Modern Chinese People Research Articles

On the ‘Architecture of Life’ in Wang Anyi’s Kao Gong Ji

Kao Gong ji is a full-length novel published in 2018 by renowned mainland China author Wang Anyi, which creates a life history of a Shanghai man called Chen Shuyu and his ancestral home. The interplay between classical Chinese architecture and modern Chinese people is noteworthy. This paper will summarize this relationship with the ‘architecture of life’ concept, pointing to the close connection between people and architecture. The central theme of this paper is: what is the relationship between the modorn man Chen Shuyu and classical architecture at various stages of his life? How does the Chinese traditional pragmatic rationality influence the changes ‘architecture of life’ and man’s life? In the face of death, what’s the possibility and impossibility of the pragmatic rationality. In terms of research methodology, this paper chooses existentialism and humanist geography, both of which emphasize the emotions and perceptions of modern people.

Money Metaphors We Live By: Analyzing Chinese Comic Books based on CMA

Chinese comic books appear to be filled with bright colors and interesting characters, but they also offer insight into the daily life relations and societal principles of modern China. In this study, we examined the construction and underlying meanings of money metaphors in Zhu Deyong’s comic book series We Are All Patients, and We Are All Patients 2: Love with an Idiot, using the conceptual metaphor theory (CMT). By mapping abstract concepts into more concrete and familiar domains, CMT conveys complex ideas, emotions, and social commentary in a way that readers can easily understand. We analyzed thirty-nine randomly chosen comic strips from Zhu’s comic books using Charteris-Black’s (2004) inductive method, conceptual metaphor analysis (CMA), to identify, explain, and interpret different metaphors. Through our analysis, we highlighted the most prominent money metaphors and how they relate to the current love and friendship relations made by modern Chinese people in their everyday lives. We found that money metaphors are classified into seven source domains: barrier, drug, tool, almighty, exchange, principle, and ambition.

China: Identity vs tolerance

The article analyzes the difficulties and compromise solutions that the Chinese architectural profession finds to meet the current trends in the context of changing civilization. Even after decades of changes and innovations, the Chinese architectural profession still has not been able to create distinctive characteristics of Chinese architecture to follow the aesthetics of modern Chinese people. The design of the Guanghua commercial complex in Chengdu presented in this article uses elements of traditional Chinese culture, gardens and calligraphy to create an “artistic concept” in contemporary architectural design that reflects the identity inherent in the place. The purpose of the article is to propose a new way of studying the ideas of modern Chinese architectural design.

The Exhibition Practice and Theoretical Cognition of Modern Chinese People

The Exhibition Practice and Theoretical Cognition of Modern Chinese People

Представление о профессии в образе мира китайцев

The concept of a profession is a multi-dimensional, multi-level system of knowledge, characterized by stability in a certain historical period and a certain selective nature in different periods. Representation of profession of modern Chinese people reflects cultural values and stereotypes, but under the influence of the multipolarity of the world, they have also undergone significant changes.The article provides a detailed description of the general representation of profession among the Chinese from a historical point of view. In addition to studying professional values of the Chinese with the help of the associative experiment data, the representation of profession as a part of the world image of modern Chinese people is analyzed.

A study of the construction times of the ancient cities in Ganjia Basin, Gansu Province, China

