Culture For Half yearlies Flashcards
What is the official calendar?
The solar calendar has been adopted as the official calendar and official events and holidays are practiced accordingly.
The calendar used today in China and Taiwan has the lunar date in small print beside the solar date, with some agricultural hints and weather indications.
What are the three most important festivals and when are they celebrated?
The three most important festivals are The Spring Festival, The Dragon Boat Festival, and The Mid-Autumn Festival, they are celebrated in accordance to the lunar calendar.
When is the spring festival? What do they eat? What do they do?
The Spring Festival is celebrated on the first day of the first lunar month.
During the spring festival, northern Chinese people eat dumplings (jiao zi) and the southern Chinese eat sweet cake (Niang gao)
Words of blessing are written on paper called chun lian, and pasted on the door for good luck. Firecrackers are lit to dispel bad luck. After dinner the children will receive ya sui jian, money from elder members of the family.
What happens when there is fish on the table?
As the word fish and the verb to spare have the same pronunciation the expression nian nian you yu implies that one wishes there will always be something to spare every year, which is represented by the presence of fish.
What happens in the last few days of the Spring Festival?
The Lantern Festival yuan xiao jie on the 15th day of the first lunar month.
When is the Dragon Boat Festival? Why is it commemorated? What are the customs?
The Dragon Boat Festival is on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.
It is celebrated to commemorate the patriotic poet Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in a river in the fourth century BC.
The customs of dragon boat racing and eating zong zi, sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves are believed to have originated to commemorate his death.
When is the Mid-Autumn Festival? What is it also known as? What do people do on this day?
The Mid-Autumn Festival is on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month.
The festival is also known as the Moon Festival. Because the lunar month starts on a new moon, it is always a full moon on this festival.
On this day people enjoy sitting outdoor admiring the full moon while eating moon cakes, yue bing, and fruit such as pomelo, you zi.
What are the three types of tea? Why do people drink it? How do you enjoy tea?
There are three categories of tea depending on how it is made: green tea, black tea, and Wulong tea. Green tea is unfermented, black tea is fully fermented, and Wulong tea is half fermented. There is also flower tea most popular being jasmine tea.
People drink tea to quench their thirst, refresh themselves, and aid digestion.
There are two ways to enjoy tea: one is drinking and the other is tasting, weak for thirst and strong for tasting.
What are the three most popular leisure activities?
Chinese chess xiang qi, the “go” game, wei ji, and mahjong, maj iang. xiang qi and wei qi are both games for two people. ma jing is played by 4 people.
What is the daily routine of Chinese students?
Teams of students take turns sweeping up the leaves on the school grounds early in the morning.
There are around 50 students in each class, though a trend to cut down class size is emerging.
There is daily morning group physical exercise. At some schools, eye exercises are also held each day to relax eye muscles.
After lunch, students usually take a short nap at their desks to refresh themselves for the afternoon lessons.
After the day gifted students head to a children’s palace found in most cities to provide specialized training, arts, science, and sports.
What is the traditional housing in china, and is it used now?
The traditional U-shaped house called si he yuan has basically disappeared as it is not used for infostructure because of China’s high population density.
Why is the traditional Chinese house an ideal house?
Because it can house a large family consisting of grandparents, aunts and uncles, parents, children, and grandchildren.
How has Chinese housing changed recently?
Housing was traditionally provided by government employers but in the last 20 years there has been a private housing policy introduced and people are encouraged to buy their houses.
