Cultura China-Chinese Culture

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The first Shaolin Monastery abbot was Batuo (also called Fotuo or Buddhabhadra, or also known as Bodhidharma) a dhyana master who came to China from India in 464 AD to spread Buddhist teachings.

According to the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks (645 AD) by Daoxuan, Shaolin Monastery was built on the north side of Shaoshi, the central peak of Mount Song, one of the Sacred Mountains of China, by Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty in 477 AD. Yang Xuanzhi, in the Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang (547 AD), and Li Xian, in the Ming Yitongzhi (1461), concur with Daoxuan's location and attribution. The Jiaqing Chongxiu Yitongzhi (1843) specifies that this monastery, located in the province of Henan, was built in the 20th year of the Taihe era of the Northern Wei Dynasty, that is, the monastery was built in 495 AD.

The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty was a supporter of Shaolin Temple, and he wrote the calligraphic inscriptions that still hang over the Heavenly King Hall and the Buddha Hall today.

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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.

Wiki English:

The Chinese hot pot has a history of more than 1,000 years. Hot pot seems to have originated in Mongolia where the main ingredient was meat, usually beef, mutton or horse. It then spread to southern China during the Tang Dynasty and was further established during the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. In time, regional variations developed with different ingredients such as seafood. By the Qing Dynasty (AD 1644 to 1912), the hot pot became popular throughout most of China. Today in many modern homes, particularly in the big cities, the traditional coal-heated steamboat or hot pot has been replaced by electric, propane or butane gas, or induction cooker versions.

Because hot pot styles change so much from region to region, many different ingredients are used.

Wiki Español:

Se tiene la creencia de que el hot pot tuvo su origen en la región de Mongolia, antes del advenimiento del imperio mongol, aunque no hay muchas evidencias ciéntíficas que den soporte a esta hipótesis. Tanto la preparación como el método y el equipamiento empleado son desconocidos en la cocina mongola de hoy en día. Debido a la complejidad y especialización de los utensilios y al método de comer y de servir, el hot pot es más adecuado a una cultura sedentaria. Una cultura nómada evitaría este tipo de preparaciones con tantos instrumentos especializados que deberían portar de un lugar a otro durante las migraciones.

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)

English:

The xiao is a Chinese vertical end-blown flute. It is generally made of dark brown bamboo.

Español:

El xiao es una flauta vertical que se sopla en el lado extremo. La flauta generalmente está hecha por el bambú marrón oscuro.

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.

Historic origin (wiki, English)

What is now known as "t'ai chi ch'uan" only appears to have received this appellation from around the mid 1800s. There was a scholar in the Imperial Court by the name of Ong Tong He who witnessed a demonstration by Yang Luchan ("Unbeatable Yang"). Afterwards Ong wrote: "Hands holding Taiji shakes the whole world, a chest containing ultimate skill defeats a gathering of heroes." This was the time when Yang Luchan made the Chen clan's martial art known to the world through his own form ("Yang family style").

Before this time the Art had no name.It was simply an unusual martial art practiced by a few. Jiang Fa passed down the Art to Chen Qingping in Zhaobao Town and Chen Changxing in Chenjiagou. Before the time of Yang Luchan, the art appears to have been generically described by outsiders as zhan quan (沾拳, "touch boxing"), mian quan (绵拳, "soft boxing") or shisan shi (十三式, "the thirteen techniques")

T'ai chi ch'uan's theories and practice are believed by the schools to have been formulated by the Taoist monk Zhang Sanfeng (Zhang Sanfeng was a legendary Chinese Taoist priest who is believed by some to have achieved immortality, said variously to date from either the late Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty or Ming Dynasty. His name is said to have been Zhang Junbao before he became a Taoist.) in the 12th century, at about the same time that the principles of the Neo-Confucian school were making themselves felt in Chinese intellectual life. However, modern research casts serious doubts on the validity of those claims, pointing out that a 17th-century piece called "Epitaph for Wang Zhengnan" (1669), composed by Huang Zongxi (1610-1695 A.D.), is the earliest reference indicating any connection between Zhang Sanfeng and martial arts whatsoever, and must not be taken literally but must be understood as a political metaphor instead. Claims of connections between t'ai chi ch'uan and Zhang Sanfeng appear no earlier than the 19th century.