The Ganjia Basin in Xiahe County, Gansu Province, China, is located on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The area lies in the transitional zone between the Plateau ethnic groups dominated by ancestral Tibetans, and the Central Plains dynasties dominated by ancestral Han in history. The Ganjia Basin is therefore well suited to studying the history of the intermixing of the Han and Tibetan peoples. In this study, we collected samples of organic materials from two ancient cities, Bajiaocheng (BJC) and Sirougucheng (SRGC), in the Ganjia Basin, which were used for radiocarbon dating. Our aims were to determine the construction times and function of the cities, based on the radiocarbon ages, Bayesian age modeling, and the analysis of relevant historical records. The results are used to discuss the role of the Ganjia Basin in the conflicts between and the integration of the two ethnic groups during the historical period. We conclude that BJC was established during 663–732 CE (Common Era); its early occupation history can be divided into an initial establishment phase (670–780 CE) and a phase of regeneration (880–1030 CE). SRGC was probably built at the time of the transition between the Song and Yuan dynasties (∼1271 CE). Combining the dating results with an analysis of the architectural styles and historical records, we conclude that BJC was originally built by the Tubo Kingdom as a military stronghold, and its major functions were military, economic and religious, and to support the major eastward expansion of the Tubo. SRGC was most likely a temple-focused city intended to promote Tibetan Buddhism which was a major political and religious leadership for the Tibetans at that time, reflecting changes in the status of different religions in the Ganjia Basin. In addition, the intermixing and blending of the Han and Tibetan groups, reflected by the human activities in the Ganjia Basin, was an important demographic and cultural foundation for the formation of the culturally-diverse but spiritually-united modern Chinese people.

A Cultural Perspective on the English Translation of Nezha

Achieving a tremendous box office success in China, Na Zha is a mythical movie with Chinese characteristics, showing the social culture of China, analyzing the current ideological situation of the modern Chinese people, but it flopped in the American market. This paper analyses the gains and losses in the translation of the film Nezha from the perspective of culture.

An Exploration of the Leisure Thoughts of Confucianism and Taoism in Zhang Wu Zhi (Treatise on Superfluous Things)

Current Western leisure theory is primarily based on Western research, although social scientific leisure research has been carried out for approximatelly 70 years. The goal of this essay is to introduce the leisure thoughts of Confucianism and Taoism as presented in the Chinese classic Zhang Wu Zhi. Hitherto, two Western historians who study Zhang Wu Zhi have opened a window for the study of Zhang Wu Zhi world wide, although they do not pay attention to leisure practice and thinking because of their academic backgroud. This research reflects the leisure thoughts of the rich Chinese traditional literati under the influence of Confucianism and Taoism. As presented in Zhang Wu Zhi and as a tradition, these religious traditions profoundly affect the leisure activities and characteristics of modern Chinese people currently and in the future. In this case, the Chinese text needs to be reintroduced to contribute to global leisure research.

The Multilingual Full-Text Database of Overseas Life-Writing on Modern Chinese People and the China Biographical Database

http://sclw.lib.sjtu.edu.cn/index The Multilingual Full-Text Database of overseas life writing on Modern Chinese People (the Database) was launched by the Centre for life writing at shanghai Jiao Tong University (sJTU) in november 2011. all subjects in the Database are influential, representative, or exemplary Chinese people whose life materials are either published or preserved outside mainland China after 1898, the year generally considered to be the beginning of China’s Modern age. The Database aims to bring a prosopographical perspective to the transnational and transcultural experience shared by a rather large number of Chinese people in the previous century. by april 2018, the Database has listed more than 3,000 subjects and over 15,000 relevant resources. 
 https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/cbdbThe China Biographical Database (CBDB) is a large data aggregator and powerful content harbour co-developed by Harvard University, Academia Sinica, and Peking University. It is one of the oldest and biggest digital humanities projects focusing on China. In its latest data release in August 2017, CBDB contains biographical information about 417,000 Chinese individuals, mostly from the 7th century to the 19th century. Unlike many text-based databases, CBDB does not preserve primary life materials in the original textual sources. Rather, it mines texts from digital sources of reliable historical records and stores them in a relational database.

