Cultura China-Chinese Culture

Wiki English:

Laozi (6th century BCE) was a philosopher of ancient China, best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching (often simply referred to as Laozi).His association with the Tào Té Chīng has led him to be traditionally considered the founder of philosophical Taoism (pronounced as "Daoism"). He is also revered as a deity in most religious forms of Taoist philosophy, which often refers to Laozi as Taishang Laojun, or "One of the Three Pure Ones".

Wiki Español:

Lao-Tsé, también llamado Lao Tzu, Lao Zi, Laozi o Laocio. Su nombre real era Li Er 李耳. Es una figura cuya existencia histórica se debate. Se le considera uno de los filósofos más relevantes de la civilización china. La tradición china establece que vivió en el siglo VI a. C., pero muchos eruditos modernos argumentan que puede haber vivido aproximadamente en el siglo IV a. C., durante el período de las Cien escuelas del pensamiento y los Reinos Combatientes.

English Wiki:
Chopsticks (singular: chopstick) are short, frequently tapered sticks used in pairs of equal length, which are used as the traditional eating utensils of China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

Español wiki:
Los palillos, un par de pequeños palos rectos de similar longitud, son los utensilios tradicionales usados para comer en Extremo Oriente (China, Japón, Corea del Norte, Corea del Sur y Vietnam)

Wiki English

The bagua are eight trigrams used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each line either "broken" or "unbroken," representing yin or yang, respectively. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to as "trigrams" in English.

The trigrams are related to taiji philosophy, taijiquan and the wu xing, or "five elements". The relationships between the trigrams are represented in two arrangements, the Primordial (先天八卦), "Earlier Heaven"^[2] or "Fuxi" bagua (伏羲八卦), and the Manifested (後天八卦), "Later Heaven," or "King Wen" bagua. The trigrams have correspondences in astronomy, astrology, geography, geomancy, anatomy, the family, and elsewhere.

Wiki Español

El pa kua o ba gua (‘ocho estados de cambio’) es el nombre que recibe un símbolo de origen chino compuesto por ocho trigramas (agrupaciones de tres líneas, unas sobre otras, algunas enteras y otras cortadas) ordenados de una manera determinada alrededor de un centro, el yin-yang.

La traducción de los vocablos chinos, pa significa ‘ocho’, y kua ‘mutaciones’, ’transformaciones’ o ‘cambios’. Cada uno de los ocho estados de cambio se representa con tres líneas, pudiendo ser completas o cortadas, yang o yin. Según la leyenda, fue el mítico emperador chino Fu-Hi quien vio la existencia de similitudes entre las marcas inscritas en el caparazón de una tortuga a orillas del río Amarillo y las constelaciones del cielo. A partir de dicha observación, creó los ocho trigramas, que rigen las leyes universales, el orden del mundo, los fenómenos de la naturaleza, y al ser humano. Cada trigrama está en relación con uno de los ocho puntos cardinales. Hay muchas maneras de ordenar los trigramas; el que se ejemplifica a continuación pone énfasis en su estructura familiar.

Su presencia suele asociarse con fiestas, y son muy habituales en China y Japón, así como, lógicamente, en los diversos barrios chinos alrededor de todo el mundo, donde se suelen colgar en el exterior de los establecimientos públicos para atraer posibles clientes. En Japón reciben el nombre de 提灯 (chōchin), y existe un tipo especial de caligrafía para escribir en ellas, llamado chōchin moji.

En diversas comunidades hispanas es habitual durante la Navidad colocar pequeñas velas en filas de pequeñas bolsas de papel llamadas luminarias o farolitos. Las linternas de papel rojas estuvieron asociadas en el pasado con los burdeles, de donde deriva por ejemplo el nombre del Barrio Rojo de Ámsterdam. En la actualidad las linternas rojas se usan en Japón para anunciar bares y restaurantes. (wiki)

Often associated with festivals, paper lanterns are common in China and Japan and, similarly, in Chinatowns, where they are often hung outside of businesses to attract attention. In Japan the traditional styles include bonbori and chōchin and there is a special style of lettering called chōchin moji used to write on them.

Airborne paper lanterns are called sky lanterns, and are often released into the night sky for aesthetic effect at lantern festivals. (wiki)

Se conoce como Jiang Shi (en chino, 僵屍 o 殭屍 | cantonés: Geung si | mandarín: Jiāng shī | en japonés キョンシー: Kyonshii, literalmente "cadáver rígido"), conocidos en Occidente como Vampiros o Zombies chinos, a los cadáveres vueltos a la vida.

