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Kunming Lake
Kunming Lake ( zh, c=, p=Kūnmíng Hú) is the central lake on the grounds of the Summer Palace in Haidian District, Beijing, China. Together with the Longevity Hill, Kunming Lake forms the key landscape features of the Summer Palace gardens. With an area of , Kunming Lake covers approximately three-quarters of the Summer Palace grounds. It is quite shallow, with an average depth of only . Kunming Lake takes up about 75% of the park and contains many famous small islands and bridges, making it one of the top popular sites in the Summer Palace. History Kunming Lake is a manmade lake whose predecessors were called ''Wengshan (Jar Hill) Pond'' and ''Xihu Lake''. They were reservoirs which had been used as sources of water both for the city and irrigation of fields over a period of 3,500 years. Guo Shoujing, a famous astronomer and engineer in his time, developed it into a reservoir for the capital of the Yuan Dynasty in 1291. The conversion of the area into an imperial garden was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Summer Palace
The Summer Palace () is a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and palaces in Beijing. It was an imperial garden during the Qing dynasty. Inside includes Longevity Hill () Kunming Lake and Seventeen Hole Bridge. It covers an expanse of , three-quarters of which is water. Longevity Hill is about high and has many buildings positioned in sequence. The front hill is the site of splendid halls and pavilions, while the back hill, in sharp contrast, is quiet with natural beauty. The central Kunming Lake, covering , was entirely man-made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill. The Summer Palace, which is inspired by the gardens of South China, contains over 3,000 Chinese ancient buildings that house a collection of over 40,000 valuable historical relics from various dynasties. In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace "a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Taiye Lake
Taiye Lake or Taiye Pond was an artificial lake in imperial City, Beijing, during the Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties of China. The beauty and utility of the lake was responsible for the siting of Kublai Khan's palace and the position of modern Beijing. It continues to exist but it is now known separately as the North, Central, and South Seas, the three interconnected lakes just west of the Forbidden City in downtown Beijing. The northern lake makes up the public Beihai Park while the southern two are grouped together as Zhongnanhai, the headquarters for the Communist leadership of the People's Republic of China. Taiye Lake was immortalized in the early 1410s when the Yongle Emperor commissioned ''The Eight Views of Beijing'' (), recording the capital's chief sites in poetry and painting in order to legitimize his removal of the imperial capital away from Nanking. It is best remembered in China today from the scene of "Clear Waves at Taiye Lake" (, ''Tàiyè Qíngbō'').Wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Chinese Folklore
Chinese folklore encompasses the folklore of China, and includes songs, poetry, dances, puppetry, and tales. It often tells stories of human nature, historical or legendary events, love, and the supernatural. The stories often explain natural phenomena and distinctive landmarks. Along with Chinese mythology, it forms an important element in Chinese folk religion. History The history of Chinese folklore is tied deeply with the nation's cultural, philosophical, and political evolution. Chinese folklore traces its roots to prehistoric times, with early mythological narratives preserved in classical texts. The ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'' (''Shan Hai Jing''), dating back to the 4th century BCE, is a seminal compilation of mythic geography and creatures, giving humanity insights into the cosmological and cultural beliefs of early China. Another work, the ''Shiji'' (''Records of the Grand Historian'') by Sima Qian, composed during the Han dynasty, blends a historical account ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Bronze Ox
Oxen, cows, beef cattle, buffalo and so on are an important motif in Chinese mythology. There are many myths about the oxen or ox-like beings, including both celestial and earthly varieties. The myths range from ones which include oxen or composite beings with ox characteristics as major actors to ones which focus on human or divine actors, in which the role of the oxen are more subsidiary. In some cases, Chinese myths focus on oxen-related subjects, such as plowing and agriculture or ox-powered carriage. Another important role for beef cattle is in the religious capacity of sacrificial offerings. Terminology The Chinese character 牛 () used for "ox" is rather non-specific. It can refer to a male, castrate or not, or to a female, young or old, of various species of the bovine family which have been domesticated for use as draft animals, with their strength being harnessed for various purposes, especially carting loads and various types of farm work, such as plowing. ''Niú'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Jade Belt Bridge
The Jade Belt Bridge (), also known as the ''Camel's Back Bridge'', is an 18th-century pedestrian moon bridge located on the grounds of the Summer Palace in Beijing, China. It is famous for its distinctive tall thin single arch. The Jade Belt Bridge is the most well-known of the six bridges on the western shore of Kunming Lake. It was erected in the years 1750, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, and was built in the style of the delicate bridges in the country-side of southern China. It is made from marble and other white stone. The ornate bridge railings are decorated with carvings of cranes and other animals. The clearance of the arch was chosen to accommodate the dragon boat of the Qianlong Emperor. As the Kunming Lake inlet to the neighboring Yu River, and when during special occasions, the emperors and empress and their dragon boat would specifically pass under this bridge. It is one of the most beautiful bridges in the Summer Palace. A similar arch bridge called Xi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Yangtze River
