Powerful links connect the Chinese of today with their ancestors 5000 or 6000 years ago, making this the longest-lasting complex civilisation on earth. No wonder then that China, home to roughly one-fifth of humanity, is custodian of one of the world's richest cultural and artistic legacies.
Shaped by Confucian principles, the Chinese are thoughtful and discreet, subtle but also pragmatic and practically minded. Conservative and somewhat introverted, they favour dark clothing over bright or loud colours while their body language is usually reserved and undemonstrative, yet attentive.
The Chinese (apart from the Shanghainese, some Chinese insist) are particularly generous. Don’t be surprised if a person you have just met on a train invites you for a meal in the dining carriage; they will insist on paying, in which case do not try to thwart their efforts. The Chinese also adore children and delight in showing them affection.
Particularly diligent, the Chinese are inured to the kind of hours that may prompt a workers’ insurrection elsewhere. This is partly due to a traditional culture of hard work but is also a response to inadequate social-security safety nets and an expression of anxiety regarding economic and political uncertainties. The Chinese impressively save much of what they earn, emphasising the virtue of prudence. Despite this restraint, however, wastefulness can be astounding when ‘face’ is involved: mountains of food are often left on restaurant dining tables, particularly if important guests are present.
The Chinese are also an exceptionally dignified people. They are proud of their civilisation and history, their written language and of their inventions and achievements. This pride rarely comes across as arrogance or self-assurance, however, and may be tinged with a lack of confidence. The Chinese may, for example, be very gratified by China’s newfound world status, but may squirm at the mention of food safety and hygiene.
The modern Chinese character has been shaped by recent political realities, and while Chinese people have always been reserved and circumspect, in today’s China they can appear even more prudent. Impressive mental gymnastics are performed to detour contentious domestic political issues, which can make the mainland Chinese appear complicated, despite their reputation for being straightforward and down-to-earth.
The ‘one-child policy’ (actually a misnomer, as the policy allows many exceptions and ethnic minorities are exempt) came into effect in 1979 in a bid to keep China’s population to one billion by the year 2000; the latest government estimate is that the population will peak at 1.5 billion in 2033. The policy was originally harshly implemented, but rural revolt led to a softer stance; nonetheless, it has generated much bad feeling between local officials and the rural population.
Rural families were later allowed two children if the first child was a girl, but some couples have upwards of three or four kids. Additional offspring can result in fines and families having to shoulder the cost of education themselves, without government assistance. Official stated policy opposes forced abortion or sterilisation, but allegations of coercion continue as local officials strive to meet population quotas. Families who do abide by the one-child policy often go to great lengths to make sure their child is male, which has resulted in a lopsided male-to-female ratio of 111 boys to 100 girls.
In October 2015 China announced an end to the one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children.
When we think of China, we think of the world’s most populous nation, dominated by the Han Chinese. While 92% of the population is Han, China is also home to 55 other ethnic minorities, including Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongols. Most of the minorities live on China’s borderlands. In the northeast, near Hǎilāěr, there are small pockets of Evenki (reindeer herders) and even ethnic Russians who speak Mandarin as their native tongue.
But it is indeed the Han Chinese who dominate, not only in the population figures but in every aspect of life in China – including writing, the arts, literature, sport and politics. For the minorities, the ability to operate comfortably in Han culture and language is essential for moving ahead in society.
The Han are distributed throughout the country but predominantly concentrated along the Yellow River, Yangzi River and Pearl River basins. These core areas are but a small fraction of the total area of China – the colossal areas of Tibet, Qīnghǎi, Xīnjiāng, Inner Mongolia and the northeast (Manchuria) are historically non-Han areas but were slowly brought into the motherland following centuries of warfare and occupation.
Religion in China has been influenced by three streams of thought: Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. All three have been inextricably entwined in popular Chinese religion along with ancient animist beliefs. The founders of these traditions have been deified; the Chinese worship them and their disciples as fervently as they worship their own ancestors and a pantheon of gods and spirits.
The Chinese Communist government professes atheism. It considers religion to be base superstition, a remnant of old China used by the ruling classes to maintain power. Nevertheless, in an effort to improve relations with the Muslim, Buddhist and Lamaist minorities, in 1982 the Chinese government amended its constitution to allow freedom of religion. However, only atheists are permitted to be members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Since almost all of China’s 55 minority groups adhere to one religion or another, this rule precludes most of them from party membership.