Los "Jiang Shi" son por lo general personas que han muerto violentamente, o de manera no natural, o bien cuya alma no ha encontrado reposo en el momento de su fallecimiento. Sus cuerpos no se han descompuesto y su pelo y uñas siguen creciendo como si siguieran vivos. Su piel es muy pálida porque no soportan el contacto con el sol, de manera que suelen aparecer en horario nocturno, lo que les viene mejor. Generalmente su apariencia varía desde un cuerpo normal hasta un espantoso cadáver podrido. Una de las características peculiares es su piel entre verde y blanca; una de las teorías afirma que esto deriva de un hongo que crece en los cadáveres. Tienen cabello largo y blanco. La influencia de las historias de vampiros occidentales llevó a que el mito chino incorporara el aspecto del chupado de sangre. Sus extremidades son rígidas, de manera que sólo pueden avanzar dando pequeños saltos y con los brazos extendidos. Son completamente ciegos, pero presienten a las personas por su respiración. Si están descontrolados son seres muy peligrosos porque si muerden a una persona, la convierten también en otro muerto viviente. Los monjes taoístas son los únicos que pueden detener a un "Jiang Shi" mediante diversos hechizos.

En la iconografía popular suelen vestir atuendos funerarios de la Dinastía Qing. Una supuesta fuente de las historias sobre Jiang Shi viene de la tradición folclórica del "Cadáver viajante", según la cual los miembros de una familia sin recursos para pagar las tarifas de viaje, contrataba a sacerdotes taoístas para que transportaran de vuelta al hogar a los cadáveres de sus amigos/familiares que habían muerto lejos. Los sacerdotes taoístas llevaban los cadáveres sólo de noche y tocaban campanas para avisar a los pueblerinos que estaban pasando, ya que era considerado mala suerte para una persona viva ver a un Jiang Shi. Esta práctica fue popular en Xiangxi, donde muchas personas dejaban su hogar para trabajar en otra parte. Después de su muerte, sus cuerpos eran devueltos a su casa, ya que se creía que sus almas iban a extrañar el hogar si los enterraban lejos. Como los llevaban acostados en cañas de bambú, cuando las cañas se doblaban arriba y abajo parecía que los cadáveres saltaban al unísono. Algunas personas pensaban que las historias sobre los Jiang shi habían sido inventadas por contrabandistas que disfrazaban su actividad ilegal con este medio y burlaban a las autoridades de esta manera.

A supposed source of the jiangshi stories came from the folk practice of "transporting a corpse over a thousand li" (simplified Chinese: 千里行尸; traditional Chinese: 千里行屍; pinyin: qiān lǐ xíng shī). The relatives of a person who died far away from home could not afford vehicles to have the deceased person's body transported home for burial, so they would hire a Taoist priest to conduct a ritual to reanimate the dead person and teach him/her to "hop" their way home. The priests would transport the corpses only at night and would ring bells to notify others in the vicinity of their presence because it was considered bad luck for a living person to set eyes upon a jiangshi. This practice, also called Xiangxi ganshi (simplified Chinese: 湘西赶尸; traditional Chinese: 湘西趕屍; pinyin: Xiāngxī gǎn shī; literally "driving corpses in Xiangxi"), was popular in Xiangxi, where many people left their hometown to work elsewhere. After they died, their bodies were transported back to their hometown because it was believed that their souls would feel homesick if they were buried somewhere unfamiliar to them. The corpses would be arranged upright in single file and be tied to long bamboo rods on the sides, while two men (one at the front and one at the back) would carry the ends of the rods on their shoulders and walk. When the bamboo flexed up and down, the corpses appeared to be "hopping" in unison when viewed from a distance away.

Two oral accounts of transporting corpses are included in Liao Yiwu's The Corpse Walker. One account describes how corpses would be transported by a two-man team. One would carry the corpse on his back with a large robe covering both of them and a mourning mask on top. The other man would walk ahead with a lantern and warn his companion about obstacles ahead of him. The lantern was used as a visual guide for the corpse carrier to follow since they could not see with the robe covering them. It is speculated in the accounts in the book that corpses would be carried at night to avoid contact with people and the cooler air would be more suitable to transporting bodies.

