My Final Project

Final Project

English 191

Qian Wang                                                 

                                                Chinese Culture

As we known, China has a strong power from her history and culture. Chinese culture developed from dynasty by dynasty and generation by generation, the affection of this culture cannot be ignored neither. Chinese culture is generally thought as traditional Chinese culture, which have already accompanied by Chinese five thousands history. It can be seen as the soul of Chinese people and the whole of Chinese nations.

Chinese Lunar New Year is a grateful window to show Chinese culture, which mean people can deeply be in touch with Chinese life through spending the Lunar New Year with Chinese, especially.  People named Chinese New Year as “Lunar New Year” is because according to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, that Chinese count the date base on lunar phase. (Wikipedia, Chinese New Year) As the king important festival, Lunar New Year has magic to let all Chinese be delight. During Lunar New Year, there is a jocund circumstance among people. (Food in Chinese Culture, Page297)

Firstly, it is a time for Chinese people get together with their family; there are three public holidays with two weekend days, stacking up to seven holidays to thanks the good life with family. We can also feel how significance of Lunar New Year from how many proportion of public holiday for Lunar New Year. Seven important festivals and ten public holidays, Lunar New Year takes place three out of ten. Secondly, because of it is a holiday, people gain plenty of free time without work, everyone are rest and have fun. Thirdly, people will gain the happiness of changing into new one.  As the old tradition, Chinese would better get everything new from head to feet. For example, people had best buy the new clothes; get hair cut before New Year Eve’s; renovate or upholster the house and decorate or rid up the house. Everything is preparation for the new, because Chinese think after New Year is a beginning of a new year, people need to abandon the useless and unluckiness of old things and get a great start to achieve your pursuing. Fourthly, it is ritual fanfare to ancestral spirits. Although this point is dying year by year, we can experience the ritual fanfare ancestral spirits through a number of objects during this festival. Such as sacrificing ancestor or the dead people of family (in this way, we can see that food is not important for the living alone, it also for sacrificing forefather. People will put the food like sweet desserts and fruits in front of spirit tablet or gravestone); burning false paper money to offering to the dead, which hope them have a better life in the other world.

Chinese spend Lunar New Year usually contain these three parts, before New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Eve, feast which beginning with New Year’s Day.  Before New Year’s Eve, Chinese usually will go shopping not only for new dress but also for nian huo, “New Year goods”. During these days, streets are always crowded, shops are supplemented by this temporary markets; people are busy buying fresh and dry food, to hoard during festival because the price of food will rise exponentially. Generally, people will make sausages, kippers and prepare abundant meat or vegetable for the New Year dinner.  In the old days, for relatively poor family, they will have four to six dishes for the New Year dinner. But there are eight dishes for the better standard family, which contain four or six cold plates and one or two entrees. (Food in Chinese Culture)Usually, Chinese will start the New Year dinner from five o’clock, before they start dinner, most people will worship their ancestors. Since everyone get ready sitting around the round table, the oldest senior will eat firstly and then other people are allowed to begin to eat. This is a way to respect the senior who did significant contribution to the family, and this is also a way to show filialness of Chinese culture. Just as red stands for happiness and good luck in China, there are plenty of symbols in Chinese food for the New Year’s Eve dinner. For instant, poultry such as the whole chicken or duck represent unity and wholeness; soup as the bird’s nest soup stands for long life and youthfulness; Fish, which has the similar pronunciation with “Yu”, in Chinese, meaning abundance and remain, so put the fish dish in the end of dinner, symbolizing keeping the good luck all the year. (Buzzle.com, the Chinese New Year Dinner)So generally, soup, chicken or duck, fish, spring roll, meatballs (we call “lions head”, obviously, it’s not real lion’s meat, and it’s just pork meat) will be cooked for the New Year dinner. After dinner, it’s time for junior family members pay ceremonial respects to their seniors. Children will receive small monetary gifts from adults like their uncles or aunts, grandparents and their parents.
According to traditional Chinese legend, there was an extraordinarily fierce and cruel monster called Nian, which just ate human beings. Nian slept the whole year except the New Year’s Eve, so people were afraid of Nian and hided inside of house. However, one day a gray hair man was brave to stand outside and found the secret of Nian, that Nian was fear of red things and exploding firecrackers!  From then on, people began got everything red around them, dressing red clothes on; sticking red banners (usually with good luck words on the banners) on the doors; decorating house with red things and so on. This is why Chinese people like red when they spending New Year, in legend, and red also stands for good luck and future.

