NEWER STORIES

Take Up the Challenge Again

Chinese New Year festival ended, and my brother returned from the village, bringing back some preserved hams. By then I just realised I had not tasted meat in many days.

China Achievements in 2008

2008, an Olympic year, is a huge turning point for China in many ways, where this ancient civilisation encountered massive challenges and accomplished great achievements. The following are some of the terrific Chinese projects completed in

Happy Chinese Niu (牛) Year!

According to The Sequence of the Universe (《皇极经世》), formulated by Shao Kangjie (邵康节), one of the top I Ching masters in Chinese history, year 2009 corresponds with the 20th I China diagram: Observation (风地观), in which wind (Wood in Five Agents) blows across land (Earth in Five Agents).

In this regard, it should be a year when one needs to exercise extra cautions against making rash decisions and taking hasty actions; on the other hand, it's a good time to undertake appropriate investigations, examinations, evaluations or deliberations, and it could also be an ideal moment to set up strategic preparations.

Some contemporary Chinese I Ching masters believe that in this year we may witness a great cultural progress, and we may also face many difficulties in business that are heavily associated with Earth element.

Further, as 2009 is strongly featured with yin Earth in both its celestial stem and terrestrial branch, the energy of Fire will slowly deplete, which could help cooling down some conflict hot spots around the world.

The collective destiny of a family, a nation and the entire world works in a way similar to how an individual's fate is decided. It only reflects what would come to us if we do not alter our customed course of actions.

Chinese New Year Custom: Lion Dance - Eat the Qing (采青)

Lion dance is one of the indispensible components of Chinese New Year festival. However, lions are not native animals in China and until 1900 years ago when Persian envoys brought lions to Emperor Hanwu (汉武帝) as gifts, Chinese people had no idea what lions looked like.

Over the period of the great Tang, Song and Ming dynasties, the lion dace initially designed for palace entertainment appeared in streets, and became a popular expression of the celebration and an articulated form of martial arts.

One of the essential elements in the lion dance as we see today is of "Eating Greens" ("采青", initially called “踩清”). Green is pronounced as "qing", same to the Qing dynasty, which clearly is a tradition developed during the Manchurians' reign in China, and expressed the strong urges of 98 percent of people in China who wished to eliminate the Manchurian parasites that sucked their blood, humiliated their culture and destroyed their civilisation.

List of All Stories