ceremony – or chadō （茶道）, the way of tea – first originated from China before evolving into something quit...
Aug 01, 2022•15 min
Few would have imagined that visitors would throng to a museum to partake of the beauty of a mural, despite it being a replica, at an exhibition on Chinese civilization earlier this year at the Palace Museum, or popularly known the Forbidden City, in Beijing. The mural or its replica is not beautiful in the visual sense. A mural from the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, northwest China’s Gansu Province, it has lost its original luster due to 1,500 years of wear and tear in the dim and dark cave, and ...
Jul 29, 2022•13 min
After the Qing Dynasty established its rule over the heartland of China, the region known as Zhongyuan in the lower and middle reaches of the Yellow River centered on the region between Luoyang and Kaifeng in Henan Province, the Manchus fully controlled the country. Although setting up a unified dynasty, there were fewer people and Manchu culture was less developed than in Zhongyuan, which was perceived as the birthplace of Chinese civilization. Today we continue to discuss how Qing Dynasty empe...
Jul 27, 2022•7 min
In the recent cultural relics exhibition titled “The Making of Zhongguo – Origins, Developments and Achievements of Chinese Civilization” at China’s Palace Museum, otherwise known as the Forbidden City, in Beijing, there were two sets of bronzes. One is the Bronze Chime Bells of Zheng State (806-375 BCE), usually housed at Henan Museum in Zhengzhou, one of the largest sets of chime bells ever unearthed in China. The other is known as Shangzhou Shigong, or the 10 ceremonial utensils of the Shang ...
Jul 25, 2022•7 min
Luodian bronze mirrors represent the pinnacle of the art of Chinese bronze mirrors. This is largely because of Emperor Taizong’s (599-649 CE) “historiographical thinking” – exemplified by his famous quote about needing a mirror to correct one’s appearance, understand the rise and fall of a state, and distinguish right from wrong. Today we continue to discuss how the decorated bronze mirrors from the Tang Dynasty bore witness to the ups and downs of the Silk Road.
Jul 21, 2022•8 min
Famed Chinese Emperor Taizong, second emperor of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) who laid the foundations of the dynasty, has a meaningful statement about the success of governance, recorded in the Old Book of Tang , a history of the dynasty compiled in 945 after it had fallen. “When one uses a bronze mirror, one can adjust the attire. When one uses history as a mirror, one comprehends the rise and fall of a nation. When one uses a person as a mirror, a remonstrator, one sees the success and missteps...
Jul 18, 2022•8 min
In the Stone Age, jade represented wealth because of its scarcity and the advanced techniques required to shape it. Among various kinds of recovered jade wares, ritual vessels were the most valuable and symbolized higher social status. Each kind had distinct purposes. Bi (disc), for example, were used in heaven worship rites. Cong (tube), with their taotie motifs, suggest a supreme religious authority. Yue (axe) symbolized military power. Archaeologists have located nearly 100 new Liangzhu cites...
Jul 15, 2022•9 min
More than 100 priceless relics were displayed at the exhibition “The Making of Zhongguo – Origins, Developments and Achievements of Chinese Civilization” at China’s Palace Museum. Among the treasured objects, two stand out as representative of their kind – jade cong , a tube-like vessel with a square outer section around a circular inner part. One is the Liangzhu jade cong from the Zhejiang Provincial Museum collection. It was displayed at the center of the hall. The other one, owned by the Pala...
Jul 13, 2022•9 min
Demand for trade gave rise to the great geographical exploration and the first wave of globalization. However, disputes and conflicts in cross-border trade soon followed. The tea trade not only played a crucial role in many historic events, it also shaped the development of modern civilization. Tea trade between China and Britain began in the 17th century. In fact, although the Netherlands and Indonesia remained dominant players, the British had purchased tea from Canton, today’s Guangzhou in so...
Jul 11, 2022•9 min
Today we continue to discuss the Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road by looking at the competition between Russian and British tea merchants as they vied for supremacy in the China market, how the tea road, after a more than two centuries of prosperity, faded into history, and the modern initiatives that hark back to the cultural exchanges of the past.
Jul 08, 2022•7 min
It was a humble leaf that helped connect the Eurasian continent and opened the door to commercial trade and cultural exchanges between civilizations. This is the tale of the Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road. With an entire span of over 13,000 kilometers, the Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road stretches all the way from Wuyi Mountain in southeast China’s Fujian Province, via Ulaanbaatar, capital of Mongolia, to Kyakhta in Russia, and then extends further into central Asia and Europe. As another important trade...
Jul 07, 2022•10 min