Moreover, spending New Year in Chinese is “Guo Nian”, which means passing of year, year is Nian in Chinese. (Chinatownconnection.com, Chinese New Year Legend) Therefore, in the middle night, Chinese start exploding firecrackers, which bring the lively busy atmosphere into the New Year’s Eve.  After New Year’s Eve, the feast begins with New Year’s Day. People will visit relatives’ and friends’ places, to send their best wishes to them. When people visit the place, house owner will set his or her snacks for the visitors. The snacks are from the Nian Huo (New Year goods), and “in form of watermelon seeds, sesame candy and other sweets, roasted peanuts, fruits such as pears and oranges, and cakes are available at all times”. (Food in Chinese Culture, page 299) New Year feast is a great time for people to reinforce the relationship with others and strengthen the family relationship. Chinese people gain plenty of fun from the Lunar New Year festival either.

When talking about Chinese New Year, people cannot do not mention the animals of years. In China, there are twelve animals in the Chinese animal zodiac, which are rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. (C-c-c.org, Chinese Culture Center’s Zodiac Page) These twelve animals constitute a cycle, each animal represents a year. It works as transmigration. For example, 1989 was snake year, after twelve years, 2001 was snake year again. During the New Year festival, you can see there are a number of beautiful light candles which are in the shape of the animal of New Year.  Additionally, there are also peddlers who can make animal candy within one minute by using hot syrup drawing the animals, and using one thin and short cudgel to stick with the hot syrup. When the hot syrup cools down, customers can hold the animal candy and eat. Usually, people would like to play the turn plate to decide to pay for which animal candy, from the Chinese animal zodiac. However, nowadays, the drawing animal candy is nearly disappeared. The drawing animal candy skill is losing, just as other traditional Chinese workmanship craft skills, like Chinese traditional wood carving skills, which were in fashion among old Chinese dynasties like Ming dynasty (news.folk.com, Gaozhou traditional Burmese Eggplant carving handicraft disappearing);  traditional skill of making silver, which were prevalent through the Miao minority of China (0755zb.com, Traditional silver).

Disappearing of the traditional craft techniques, shows intangible culture heritage is slacking down from modern China. On the one hand, it is because the developing of economic. People do not want to learn the traditional techniques, which are behind the times and difficult to be proficient at this art. On the other hand, Chinese people are lacking the sense of protect either intangible culture heritages or material culture heritages. The Chinese Cultural Revolution is an example of destroying the material culture heritages and interdicting the inheriting of some traditional culture. From 1966 to 1976, this culture revolution bogged down China development, the important domestic political campaign was totally a wrong domestic war. “That it was great may be seen from the fact that it shook the Party and the country to their foundations, closed schools and universities, slowed production, and virtually shut down all diplomatic activity.” (Its History and Culture, page215) During 1966 and 1967, owing to iconoclasm swept folk and the ultra personality cult of Chairman Mao, there was extraordinarily large-scale destroying of traditional material, such as culture relics. “In Beijing alone, at least 4,922 of the capital’s 6,843 officially classified historical sites were damaged or destroyed from mid-August to September 1966.” (The Chinese Culture Revolution as History, page 64-65) Under the slogan “smash, burn, fry, and scorch” a mass of culture relics disappeared, people of that time insolently wrecked the precious legacy which forefathers left to us. And they thought they did the right thing, to perish the “feudal old culture”. “Turn the old world upside down, smash it to pieces, pulverize it, create chaos and make a tremendous mess, the bigger the better.” (Mao‘s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic, page 321)

Although, the Cultural Revolution let China suffer heavy losses of her splendid culture, it penetrate deeply into Chinese people’s mind that we should protect and treasure our culture from now on. Specially, when China fought for the ownership of the Dragon Boat Festival with South Korea, China began pay more attention on protect her own intangible culture heritages. South Korea registered Dragon Boat Festival as their intangible culture heritage in 2008, and South Koreans disputed Chinese on Dragon Boat Festival a lot of times. (chinahush.com, Sinida Zongzi Gate) Who’s Dragon Boat Festival? It became the hot topic during 2008. From this issue, Chinese do not treasure the traditional festival firstly, when they lose it, they became treasure it. However, from other aspect, we can see that China has a strong impact on other countries’ culture, specially the countries near her.

