Beijing Destination Guide

Chinese Culture & Customs

Home to one of the world's oldest and most complex civilizations, China boasts a history rich in over five thousand years of artistic, philosophical, and political advancement.

Though regional differences provide a sense of diversity, commonalities in language and religion connect a culture distinguished by such universally significant contributions as Confucianism.

Credited with shaping much of Chinese thought, Confucianism was the official philosophy throughout most of Imperial China's history, and mastery of Confucian texts provided the primary criterion for entry into the imperial bureaucracy.

Literature:

Chinese literature has a long and prolific continuous history, in part because of the development of printmaking during the Song Dynasty.

Before that, manuscripts of the Classics and religious texts (mainly Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist) were manually written by ink brush (previously scratching shells) and distributed. Academies of scholars sponsored by the empire were formed to comment on these works in both printed and written form. Members of royalty frequently participated in these discussions. Tens of thousands of ancient written documents are still extant and more, from oracle bones to Qing edicts, are discovered each day.

Chinese philosophers, writers, and poets have been, for the most part, highly respected, and played a key role in preserving and promoting the culture of the empire. Some classical scholars, however, were noted for their daring depictions of lives of the common people, often to the displeasure of authorities.

Chinese characters have had many variants and styles throughout the Chinese history, and were "simplified" in the mid-20th century on mainland China. Calligraphy is a major art-form in China, above that of painting and music. Because of its association with elite scholar-official bosses, it later on became commercialised, where works by famous artists became prized possessions.

The Chinese invented numerous musical instruments, such as the zheng, qin, sheng, xiao, and erhu, that have later spread throughout East and Southeast Asia, particularly in Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The Chinese sheng is the basis for several Western free-reed instruments(harmonica, organ).

The great variation and beauty in the Chinese landscape is often the inspiration for great works of Chinese art. Calligraphy, sushi, and bonsai are all millennia-old art that later spread to Japan and Korea.

Modern Trends:

Especially beginning in the late 1980's and early 1990's, China became exposed to more western elements, notably pop culture. American cinema is very popular in China. Young people tend to gather late at night at bars and nightclubs. The obsession with brand names is becoming more apparent by the day, and teen slang is incorporating more and more western language elements.

Architecture:

Chinese architecture, examples of which can be found over 2,000 years ago, has long been a landmark of Chinese culture. There are certain features common to Chinese architecture, regardless of specific region or use.

The most important is its emphasis on the horizontal. In contrast to Western architecture, which tends to grow in height and in depth, Chinese architecture stresses on the width of the buildings. The halls and palaces in the Forbidden City, for example, have rather low ceilings when compared to equivalent stately buildings in the West, but their external appearances suggest the all-embracing nature of imperial China. This of course does not apply to pagodas, which in any case are relatively rare.

Another important feature is its emphasis on symmetry, which implies a sense of grandeur; this applies to everything from palaces to farmhouses. One notable exception is in the design of gardens, which tends to be as asymmetrical as possible. Like Chinese scroll paintings, the principle underlying the garden's composition is to create enduring flow, to let the patron wander and enjoy the garden without prescription, as in nature herself.

Feng Shui:

Feng shui designed architecture plays an important role in Chinese Culture. For example, Paifang is a Feng Shui designed gate of China town.

Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of space to attempt to achieve harmony with the environment that has its origins from Taoism. The practice is estimated to be more than three thousand years old.

Proper Feng Shui is a set of general guidelines for the creation of beautiful architecture and comfortable interior decoration not superstition as it has become for some.

Economic Development:

Hong Kong fully urbanised during the post-war period and has developed into a major financial centre and a world city. As one of the "East Asian Tigers" it saw a high growth rate and rapid industrialisation between the early 1960s and 1990s. Today, economic reforms on mainland China appear to have succeeded financially and have resulted in a booming economy in the last two decades, resulting in, among other things, a rising class of nouveau riche and middle class; whereas Hongkongers may be seen as "old money".