Some^[who?] speculate that the stories about jiangshi were originally made up by smugglers who disguised their illegal activities as corpse transportation and wanted to scare off law enforcement officers.

Night markets or night bazaars are street markets which operate at night and are generally dedicated to more leisurely strolling, shopping, and eating than more businesslike day markets. They are typically open-air markets.

Some well-known night markets exist in Taiwan, but they also exist in many other areas inhabited by ethnic Chinese such as Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Thailand, Philippines and Chinatowns worldwide.

The Shēngxiào (Chinese: 生肖), better known in English as the Chinese Zodiac, is a scheme, and a systematic plan of future action, that relates each year to an animal and its reputed attributes, according to a 12-year cycle. It has wide currency in several East Asian countries, such as China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan.

Identifying this scheme using the term "zodiac" reflects several similarities to the Western zodiac: both have time cycles divided into 12 parts, each labels at least the majority of those parts with names of animals, and each is widely associated with a culture of attributing influence of a person's relationship to the cycle upon their personality and/or events in their life. Nevertheless, there are major differences: the "Chinese" 12-part cycle corresponds to years rather than months. The Chinese zodiac is represented by 12 animals, whereas some of the signs in the Western zodiac are not animals, despite the implication of the Greek etymology of "zodiac". The animals of the Chinese zodiac are not associated with constellations, let alone those spanned by the ecliptic plane. (wiki)

Cuando los manchúes establecieron la dinastía Qing en toda China en 1644, trajeron un sistema nuevo de división administrativa que incluía las banderas (旗, qí) (división todavía usada en la región autónoma china de Mongolia Interior), debido a lo cual fueron conocidos como qiren (旗人, qí rén), "las gentes de las banderas". Posteriormente surgió un vestido, utilizado por hombres y mujeres, recto y de una sola pieza, que se denominó qipao, "vestido de la bandera". Normalmente era de seda, adornado con cordones en las mangas y en el cuello, y se hizo popular en el palacio imperial y entre los nobles. Los chinos de etnia han fueron obligados, bajo pena de muerte, a vestir la nueva ropa en lugar de la suya tradicional, y así, durante los siguientes trescientos años se convirtió en la vestimenta china por excelencia, sobreviviendo incluso a la revolución de Xinhai, que en 1911 acabó con la dinastía Qing y estableció la República de China. Desde entonces, con pocos cambios, el qipao se ha convertido en la vestimenta arquetípica de los chinos. (wiki)

When the Manchu ruled China during the Qing Dynasty, certain social strata emerged. Among them were the Banners (qí), mostly Manchu, who as a group were called Banner People (旗人 pinyin: qí rén). Manchu women typically wore a one-piece dress that retrospectively came to be known as the qípáo (旗袍, Manchu: sijigiyan or banner gown). The generic term for both the male and the female forms of Manchu dress, essentially similar garments, was chángpáo (長袍). The qipao fitted loosely and hung straight down the body, or flared slightly in an A-line. Under the dynastic laws after 1636, all Han Chinese in the banner system were forced to wear a queue and dress in Manchurian qipao instead of traditional Han Chinese clothing (剃发易服), under penalty of death (along with the July 1645 edict (the "haircutting order") that forced all adult Han Chinese men to shave the front of their heads and comb the remaining hair into a queue, on pain of death). Until 1911, the changpao was required clothing for Chinese men of a certain class, but Han Chinese women continued to wear loose jacket and trousers, with an overskirt for formal occasions. The qipao was a new fashion item for Han Chinese women when they started wearing it around 1925.

The original qipao was wide and loose. It covered most of the woman's body, revealing only the head, hands, and the tips of the toes. The baggy nature of the clothing also served to conceal the figure of the wearer regardless of age. With time, though, the qipao were tailored to become more form fitting and revealing. The modern version, which is now recognized popularly in China as the "standard" qipao, was first developed in Shanghai in the 1920s, partly under the influence of Beijing styles. People eagerly sought a more modernized style of dress and transformed the old qipao to suit their tastes. Slender and form fitting with a high cut, it had great differences from the traditional qipao. However, it was high-class courtesans and celebrities in the city that would make these redesigned tight fitting qipao popular at that time.^[3] In Shanghai it was first known as zansae or "long dress" (長衫—Mandarin Chinese: chángshān; Shanghainese: zansae; Cantonese: chèuhngsāam), and it is this name that survives in English as the "cheongsam". (wiki)