As the the capital of Sinic civilization area, China plays a significant role among East Asia by her brilliant and gorgeous culture. Countries like Japan, Korea and Vietnam were profoundly influenced by China’s culture. Japan, who has strong culture history and economic today, cannot develop without China especially in the culture area. Tracing back to the seventh and eighth centuries, Japanese brought plenty of wealth from China to Japan, that including “Tang dynasty’s dominant religion, Buddhism, and its Confucian values, as well as its basic political principles, forms of government organization, patterns of bureaucratic administration, and codes of law”(China and the Major Powers in East Asia, page 89). Japanese not only cited the culture of China, but also adapted it for their own use. They developed Chinese bureaucracy into feudal system, and created “a miniature Japanese version of Chinese society” (China and the Major Powers in East Asia, page 89). By the way, Japanese borrowed Chinese writing system and then brought about Japanese, which is one reason why a lot of Chinese can understand what the subjects are in Japanese, though they even never learn Japanese. On the other hand, Korea gained affection from Chinese culture too. For instance, Korean Confucianism which gave substantial inflation to Korea is another side of Confucianism developing from China. (Wikipedia.org, Korean Confucianism)

Chinese culture is the riches to China, Asia, Western countries and even the whole world. By the remote historical spreading, more and more people know and want to know much about it. Resplendent Chinese culture cannot just is exuviating object, we can gain a number of benefits from it. So respect it and treasure it, people may be better from learn Chinese culture.

References

From books

Barnett, A. Doak. (1977) China and the Major Powers in East Asia. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution.

Morton, W. Scoot (2005) China its history and culture. United States of America: McGrew-Hill.

Esberick, W. Joseph; Pickowicz, G. Paul; Walder, G. Andrew (2006) The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Chang, C.K. (1979) Food in Chinese Culture. Great Britain, Europe, Africa, and Asia (except Japan): Yale University Press, Ltd, London.

From Internet

Ray, Ritchey. (2010) The Chinese New Year Dinner http://www.buzzle.com/articles/the-chinese-new-year-dinner.html [accessed 12/11/2010]

BBC News. (1 February, 2003) Asia welcomes Lunar New Year http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2712567.stm [accessed 12/11/2010]

Jason, Huang. (?) Chinese New Year Legend http://www.chinatownconnection.com/chinese-new-year-legend.htm [accessed 12/12/2010]

Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco. (?) The Chinese Animal Zodiac http://www.c-c-c.org/chineseculture/zodiac/zodiac.html [accessed 12/12/2010]

Finical Times. (23 June, 2008) Traditional Silver http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?ref=SERP&br=ro&mkt=en-US&dl=en&lp=ZH-CHS_EN&a=http%3a%2f%2fwww.0755zb.com%2fTexts%2f2008%2f6%2f23%2f11373.html [accessed 12/12/2010]

Sheng, Liang. (13 April, 2009) Gaozhou Traditional Burmese Eggplant Carving Handicraft disappearing http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?ref=SERP&br=ro&mkt=en-US&dl=en&lp=ZH-CHS_EN&a=http%3a%2f%2fnews.folkw.com%2fwww%2fdongtaizixun%2f152159685.html [accessed 12/12/2010]

Key. (16 June, 2010) Simida Zongzi Gate: dispute over Dragon Boat Festival between China and South Korea http://www.chinahush.com/2010/06/16/simida-zongzi-gate-dispute-over-dragon-boat-festival-between-china-and-south-korea/ [accessed 12/12/2010]

Wikipedia. (2010) Korean Confucianism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Confucianism [accessed 12/15/2010]

Outline of final paper

           Chinese Culture     

    I.          Introduction of Chinese Culture

Chinese culture is generally thought as traditional Chinese culture, which have already accompanied by Chinese five thousands history. It can be seen as the soul of Chinese people and the whole of Chinese nations.

