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Rice, Technology, and History: the Case of China
RICE, TECHNOLOGY, AND HISTORY The Case of China By Francesca Bray Wet-rice farming systems have a logic of technical and economic evolution that is distinctively different from the more familiar Western pattern of agricultural development. The well-documented history of rice farming in China provides an opportunity for students to reassess some commonly held ideas about tech- nical efficiency and sustainable growth. rom 1000 to 1800 CE China was the world’s most populous state and its most powerful and productive economy. Rice farming was the mainstay of this empire. Rice could be grown successfully in only about half of the territory, in the south- F ern provinces where rainfall was abundant. There it was the staple food for all social classes, landlords and peasants, officials and artisans alike. The more arid climate in the north was not suited to rice; northern farmers grew dry-land grains like wheat, millet, and sorghum for local consumption. But the yields of these grains were relatively low, whereas southern rice farming produced sufficient surpluses to sustain government and commerce throughout China. Vast quantities of rice were brought north to provision the capital city— home to the political elite, the imperial court, and all the state ministries—and to feed the huge armies stationed along the northern frontier. People said that the north was like a lazy brother living off the generosity of his hard-working and productive southern sibling. Thou- sands of official barges carried rice from Jiangnan to the capital region along the Grand Canal, and more rice still was transported north in private ships along the coast (fig. -
AN HISTORICAL SURVEY from the First to the Beginning of the Fourth
CHAPTER tWO AN HISTORICAL SURVEY from the S rst to the beginning of the fourth century AD. Fourth century Chinese Buddhism, and especially the characteristic type of gentry Buddhism which at that time T ourished on Chinese territory south of the Yangzi and which forms the main subject of our study, was the S nal stage of a process which actually must have started as soon as Buddhism made its S rst converts among the Chinese intelligentsia. We do not know when this happened. As we have said before, the S rst clear signs of the formation of an “upper class” Chinese Buddhism, of the activities of gentlemen-monks and of the penetration of Buddhism into the life and thought of the cultured higher strata of society date from the late third and early fourth century, and there are several reasons to assume that this movement as a whole did not start long before that time. However, this does not mean that this subject can be studied without constant reference to the earlier phases of Chinese Buddhism, and to the little we know about the period of incubation when Buddhism started to take root in Chinese soil, tolerated and hardly noticed as a creed of foreigners, or adopted, in a Daoist guise, as a new road to immortality. In this chapter the reader will be confronted with the main facts of the earliest phases of Chinese Buddhism. On this subject much has already been said by others, for it is a curious fact that in Chinese Buddhism no period has been studied more thoroughly than the one about which almost nothing can be known. -
Towards Chinese Calligraphy Zhuzhong Qian
Macalester International Volume 18 Chinese Worlds: Multiple Temporalities Article 12 and Transformations Spring 2007 Towards Chinese Calligraphy Zhuzhong Qian Desheng Fang Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl Recommended Citation Qian, Zhuzhong and Fang, Desheng (2007) "Towards Chinese Calligraphy," Macalester International: Vol. 18, Article 12. Available at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl/vol18/iss1/12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Institute for Global Citizenship at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Macalester International by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Towards Chinese Calligraphy Qian Zhuzhong and Fang Desheng I. History of Chinese Calligraphy: A Brief Overview Chinese calligraphy, like script itself, began with hieroglyphs and, over time, has developed various styles and schools, constituting an important part of the national cultural heritage. Chinese scripts are generally divided into five categories: Seal script, Clerical (or Official) script, Regular script, Running script, and Cursive script. What follows is a brief introduction of the evolution of Chinese calligraphy. A. From Prehistory to Xia Dynasty (ca. 16 century B.C.) The art of calligraphy began with the creation of Chinese characters. Without modern technology in ancient times, “Sound couldn’t travel to another place and couldn’t remain, so writings came into being to act as the track of meaning and sound.”1 However, instead of characters, the first calligraphy works were picture-like symbols. These symbols first appeared on ceramic vessels and only showed ambiguous con- cepts without clear meanings. -
