Note: This article is a rant. And I wrote it in 2012. It was published in another website which, recently, went offline forever. Since the thoughts I shared are still (very) relevant to China and its society, we decided to publish it on SDC. Today I did something I’m not proud of. Fast backward to …
“He was only trying to help” – Face Issues in China Read More »
This article was writter by TutorMandarin, an online Chinese tutoring service that helps students how to speak Mandarin using an their Android mobile app and PC Software. P.S. Click here to jump directly to an interesting infographic that showcases the most common Chinese surnames for each Province. Naming is an absolutely integral part of Chinese …
Interesting Facts about Chinese Names and Surnames Read More »
Introduction The book I Ching, also called “Zhouyi” or “the book of changes” is irrefutably and unanimously considered as one of the deepest and determining roots of the Chinese culture. The origins of the concepts that it contains are lost in the depths of time to the point of founding itself with mythological figures who, …
Chinese culture is rich and boasts a very ancient history. A first step in getting to know this world better is to get into the narrative and discover the literary works. The theme of this article deals with the figure of fox spirits, of which you can also find a trace of in our time …
Need a shampoo? …You are on your way to the supermarket when you get splashed by a girl who is washing her hair on the sidewalk. Update: I’ve re-published this article with 18 new photos While I was exploring the maze represented by my external hard disk to find some photos for this article, I …
The Chinese word used to indicate the art that we call calligraphy is shūfǎ (书法); composed of shū (书) which means book, letter, document and by extension writing (even if the word for to write has its own character: xiě, 写), and of fǎ (法) which means law and/or rule. From a semantic analysis of …
Today we’ll talk about “Programming”. I don’t mean what they do in companies like Google or Microsoft, but of what is done to reach a certain objective, to seek a better future or simply to simplify (perhaps) their lives. Programming past and future The title of this article is simple: “The importance of programming in …
As we’ve discussed in a previous article (Why Native English is Worth its Weight in Gold in China), learning English is something of a priority for the Chinese. But, despite all the time, money, and effort, China just can’t seem to produce very many competent ESL speakers. The flip side is no different; Chinese is …
Chinese culinary culture (饮食文化, yinshi wenhua) is an indispensable aspect of Chinese life. As Confucius said: “food is the very first necessity of man”. Not to mention that, in China, it’s around the lunch table that business takes place. Food and the language 吃了饭没有？(chi le fan mei you?), “Have you eaten?”, has always been one …
In this article I will review the show “The Legend of Kung Fu” which has as its protagonists the Shaolin monks. The show is performed every night at Beijing’s Red Theater. The last part of the article is reserved for practical information: ticket prices, and where and when to see the show “The Legend of …
To say that China is a *bit* homogenous is something of an understatement. If you’ve never been here, allow me to briefly bore you with some statistics: There are nearly 1.4 billion people living in the People’s Republic of China. Of those, well over a billion (roughly 93%) are Han Chinese, and the vast majority …
A project to revitalize the economy in the north of China China’s impressive economic growth in the past 30 years has been amply guided by the development of two enormous urban conglomerates: the Blue River Delta (DFA) around Shanghai and Nanjing in central China, and the Pearl River Delta (DFP) around Canton and Shenzhen in …
Jing-Jin-Ji: Birth of a megalopolis with Chinese characteristics Read More »
Boasting a continuous history of thousands of years, China has collected an extensive catalogue of rules – explicit and implicit – that govern social habits: the so-called Chinese etiquette (o 礼节). In the past, almost every aspect of Chinese life was regulated by what Master Confucius called 礼 (“li”, rites); failure to observe one of …
Zhang Xi, a young man from Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia, came to Beijing three years ago and since then has always lived inside a basement room on the periphery of the city. Young Xi, a theater and arts graduate, is forced to work as a traveling salesman and only rarely finds work in some …
Stories of the Poor – Zhang Xi and The Rat Tribe of Beijing Read More »
“Sik zo faan mei aa?” (“have you already eaten today?”, 食咗飯未呀) is a common greeting, comparable to our “hey, how’s it going?”, in Hong Kong as in all of China (in Mandarin they say “chi fan le ma?, 吃饭了吗”, the version above is in Cantonese). Therefore it’s no surprise to learn, even in little everyday …
I was climbing with my friend José in an indoor gym one bitterly cold Tuesday in Shanghai when he gave me bad news. “Hey, I have news. I’m moving to Yangshuo to rock climb and learn more Chinese.” We had been climbing partners for a couple months, which can be hard to find. He was …
Climbing Mountains and Conquering Fears in Yangshuo Read More »
Apps and e-commerce platforms directly connected to your bank account Online commerce in China is rapidly growing because consumers are more inclined to make purchases online through various platforms and devices like computers, tablets and smartphones. Online payment operations in China have surpassed 2.42 billions of Chinese Yuan (about 370 millions of American Dollars) in …
Online payments in China: Spreading without limits Read More »
I wonder whether in my situation she would lose face or not… Even if I wrote this article in 2012, we’re republishing it today because the topic is quite interesting This year I find my April fools joke on Repubblica.it, one of the most important Italian newspapers, while I taste my coffee and delete the …
I heard about the Mosuo bits and pieces at a time talking to anthropologists and backpackers. They are a Chinese ethnic minority living around Lugu Lake, on the border between Yunnan and Sichuan province. I had the idea that they were a matriarchal tribe and I believed men among them were reduced to sex objects. …
Disclaimer: This article is an opinion article based on contrasting information and personal experience. The comments section is open to discussion. However, just like with any article on SDC, any comments considered to be clearly offensive or insulting will be deleted. Lately, we received a wave of insulting comments against Chinese people, and strangely on …
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