    II.          Chinese Culture

1.      Culture of China

Festival; Metaphor ( food, animal, plant) ; Customs 
2.  The change of Chinese culture
The change of traditional culture and introduction of new Chinese culture

   III.          The influence of Chinese Culture

1.     To Asia

Japan; Korea; Southeast Asia

  

  IV.          Current Issue

Dismiss traditional Chinese Culture; Copy right of traditional Chinese Culture

   

  V.          Conclusion

              Chinese culture is the riches to China, Asia, Western countries and even the whole world. By the remote historical spreading, more and more people know and want to know much about it. Resplendent Chinese culture cannot just is exuviating object, we can gain a number of benefits from it. So respect it and treasure it, people may be better from learn Chinese culture.

My final project

I decided to write my country's culture on my final paper that mean I want to introduce the Chinese culture to others. With introducing my country culture and I will also compare some differences culture according to my interviews. So I will put out my outline on December 2nd and finish my final project before December 16th.

the third interview winner

1. Score Card: Here

2. Explanation of criterion:
Preparation --- how well you prepare that includes when, where you will interview and how you get the people.
Interview Process --- if your report includes preparation, description, country report (and transcribe), you will get full marks.
Country Report --- If you don't just copy from the resource and write down the references formally, you will get full marks.
Interview Questions and Answers --- How well your questions and answers.
Blog Presentation --- If you complete the whole interview process and your report is clarity and has few errors, you will get full marks.

3. Best Paper
Name: Schleif, Emily A

First of all,  the preparation part of Emily's report is great that she made an interview objectives list and explained how she approached the people; described when, where and how she conduct the people; introduced the interviewee.

And then she wrote the describing of the interview, which on the other hand seems like a summery of the interview. Emily also wrote the interview transcribing, it is very clearly. From the transcribing, I can see that Emily preferred to ask the questions about religion and interviewee's daily life. The answers from the interviewee also contained a lot of information, which were interesting. Emily did the interview with Haily, there were more people when interview, so the atmosphere was harmony. Maybe it's one reason which make the interviewee become talkative and make the interview become successful. We can get the information which we want to get before the interview.

When moving to the country report part, it is really good that Emily used her own words to describe the country instant of making a copy of other resource. Although her country report was not so good that it need more objectives not just geography, population and economic, her references were formal.

Over all, Emily's the third interview report contains all the things which are required, and her interview also interesting. It is a successful interview report.

Interview 2, Review

1. Score Card: Here

2. Explanation of criterion:

•  Preparation --- how well you prepare that includes when, where you will interview and how you get the people.
• Interview Process --- if your report includes preparation, description, country report (and transcribe), you will get full marks.
• Country Report --- If you don't just copy from the resource and write down the references formally, you will get full marks.
•  Interview Questions and Answers --- How well your questions and answers.
• Blog Presentation --- If you complete the whole interview process and your report is clarity and has few errors, you will get full marks.

3. Best Paper

  Name: Lee, Pa Kou
          

           

              Over view the second interview reports, I find that Lee's report is the best one according to my standard. (However, according to the rule, no transcribe cannot rate highly)

             The preparation part and country report part of Lee's report are really great. She tells people how she prepared the second interview in details, for instance, how did she approach people; when, where and how did she contact with the interviewee; and then she also introduces her interviewee. From the preparation, I can feel that Lee worked hard on the interview and it's a good beginning. As reviewing the country report part, I find that a lot of people just copied the information from websites. They didn't use their own words to report the countries, even a lot of people instead of write the references in formal way, and they just put the websites at the end of country report. Lee's country report contains the formal reference and she uses quotation marks when she uses the references. Respecting others work is important to a writer.

            From Lee's report, I'm very interesting in the interviewee's answers. Lee focus on the culture of Africa, she asks a lot about religion, wedding, diet and so on. Her interview answers are great, however, in the transcribe part; she seems "forget" writing down her questions. If she can clearly write down her question on the transcribe part, it will be better.