Social values:

In Chinese society, collectivism has a long tradition based on Confucianism, where being a 'community man' or someone with a 'social personality' is valued. Additionally, there is the shigu personality type, who is worldly and committed to family.

Individualist thinking in China was formed by Lao Zi and Taoism. He taught that individual happiness is the basis of a good society and saw the state, with its "laws and regulations more numerous than the hairs of an ox," as the persistent oppressor of the individual, "more to be feared than fierce tigers." He was an opponent of taxation and war, and his students and the tradition that followed him were consistently individualistic.

Chinese social relations are social relations typified by a reciprocal social network. Often social obligations within the network are characterized in familial terms. The individual link within the social network is known by guanxi and the feeling within the link is known by the term ganqing. Social relations are often expressed by the exchange of gifts. An important concept within Chinese social relations is the concept of face and many other Oriental cultures.

Face refers to two separate but related concepts in Chinese social relations. One is mianzi, the other is lianzi.

Lian is the confidence of society in a person's moral character, while mianzi represents social perceptions of a person's prestige. For a person to maintain face is important with Chinese social relations because face translates into power and influence. A loss of lian would result in a loss of trust within a social network, while a loss of mianzi would likely result in a loss of authority. To illustrate the difference, gossiping about someone stealing from a cash register would cause a loss of lian but not mianzi. Repeatedly interrupting one's boss as he is trying to speak may cause the boss a loss of mianzi but not lian.

When trying to avoid conflict, Chinese in general will avoid causing another person to lose mianzi by not bringing up embarrassing facts in public. Conversely, when challenging authority and another person's standing within a community, Chinese will often attempt to cause a loss of lian or mianzi. A very public example of this occurred during the Tiananmen protests of 1989 when Wu'er Kaixi scolded Premier Li Peng for being late to a meeting with the demonstrators, resulting in Li's loss of mianzi because he was seen as either tardy or insincere about the meeting.  The concept also exists in similar fashion in Korean and Japanese cultures.

• To apologize: In Chinese culture, people make serious apologies to others by pouring them tea. That is a sign of regret and submission.

Gifts:

Other customary traits of the Chinese nation are that of gift giving, and should a gift be offered it should be recieved with two hands. Gifts will normally be offered with two hands, and it would be considered offensive not to receive it in kind. Even the seemingly trivial matter of giving out business cards should be adhered to in this manner. As far as introductions go Chinese people are not as forward as Westerners and will not normally initatiate a conversation with someone they are unfamiliar with. Handshakes are not customary for first meetings, but conversation topics can range from job, salary or marital status issues rather than about family. 

Martial Arts:

Hundreds of different styles of Chinese martial arts have developed over the past two to four thousand years, many distinctive styles with their own sets of techniques and ideas. Also, there are many themes common to different styles that lead many to characterize them as belonging to generalized "families" of martial art styles. There are styles that mimic movements from animals and others that gather inspiration from various Chinese philosophies. Some styles put most of their focus into the belief of the harnessing of qi energy, while others concentrate solely on competition and exhibition. 

The concept of qi or ch'i, the inner energy or "life force" that is said to animate living beings, is encountered in almost all styles of Chinese martial arts. Internal styles are reputed to cultivate its use differently than external styles.

One's qi can be improved and strengthened through the regular practice of various physical and mental exercises known as qigong. Though qigong is not a martial art itself, it is often incorporated in Chinese martial arts and, thus, practiced as an integral part to strengthen one's internal abilities.

There are many ideas regarding controlling one's qi energy to such an extent that it can be used for healing oneself or others: the goal of medical qigong. Some styles believe in focusing qi into a single point when attacking and aim at specific areas of the human body (similar to the study of acupressure), to cause maximum damage or disable certain functions of the body. Some go so far as to think that at an advanced level it is (or was, as some believe such abilities to now be lost, if they ever existed) possible to cause harm without even touching the opponent, a popular concept in Chinese martial arts movies.

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