Chinasage : All about China
China sage's information will be of use to anyone keen to learn more about the world's upcoming nation. We cover all aspects of China in hundreds of detailed pages which include all sorts of cultural traditions , descriptions of every Chinese province and history , including all the dynasties. We hope you make ChinaSage the home for your study of China.
You can also check out your knowledge of China with our Quiz section .
Best wishes for 2026
For a very comprehensive guide for all Chinese festivals see our complete guide .
Wishing everybody a happy and prosperous new year.
I'd like to thank in particular the generosity of our Patreon supporters who have made it possible to pause advertising for most of 2025.
Traditions
About Chinasage
We’re building an extensive set of information all about China. We found other sites too detailed (such as Wikipedia) or just too old-fashioned. What we thought was needed was a carefully constructed site with strict editorial control so that everything is consistent and easy to navigate without clutter.
The name “Chinasage” came about because it can be read as either “China sage” (中 国 英 明 zhōng guó yīng míng ) or “China’s age” (中 国 时 代 zhōng guó shí dài ) , which promotes our new knowledge resource at a time when China has come of age in the world.
All the tea in China
Tea was the most important export that was weighed in the traditional Chinese unit of measurement called a 'catty'. It is known colloquially as the Chinese pound and is about 1.1pounds. In China it is known as the jin 斤 the word catty probably came from the Malay word. The modern weight is aligned to the metric system as exactly 500grams. The container for tea, a 'caddy', is believed to have been named after the measure.
Getting by in China There are many customs and traditions that you should know before traveling to China. Our customs page covers such things as giving gifts, banquets, sealing business deals and how to behave in public. A respect for age old traditions will impress your hosts who will appreciate your efforts to embrace the culture. Read more…
Chinese porcelain Together with tea and silk, porcelain from China is its most famous export. Prized the world over, high quality porcelain commands high prices at auction. Like silk the secret of its manufacture was a closely guarded secret for centuries. Read more…
Chinese New Year China's main holiday is the Spring Festival held in late January or early February. It is a very busy time and the public holiday lasts a whole week. It is a time to go back to your family home and celebrate the new year together with numerous traditions and festive food. Read more…
China's Ancient Script The discovery of a huge number of 'oracle bones' has greatly added to the knowledge of the origins of China's written script. It pushes back the written language to at least 3,500 years ago. Careful study of the inscriptions is still revealing information about life in Shang dynasty times. Read more…
Hares and Rabbits Hares and rabbits are treated as the same animal in China. Hares are associated with the moon as the Chinese saw a 'hare' rather than a 'man' in the moon. The Chinese moon rovers are called the 'Jade Rabbits'. Read more…
Spirit Ways to Imperial Tombs For 2,000 years illustrious people had an elaborate underground burial tomb. Although many tombs have been looted over the ages, the spirit ways or sacred ways with rows of stone sculptures have often survived. Read more…
Game of Go or Weiqi The ancient game of 'Go' is called 围棋 wéi qí in China. It was a Chinese invention and has for centuries been the top game for learning strategy. Scholars would spend hours honing their skills to outwit an opponent with a disarmingly simple set of rules. Read more…
Good fortune You will often see the character for good fortune 褔 fú on decorations and gifts. 'Fu' is also associated with bats and oranges and this has a surprising explanation... Read more…
Cracking China book
Your A-Z key to understanding China
We are proud to announce a printed book all about China based loosely on this web site. It is a set of sixty topics in A-Z order covering everything from hair to kiwifruit, clapping to rhubarb, eunuchs to dragons. Buying a copy will help support Chinasage . Now available as a Kindle eBook for just $3.90.
