CHINESE NEW YEAR: Every year when winter is about to end and spring is coming; the Chinese always grandly celebrate the first traditional festival in a year – The Spring Festival (New Year of lunar calendar). It can be called the grandest and most exciting festival for the Chinese, containing a long history and rich cultural connotations. On New Year, people visited each other; high officials gave each other their cards or went to each other’s houses. Common people paid attention to reciprocal courtesy, presenting gifts and paying New Year visits to one another. During the period of New Year, all kinds of recreations were carried out – lion dance, playing of fireworks, dragon dance, drama playing, story telling, high stilts playing, land boats racing, etc… Children especially like spending Spring Festival because they can get money on New Year’s Eve, which is called Ya Sui money given to children by elders. The money should be daintily put in a red paper envelope and will be distributed to minor juniors. Many regions hold temple fair, which is a traditional way to celebrate. It generally lasts from the first to the seventh of the first lunar month.

Shou Sui means not to sleep on the last night of a year and to stay up all nights to welcome a new year.
There is an interesting story among common folks for many generations about the origin of the custom. In time immemorial, a kind of fierce and strange beast lived in deep mountains and thick forests appearance and savage character, eating everything from snap bug to living humans and changing its diet everyday, which people got to know the regularity of Nian’s activities. Every 365 days it went to a human community to eat them, and it usually appeared after sunset and would go back to mountain or forest when roosters crowed dawn. Counting the exact date of Nian’s coming and indulgence, folks considered that night as a junction of torture which is called Nian Guan in Chinese, and that they thought out a whole set of ways to get through that night. When the night came, every family made dinner early, extinguished fire and cleaned over, looked the door to all chicken pens and bullpens, sealed front and back door of the house, and had Hogmanay dinner in the house. Since people didn’t know what would happen after this dinner, it was extremely sumptuous. Not only that every family member had to dine together around a table to show harmony and reunion, but that before dinner, they had to pay respect to ancestors for their blessing to help them get through the night. After dinner, no one dared sleep but all huddled together and chatted to gain courage. This gradually comes to be the custom of staying up on New Year’s Eve. During Spring Festival, each region has its local traditional entertainments.

LANTERN FESTIVAL: The 15th day of the lunar month is the traditional Chinese Yuanxiao Festival. Because the first lunar month is also called “yuan” month; the night of the 15th day of yuan month is the first night that the moon gets full; xiao means “night,” so the festival is named Yuanxiao Festival or Shangyuan Festival, Yuanxiao Festival or Lantern Festival. The Chinese people have a custom of enjoying lanterns on Lantern Festival, which is said as “holding ceremonies of festival lanterns on the 15th day of the first lunar month.” The custom come from the Taoist “Theory of Three Yuan”: the 15th day of the first lunar month is Shangyuan Festival; that of the seventh lunar month is Zhongyuan Festival; and that of the tenth lunar month is Xiayuan Festival. These three yuan are in the charge of three officials: heaven, earth and human world respectively. The official of heaven likes joyful things, so lanterns should be lit on Shangyuan Festival. The custom of lighting lanterns on Lantern Festival has already appeared in the Han Dynasty. After generations of development, more and more varieties of lanterns come into being and the forms of playing vary too, for example, there are mirror-like lanterns, phoenix lanterns, colored glaze lanterns, people also set off fireworks to go with the festival atmosphere. That “Shining trees and sparkling fireworks weaves an unsleeping night” is the description of the beautiful scenes on the night of Lantern Festival.

DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL: About the origin of Dragon Boat Festival there are a lot of versions, the most influential one of which is that it is a festival that commemorates Qu Yuan. This version has almost been taken as a common sense among the Chinese people. Qu Yuan (c. 340-278 BC) was a senior state official in the state of Chu in the Warring States Period. Among the seven states then (Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei and Qin), Qin was the most powerful one and it intended to conquer the other six and dominate China. Qu’s capability won the recognition of Huaiwang (Huai King of Chu). However, Qu’s opinion that Chu should carry out a political reform and cooperate with the other states to fight against Qin met opposition from his fellow officials. They spoke ill of Qu before Huaiwang, and as a result, Huaiwang gradually became estranged from Qu, and finally he drove Qu out of the capital of Chu. Finally, Chu was defeated by Qin. Grieved and indignant, Qu Yuan jumped into Miluo River and ended his life. That day was the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 278 BC. When people got the news that Qu Yuan had drowned himself, they all got very sad and rowed to get his dead body but failed. To save the body from the fish, people threw food into the river to distract their attention. From then on, people always row dragon boats on rivers to mourn over Qu Yuan on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month every year. Moreover, they fill the bamboo cans with rice and throw them into rivers as a memorial ceremony. It was said that once someone met Qu Yuan by the river and Qu said, “The food you gave me has been robbed by the dragon. You’d better wrap the rice with bamboo or reed leaves and fasten it with colored threads, for these things are what dragons are most afraid of.” Since then, people began to commemorate Qu Yuan with zongzi which are made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves, and thus zongzi become the traditional food

MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL: According to the Chinese calendar, the seventh, eighth and ninth lunar months belong to autumn. The eighth lunar month is in the middle of autumn, and the 15th of the eighth month is in the middle of the month, so the festival is called “Mid-Autumn Festival.” In autumn it is usually clear and cool and there are seldom wandering clouds in the sky, so the moon is particularly bright and clear at night. It is on the night of the 15th day in the eighth lunar month that the moon becomes full, so it is the golden time for people to enjoy the moon. The full moon is considered as a symbol of reunion. Therefore Mid-Autumn Festival is also called “the Reunion Festival,” and it is a traditional festival only second to the Spring Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival has had a long history, and offering sacrifices to the moon and enjoy the moonlight were very important customs. Like eating zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival and eating tangyuan on the Lantern Festival, eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional Chinese custom. The moon cake is round, which signifies “tuanyuan” (reunion; in Chinese “round” is “yuan”), so it is also called “tuanyuan cake” in some places. Moon cakes are the essentials of Mid-Autumn Festival.

The erhu ( 二胡), sometimes known in the West as the 'Chinese violin' or Chinese two string fiddle, is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument, used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles and large orchestras. It belongs to the huqin family of bowed string Chinese instruments, together with the zhonghu(中胡),gaohu(高胡),banhu(板胡),jinghu(京胡),sihu(四胡), and numerous others. It is said that there are over 40 different variations of the generic huqin instrument.

The guzheng, or zither(古箏) or zheng (箏) (gu- means "ancient") is a traditional Chinese musical instrument. It is a plucked string instrument that is part of the zither family.The Chinese character for "zheng" composed of two parts: the upper part means "bamboo" and the lower part is "argue" (see the above character). According to a legend, there was a master of se, 25-stringed zither, who had two talented daughters who love playing the instrument. Now there came a time that the master became too old, and wanted to pass his instrument over to one of them. However, both daughters wanted to have it. The master felt miserable and finally, out of desperate, he decided to split the instrument into two - one got 12 strings, and the other 13. To his amazement, the new instrument sounds mellow and even more beautiful than its original. The happy master gave the new instrument a new name "zheng" by making up the character with the symbolisms representing "bamboo" and "argue". The word "zheng", the name of this instrument, pronounces the same as the word "zheng" which means "argue" or "dispute". The origin of the Chinese character representing this instrument seems to indicate that the early version of the instrument was made of bamboo, which is different from that of today. However, this legendary story, though it might be true according to the origin of the Chinese character for this instrument, should not be taken too seriously.

The trapezoidal yangqin (揚琴) is a Chinese hammered dulcimenr.The yangqin was traditionally fitted with bronze strings, which gave the instrument a soft timbre. This form of instrument is still occasionally heard today in the hudie qin (蝴蝶琴, lit. "butterfly zither") played in the traditional silk and bamboo genre from the Shanghai region known as Jiangnan sizhu (江南絲竹), as well as in some Cantonese music groups. The Thai and Cambodian Khim is nearly identical in its construction, having been introduced to those nations by southern Chinese musicians. Since the 1950s, however, steel alloy strings (in conjunction with copper-wound steel strings for the bass(notes) have been used, in order to give the instrument a brighter, and louder tone. The modern yangqin can have as many as five courses of bridges and may be arranged chromatically. Traditional instruments, with three or more courses of bridges, are also still widely in use. Strings are struck with two lightweight bamboo beaters (also known as hammers) with rubber tips. A professional musician often carries several sets of beaters, each of which draws a slightly different tone from the instrument, much like the drum sticks of western percussionists.The yangqin is used both as a solo instrument and in ensembles, where it is lauded as the quintessential Chinese accompaniment instrument.