존 톰슨의 여행을 통해 본 근대 중국의 인물

In this paper, we approached John Thompson’s Illustrations of China and its People: a Series of Two Hundred Photographs, with Letterpress Descriptive of the Places and People Represented books under the theme of “Modern Chinese People”. As a result, from the top officials of the time to the lower-level officials or the candidates officials, from various nationalities, including Manchurians, Mongolians, Koreans, ethnic minorities such as Danmin, from the upper class of Woman to the lower class of Woman, Finally, all over China, there are all kinds of low-class people living there, indeed, it was during his trip that he had a wide variety of camera-captured modern Chinese people who could be photographed with a camera. If you categorize John’s Illustrations of China and its People: a Series of Two Hundred Photographs, with Letterpress Descriptive of the Places and People Represented books, its pictures are modern China’s ‘people treasure house’, and the explanation is that these reports have given rise to ‘living and breathing’ lives. Therefore, it would not be too much to say that John Thompson’s books are ‘a treasure House of modern Chinese people who live and breathe’. Even more so like this, John Thompson’s photographs of a wide variety of people, ranging from royal family to beggars below, are used today as material to introduce modern Chinese people to most Internet, major books, and even middle and high school textbooks.

Conceptual metonymies and metaphors behind the Five Phases

This paper is based on an investigation of the Five Phases (五行,wuxing) in traditional Chinese thought within a cognitive linguistic framework. In analyzing three of the five concepts in thewuxingscheme, namely WOOD (木,mu), EARTH (土,tu) and METAL (金,jin), as recorded in ancient and modern Chinese, we attempt to find out (1) the conceptual metonymies and metaphors they have developed, (2) the similarities and differences between the three concepts in ancient and modern Chinese, and (3) the possible reasons for those similarities and differences and the implications they have for ancient and modern Chinese ways of cognizing the world. Our comparative analysis shows that while the semantic networks of the three concepts remain largely consistent from ancient to modern Chinese, those conceptual metaphors which are closely tied to thewuxingscheme are much less active in modern Chinese. On the whole it can be claimed that the ancient Chinese believed in the unity of Heaven and human and constructed the world based on three fundamental conceptual metaphors: “nature operates in accordance withWUXING”, “THE HUMAN BODY OPERATES IN ACCORDANCE WITHWUXING” and “SOCIETY OPERATES IN ACCORDANCE WITHWUXING”. Yet it seems that this belief in the unity of Heaven and human has weakened in the modern Chinese mind and modern Chinese people no longer rely on thewuxingscheme to understand the world.

Coping of the Chinese People: From Emic and Etic Perspectives

Coping of the Chinese people has so far been studied from two perspectives: the etic perspective and the emic perspective. The etic perspective is concerned with the influence of Chinese culture on the cultural environment of coping, traits of the self, sources of stress, patterns of coping and results of coping. It has gained some objective knowledge on coping, and has revealed the praxis of coping of the Chinese people. Since, however, the etic perspective emphasizes the universality of its theory, it is not quite specific to the actual condition in China. The emic perspective, on the contrary, draws the ideas of coping, which in nature are the guides to and the improvement of the psychic life, from the traditional Chinese culture, i.e. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. It is more intimate to the Chinese people and deep to the essence of their coping, but the ambiguity, subjectivity of its theory, as well as the tendency of diversification of the psyche and behaviour of modern Chinese people, will inevitably lead to some deficiencies in its theory. Both perspectives have their own advantage and disadvantage. They are complementary to each other, and are to be combined together in future studies.

The Chinese’s Perspective on the Colonized Korean Capital City who Travelled in Korea