Dressing for the Times: Fashion in Tang Dynasty China (618-907)
Dressing for the Times: Fashion in Tang Dynasty China (618-907) BuYun Chen Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2013 BuYun Chen All rights reserved ABSTRACT Dressing for the Times: Fashion in Tang Dynasty China (618-907) BuYun Chen During the Tang dynasty, an increased capacity for change created a new value system predicated on the accumulation of wealth and the obsolescence of things that is best understood as fashion. Increased wealth among Tang elites was paralleled by a greater investment in clothes, which imbued clothes with new meaning. Intellectuals, who viewed heightened commercial activity and social mobility as symptomatic of an unstable society, found such profound changes in the vestimentary landscape unsettling. For them, a range of troubling developments, including crisis in the central government, deep suspicion of the newly empowered military and professional class, and anxiety about waste and obsolescence were all subsumed under the trope of fashionable dressing. The clamor of these intellectuals about the widespread desire to be “current” reveals the significant space fashion inhabited in the empire – a space that was repeatedly gendered female. This dissertation considers fashion as a system of social practices that is governed by material relations – a system that is also embroiled in the politics of the gendered self and the body. I demonstrate that this notion of fashion is the best way to understand the process through which competition for status and self-identification among elites gradually broke away from the imperial court and its system of official ranks. -
The Present Status of Chinese Study of Solar Eclipses
The Present Status of Chinese Study of Solar Eclipses Ma Liping National Time Service Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences 18 Lintong, Shaanxi, China 710600 Email: [email protected] Abstract: Chinese scholars have done lots of work on solar eclipse recorded in historical archives. Two aspects of the present study of solar eclipses are introduced. One is statistic and analysis of solar eclipse records, which contains research of original records and table of solar eclipse. The other is application of ancient eclipses records, mainly in historical chronology and the secular variation of the Earth's rotation. Key words: records of solar eclipse, China, statistic and analysis, historical chronology, secular variation of the Earth's rotation 0 INTRODUCTION Great importance was attached to solar eclipse in ancient China. Ancient Chinese astronomers have bequeathed to us the longest series of eclipse observations in the world, mostly for astrological prediction and making exact calendars. With the most complete records, solar eclipse occupies a special place in the various records of celestial phenomena in Chinese history. Ancient Chinese records of solar eclipse can be divided into three categories (Liu Ciyuan, 2002a): 1) From the Xia Dynasty to the end of the West Zhou Dynasty, relevant records were sporadic and vague. Most of them did not have exact dates or direct descriptions of solar eclipses. Because of their important role in the research in historical chronology and modern astronomy, much attention has been devoted to them. Liu Ciyuan et al. (2003) review the previous research and progress. 2) The extant systematic Chinese records of solar eclipse started from the Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn ) period. -
Mirror, Moon, and Memory in Eighth-Century China: from Dragon Pond to Lunar Palace
EUGENE Y. WANG Mirror, Moon, and Memory in Eighth-Century China: From Dragon Pond to Lunar Palace Why the Flight-to-the-Moon The Bard’s one-time felicitous phrasing of a shrewd observation has by now fossilized into a commonplace: that one may “hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.”1 Likewise deeply rooted in Chinese discourse, the same analogy has endured since antiquity.2 As a commonplace, it is true and does not merit renewed attention. When presented with a physical mirror from the past that does register its time, however, we realize that the mirroring or showing promised by such a wisdom is not something we can take for granted. The mirror does not show its time, at least not in a straightforward way. It in fact veils, disfi gures, and ultimately sublimates the historical reality it purports to refl ect. A case in point is the scene on an eighth-century Chinese mirror (fi g. 1). It shows, at the bottom, a dragon strutting or prancing over a pond. A pair of birds, each holding a knot of ribbon in its beak, fl ies toward a small sphere at the top. Inside the circle is a tree fl anked by a hare on the left and a toad on the right. So, what is the design all about? A quick iconographic exposition seems to be in order. To begin, the small sphere refers to the moon. -
NEW YORK EDITED PAPER-Dhriti