Muslims and Christians are believed to be the largest identifiable religious groups still active in China today, each numbering perhaps 3% to 5% of the nation’s population. The government has not published official figures of the number of Buddhists – hardly surprising given the ideological battle it has been waging with Tibetan Buddhists, who have been fighting for decades to preserve their culture and their nation. It’s impossible to determine the number of Taoists, but the number of Taoist priests is very small.
Traditional Chinese religious beliefs took a battering during the Cultural Revolution when monasteries were disbanded, temples were destroyed and the monks were sometimes killed or sent to the fields to labour. Since Mao’s death, the Chinese government has allowed many temples (sometimes with their own contingent of monks and novices) to reopen as active places of worship. All religious activity is firmly under state control and many of the monks are caretakers within renovated shells of monasteries, which serve principally as tourist attractions and are pale shadows of their former selves.
China is the custodian of one of the world’s richest cultural and artistic legacies. Until the 20th century, China’s arts were deeply conservative and resistant to change; over the last century, revolutions in technique and content have fashioned a dramatic transformation. Despite this evolution, China’s arts – whatever the period – remain united by a common aesthetic that taps into the very soul of the nation.
In reflection of the Chinese character, Chinese aesthetics have traditionally been marked by restraint and understatement, a preference for oblique references over direct explanation, vagueness in place of specificity. These guiding principles compellingly find their way into virtually every Chinese art form.
Perhaps the most iconic of China’s arts is calligraphy. However, it can be tricky for Westerners to comprehend calligraphy as an art form, unless they have a sound understanding of written Chinese. This is because the characters represent both an image of beauty as well as a description or concept. Less ‘insider’ knowledge is needed, however, to appreciate Chinese traditional painting. There may be subtle meanings behind the work, but in general Chinese landscapes are accessible to any eye and have long been treasured in the West for their beauty.
China turned an artistic corner of sorts after 1949, when artists eschewed washes on silk in favour of oil on canvas. The Chinese obsession with the mysterious and the ineffable made way for attention to detail and realism. By the 1970s Chinese artists aspired to master the art of socialist realism. Saturated with political symbolism and propaganda, the blunt artistic style was produced on an industrial scale. Traditional Taoist and Buddhist philosophy was overturned; humans were now the masters of nature, which would bend to their will.
Mao’s death ended the era of ‘art for the masses’ and a new school of artists began exploring a variety of themes, largely influenced by the Western art world. After the Tiān'ānmén Square protests in 1989 the Chinese art world turned cynical, with many works mocking Chinese consumerism and political ideology. Today there is a vast array of subjects as Chinese artists have moved away from overtly political work towards more universal concerns.
Beliefs about ancestor worship permeate almost every aspect of Chinese philosophy. Many homes have their own altar, where family members pay their respects to deceased relatives by burning spirit money and providing offerings. It’s believed that a person possesses two ‘souls’ – a guǐ (literally 'ghost'), which is yin and represents everything dark, damp and earthly, and a shén (literally 'spirit'), which is yang, and represents light, goodness and strength. When a person dies the two souls go in separate directions – the shén to heaven and the guǐ to the underworld. If a person has suffered a tragic death or if the body is neglected the guǐ lingers on earth, often seeking revenge.
Closely tied to ancestor worship is popular religion, which consists of an immense celestial bureaucracy of gods and spirits, from the lowly but all-important kitchen god (zào jun) to the celestial emperor himself (tiāndì). Each god has a particular role to fulfil and can be either promoted or demoted depending on his or her performance. Lower-ranking gods who protect homes, doors and neighbourhoods from evil spirits (guǐ) are of particular interest, and in pre-Communist China tiny altars and shrines were a ubiquitous sight. Offerings to the gods consisted not only of food and incense but also opera performances, birthday parties (to which the other local gods were invited) and the occasional procession around town.
One of China’s biggest art exports is ceramics, for which it has been developing techniques for thousands of years. Some of the best pieces date from the Yuan dynasty, when the ‘blue-and-white’ (qīnghuā) porcelain, made with cobalt-blue paint from Persia, was developed. The porcelain became famous the world over, eventually acquiring the name ‘China’ whether the pieces were produced in China or not.
Sculpture in China reached its zenith after the arrival of Buddhism, when artists across the land were commissioned to carve enormous statues of the Buddha. Early concepts for Buddhist sculpture came from India, so it’s not surprising that some of China’s most spectacular Buddhist statues are found along the Silk Road west of Xī’ān.