           Finally, Lee's second interview report contains the whole parts, which including preparation, description, and country report and transcribe. And she does few errors too.

interview report no.3

Preparation
In my previous plan, I wanted to interview an Korean and I had already contacted with an Korean gay. However, when the interview day came he said that he didn't have free time these days, so I had to change my interviewee and began to get a new plan. So I contacted with one of my Human Relationship classmates, his name is Marlon Soriano. I found his e-mail from my class D2L, and I sent e-mail to him asking that would he help me with the interview from my English 191 class. He replied me with positive answer. So we decided to get the interview meeting after our class, as planning after class, we walked with talk until we got Atwood second floor. And then, we found a set of available chairs and table, when we got sites, I passed a question list to Marlon asking him that did him mind I record this interview. He thought it's no big deal, so I used my phone to record the whole interview

Interview Describe
 I started the interview by asking my interviewee's name, I was very surprising when I asked where Marlon were from, he said he born in Canada. I thought he was from Asia as international student. But he told me that he born in Canada and came to the U.S. in 1998, so he got education in America. Then I thought he could use English expertly, because he grown up in the U.S... However, I got the different information that he had to take ESL class which mean English is the Second Language, because he was lack of reading and writing skills in English. When I asked him that how did he think of making friends with Americans, he also thought that making friends with Americans were difficult, even though his language was no problem and he grown up in the USA, there was still different culture barrage lying between him and Americans. So he told me that most of his friends were second generation Asian-Americans, and he was the third generation. Marlon now lives with his family, so he said that he usually ate Philippines food which his parent cooked. And he learns the Philippines culture from what his parent told him, he also watches movies which about Philippines and reads the books. He learns and knows his original country by these. When be asked did he think of coming back to Philippine, Marlon said that he wanted to back to Canada and visited Philippine. He told me that he liked Canada more than other countries as USA, because there were a lot of Philippines committees, so living in Canada had a feeling of home, but he didn't want to back to Philippine. When Marlon identified himself, he also said that he thought he was Canadian not Philippine or Americans, even though he lives in the environment that surrounded Philippines culture and American culture.

(q=me, m=Marlon Soriano)
q- Can I know your name?
m- My name is Marlon Soriano.
q- Where are you from?
m- Emu, I was born in Canada, so I got the Canadian citizenship. But my parent is from Philippines.
q- So you are the second generation, right?
m- No, the third. My grandparent was first one.
q- So can you speak Philippines?
m- I can't speak but I can understand. My parent speak Philippines in the family, but I talk
English back to them. I just know a little bit how to speak Philippines.

q- When did you come to the USA?
m- I came here 1998.
q- What kind of Philippines festival did you spend in the USA?
m- It is the same as USA. But I usually spend Christmas with my parent.
q- What's festival you like the best?
m- It is Philippines Christmas; there are more decorations and Philippines songs and dancing.
q- Do you have New Year festival?
m- Yea, but it's similar as USA, family get together and eat dinner. But parents will drop money and children will pick them up.
q- What kind of food do you usually eat?
m- Philippines food.
q- How about American food?
m- I like Philippines food better, because my parent usually cooks Philippines food.
q- Do you like Garvey?
m- No, I don't like it; the food there is bad for your health.
q- Do you like go to restaurant? What restaurants do you like to go to?
m- I usually go to Italian and American restaurants with my parent.
q-How do you spend your free time?
m- I usually hang out with my friends, sometimes play soccer and basketball.
q- Do you like Hockey or football?
m- No I don't like Hockey and American football.
q- How do you think your life in the USA?
m- It's OK.
q- Can you compare with life in the Canada?
m- It's like the same thing, but Canada is colder.
q- How's your friendship?
m- Most of my friends from Asia, but they live in the U.S. too, like the second generation.
q- Do you think it is hard to make friends with Americans?
m- Yea.
q- Although the language is not problem and you born here education here and grown here, is it still?
m- Yea, everyone is different. I have some education problem, like I have to go to ESL; English is the second language, though English is my first language.
q- Why? I think you don't need go to ESL.
m- Because my reading and writing are not as good as Americans.
q- Do you have any plan about future?
m- No, just be normal life is OK.
q- Have you thought of coming back Philippines?
m- Emu, I want to move back Canada and visit Philippines.
q- Why do you want to back to Canada?
m- I like Canada better. There are more Philippines and Philippines committees.
q- How many children in your family?
m- I have two sister and one twin brother.
q- How do you think your family when compare with American family?
m- My family is much different than American family; my family is more likely Philippines family with Philippines culture.
q- So what's difference?
m- We eat different food, we have different manner.
q- Do you know how many religions in Philippines?
m- There are two, Christian and Islam.
q- Do Philippines have different rules of eye contact and body language in your country?
m- We usually have eye-contact when we talk with others, and we usually use hand language.
q- Do you learn Philippines culture?
m- I learn Philippines culture from my parent, they tell me their experience in Philippines; I also learn from Philippines movies and books.
q- Can you simply identify yourself? Like are you more likely Philippines or Canadian?
m- I think is Canadian, but nowadays Philippines are more likely Americans and Canadians, you know that English is the main language in Philippine.
q- Thank you very much! It's really a great time.
m- Yep.