Details... ➚
China's rich range of wildlife China has a wide range of wild animals reflecting the great diversity of climate and geography - everything from tropical rain forest to arid sand desert. Many plants and animals can only be found in China. Read more…
History
Dip into history Our history section has a page for each major dynasty, for the whole period from the time of myths and legends 5,000 years ago all the way through the Han, Tang, Song, Ming dynasties to the last great dynasty the Qing. Read more…
Japan and China The history of the often difficult relations between China and Japan reveals a complex relationship. The Japanese occupation of China 1937-45 and continued U.S. support for Japan has led to continuing frictions between governments and peoples. Read more…
The Chinese Stars The Chinese system of astronomical observation is as ancient and distinctly different that as that developed in Europe and the Middle East. More emphasis was put on the moon than the sun and stars were arranged into groups according to the layout of the Imperial court. Read more…
Relations between Korea and China A history of the long and eventful history of Chinese relations with Korea. Chinese settlement first began two thousand years ago and at times since then China has intervened in Korean affairs, most recently in the Korean War 1950-53. Read more…
4th May 1919 The Chinese reaction to the Versailles Treaty was the major turning point in modern Chinese history. Widespread student protests throughout the country led to a change in government policy and a refusal to sign the treaty. It was a nationalist movement calling for solidarity against foreign exploitation that was eventually to lead to a militarized Guomindang as well as the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party. Read more…
The building of China's railways The building of railways became a competitive scramble in the late 19th and early 20th century. Railways were seen as the key step to opening up inland China for trade. Britain, France, Germany, Japan and America all invested heavily in railway construction only for the the money to be lost in the following years of turmoil. Read more…
Cracking China book
Your A-Z key to understanding China
We are proud to announce a printed book all about China based loosely on this web site. It is a set of sixty topics in A-Z order covering everything from hair to kiwifruit, clapping to rhubarb, eunuchs to dragons. Buying a copy will help support Chinasage . Now available as a Kindle eBook for just $3.90.
Details... ➚
Geography
China's diverse geography China has deserts, mountains, lakes, rain forests and almost every other type of geographical feature you can think of. Our geography section has pages for each individual province as well as the great Yangzi and Yellow rivers. There are also pages on climate, cities, population, ethnic people, airports and universities. Read more…
Growing rice in China The cultivation of rice for food has been carried out in China for the last 10,000 years. Over this time about 50,000 different varieties have been bred selectively for every possible soil and climate type. It is now cheaper to import rice rather than grow it in China, so rather surprisingly China is a major importer of this staple food. Read more…
Chinese Universities We include a comprehensive guide to the top Universities in China giving details of student numbers, location, ranking and a bit about their history. Read more…
Delicious Chinese food A fine Chinese meal is a carefully balanced mixtures of flavors, textures, colors and food types. Although Western fast food has made major inroads in the cities there is still a great appreciation of Chinese food as one of the finer pleasures in life. Etiquette at formal banquets is important for visitors to understand before visiting China. Each region in China has its own variations with local specialities, the cuisine in southerly Guangdong is very different from that of northerly Gansu. Read more…
The 13 Ming Tombs The tombs of the 13 Ming Emperors is one of the largest and most lavish burial complexes anywhere in the world. Like the Valley of the Kings in Egypt the tombs are scattered around a valley of 17 square miles but here only one tomb has been excavated and was found to be completely intact. Read more…
All the tea in China
Tea was the most important export that was weighed in the traditional Chinese unit of measurement called a 'catty'. It is known colloquially as the Chinese pound and is about 1.1pounds. In China it is known as the jin 斤 the word catty probably came from the Malay word. The modern weight is aligned to the metric system as exactly 500grams. The container for tea, a 'caddy', is believed to have been named after the measure.
Port Arthur
The city of Port Arthur now a part of Dalian at the tip of the Liaodong peninsular, played a significant part in the interplay between foreign powers in the late 19th century. It was called Port Arthur by the British and its strategic position commanding the sea routes into Tianjin and the Manchurian provinces made it a prized position. In the Battle of Port Arthur Japan and Russia fought each other for control (1904-5) and Japan became the victors with control over the port and the whole province. At the defeat of Japan in World War 2 it was leased to Russia 1945-54. Read more…
Language
The Chinese Language The Chinese language is rightly treasured as the country's greatest accomplishment. Our language section describes the language and its history. The section includes some introductory lessons and a guide to writing the characters. Read more…
Ancient stone writings Stone steles form the most permanent of records. Over the centuries they have been used as memorials, reference libraries, calligraphy samples and poems. Visitors to China will have seen these revered inscriptions in all sorts of locations: mountains, houses, parks and museums documenting the lives and feelings of people over the centuries. They are a powerful and permanent expression of the continuity of Chinese history. Read more…
1,000 character language primer One of the most loathed books in human history must be the Thousand Character Classic. For 1,500 years schoolchildren had to learn the whole set of 1,000 characters by rote. It was more about calligraphy practice rather than for making conversation. It remains a fact that learning a couple of thousand characters is a challenge to even young minds. Read more…
Understanding the Date and Time in Chinese Telling the date and time is essential for travelers. In China the Arabic numbers are used for writing but the Chinese characters are used for reading. Read more…
Yangzi River The mighty Yangzi River is the longest in China and third longest in the world. It has carried huge quantities of people and goods over the centuries. Many great cities lie close to its banks: Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanjing and Shanghai. Read more…
Bits and Pieces
We need your help to keep the Chinasage web site growing. We'd love to keep this web site completely free of advertisements like Wikipedia. Please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber for however little or much you can afford. We have been running this campaign for two months and have so far raised only 10% of our target. So please help… or else advertisements will make a comeback!