Fifth Century Common Era Reorienting Chinese Buddhist Monastic Tradition Redefining India-China Buddhist Monastic Relations - A Critical Study Introduction: The following paper shares the findings of an ongoing study. The study is still not complete and therefore does not yet propose a final conclusion. An abstract pattern in relation to the evolution of Buddhist monasticism along a certain trajectory, through centuries of Chinese Buddhist evolutionary history, which the study has been able to identify, has been presented here. This paper makes the proposition that fifth century CE was a distinctive period in the history of Buddhist monasticism in China, that it was a period in Chinese Buddhist history, which, owing to certain complex processes related to the gradual infiltration, permeation, adaptation, and assimilation of Buddhism into the foreign socio-cultural-political milieu of China, as against reactions over its interactions with the state and indigenous Chinese schools of thought, effected a re-orientation of the Chinese Buddhist monastic tradition and eventually redefined India-China Buddhist monastic relations. The study proposes that fifth century Buddhist monastic culture in China was influenced by certain emerging issues of the time, namely popularization of the relic veneration cult, growing interactions between the imperial house and the Buddhist clergy, permeation of Buddhist teachings into immigrant Chinese gentry circles in the south, wide circulation of apologetic and propagandistic literature, rise of messianic figures influenced by Buddhist and Daoist eschatological ideas and most importantly the institutionalization of Buddhist monastic disciplinary codes (vinaya), some of which perhaps paved the trajectory along which monasticism in China evolved through the centuries that followed. -
China's Logistics Capabilities for Expeditionary Operations
China’s Logistics Capabilities for Expeditionary Operations The modular transfer system between a Type 054A frigate and a COSCO container ship during China’s first military-civil UNREP. Source: “重大突破!民船为海军水面舰艇实施干货补给 [Breakthrough! Civil Ships Implement Dry Cargo Supply for Naval Surface Ships],” Guancha, November 15, 2019 Primary author: Chad Peltier Supporting analysts: Tate Nurkin and Sean O’Connor Disclaimer: This research report was prepared at the request of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission to support its deliberations. Posting of the report to the Commission's website is intended to promote greater public understanding of the issues addressed by the Commission in its ongoing assessment of U.S.-China economic relations and their implications for U.S. security, as mandated by Public Law 106-398 and Public Law 113-291. However, it does not necessarily imply an endorsement by the Commission or any individual Commissioner of the views or conclusions expressed in this commissioned research report. 1 Contents Abbreviations .......................................................................................................................................................... 3 Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 4 Methodology, Scope, and Study Limitations ........................................................................................................ 6 1. China’s Expeditionary Operations -
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Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), volume 340 2019 International Conference on Education Innovation and Economic Management (ICEIEM 2019) Buddhism Exchanges in Trans-Himalaya Region: Development and Recommendations Yi Zhang Institute of Taoism and Religious Culture Sichuan University Chengdu, China Abstract—This paper attempts to explain the historical II. DEVELOPMENT OF BUDDHISM EXCHANGES IN TRANS- development of exchange of Buddhism between China and the HIMALAYA REGION Trans-Himalayan countries, as well as its positive effects on the bilateral relations between them, and give some useful A. Han Dynasty (202BD-220AD) recommendations. It argued that Buddhism has become a The initial stage of Buddhist communication between powerful cultural tie that binds the nations in the region and promotes friendship between the Himalayan states. It also China and the countries of the trans-Himalaya region was suggested that China should make further efforts to excavate started during the Han Dynasty. It is widely believed that Buddhist relics and sort out Buddhist spiritual resources on the Buddhism was introduced into China during the reign of silk road, promote the communication between Mahayana Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The eminent Buddhism and Theravada continuously on the basis of seeking monk Zhu Shemoteng and the Zhu Falan arrived in Luoyang, common ground while reserving differences, encourage and translated Buddhist scriptures and carried forward Buddha support educational cooperation between China and Buddhist dharma. Since then, the number of monks who came to China universities and colleges in trans-Himalaya countries through gradually increased. She Moteng translated a volume of the expanding the friendly exchanges between youth students and Sutra of Forty-two Chapters. -
