To represent years, China uses 12 different animals, each of which corresponds to one of the Earthy Branches. These animals are the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Collectively, these twelve animals are known as the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. Every Chinese person has a zodiac […]
Four (si, “四”) It is interesting that the Chinese character for “four” was originally written in 4 horizontal lines, like “one two three”. Only later it was written in this way—“四”. Comparatively speaking, the number “four” is a relatively unpopular number for the Chinese people. For example, the number “four” is often avoided (and replaced […]
The word “liaozhai” first came from the book “liaozhai zhiyi” (1766; “Strange Stories from Liaozhai Studio”: “liaozhai” is the name of a place), which is a book of Pu Songling(1640-1715)—a famous Chinese fiction writer. It is 431 tales of the unusual and supernatural stories, freely adopting forms and themes from the old marvel tales. Some […]
It is said that the Mid-Autumn Festival has been in existence in China for more than 2,000 years. In ancient China, emperors followed the rite of offering sacrifices to the sun in the spring and to the moon in autumn. “The Book of Rites” records that emperors worshipped the sun in the morning in spring […]