Beijing's hutongs

A hutong is an ancient city alley or lane typical in Beijing, where hutongs run into the several thousand. Surrounding the Forbidden City, many were built during the Yuan (1206-1341), Ming(1368-1628) and Qing(1644-1908) dynasties. In the prime of these dynasties the emperors, in order to establish supreme power for themselves, planned the city and arranged the residential areas according to the etiquette systems of the Zhou Dynasty. The center of the city of Beijing was the royal palace -- the Forbidden City.

One kind of hutongs, usually referred to as the regular hutong, was near the palace to the east and west and arranged in orderly fashion along the streets. Most of the residents of these hutongs were imperial kinsmen and aristocrats. Another kind, the simple and crude hutong, was mostly located far to the north and south of the palace. The residents were merchants and other ordinary people.



The main buildings in the hutong were almost all quadrangles--a building complex formed by four houses around a quadrangular courtyard . The quadrangles varied in size and design according to the social status of the residents. The big quadrangles of high- ranking officials and wealthy merchants were specially built with roof beams and pillars all beautifully carved and painted, each with a front yard and back yard. However, the ordinary people's quadrangles were simply built with small gates and low houses. hutongs, in fact, are passageways formed by many closely arranged quadrangles of different sizes. The specially built quadrangles all face the south for better lighting; as a result, a lot of hutongs run from east to west. Between the big hutongs many small ones went north and south for convenient passage.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty unified and closed China came under influence from abroad, having experienced change of dynasties and the vicissitudes of life. The stereotyped arrangement of the hutong was also affected. Many newly formed hutongs with irregular houses appeared outside the city, while many old ones lost their former neat arrangement. The social status of the residents also changed, reflecting the collapse of the feudal system. During the period of the Republic of China (1911-1948), Chinese society was unstable, with frequent civil wars and repeated foreign invasions.

The city of Beijing deteriorated, and the conditions of the hutong worsened. Quadrangles previously owned by one family became a compound occupied by many households.

After the founding of the people's Republic of China in 1949, hutong conditions improved. In recent years, the houses in many hutongs have been pulled down and replaced by modern buildings. Many hutong dwellers have moved to new housing.

The hutong today is fading into the shade for both tourists and inhabitants.

However, in the urban district of Beijing houses along hutongs still occupy one third of the total area, providing housing for half the population, so many hutongs have survived. In this respect, we see the old in the new in Beijing as an ancient yet modern city.

Sources:www.chinavista.com,www.chinahiglights.com

The chinese pantheon (popular deities of chinese buddhism)

Jade Maiden Golden Youth
Acolytes of Kuan Shih Yin P'usa - Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva



Kuan Shih Yin P'usa - Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva
The Bodhisattva of Great Compassion

The Sanskrit name "Avalokiteshvara" means "the lord who looks upon the world with compassion".

Translated into Chinese, the name is "Kuan Shih Yin"or Quan Yin.

Kuan: observe
Shih: the world / the region of sufferers
Yin: all the sounds of the world, in particular, the crying sounds of beings, verbal or mental, seeking help

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is the embodiment of great compassion. He has vowed to free all sentient beings from suffering.

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is has great powers and can help all sentient beings. His skilful means are limitless and he can appear in any form in all the six realms of existence to relieve the suffering of the sentient beings who live there. He vowed to rescue those who call on him when they are in suffering, for example, when caught in a fire, shipwrecked or facing an attack.

In the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha said that if a suffering being hears the name of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva and earnestly calls out to the bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara will hear the call and relieve that being from his suffering.

According to the Huayen Sutra, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva transforms himself into forms that suit the nature of those to be helped. His manifestations or transformation bodies are countless.


e.g. if a boy or girl is about to gain some enlightenment, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva transforms himself into a boy or a girl to teach the child.

e.g. If a monk is about to attain some enlightenment, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva transforms himself into a monk.

