Culture

Chinese Languages and Writing -- Calligraphy
The 1 billion Chinese people have one common language, Mandarin. There is still a problem because people in one part of the country will speak it differently than another part.

Here in the United States, we live in states. There, they live in provinces. Each province has a different dialect (type) of Chinese that they speak. People from one province can’t understand the dialects from the other provinces. If they don’t speak Mandarin (which many of the farmers do not), they can’t understand one another. To solve this problem they have a special way of writing. They have signs for ideas. We have an phonetic alphabet for sounds. Click here to find out more about the Chinese calligraphy.

Life in the Cities
They have different styles of cooking and living in each province. In the United States some of the cooking is different in the Southeast and the Southwest, for instance.

Life in the cities is different than life in the country. In the cities, parents work in stores and factories. Families live in apartments. Many, but not all, families have telephones and television sets. A few may have a computer at home.

In the cities, all children go to school at least through the ninth grade. They learn to read and write. This is a real challenge since the children must learn at least 2000 Chinese characters. Remember what you read about Chinese calligraphy. They also learn math, science, history and the arts just as you do in your school.

read the letter from Nisa a third grader living in Tianjin.

With the one family policy, parents love their child dearly. Sometimes grandparents take care of the child while the parents work. Parents and grandparents help their child learn to read and write – even before he or she goes to school. Families want their children to go to college so they can get good jobs. They have to pay for their kid’s college education. If the parents can possibly pay the tuition, the young students go to college.

Life in the Country
The Chinese countryside is beautiful.

In the country, the children usually have to help their parents in the fields, growing crops. Most children start school, but many children have to drop out of school to work in the fields. This makes the parents unhappy. They would like to see their children get a good education.

The government has a policy that by 2005, almost everyone in China will be able to read and write. Now, particularly some of the older people who live in the country, cannot read.

The government wants China to become more modern, like the United States. But life in the country is very simple. Many families will not have electricity in the simple houses. They won’t have telephones or computers. Life is very different than in the United States.

Fun in China
Ping pong is a favorite game. Many Chinese men are excellent acrobats. Many of the sports that are played around the world are becoming popular in China.

Not many families have television sets, but children enjoy time with their friends and family. There are many holidays that families like to celebrate. Check out:
Celebrations, Holidays and Customs at:

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/asia/china/

Special Things about the Chinese Culture

Religious Beliefs
Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism are three different kinds of religion that the Chinese practice. Each of these is based on teachings and writings of people who lived a long time ago. They taught:

• that it is import to live simply, to not be concerned with having lots of things
• that people should be try and live in harmony with others around them, get along with them, care for them, be a community
• that everyone needs to take care of the environment, the land around them.

These are things we think are important, too.

Dragons

Dragons have a special place in Chinese culture. They symbolize royalty. If you see a dragon on a building, it means that a member of the royal family lived in that building, or it belonged to them. Dragons are still much loved by the Chinese people. Many items, like dishes or clothes and even kites, have the image of the dragon on them. The Great Wall of China is called the backbone of a dragon. It protected the Chinese from invasion for a long time.

Music
The music sounds different because the instruments they play are different. The have flutes, drums and gongs. They have stringed instruments rather like our violins. This is just another way to let us know that the Chinese culture is different than our in a number of ways.

Other web sites of interest:

Life in China, especially in the past: http://members.aol.com/Donnclass/Chinalife.html#XIA

Chinese New Year and the Lion Dance

http://artswork.asu.edu/arts/students/holidays/chineseny01.htm  

Get a Chinese name. A real fun thing to do: http://www.mandarintools.com/chinesename.html

You should have answered questions 7 and 8 for your press conference.

You should also be ready to write plays about living in China.

Last year our kids wrote two plays about China. One was about a family having to put one of their twins up for adoption. The other one was about the children getting ready for the Lion Dance on Chinese New Year. We also thought about writing a play about:

• having to drop out of school to help your parents farm
• a day is school like we heard about in Nisa’s letter.

We’re certain there are hundreds of ideas for plays about the communities in China. Living in China must be like living where you are. There are families. Kids go to school. Parents, relatives and neighbors work. They need to buy things. They play. They have visitors.

It must also be different because there are so many different kinds of traditions. The government is very different and that makes living in China different. There are many more farmers than there are in the United States. Somewhere in all of this you’ll find good ideas for characters, settings and problems.

Remember your play must tell your audience about living as a community in China.

Use your imagination. Have fun.