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 .
Chinese New Year 2026
Wishing everybody a happy and prosperous Spring Festival.
In 2026 this will fall on 17th February. It falls quite late this year, the variation is due to the lunar cycle, it falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice on December 21st.
2026 is a year of the 'fire' horse according to the sixty year astrological cycle .
For a very comprehensive guide for this most important festival see our new year page .
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.
Southern refuge
When northern China was overrun by Khitans and then Mongols 800 years ago the Imperial Song family moved to Hangzhou . It proved to be a peaceful and prosperous time for 150 years. In memory of this period some scenes of Hangzhou are still to be found in the long corridors of the Summer Palace , Beijing.
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…
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…
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…
Fish for good fortune Fish (渔 yú) have been a frequently used symbol for good fortune for centuries. This is because 余 yú means 'surplus; abundance' and so a picture of a fish is a wish for prosperity. They are often eaten at Chinese New Year partly as a symbol for a wish for abundance in the coming year. Read more…
Traditional Chinese calendar The traditional Chinese calendar is still used to determine the date of some festivals, and in particular the most important one - Chinese New Year. Our calendar shows each month with both Chinese and Western calendar information together with all the important anniversaries occurring on each day and the whole year. Read more…
Chinese Music As in so many other cultural areas the Chinese musical heritage is immensely rich. A wide range of different musical instruments have been developed over thousands of years. Accomplishment with a musical instrument is still considered an important part of a child's education. 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…
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... ➚
Book of Changes - Deciphered
The Yi Jing is the premier ancient classic in China, and yet at the heart of this very strange but important book is a mystery that has remained unsolved for 3,000 years. The ‘Book of Changes - Deciphered’ describes the history and importance of the Yi Jing (I Ching) and proposes a new solution to the ancient mystery. Buying a copy will help support Chinasage . Now also available in Kindle eBook format for just $5.99.
Details... ➚
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…
Chinoiserie - the style that conquered the world When the Jesuit mission returned reports of the splendors of China in the early 17th century a fascination for anything of the exotic Chinese style took hold. As tea drinking became very popular, China porcelain came into great demand. In addition the Chinese style of naturalistic rather than regimented order took hold in all the grand gardens. Read more…
Top Academy in China 725-1911 China can lay claim to having the longest lived academic institution. The Hanlin Academy was founded way back in the Tang dynasty long before any European university. For nearly 1,200 years it employed all the top scholars in many disciplines and had its own set of buildings at the Imperial capital. The academy produced Imperial edicts, the Imperial histories as well as educating the Emperor's children and administering the university examination system . Read more…
The illustrious Ming dynasty The most famous Chinese dynasty is the Ming dynasty . China emerged from the Mongol conquest to become pre-eminent nation, with the greatest wealth, population and foreign trade of any nation. It was during the Ming dynasty that China achieved many accomplishments: a vast fleet sailed the seas and made many discoveries and an encyclopedia of all knowledge was distilled into 11,000 chapters. Read more…
Precious Jade Jade is highly valued in China, and much of Asia, above gold and diamonds. The gemstone is harder than steel and can be carved into exquisite shapes. 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…
Southern refuge
When northern China was overrun by Khitans and then Mongols 800 years ago the Imperial Song family moved to Hangzhou . It proved to be a peaceful and prosperous time for 150 years. In memory of this period some scenes of Hangzhou are still to be found in the long corridors of the Summer Palace , Beijing.
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…
Chinese Cities We have all the important statistics on all the major cities in China. Gives Population, Chinese name and shows map of location within China as well as calculating distances to any other Chinese city. Read more…
Great City of Shanghai The huge city of Shanghai has become the leading city in Eastern Asia once again - just as it was in the 1920s. Known for its dynamism and cosmopolitanism, Shanghai rivals Beijing as the nation's most important metropolis. It is ideally placed near the mouth of the Yangzi river to act as a gateway into China. 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…
The Emperor's Canal The Grand or Emperor's canal is the longest canal system in the world. It links Hangzhou in the south to Beijing in the north - over 1,100 miles. Designed to carry huge amounts of rice from the south to the north it proved to be China's life line for over a thousand years. Read more…
Looking for something? We carefully tag references to traditions, people, symbols, dynasties... everything. To learn more about something use our search page to look up a topic by keyword or else use Google search of just this site for the information you want - it is almost bound to be there. 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…
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…
Three Character Classic The Three Character Classic (San Zi Jing 三 字 经 ) was for centuries a language primer for children who aspired to a scholarly life. It introduces the student to Chinese history, philosophy as well as the most common characters. It contains many exhortations for the student to study long and hard. Read more…
A survey of Chinese literature As both the book and printing were invented in China it is not surprising that Chinese literature has a long and distinguished history. There are a number of very famous novels from before the time of Shakespeare including The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin. Read more…
Online Chinese Dictionary Have a word or character to look-up? Use our free and extensive online dictionary . 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…
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... ➚
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 button below, it will take you to the Patreon web site where you can subscribe simply and securely.
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…
Southern refuge
When northern China was overrun by Khitans and then Mongols 800 years ago the Imperial Song family moved to Hangzhou . It proved to be a peaceful and prosperous time for 150 years. In memory of this period some scenes of Hangzhou are still to be found in the long corridors of the Summer Palace , Beijing.
The governance of modern China Governing 1,400 million people is no mean feat. China's structure of government is a power pyramid with the President at its head. In theory the people elect representatives who decide policy, in practice the ruling elite are rarely challenged by the democratic process. However the strong military involvement in government has been on the wane for over 25 years. Read more…
Relations with Taiwan - the One China Policy An exploration into the current debate about the status of Taiwan with a look into the complex history and some thoughts on the future. Read more…
Air travel in China Here we list all China's main airports , giving information on location, facilities and easy to use distance calculator so you can plan a complex itinerary around China. We also give useful visitor information about air transport in China. Read more…
The Lay-Osborn Flotilla of 1862-63 After China's defeat in the Opium Wars it is amazing that China then chose to buy a naval force from its former enemy Britain. Although boats were duly made, China refused to take delivery of them and Anglo-Chinese relations went into further decline. Read more…
射 shè to shoot; to launch; to allude to Made up of [身 shēn body; life; oneself radical 158, 寸 cùn unit of length; inch; thumb radical 41]Origin A body and a thumb taken to represent somebody shooting an arrow Full information for 射
Mahjong game
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 hovering the mouse over the character will pop up a box showing further information about it.
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.