In short, he can appear as a monk, a nun, or a normal person like you and me. The purpose of such transformations is to make people feel close to him and willing to listen to his words.

In China, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is represented in female form and is known as Kuan Yin. Probably because of Kuan Yin's great compassion, a quality which is traditionally considered feminine, most of the bodhisattva's statues in China since the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618 - 907) have appeared as female figures. In India, however, the bodhisattva is generally represented as a male figure.

In her hands, Kuan Yin may hold a willow branch, a vase with water or occasionally, a lotus flower.

The willow branch is used to heal people's illnesses or bring fulfillment to their requests.

The water ( the dew of compassion) has the quality of removing suffering, purifying the defilements of our body, speech and mind, and lengthening life.


In Buddhist art, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is sometimes shown with eleven heads, 1000 hands and eyes on the palms of each hand (Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva). The thousand eyes allow the bodhisattva to see the sufferings of sentient beings, and the thousand hands allow her to reach out to help them.


Sometimes, he is represented with one head and 4 arms. This is the Four-Armed Avalokiteshvara, worshipped by all Tibetans as "Chenrezig", the Holder of the White Lotus. It is in the male form which has two hands in the praying gesture while the other two hands hold his symbols, the Crystal Rosary and the Lotus Flower.

There is a sacred place for the worship of Kuan Yin in China - the Putuo Mountain. It is actually an island located near the city of Ningpo, in Zhejiang Province. There are many stories of Kuan Yin's miraculous appearances at Putuo Mountain.

Actually, anyone can be like Kuan Yin. You may say that you don't have a thousand eyes or a thousand arms or that you lack skilful means, but it is your compassion that can transform you into a Kuan Yin. With your eyes and hands, you can help others. With your compassion, you can bring peace and tranquility to this world.

The Mani Mantra (The Mantra of Universal Protection) : OM MANI PADME HUM



Golden Youth
Acolytes of Kuan Shih Yin P'usa - Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva

Source:www.buddhanet.net

The "four treasures of the study - 文房四宝 wén fáng sì bǎo

Four stationery items indispensable to any Chinese scholar and calligraphy practitioner are brush pen, inkstick, paper and inkstone. They are main tools with which one carries out ones scholarly work, calligraphy and/or traditional Chinese painting. For this reason, they are called the "four treasures of the study" - Wen Fang Si Bao. It is only through these tools that the beauty of Chinese art receives concrete expression.


Brush pen (máo bî) 毛笔
The brush pen was invented very early in Chinese history. According to a few recent archaeological researches, the ancient oracle characters inscribed into the tortoise shells were first written with brush and ink, then carved with a knife. If this is proven, the use of brush pen can be dated as early as 11th century B.C. which is about 3,000 years ago.

Unlike fountain pens, ball-point pens, and other writing instruments with a hard tip, a brush pen is made from fine, soft animal hair. Hairs from goat, rabbit, wolf, horse, mouse and weasel are commonly used to produce various kinds of brush pens. Goat hair brushes are soft, flexible, and absorbent. Rabbit hair brushes produce bold, vigorous lines and are best suited to calligraphy. Sometimes, a mixture of two or three different kinds of animal hairs is used to satisfy a particular style or taste.

Some famous calligraphers even produced their own brush pens according to their own requirements.

The resulting flexibility of the point of the brush pen is perhaps its most outstanding and unique characteristic. An experienced calligrapher can manipulate a brush pen not only to the left and right on a two-dimensional plane , but can also to raise it up and push it down, thus creating lines of varying thickness.

Many aspects of the unique style of Chinese calligraphy evolved due to the special characteristics of the brush pen and how the brush pen is manipulated.


Ink (mò)墨
Ink is made from a mixture of soot and resin, molded into stick form. The most commonly used to make ink are pine soot, oil soot, and lacquer soot. A good ink stick is finely grained and has an even and smooth texture. It is firm and not sticky. It is pure, solid black in color, without murkiness or roughness. The control of hue is crucial to the success of a work in ink.