Chinese people are not unfamiliar with the capital city of Korea or Seoul. Chinese envoys have begun their visits to this beautiful city surrounded by rivers and mountains since the capital was settled in Soul in Joseon Dynasty. After opening the port, with the enhancement of Sino-Korean relationship, more and more Chinese came to this city. Among these people, there were many great names in the history of modern China such as Wu Chang qing, Yuan Shi Kai, Zhang Jian and Zeng Ji Ze who however were sent to Seoul with missions as signed by government and common people had few opportunities to travel there but to get to know this city from text records.<BR> During the reign of Japan’s colonization, though Sino-Korean relationship was at themercy of Japan at first, then on governmental communication increased:more and more Chinese with various purposes came to Seoul, especially some Chineses cholars travelled in Seoul for study or research, and for travelling and sightseeing. What they had seen and had heard has been recorded in words which are a great treasure for us to know Seoul under the colonized rule.<BR> In modern Chinese people’s eyes, the colonized Korean capital city was no longer the “Seoul” that they had been familiar to, but the one full of modern flavor. There were bustling commercial streets and well-developed transportation system and perfect municipal man agement all of which presented a modern city before Chinese travelers. The appearance of Seoul had great changes while the owner of the city was also changed. Korean people who had been living there for many generations were replaced by extraneous Japanese, reducing victims being conquered. They have nothing to do with the prosperity or the progress of the capital city. They had to live in the places full of dirty streets, a totally different world.<BR> The 500-year inheritance of Joseon Dynasty, the majestic palaces and the beautiful gardens in Seoul all reveal the time-honored and splendid Korean culture whoses plendor however was enshrouded by the shadow of colonia lrule.<BR> As a traveler staying in Seoul for a short time, some Chinese were amazed at the great changes of the capital city and admired Japanese colonists’ “governance achievement” while most of the Chinese travelers from these changes saw the destroy of colonial rule to Korean people, Korean culture and Korean spirit which made them realize that the only thing brought into by the imposed “progress” and “development” is harm and destroy.

Feudal and feudalism in modern China

“Feudal” is a core concept that has played an important role in modern Chinese people's understanding of their society and of the Chinese revolution. This article traces several key aspects of the process in which the feudal concept evolved. It points out that such a concept consists of two aspects concerning the late Qing dynasty: the question of centralization or decentralization of power in terms of polity and the question of popular participation in the country's politics. At the same time, with the translations and introductions done by Yan Fu, people began to equate the traditional Chinese feudal concept, based on fiefdoms, with the feudal era of the West. In the efforts of the May Fourth generation, the ideas of patriarchal society and feudalism were also merged. After the May Fourth Movement, with the rapid spread of Marxism in China, the feudal concept began to be interpreted in light of theories of socio–economic relations and class conflict. By the mid-1920s, a new theory of national revolution had come into being, with warlord-ism and the gentry's self-rule all becoming part of the feudal system and targets of the revolution.

Po Xi Wen Ti: The “Mother-in-Law Problem”

In this article we explore the cultural context in which Chinese families are embedded and focus on systemic and culturally responsive ideas and interventions when couples present with po xi wen ti, the “mother-in-law problem,” in their family life. We look at the Confucian value of filial piety and examine how modern Chinese people understand and interpret this enduring Chinese value in their intergenerational relationships. We discuss po xi wen ti through the lenses of intergenerational therapies, in particular Bowen theory, in tandem with Chinese ways of life and thinking. This article contributes to current efforts at integrating Eastern and Western thought in family therapy with Chinese families.

The Level of Concern aboutFengShui in House Purchasing: The Impacts of Self‐efficacy, Superstition, and theBigFive Personality Traits

ABSTRACTFengShui has significant and widespread influences inChinese society, but modernChinese people hold different perspectives on its validity. By using house purchasing as the research context, this study proposes a theoretical model that examines the psychological process linking theBigFive personality traits, personal beliefs (superstition and self‐efficacy), and the concern ofFengShui. This model was tested in a sample of 246 residents living in the capital ofTaiwan. Empirical results reveal that superstition has a positive influence on an individual's level of concern aboutFengShui, whereas self‐efficacy has a negative influence. The results also show that three personality traits are related to superstition, and four personality traits are related to self‐efficacy. In other words, personality traits can indirectly influence an individual's level of concern aboutFengShui through the mediation effects of superstition and self‐efficacy.

Mao Zedong's Thinking on Man and the Making of the Modern Chinese People

Mao Zedong's Thinking on Man and the Making of the Modern Chinese People