Thursday 15 August 2013

The Culture of Chinese, Traditional Chinese Festivals

        The traditional Chinese festivals are an essential part of harvests or prayer offerings. The most important Chinese festival is the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival), which is also celebrated in China, Korea, and other Asian countries. All traditional festivals are scheduled according to the Chinese calendar except the Qing Ming and Winter Solstice days, falling on the respective day in the Agricultural calendar. There are a lot of Chinese cultures in traditional Chinese festivals.

       
1)  Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is an important traditional Chinese festival In China, it is also known as the Spring Festival, the literal translation of the modern Chinese name. Chinese New Year celebrations traditionally ran from Chinese New Year's Eve, the last day of the last month of the Chinese calendar, to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first month, making the festival the longest in the Chinese calendar. Because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar, the Chinese New Year is often referred to as the "Lunar New Year”.

a)Reunion Dinner

A reunion dinner is held on New Year’s Eve during which family members gather for celebration. The venue will usually be in or near the home of the most senior member of the family. Children are supposed to return to their families, married couples will go to the male’s relatives and to the female's relatives on the second day of the festivities. If a family member couldn't participate in the grand feasting, his or her presence is usually symbolized by placing an empty seat at the banquet.The New Year's Eve dinner is very large and sumptuous and traditionally includes dishes of meat.

    B) Red Envelopes  
                       
Traditionally, Red envelopes or red packets (Mandarin: hóngbāo' ) are passed out during the Chinese New Year's celebrations, from married couples or the elderly to unmarried juniors. It is also common for adults or young couples to give red packets to children.
                                      
A married person would not turn down such a request as it would mean that he or she would be "out of luck" in the new year. Red packets are generally given by established married couples to the younger non-married children of the family. It is custom and polite for children to wish elders a happy new year and a year of happiness, health and good fortune before accepting the red envelope.

    C) Lion Dance
                         
                                   
Lion dance performance is everywhere while celebrating Chinese New Year. Lion dance is performed for helping to chase away the bad luck & bringing in luck and according to the traditional Chinese belief, it’ll also help to chase away ghosts and evil spirits, and since the monsters, ghosts, evil spirits and giants like Nian are afraid of loud noises, the dance has become a natural complement to the fire crackers' noise.


2)   Lantern Festival
The Lantern Festival ends the 15 day celebration of Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, and is celebrated the night of the first full moon of the lunar New Year. It’s also the first important festival after the traditional Chinese New Year. It’s marks the end of the two-week new year period. During Lantern Festival, people get together to celebrate the beginning of spring by lighting lantern, guessing riddles, and eating YuanXiao, also known as TangYuan, is a glutinous rice ball.

a)    Lighting Lanterns
                           
Lighting and watching lanterns, the main activity of lantern festival. Lanterns represent brightness, lighting lanterns could bring a brighter future for yourself. Besides, in some regions such as Taiwan and Anhui, the character ‘deng’ (lantern) is pronounced similarly to ‘ding’ (man) in local languages. Therefore, married women would specially wander underneath the lanterns during the festival, wishing to conceive baby boys from this behavior.
                          
b)   Guess Riddles
                                     
Guessing the lantern riddles, also known as playing lantern riddles, is one of the most important and popular activities of the Lantern Festival. Riddles are usually attached on to or hung beneath the lanterns. Sometimes winners would be get prizes if he or she’s guessing is right. Due to the difficulty of achieving the correct answers, this activity is also called “tiger-shooting”.
                      

c) Yuanxiao
Another indispensable custom of Lantern Festival, in addition to entertainment and beautiful lanterns, is eating Yuanxiao or Tangyuan (sweet stuffed dumplings made of glutinous rice flour served in soup). The Chinese name of Tangyuan is pronounced as similarly as Tuanyuan, which means the whole family gathering together happily. 
                                                                  
So Yuanxiao is a symbol of staying together, because roundness has the connotation of wholeness and togetherness in Chinese culture. In this way, people express their best wish for their family and their future life.

3)   Mid-Autumn Festival
The Mid-Autumn Festival is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese and Vietnamese people. The festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, during a full moon, which is in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar, close to the autumnal equinox. Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as Moon festival, because of the celebration’s association with the full moon on this night, as well as the traditions of moon worship and moon gazing.

a)    Mooncake
As with every Chinese holiday, the Mid-Autumn Festival has its own special food. People eat moon cakes for celebration. The moon cake is a kind of cookie with various fillings and on the surface are printed different artistic patterns depicting the story of Chang E flying to the moon. People treated this kind of food as one of the sacrificial offerings to the moon in the old days. Today, it has become an indispensable food while appreciating the bright moon for every family. Moon cakes come in various flavors which change according to the region but common fillings are nuts, sugar, sesame, ham and egg yolk.
                                     
As the moon cake is round in shape, it symbolizes the reunion of a family, so it is easy to understand how the eating of moon cakes under the round moon can inspire the missing of distant relatives. Nowadays, people present the moon cakes to relatives and friends to demonstrate that they wish them a long and happy life.

b)   Appreciating and Offering Sacrifice to the Moonlight
                                                        
Simple appreciation of the moon already means of sacrifice to the moon. Members of a family usually sit around a table eating and talking to their heart content and at the same time admiring the bright moon. While looking up the moon, people will think of their relatives afar and good wishes are expressed in their mind.
           