Paper(zhî)纸
One of the most important Chinese inventions, paper was invented by a Chinese scholar during the Eastern Han dynasty (25 - 220 A.D.). Since the paper is the medium which a piece of calligraphy is presented and preserved, it is utterly important to use the right paper. An ideal paper must be able to absorb ink quick and hold it well. The surface of paper can not be very firm and smooth. Chinese calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting require different kinds of paper


Ink Stone (yàn)砚
To use ink in the traditional stick form, an inkstone is required. As the name suggests, most inkstones are made of stone or bricks. The stone used must be of relatively fine whetstone materials to facilitate the grinding of the ink without harming the bristles of the brush pen. Today, many students use ink bottle to replace ink stick and ink stone.

Source:web.fccj.org

Different Types of Hanzi 不同的汉字

Introduction

Chinese characters have been used for thousands of years. In that time, they have changed and developed. The script used today is essentially the same as that used 2,000 years ago, but noticeable changes do exist. The types of changes that have occurred in the past are still going on today, and they can be seen where characters are different over short periods of time or across space. Characters are not exactly the same all across the world of people who speak and write in Chinese. They continue to be developed and refined as peoples needs arise and Change.

Mainland China

When he became the first Emperor of China in 221 BC, Qinshihuang (秦始皇) standardized the writing system of the Han people. After him, the characters used by the Han,汉字 Han4zi4, remained essentially unchanged for over two thousand years. With the exception of calligraphic styles and shorthand abbreviations, the tradition of writing Hanzi has been long and unbroken in China.

At least that was the case in China until the twentieth century. In the early party of the century, when the Qing Dynasty, 明朝 qing2chao2 (1644-1911), was overthrown, some progressives such as Hu Shi (胡适) and Guo Moruo (郭沫若) started advocating an alphabetic script. The movement was revolutionary because the literati involved spurned previous Chinese academic tradition of attending to precedent and studying according to the Classics. Instead, the intellectuals involved in the movement were independent thinkers—many of whom had studied abroad and returned to promote the use of Western scientific methods in academics.

Despite the strong influence of progressive academic thought, the movement to alphabetize Chinese failed in the first part of the century. By the 1930s and ‘40s, any thought of language reform was overshadowed by political unrest. The Nationalists (KMT: guo2min2dang3 国民党) and the Communists (CCP: gong4chan3dang3 共产党) were engaged in civil war, and all of China was at war with Japan. Naturally, it was not a convenient time for changing the way people wrote Chinese.

Nevertheless, language reform remained an important topic in the eyes of China’s leaders, and both parties had their own ideas about how to go about re-inventing the written language. As soon as the CCP came to power in 1949, it began planning written language reform. “Revolution” was the catch-phrase of the day, and the planned reforms would be truly revolutionary: the ultimate goal was to develop and institute a functional alphabetic system in place of characters; in the meantime, the government got to work on simplifying characters.

By 1950, the Communist shifted their priorities away from the alphabetic ideal—probably because it would have been nearly impossible to realize. Instead, the focus lay on the less revolutionary step of developing Simplified Characters, 简体字 jian3ti3zi4, for common use. In 1950, the first dictionary of simplified forms was published, and in 1956 the government issued the first official list of Simplified Characters. The publication of that official list effectively made Chairman Mao the first person to officially alter the Chinese script in 2,177 years.

Although the development of an alphabetic script was the original revolutionary intent, the CCP changed its official stance with the publication of the Simplified Character list in 1956. By this time, Pinyin had been developed as a suitable Romanization system, but the goal was no longer to replace characters with Pinyin. At that time, Zhou Enlai announced that “the purpose of Pinyin Romanization is to indicate the pronunciation of Chinese characters and to spread the use of the standard vernacular [Putonghua].”

