The most important Chinese holiday is Chinese New Year, which is known in China as Spring Festival (chūnjié 春节). The festival ushers in the lunar New Year and is the West’s Christmas and New Year’s Eve rolled into one. From sun up to sun down, this is a time when the whole country throws itself into celebrating and eating.

No one is quite sure exactly when or where the festival originated. Legend has it that once upon a time, there was a monster called Nian (nián 年) that attacked Chinese villages every spring, eating anything that came its way – people, animals, plants and the odd building. One spring, villagers hung red paper on their doors and threw bamboo on a fire when Nian arrived. The monster was so startled by the bright colors and loud crackling noise of the burning bamboo that it turned and fled. Today the word “nian” is the Chinese word for year. (more…)

The 18th century saw international trade with China blossom, but there was one problem: Western countries had little that pre-industrial China wanted. This trade imbalance frustrated British merchants, who needed to supply an increasing demand for a new drink – tea, which was rapidly becoming popular. They found their answer in the poppy fields of colonial India.

Opium-smoking had been banned by the imperial Chinese government in 1729, but British traders bribed the local officials, who turned a blind eye to their activities, and started shipping large quantities of the drug from British India to the southern Chinese port. Their intention was to create a nation of addicts and thus, an endless market.

2,330 chests of opium were imported in 1788, but that number had risen to 17,257 by 1830. Opium dens spread throughout the country. Officials, often addicts themselves, found it impossible to refuse the sweeteners offered by the now-wealthy British companies. (more…)

Silk was first cultivated in China around 2600 BC, but it would take two and a half millennia for it to spread west. The Romans first encountered the material while battling the Parthians in 53 BC and were told it came from a mysterious tribe in the east. Roman agents were dispatched, commodities bartered and the “Silk Road” established.

The Chinese had known about trade routes going west across the Taklamakan Desert for centuries, however these routes only became important when Emperor Wudi of the Han dynasty formed alliances with western tribes against the northern nomads, China’s old enemy. (more…)

China’s Grand Canal certainly lives up to its moniker, stretching over 1,700km, it’s ten times longer than the Suez Canal and twenty times that of the Panama Canal.

It took several dynasties to build the massive canal network. Work began as early as 506 BC during the Spring and Autumn period lead by King Wu, who led his people to dig the first canals in a big to control central China. Since most of China’s major rivers flow from west to east, building a water link from north to south to connect the rivers would greatly facilitate transportation and this became the dream of many emperors. (more…)

The giant panda is an endangered animal found only in western China, because of human encroachment, the panda’s habitat is now reduced to six isolated patches mainly in Sichuan. Pandas are related to bears, though they are significantly different in many ways.

Bamboo is the main source of food for pandas and they spend at least 12 hours a day eating. Bamboo is a poor source of nutrition for (more…)

In traditional Chinese culture 12 is an important number when calculating time. There are 12 full moons in a year, the length of time between the full moons are relatively constant. They also observed the day could be divided into 12 equal parts. These observations led to the development of the 12 month lunar year and the 12 watch day.

The Chinese began grouping years into a twelve year cycle, assigning each year an animal symbol. Legend has it that Buddha called a meeting of all the world’s animals to determine how to restore order to the world, but only 12 heeded his call and they came to represent the 12-year-cycle, with each presiding over a year in the order they arrived at the meeting. The strong ox was in the lead and only had a river to cross to come in first, but little did he know, the cunning rat hitched a ride on his back and became the first to arrive.

The twelve animals are: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. The 12 animals associated with the years can be used to judge a person’s character by their birth year. A person born in the year of a particular animal is said to have the traits of that animal. (more…)

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM 中医 zhōngyī) has developed over thousands of years of practical experience and observation. Unlike Western medicine, which aims at curing a specific illness, TCM aims at healing the body as a whole. Records on medical studies date back over 2,000 years to the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. During the Han dynasty there were further advances in medical studies and during the Three Kingdoms period, Hua Tuo, a famous doctor, made breath-taking discoveries in the field.

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It’s easy to be a cheap to get drunk in China and it is an opportunity worth taking. Cultural barriers disappear under the revelry and camaraderie a shared drink. For every tale of Chinese history and tradition that are read through stodgy books, there are a thousand more fascinating stories about the country and its people that are told over the fifth glass of baijiu (白酒).

Inebriates often eulogize the inventor of alcohol, but in China it’s unclear to whom the praise is due. Some say it was Yi Di, a daughter of one of the rulers of the Xia dynasty. According to legend, after one taste, dad immediately banned the fiery liquid fearing that a future ruler would overindulge himself and lose the throne. Others say it was a man named Du Kang, also from the Xia or while some date it even earlier to the mythic Huang Emperor. For some, alcoholic drinking occurred in harmony with the creation of the universe.

Less speculatively, 5,000-year-old alcohol-drinking vessels were discovered in Shandong Province in 1987. An early milk-based drink called lilou was superceded by liquor distilled from cereals. Those who first drank this liquor must have thoroughly enjoyed themselves because records are incomplete and scientists can’t decide whether it was pioneered in the Eastern Han, Song, Tang or Yuan dynasties. The cereal based concoctions have evolved into modern Chinese spirits called baijiu (white alcohol). (more…)

It’s easy to tell tea is China’s national drink, tea is consumed in restaurants, at home and carried around all day in transparent thermos flasks. It’s a serious habit, and one that hasn’t been broken by the introduction of coffee or the machinations of sugary soda companies.

Over 4,000 years ago, a legendary ruler of China named Shen Nong insisted his drinking water be boiled, while sitting under a tree a single leaf dropped into his cup and turn his purified water brown. When he braved a sip, he found the new drink refreshing and thus began the cultivation of the tea plant. (more…)