The Forbidden Classic of the Jade Hall: a Study of an Eleventh-Century Compendium on Calligraphic Technique
forbidden classic of the jade hall pietro de laurentis The Forbidden Classic of the Jade Hall: A Study of an Eleventh-century Compendium on Calligraphic Technique pecific texts regarding the scripts of the Chinese writing system and S the art of calligraphy began appearing in China at the end of the first century ce.1 Since the Postface to the Discussion of Single Characters and Explanation of Compound Characters (Shuowen jiezi xu 說文解字序) by Xu Shen 許慎 (ca. 55–ca. 149),2 and the Description 3 of the Cursive Script I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Ms. Chin Ching Soo for having provided sharp comments to the text, for having polished my English, and for having made the pres- ent paper much more readable. I would also like to thank Howard L. Goodman for his help in rendering several tricky passages from Classical Chinese into English. 1 On the origin of calligraphic texts, see Zhang Tiangong 張天弓, “Gudai shulun de zhao- shi: cong Ban Chao dao Cui Yuan” 古 代 書 論 的 肇 始:從 班 超 到 崔 瑗 , Shufa yanjiu 書法研究 (2003.3), pp. 64–76. 2 Completed in 100 ce; postface included in the Anthology of the Calligraphy Garden (Shu yuan jinghua 書苑菁華), 20 juan, edited by Chen Si 陳思 (fl. 13th c.), preface by Wei Liaoweng 魏了翁 (1178–1237), reproduction of the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279) edition published in the series Zhonghua zaizao shanben 中華再造善本 (Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chubanshe, 2003), j. 16. English translation by Kenneth Thern, Postface of the Shuo-wen Chieh-tzu (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1966), pp. -
History of the Book in China Oxford Reference
9/1/2016 40 The History of the Book in China Oxford Reference Oxford Reference The Oxford Companion to the Book Edited by Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and H. R. Woudhuysen Publisher: Oxford University Press Print Publication Date: 2010 Print ISBN13: 9780198606536 Published online: 2010 Current Online Version: 2010 eISBN: 9780199570140 40 The History of the Book in China J. S. EDGREN 1 The book before paper and printing 2 Tang to Yuan (7th–14th centuries) 3 Ming to Qing (14th–19th centuries) 4 The 20th century 1 The book before paper and printing nd th Although the early invention of true paper (2 century BC) and of textual printing (late 7 century) by *woodblock printing profoundly influenced the development of the book in China, the materials and manufacture of books before paper and before printing also left some traces. Preceding the availability of paper as a writing surface, the earliest books in China, known as jiance or jiandu, were written on thin strips of prepared bamboo and wood, which were usually interlaced in sequence by parallel bands of twisted thongs, hemp string, or silk thread. The text was written with a *writing brush and lampblack *ink in vertical columns from right to left—a *layout retained by later MSS and printed books—after which the strips were rolled up to form a primitive *scroll binding (see 17). The surviving specimens of jiance are mostly the result of 20th th rd century scientific archaeological recovery, and date from around the 6 century BC to the 3 century AD. -
Sustainable Agriculture in China
Multiple pathways: case studies of sustainable agriculture in China Edited by Seth Cook and Lila Buckley Contributing authors: Qiao Yuhui, Qi Gubo, Seth Cook, Lila Buckley, Song Yiching, Zhang Yanyan, Zhang Li, He Xueqing, Friederike Martin, Yue Shizhong and Wang Zhen Multiple pathways: case studies of sustainable agriculture in China Edited by Seth Cook and Lila Buckley Contributing authors: Qiao Yuhui, Qi Gubo, Seth Cook, Lila Buckley, Song Yiching, Zhang Yanyan, Zhang Li, He Xueqing, Friederike Martin, Yue Shizhong and Wang Zhen About the editors Lila Buckley, senior researcher, China Team, Natural Resources Group, IIED. See www.iied.org/users/lila-buckley Seth Cook, senior researcher, China Team, Natural Resources Group, IIED. See www.iied.org/users/seth-cook Produced by IIED’s Natural Resources Group The aim of the Natural Resources Group is to build partnerships, capacity and wise decision-making for fair and sustainable use of natural resources. Our priority in pursuing this purpose is on local control and management of natural resources and other ecosystems. Published by IIED, 2015 Cook, S. and Buckley, L. (eds.) (2015) Multiple pathways: case studies of sustainable agriculture in China. IIED, London. See: http://pubs.iied.org/17579IIED Typesetting by: Judith Fisher, email: [email protected] Copyediting by: Fiona Hinchliffe, email: [email protected] and Mary Buckley, email: [email protected] Cover photo: Harvesting vegetables in Shanggula village © Simon Lim Printed by Full Spectrum Print Media,