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea. It is the fifth-largest primary river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population. The Yangtze has played a major role in the history, culture, and economy of China. For thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking, and war. The Yangtze Delta generates as much as 20% of China's GDP, and the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world. In mid-2014, the Chinese government announced it was building a multi-tier transport network, comprising railways, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Southern China
Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions that display certain differences in terms of their geography, demographics, economy, and culture. Extent The Qinling–Daba Mountains serve as the transition zone between northern and southern China. They approximately coincide with the 0 degree Celsius isotherm in January, the isohyet, and the 2,000-hour sunshine duration contour. The Huai River basin serves a similar role, and the course of the Huaihe has been used to set different policies to the north and the south. History Historically, populations migrated from the north to the south, especially its coastal areas and along major rivers. After the fall of the Han dynasty, The Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589) ruled their respective part of China before re-uniting under the Tang dynasty. During the Qing dynasty, regional differences and identification in China fostered the growth of regional stereotypes. Such stereotypes often appe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Algæ
Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular microalgae, such as cyanobacteria, '' Chlorella'', and diatoms, to multicellular macroalgae such as kelp or brown algae which may grow up to in length. Most algae are aquatic organisms and lack many of the distinct cell and tissue types, such as stomata, xylem, and phloem that are found in land plants. The largest and most complex marine algae are called seaweeds. In contrast, the most complex freshwater forms are the Charophyta, a division of green algae which includes, for example, ''Spirogyra'' and stoneworts. Algae that are carried passively by water are plankton, specifically phytoplankton. Algae constitute a polyphyletic group because they do not include a common ancestor, and although eukaryotic algae with chlorophyll-bearing plastids seem t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Simplified Characters
Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized character sets widely used to write the Chinese language, with the other being traditional characters. Their mass standardization during the 20th century was part of an initiative by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to promote literacy, and their use in ordinary circumstances on the mainland has been encouraged by the Chinese government since the 1950s. They are the official forms used in mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore, while traditional characters are officially used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Simplification of a component—either a character or a sub-component called a radical—usually involves either a reduction in its total number of strokes, or an apparent streamlining of which strokes are chosen in what places—for example, the radical used in the traditional character is simplified to to form the simplified character . By systematically simplifying radicals, large swaths of the characte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Traditional Characters
Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages. In Taiwan, the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the ''Standard Form of National Characters''. These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of the predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is a retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Fangzhang Island
Fanghu (), also known as Fanghu Mountain or Fangzhang '' zhou'' (), is one of the five Bohai Sea Shenshan mountain-islands in Taoist mythology. It is said this is where the Emperor Qin Shihuang visited to seek immortality. Legend of the Five Bohai Shenshan Mountains-Islands In the Bohai Sea there is a place where all water sources flow called the Guixu Valley. In it were five sacred mountains - Penglai, Fanghu or Fangzhang, Yingzhou, Daiyu and Yuanjiao. The mountains were inhabited by Taoist ''xian'' and beasts who flew from one mountain to another. The tops of the mountains were said 9000 li wide and 70,000 li apart from each other. Its flat terraces were said to be made of gold, jade, and onyx. Eating the fruits of the trees atop the mountains granted immortality and everlasting youth. In order to make sure the mountains stayed stable for the ''xian'', the ruler of the heavens ordered Yuqiang to command fifteen ao to stabilize the five mountains. The turtle is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Yingzhou Island
Penglai ( zh, t=蓬萊仙島, l=Penglai Immortal Island) is a legendary land of Chinese mythology. It is known in Japanese mythology as Hōrai and Bồng Lai in Vietnam.McCullough, Helen. ''Classical Japanese Prose'', p. 570. Stanford Univ. Press, 1990. . Location According to the ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'', the mountain is located at the eastern end of Bohai Sea. According to the pre-Qin mythology which retells the legend of Xu Fu presenting a memorial to the Qin Emperor in order to seek for the elixir of life, there are three godly mountains which are found in the Bohai sea where immortals reside. These mountains are Penglai, Fāngzhàng (), and Yíngzhōu (/). Other islands where immortals reside are called Dàiyú () and Yuánjiāo (). In the ''Illustrated Account of the Embassy to Goryeo in the Xuanhe Era'' (; ''Xuanhe fengshi Gaoli tujing''), written in 1124 by Xu Jing (), Mount Penglai is located on an inhabited island which is found within the boundaries of C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