            Well, there are still a lot of Chinese cultures in traditional Chinese festivals I didn’t mention about because Chinese culture is too extensive.

Written by,
Fong Chee Foo,
Group Six,
Foundation in Arts,

July Intake.
 

Korean Society & Culture

Korean Family Values
  • The most important part of Korean life is their family.
  • In Confucian tradition, the head in the family is the father, he need to be responsibility to provide clothes, shelter, foods and approve the marriages of their family member.
  • The eldest son need to do some special duties to his parents, then to his older siblings to the youngest, then to his sons, after that to his wife and lastly to his daughters.
  • Because the actions of one family member reflect on the rest of the family ,so members of the family are tied to each other.
  • The needs of the individual is less important than the family welfare.
Confucianism
  The position of the individual in Korean society is describing by the teaching of Confucius. It is a system of behaviours and ethics that stress the obligations of people towards one another based upon their relationship. There are five different basic tenets relationships such as husband and wife, ruler and subject, brothers and sisters, friends and friends, and parents and children. Confucianism stresses duty, loyalty, filial piety, respect from age and seniority and sincerity.
 
 
 
Korea Ancestor
  Korean Ancestors are based the male family line. The children believe that they can never repay their debt to their parents, hence the popularity of ancestors worship. Also, in several times per year on Chuseok and New Year's Day, they hold ancestral ceremonies for their previous three generations like their parents, grandparents and great grandparents. On the Chuseok day, they will cook and set out the foods to their ancestors.
 
 
 
 
Chuseok Day
 
 
Kimchi History
 
  Kimchi is the most famous food in Korea. Why Kimchi was developed in Korea?? This is because the vegetables were very popular for the ancient people in Korea whose main industry was agriculture. Also, the Koreans had remarkable methods for salting fish which was frequently used as a form of seasoning. The cabbages appropriate for making kimchi were widely grown.
  Where was the name "Kimchi" from? Kimchi originated from shimchae (salting of vegetables), which went through some phonetic changes, shimchae > dimchae > kimchae > kimchi .
  The major historical periods in Korea about the kimchi is reportedly rooted in the agrarian culture that began before the era of the Three Kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula. Due to the cold Korean winter, they had to come up with the storage technology of vegetables as a means of securing food.
 
 
 
 
THE END.
Chen Yan Xin
Group 6


The Incredible India & Indians

+.+.+.The Incredible India & Indians.+.+.+

 

...Cultures in India...

 India is the world's 2nd most populated country in the world that has a peoples with lots of belief and practises. This creates a diverse culture in India whereby in religion, food, festivals and languages.

****************************************************

...Religion...

India has people that practises Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity. They follow their own beliefs and respects other peoples belief and religion. India is one of the countries that has low rate of racism issues.

 
An Arabic word that means 'Allah'. India is the only non-Islamic country to have more number of Muslims.
 
The Symbol for Jainism

The Symbol for Sikhism

The Symbol for Hinduism. The native religion of India and the oldest religion in the world. 

 The Symbol for Buddhism. Buddhism was initiated by King Asoka in India.
The Symbol for Christianity

***************************************************

...Food...

Indians practise a healthy eating lifestyle where they only take rice as their main course for lunch, which is called as Thali Set over there in India. But for breakfast and dinner the main course are light food such as tosai, chapathi and idly. India is also know an as the Sweet Paradise. This because there are variety of sweets in India which is made of pure ghee and milk with sugar. The food and sweets there really taste good.

 
 

Briyani in India

Chapathi

Thali Set

Tosai

Sweets
 
*****************************************************

...Festival...

Although people in India are from different races, but when it comes to festivals it celebrated throughout the country. This creates a beautiful environment relationship between the people in India.
 
 

Christmas in Agra, New Delhi, India

Hari Raya celebration

Deepavali celebration

Vaisakhi celebration

Wesak day celebration
 

Marriages

Marriages In India also celebrated like festivals in India. This is just to bring in joy for the newly married couple.
 

                                                                                                                 Sikh Wedding

Muslim Wedding

Jain Wedding

Hindu Wedding

Christian Wedding
 
******************************************************

...Language...

The National Language of India is Hindi.There are about 32 languages widely spoken in India. The famous ones are the Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi. These are languages that often heard spoken by the people. This languages wording are awesomely unique.
 

The wording for Telugu

The wording for Tamil

The Arabic wording

The Wording for Hindi
 
The wording for Malayalam
The wording for Jainism
The wording for Buddhism.
 

Often the holy sacred book are written in this language. A verse from the sacred book for Hindus, The Veda;

 
                                   वेद प्रामाण्यं कस्य चित् कर्तृवादः स्नाने धर्मेच्छा जातिवादाव लेपः|
                                   संतापारंभः पापहानाय चेति ध्वस्तप्रज्ञानां पञ्च लिङगानि जाड्ये||
 
The Translation
 Believing that the Veda are standard (holy or divine), believing in a Creator for the world,
 Bathing in holy waters for gaining punya, having pride (vanity) about one's job function,
 Performing penance to absolve sins,
 Are the five symptoms of having lost one's sanity.

******************************************************

These are are the cultures that make India and its people incredible.

Written by,
Navin Rao Ramachandran
ID: 13052253
Group 6.