Mooncake is a Chinese bakery product traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhongqiu).

El pastel de luna es un producto de pastelería que se come tradicionalmente durante el Festival de Medio Otoño (Zhongqiu).

English (wiki)

Mid-Autumn Festival

The festival is intricately linked to the legends of Chang E, the mythical Moon Goddess of Immortality. According to "Li-Ji", an ancient Chinese book recording customs and ceremonies, the Chinese Emperor should offer sacrifices to the sun in spring and the moon in autumn. The 15th day of the 8th lunar month is the day called "Mid-Autumn". The night on the 15th of the 8th lunar month is also called "Night of the Moon". Under the Song Dynasty (420), the day was officially declared the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Tāngyuán is a Chinese food made from glutinous rice flour.

Tāngyuán es una comida china elaborada por la harina de arroz glutinoso.

English (wiki)

According to a legend, in the Han Dynasty, there was a maid of honor who was called Yuanxiao. She missed her parents a lot but she could not leave the palace. Therefore, she wept all the time and even wanted to turn to suicide. A minister knew her story and promised to help her. What Yuanxiao needed to do was to make lots of Tangyuans, which was the best cuisine she could make, in order to worship the god on 15th day of the first month in Chinese calendar. Finally, Yuanxiao did a great job and the emperor was so contented; therefore, Yuanxiao was permitted to meet her parents, Tangyuan was named as Yuanxiao and 15th day of the first month in Chinese calendar was considered to be Yuanxiao Festival.

According to the record of history, Tangyuan has been a popular snack in China since Sung Dynasty.

La pipa (chino: 琵琶, pinyin: pípá) es un instrumento de cuerda pulsada tradicional chino parecido al laúd occidental. La pipa aparece citada por primera vez en textos que datan del siglo II a. C. Han derivado del mismo varios instrumentos tradicionales orientales, el más conocido de los cuales es la biwa japonesa, el vietnamita đàn tỳ bà y el coreano bipa, que ya no se utiliza, conservándose sólo algunos instrumentos en museos.

El nombre pipa está formado de las dos sílabas chinas "pí" (琵) y "pá" (琶). Se refieren precisamente a las dos maneras más comunes de tocar el instrumento: "pí" significa empujar con el dedo índice de la mano derecha de derecha a izquierda y "pá" significa tirar con el pulgar de la mano derecha de izquierda a derecha, en la dirección opuesta.

La "pipa" es un instrumento de cuatro cuerdas en las que la caja de resonancia tiene forma de pera. Tiene un mástil corto y curvado que cuenta con treinta trastes que cubren parte de la tapa armónica ofreciendo así una gran extensión. Después de la dinastía Tang (618-907), la pipa mantuvo su popularidad como instrumento solista y como instrumento de conjunto musical. En aquel tiempo se tocaba con plectro, pero posteriormente se dejó de utilizar pasando a ser utilizadas las uñas de los dedos.

La técnica de ejecución exige una gran destreza que debe permitir la producción de efectos virtuosos y de carácter descriptivo. Se combinan los trémolos que se obtienen rozando con los cinco dedos, los pizzicatos, los juegos de armónicos, los ruidos, etc. (wiki)

The pipa (Chinese: 琵琶; pinyin: pípá, [pʰǐpʰǎ]) is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 26. Another Chinese four-string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa.

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)

The Cantonese name yàuhjagwái literally means "oil-fried devil" and, according to folklore, is an act of protest against Song Dynasty official Qin Kuài (in the wikipedia, the name is Qui Hui, is not correct), who is said to have orchestrated the plot to frame the general Yue Fei, an icon of patriotism in Chinese culture. It is said that the food, originally in the shape of two human-shaped pieces of dough but later evolved into two pieces joined in the middle, represents Qin Hui and his wife, both having a hand in collaborating with the enemy to bring about the great general's demise. Thus the youtiao is deep fried and eaten as if done to the traitorous couple. In keeping with the legend, youtiao are often made as two foot-long rolls of dough joined along the middle, with one roll representing the husband and the other the wife.