Country report 
(geography, population, language, religion, cuisine)
 Republic of the Philippines is the full name of Philippines; it is in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. "The Philippine islands are an archipelago of over 7,000 islands lying about 500 mi (805 km) off the southeast coast of Asia."(www.infoplease.com). Philippines culture is influenced by Malay, China, and it is a combination of Eastern and Western culture (en. wikipedia. org). Philippine was occupied by Spanish, Japan, U.S... The population of Philippines is around ninety-two million, which is the world's 12th most populous country. "According to the 2000 census 28.1% of Filipinos are Tagalog, 13.1% Cebuano, 9% Ilocano, 7.6% Bisaya/Binisaya, 7.5% Hiligaynon Ilonggo, 6% Bikol, 3.4% Waray, and 25.3% are classified as other."(en.wikipedia.org)

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYkDmtCLFaBPRfAGcW3061uo4MaVx6rOuE6f8Sc_vVUg3L8ZZDZ40NEq78ZMdC-vOVAmyGoNa6-dE24dVFMiaMszbaNmzchwNlQzPsDJ2xOO1GpQ_P5Olhk5LDwkJV3buEmPzFV1l4QG0/s1600/mphilipp.gif

In Philippines, there were more than 170 individual languages, 171 of them still living but four of them no more people speak now. However Filipino and English are the official languages.

In Philippines, more than 90% populations are Christians, and around 80% of them belong to the Roman Catholic Church; 10% of them belong to other Christian denomination. There are between 5% to 10% Filipinos believe Muslim, and most Muslim Filipinos practice Shafii, a form of Sunni Islam.

Philippines cuisines are a combination of Hispanic, Chinese, American and other Asian influence. Dishes range from the very simple, like a meal of fried salted fish and rice, to the elaborate. Unlike many of their Asian counterparts, Filipinos do not eat with chopsticks; they use western cutlery. However, possibly due to rice being the primary staple food and the popularity of a large number of stews and main dishes with broth in Philippine cuisine, the main pairing of utensils seen as the Filipino dining table is that of spoon and fork, not knife and fork.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOOWGLuGdCtl-GCkXXILweHTqj4QmXsQC4XzXa4KqbOMrPqpS0Ti3I-D8u2_e3xPBB9kxuOMxDMGdoCUX4-f-kFJZsk9ZL7h5TqrCm6aV_rlrSUDmKC4PPqa4wdeVxfDcvI8LcwAJeljc/s1600/philippine-food1-296x300.jpg

"The National Statistics Office reports a simple literacy rate of 93.4% and a functional literacy  rate of 84.1% for 2003. Literacy is about equal for males and females."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/eb/UST_Main_Bldg_Facade.jpg
Work Sited

"Wikipedia- Philippine". Wikipiedia. Wed. November 10, 2010. <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/eb/UST_Main_Bldg_Facade.jpg>

“Infoplease-Word- Country- Philippines”Infopleas. Web. November 10, 2010. <http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107887.html?pageno=1>

my first interview results

my first interview results