Most dizi are made of bamboo, which explains why dizi are sometimes known by simple names such as "Chinese bamboo flute." However, "bamboo" is perhaps more of a Chinese instrument classification like "woodwind" in the West.

Although bamboo is the common material for the dizi, it is also possible to find dizi made from other kinds of kinds of wood, or even from stone. Jade dizi (or yudi, 玉笛) are popular among both collectors interested in the almost magical beauty of jade dizi, and among professional players who seek an instrument with look that matches the quality of their renditions. But jade may not be the best material for dizi as, like with metal, jade may not be so respondant to tone quality, unlike bamboo which is more resonant.

The dizi is not the only bamboo flute of China, although it is certainly distinctive. Other Chinese bamboo wind instruments include the Xiao, the Guan, the Koudi, and the Bawu.

The pipa (琵琶) is a plucked Chinese string instrument. Sometimes called the Chinese lute , the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body. It has been played for nearly two thousand years of history in China, and belongs to the plucked category of instruments (彈撥樂器).

More than 2,000 years ago Traditional Chinese Medicine established its unique theoretic system. In this system, man and nature correspond with, influence, and guide each other through a core system of internal organs, meridians, and collaterals that are explained by tools such as Yin and Yang and the five elements. The properties of Yin and Yang are not definite, but are in fact relative. For instance, daytime is Yang and night is Yin. However, in terms of morning and afternoon, morning is Yang within Yang while afternoon is Yin within Yang. All things in the universe can be classified into either the Yin or Yang category and any part within one single object also can be further divided into two aspects, Yin and Yang. This theory is used to explain the tissues and structures of the human body. The upper part is Yang while the lower part is Yin; the external part is Yang while the internal part is Yin; the back is Yang while the abdomen is Yin…

The five elements, namely wood, fire, earth, metal and water, are the materials indispensable to human existence. Wood is characterized by free growth and external development. So anything that bears such a property pertains to the category of Wood. Fire is characterized by flaming up and warmth, and anything that bears such a property pertains to the category of Fire. Earth is characterized by growing crops and supporting all things on the earth, and anything that bears such a property pertains to the category of Earth. Metal is characterized by change and anything that bears such a property pertains to the category of Metal. Water is characterized by flowing downwards and moistening things, and anything that bears such a property pertains to the category of Water.

Note: The above introductions are excerpts from the book titled ‘The Illustrated Book of Traditional Chinese Cultivation of Heath” by Chuncai Zhou, translated by Zhaoguo Li.

Wushu was historically termed “quan yong” or martial arts. But fairly recently, the Chinese government changed the term to “guoshu” during the Republican Period (1912-1949) while foreigners call it “kung fu”. The Chinese martial art was rooted in the war between humans and animals among the tribes. An excerpt from The Book of Poetry traces the martial art back to the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC – 476 BC). Further passages from Zhuangzi recorded over three thousand swordsmen of King Zhao (in the late Qin Dynasty) fought with each other day and night, and never grew tired of fighting. During the Han Dynasty (202 BC-AD 220), the practice martial arts made remarkable progress. Many a paintings on relief stone sculptures from the Han Dynasty, which were unearthed in Henan, describe the martial arts movements in varied forms, including similarities to fencing, painting, sword playing, snatching spears empty-handed, and bayonet practice using a sword and lance – all of which reflect the “solo” and “sparring” forms of martial arts.

Following the Spring and Autumn Period, Taoism was formed, and famous Chinese philosopher Laozi advocated for the “renewal of oneself while embracing perfect peace,” and for the “unity of body and mind while concentrating on breathing” while Zhuangzi essentially proposed the idea of “exhaling the old and inhaling the new.” The Xingqi Yupei Ming, or the Qi Circulation Inscription, from the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) recorded the qi-promoting method. Laozi and Zhuangzi’s theory of “cultivating qi” combined the theory of yin-and-yang with the five elements: metal, wood, water, fir and earth. This became the training basis for the internal exercise of Wushu. Some of Laozi’s philosophical theories, such as restricting action through silence, conquering the unyielding with the yielding and “cats hide their paws” were absorbed by various styles of Wushu and were considered the principles of internal styles of martial arts.

Note: The above introductions are excerpts from the book titled “Chinese Kungfu, Master, Schools and Combats” Guangxi Wang, translated by Huizhi Han, Wenliang Wang, Jian Kang.