The original list of simplified characters was updated in 1964. The new standard of simplified characters was called 简化字总表 jian3hua4zi4 zong1biao3, “A comprehensive list of Simplified Characters.” This list contains over 2,200 Simplified forms—about one-third the total number of characters needed to write Chinese. The list was updated again in the 1980s, but the new publication is essentially the same as the 1964 version.

Greater China

Today, Simplified Characters are the standard for any printed material in Mainland China. The islands Taiwan (台湾 taiwan) and Hong Kong (香港 xianggang) persist in using Traditional Characters, fan4ti3zi4 繁体字 for everything from printed materials to movie subtitles. Because Hong Kong is a media powerhouse in Asia, Hong Kong’s continued use of traditional characters infiltrates the mainland via television, movies and karaoke. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to live on the mainland without encountering Traditional Characters. In order to read older materials and overseas publications, Chinese must be fluent in both scripts.

Taiwan 台湾

Taiwan and Hong Kong’s reasons for continuing to use traditional script are quite distinct. Hong Kong never changed to Simplified Characters because it was a British colony until 1997. It seems that Taiwan persists in its use of Traditional Characters in order to prove that it is not the same country as the Mainland. Taiwanese tend to be proud of the fact that they continue using traditional forms, and they look condescendingly on the Simplified Characters as a corrupt form of writing.

Hong Kong and Macao 香港和澳门

The Linguistic situation of Hong Kong and Macao is slightly different than that of Taiwan. Owing to their long period of separation from the Mainland, Hong Kong and Macao naturally have their own political qualms with policies instituted by the People’s Republic of China. Having spent so much time as colonies, these islands never had to worry very much about the language policy in the rest of China. Furthermore, Hong Kong and Macao were not governed by the People’s Republic of China when simplified characters were introduced. Therefore, Hong Kong and Macao not only use Traditional Characters, but also uses Cantonese as their standard language for spoken communication.

Like Cantonese speakers on the mainland, Hong Kongers are particularly proud of their dialect. Chinese from Hong Kong have a reputation for their poor command of the common vernacular, Putonghua (普通话).

The tradition of exclusively speaking the local dialect has resulted not only in a sense of linguistic pride, but also in a peculiar writing situation. Some grammatical elements of Cantonese are quite different from those of Putonghua. There are also commonly used words in Cantonese that are rarely used in Mandarin. For these reasons, it is possible to write in a style that is distinctly Cantonese. This writing style is generally reserved for the scripts of operas and other “low” forms of writing. Although Chinese characters can be read in any dialect, the Cantonese writing style is so unique that it would be unintelligible to a non-Cantonese speaker.

All official writing throughout China is done in 白话 bai2hua4, which is the written equivalent of Putonghua. Written Cantonese differs from bai2hua4 in terms of style, and also in terms of the actual characters used. Some writing makes use of special Dialect Characters that are only meant to be read in Cantonese. Like all characters, these specialized graphs represent speech sounds. However, they represent sounds that have no equivalent in the standard dialect.

Overseas Chinese Communities

Living in isolation from the majority of Chinese has had its effect on overseas Chinese communities. Like Hong Kong, these communities were not under the PRC’s government when simplified characters were introduced. Therefore, many Newspapers, advertisements, and other text in overseas Chinese communities are produced in Traditional Characters. Nowadays, newspapers from the People’s Republic of China are available abroad, so it is possible to acquire Simplified texts. Nevertheless, in Chinatowns around the world, you are more likely to encounter Traditional Characters than Simplified.

Additionally, many overseas Chinese come from Southern China. They therefore tend to speak Cantonese or Minnanhua natively. Because overseas Chinese tend to trace their roots to the South of China, they historically have been more influenced by Hong Kong and Taiwan than the Mainland. Unless a text is produced by the overseas community itself, it is unlikely to come from the mainland. In other words, overseas communities simply do not have very much access to or use for Simplified Characters.

Source:www.interestingchinese.com