Dàtóng, on the train line from Běijīng to Ulaanbaatar, is home to one of China's four most celebrated sites of Buddhist sculptures, the magnificent Yungang Caves.
Balance and symmetry are important features of traditional Chinese architecture and can be found in all types of buildings, from humble farmhouses to great imperial palaces. Another common feature is the idea of enclosure. Whereas contemporary Western architectural practices typically involve surrounding a building by an open yard or garden, traditional Chinese architecture involves constructing buildings that take up an entire property but enclose open spaces within themselves. These enclosed spaces come in two forms: the courtyard (more common in north China, including Běijīng) and the 'sky well' (more common in the south).
Classical Chinese buildings, especially those of the wealthy, are built with an emphasis on breadth rather than height, featuring an enclosed heavy platform and a large roof that floats over this base, with the vertical walls not well emphasised. This contrasts Western architecture, which tends to grow in height and depth.
The halls and palaces in Běijīng's Forbidden City, for example, have relatively low ceilings when compared to equivalent stately buildings in the West, but their external appearances suggest the all-embracing, sweeping nature of imperial China; a concept you can visualise yourself when you stand on top of Coal Hill in Jǐngshān Park and look out over the vast Forbidden City below you.
Along the Trans-Manchurian route the architecture is distinct from much of the rest of China, primarily as a result of foreign influences in the region. At the turn of the 20th century, much of Manchuria was occupied – either economically or militarily – by Russia, Japan and various European powers, all of whom left their mark on the cities in this region. The best example is Tiānjīn, which contains quarters once dominated by Austro-Hungarians, Belgians, Germans, Italians and Japanese. In Dàolǐqū, the oldest part of Harbin (Hā’ěrbīn), onion domes and ornamental facades reveal the city’s Russian roots.
If modern architecture in China is defined as anything post-1949, then China has ridden a roller-coaster ride of styles and fashions. In Běijīng, stand between the Great Hall of the People and the National Centre for the Performing Arts and weigh up how far China has travelled in 50 years. Interestingly, neither building has clear Chinese motifs. The same applies to the complex form of Běijīng's CCTV Building, where a continuous loop through horizontal and vertical planes required some audacious engineering.
Many of the top names in world architecture – IM Pei, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, Herzog & de Meuron – have designed at least one building in China in the 21st century. Other impressive examples in Běijīng include the National Stadium (aka the 'Bird's Nest'), the National Aquatics Centre (aka the 'Water Cube') and Běijīng South Train Station.
China is a gastronome’s paradise. Cooking is a way of life here and first-time visitors will find a world of culinary delights far greater than what is on offer in Chinatowns the world over. Food plays a prominent role in the national psyche – work, play, romance, business and family life all revolve around it. When people meet, a common greeting is ‘nǐ chīfàn le ma?’ (‘have you eaten yet?’).
The food in China varies greatly by region and is influenced by the topographical and climatic disparities that exist across this vast nation. Naturally, seafood is plentiful near the coast and meat dominates in interior regions like Inner Mongolia. Likewise, grains are more prevalent in the north, while rice is the staple in the south.
Hallmark Northern Dishes
| Pinyin | Script | English |
|---|---|---|
| Běijīng kǎoyā | 北京烤鸭 | Peking duck |
| jiāo zhá yángròu | 僬炸羊肉 | deep-fried mutton |
| qīng xiāng shāo jī | 清香烧鸡 | chicken wrapped in lotus leaf |
| shuàn yángròu | 涮羊肉 | lamb hotpot |
| mántou | 馒头 | steamed buns |
| jiǎozi | 饺子 | dumplings |
| ròu bāozi | 肉包子 | steamed meat buns |
| sān měi dòufu | 三美豆腐 | sliced bean curd with Chinese cabbage |
| yuán bào lǐ jí | 芫爆里脊 | stir-fried pork tenderloin with coriander |
| zào liū sān bái | 糟溜三白 | stir-fried chicken, fish and bamboo shoots |
The northern school of cooking is what you’ll experience when travelling along the Trans-Mongolian and Trans-Manchurian railway lines, although big cities like Běijīng and Harbin will also have restaurants that represent the southern, eastern and western schools.
The northern school has a reputation for being bland and unsophisticated, but it’s filling, appetising and well suited to the harsh winter climate. There’s a particular accent on millet, sorghum, maize, barley and wheat rather than rice (which requires a lot of water). The spectrum of flavours is somewhat muted compared to southern cooking, as salt is preferred to spice.