To read more and take out a subscription simply click on the Patreon Patreon
Many thanks, much appreciated.
Tue 20th Sep 2022Patreon pictures Thanks to the generous donations from Chinasage's Patreon ➚ sponsors we've just added quality photographs to many of our pages.
Although you can get images of all sorts of thing for free you do still have to pay for quality, particularly for specialist subjects. This time we have used 123rf for the new images who claim to have 200 million images to choose from. It takes a long time to make a choice and then they all need editing for usage, tagging and finally putting on the appropriate place on our hundreds of pages. We hope you will agree that they make a significant improvement.
New Year dragon, Shanghai Read more…
All the tea in China
Tea was the most important export that was weighed in the traditional Chinese unit of measurement called a 'catty'. It is known colloquially as the Chinese pound and is about 1.1pounds. In China it is known as the jin 斤 the word catty probably came from the Malay word. The modern weight is aligned to the metric system as exactly 500grams. The container for tea, a 'caddy', is believed to have been named after the measure.
Population China has been the most populous nation for much of the last few thousand years. The draconian 'One Child Policy ' measure was introduced to curb the worrying explosive growth in the period 1950-80.
Read more…
China's name Why do we call the country of China 'China'? It is not the name used by the Chinese people themselves. In fact there are a number of names used in the 'Middle Kingdom' that reflect the country's rich cultural and historic heritage. Read more…
Chinese numbers Learning the numbers in Chinese is easier than in many other languages. In our complete guide to the numbers we include the traditions associated them. For example, do you know why 4 is unlucky but 8 lucky? Read more…
Feng Shui The ancient tradition of Feng Shui has been far reaching for thousands of years. It is still practiced today, particularly for choosing the site for buildings and graves. With the goal of harmony and balance with nature, it has excellent environmental credentials. Read more…
他 tā he; she; it 亻 rén Person (radical) radical 9, 也 yě also; and]Origin Combines person with 'also' so giving the notion of someone else Full information for 他
The Huángxīng Lù Commercial Pedestrian Street in Changsha. 15 Jun 2006X. Zhou ➚ available under a Creative Commons license ➚
Conventions
We use a consistent style for links within Chinasage. An internal link taking you to another page within our site is shown like this while a link to a page on any other web site is shown like this ➚ .
We use Chinese characters wherever appropriate. Most browsers should display both the characters and the pinyin correctly. We highlight any use of the older Wade Giles system for 'spelling' characters. Except where stated all characters are the modern simplified form used in the People's Republic rather than the traditional ones (pre-1970s). To help you learn Chinese characters many of the very common characters are highlighted thus: 中
Dates are given using the BCE/CE ➚ (Before Common Era and in Common Era) year convention rather than BC/AD. If a date is not followed by BCE or CE it should be taken as CE.
Authorship
All the text on the Chinasage web site is my own, I do not copy and paste from other web sites. I research each topic from a number of authoritative sources (mainly books ). The only exception to this are quotations and image credits. All text is our copyright and can not be used/copied without my permission. I am independent of any other company or government, the opinions expressed are my own. I do not receive funding or backing from any agency or organization .
Teacup Media (China History Podcast)
I am delighted to be able to promote links to Laszlo Montgomery's excellent Teacup Media ➚ series created over the last 15 years. Laszlo Montgomery ➚ has in depth knowledge of building commercial contacts with China over 30 years. The set of 290 podcasts totals 150 hours of audio commentary which covers every conceivable topic in Chinese history. Highly recommended.
Acknowledgments
I am extremely grateful to the many people who have put their photographs online for anyone to adapt and use. Without them this site would be very drab. If I am not using the image license correctly please let me know. I am grateful to Kim Dramer ➚ for permission to use her short videos all about Chinese culture and traditions. Patreon subscribers have supported the web site and allowed us to amongst other things purchase some quality images of China for use here. Some pages use Javascript ➚ to create special effects such as our airport table and calendar . I am grateful to the original authors for providing their code to be used and adapted by anyone else. The online Chinese dictionary uses the definitions from the CC-CEDICT project ➚ for which I am grateful for a generous free license. Sound files kindly provided by shtooka.net ➚ under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License.
Feel free to contact Chinasage to point out any errors, omissions or suggestions on how to improve this web site.
If you would like to support my work and keep us independent become a Patreon or make a Donation via Paypal.