Roasting meat is also more common in the north than in other parts of China. Meats in northern China are braised until they’re falling off the bone, or brushed with spices and barbecued until smoky. Pungent garlic, chives and spring onions are used with abandon and are also used raw.
The influence of Manchurian cooking and the cold climate of the northeastern provinces have left a legacy of rich and hearty stews, dense breads and dumplings. The cooking of the nomadic Mongolians has also left a pronounced mark on northern meat cooking, especially in the development of northern hotpot. Milk from nomadic herds of cattle, goats and horses has also made its way into northern cuisine, as yoghurts, for example. In Běijīng it’s common to spot small clay jars of yoghurt being sold at streetside stalls.
c 4000 BC
Archaeological evidence for the first settlements along the Yellow River (Huáng Hé). Even today the river remains a central cultural reference point for the Chinese.
551 BC
Birth of Confucius. Collected in the Analects, his ideas of an ethical, ordered society that operated through hierarchy and self-development would dominate Chinese culture until the early 20th century.
214 BC
Emperor Qin indentures thousands of labourers to link existing city walls into one Great Wall, in hope of reducing attacks on his country by nomadic warriors from Mongolia.
c 100 BC
Buddhism arrives in China from India. This religious system ends up thoroughly assimilated into the culture and becomes more powerful in China than in its country of origin.
1215
Chinggis (Genghis) Khaan conquers Běijīng as part of his creation of a massive Eurasian empire under Mongol rule.
1368
Zhu Yuanzhang founds the Ming dynasty and tries to impose a rigid Confucian social order on the population. However, China is too commercialised for the policy to work.
1644
Běijīng falls to peasant rebel Li Zicheng and the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen, hangs himself in Jǐngshān Park; the Qing dynasty is established.
1842
The treaty of Nánjīng concludes the first Opium War. China is forced to hand over Hong Kong island to the British and open up five Chinese ports to foreign trade.
1898
The New Territories adjoining Kowloon in Hong Kong are leased to the British for 99 years, eventually being returned, along with the rest of Hong Kong, in 1997.
1904–05
The Russo-Japanese War is fought entirely on Chinese territory. Japan's victory is the first triumph by an Asian power over a European one.
1911
Revolution spreads across China as local governments withdraw support for the Qing dynasty, and instead support a republic under the presidency of Sun Yatsen.
1931
Japan invades Manchuria (northeast China), provoking an international crisis and forcing Kuomintang leader Chiang Kaishek to consider anti-Japanese as well as anti-communist strategies.
1949
Mao Zedong stands on top of the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Běijīng on 1 October and announces the formation of the People’s Republic of China, saying ‘The Chinese people have stood up’.
1962
Mao initiates the Great Leap Forward; at least 20 million people starve when his plan to industrialise the country causes a collapse in the agricultural sector.
1966
The Cultural Revolution breaks out, and Red Guards demonstrate in cities across China. The movement is marked by a fetish for violence as a catalyst for transforming society.
1976
Mao Zedong dies, aged 83. The Gang of Four (a faction led by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing) are arrested by his successor and put on trial, where they are blamed for all the disasters of the Cultural Revolution.
1979
The one-child policy is introduced. The state adopts it as a means of reducing the population but at the same time imposes unprecedented control over women’s personal liberty.
1989
Hundreds of civilians are killed by Chinese troops in the streets around Tiān'ānmén Sq. No official reassessment has been made, but rumours persist of deep internal conflict within the party.
2008
Běijīng hosts the Summer Olympic Games and Paralympics. The Games go smoothly and are widely considered to be a great success in burnishing China’s image overseas.
August 2008
The Běijīng–Tiānjīn 'bullet train' opens for operation, reaching a top speed of 330km/h during its 29-minute journey, and setting the record for the fastest conventional train service in the world.
2008–09
Violent riots erupt in Tibet and Xīnjīang, evidence that Běijīng’s policy of development in western regions is not enough to quell local demands for greater autonomy and limited Han migration.
June 2011
China's bullet-train network expands to include the much-anticipated service between Běijīng and Shànghǎi; journey time is slashed from 10 hours to five.
2015
China's economic growth falls to its lowest level since 1990. The Communist Party announces the end of the one-child policy.
2017
Economic growth continues to slow. A new cyber-security law is passed giving the government more control over foreign and domestic firms' data.