#中国

[11thfempachi]

bro made the Chinese language fanfiction 💀

book from the sky (tianshu) xu bing, 1989-91

I was so excited to see a copy of this in real life bc it's something I studied in art history. this is a book that was typeset and printed by hand using wooden blocks but every one of the characters was invented for the sake of the piece and does not correspond to any word in the Chinese language

[asiaphotostudio]

Shanghai, 2000 Shanghai, China. 中国 上海市 Photography by Michitaka Kurata

[giant-bear-cat]

Hehua and her apples.

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

Main types of Chinese Opera pt. 1

There are many different types of chinese opera, so here are some of the main ones!

Peking Opera 京剧 (Jīngjù)

This is probably one of the most well-known operas, originating from Beijing during the Qing dynasty. There are 4 main roles:

1.生 (shēng), which is usually an older dignified male character such as a scholar, which can be divided into older, younger and martial 生 aka 武生 (wǔshēng)

2. 旦 (dàn), a female role which was previously played by men as women were not allowed to perform during the Qing dynasty, but nowadays both men and women can play this role. This role has several subtypes:

闺门旦 (guīméndàn), a young unmarried high-status virtuous woman, whose main focus is singing.

正旦 (Zhèngdàn)/青衣 (Qīngyī), an elegant, middle-aged, usually married woman who mainly sings.

花旦 (Huādàn), a young woman who unlike the Guīméndàn focuses on speech and movement.

武旦 (Wǔdàn), this is a martial arts role with quite a lot of stunts and fighting with rare singing moments

刀马旦 (Dāomǎdàn), a young brave warrior, who usually focuses on acrobatics, singing and dancing unlike the Wǔdàn.

老旦 (Lǎodàn), is an older female role, usually with a lower singing voice.

彩旦 (Cǎi dàn), is more of a clown role, which is apparently more commonly performed by men

4. 净 (Jìng), a "rough man" role, usually has a vibrant and strong character, which has heavy face painting.

5. 丑 (chǒu), the clown role, which is one of the most physically demanding roles due to the acting and acrobatics combo, despite being considered as a minor role.

There are over 1400 stories used in Peking Opera, with 2 traditional types, civil and martial. Civil focuses on the relationship between the characters and is usually about normal daily occurrences, whereas martial is more about action and fighting. Another more modern type of differentiation divides the plays into traditional (pre-1949ish), plays created after 1949, and contemporary plays.

Kunqu Opera 昆曲 (kūnqǔ)

This is one of the oldest types of Chinese opera, originating from Kunshan, combining signing, dancing and martial arts. It features similar characters like the Peking Opera with another character 末 (Mò), who is an old man with a long beard.

However, there are some differences, as Kunqu uses softer, melodic music and different instruments such as the flute as the main accompanying instrument rather than Peking Opera's stringed instruments. The types of stories are also different, as Kunqu's focus more on the romantic and poetic aspect, exploring various classical stories. Peking Opera's stories tend to be a bit more varied as previously mentioned.

Traditionally, Kunqu was mostly for the upper-class as the stories performed were classical Chinese literature, and at the time not everyone had the opportunity to learn. This may be why Kunqu typically uses classic chinese, whereas Peking uses a combination of both classic and vernacular, making it more available for everyone.

Yue Opera 越剧 (yuèjù)

This opera is also known as Shaoxing opera, originating from Shaoxing, Zhejiang in early 1900s. Originally the performances featured only male actors but nowadays all-female performance troupes are becoming the standard. It's interestingly the 2nd most loved opera type, just after Peking Opera as it's slow and romantic form is perfect for love stories such as The Butterfly Lovers.

Yue Opera also features the usual set of character types e.g. 生，旦 etc. except they are usually played by women.

In terms of appearance, Yue Opera tends to go for a more subtle makeup look (as subtle as stage makeup can be) and simpler but nonetheless gorgeous costumes, in contrast to Peking Opera's dramatic and bursting colors.

Yue Opera usually relies on string instruments, with a smaller musical ensemble and musical accompaniment so that the performers singing is more clear unlike Peking Opera's stronger background music.

[magicalbeautyboo]

NHKを筆頭にこういうニュースは報じない。政治家の裏金がぁ、とかどこかの知事のパワハラがぁ、とか国民が政治不信になって政治に無関心、絶望するニュースばかりを垂れ流す。こういうニュースを流すと国民がめざめちゃうから？

【狙われた日本の医療制度】

”　富裕層は、日本の医療保険制度を狙って意図的に移住した男性を「賢い」「巧妙だ」と賛美する。 自分の物は自分の物、他人の物も自分の物という「共産主義」の彼らに、日本人の医療財源を食いつぶして申し訳ない、という感覚はもちろんない。” https://x.com/TYoshirin/status/1858412402221445334

[safije]

China

© Marilyn Mugot

[takaki2]

先日の中国の領空侵犯した情報収集機Y-9

これは台湾侵攻に先立って邪魔になる日米のレーダーや艦艇、軍事施設を観測したものです。

つまりはこうです↓

データを持ち帰りましたので分析して攻撃に使用します

つまりはこうです↓

台湾侵攻の邪魔になる施設や艦艇の破壊の準備を進めてるみたいです

[yuki-kawatsu]

"お知らせ"

2024/7/19～22

中国・広州で開催される「FIREFLY ACG FESTIVAL」

イベント内の "VISONS特展"にイラストを 展示させて

頂ける事になりました☆

是非宜しくお願いします

☆请一定来玩☆

7/19~7/22 广州保利世贸博览馆

[anamericaninhuaibei]

汉服硬核版。

A pretty hardcore Hanfu store.

[thisnoah]

Wasian (🇮🇹+🇨🇳) Miku

[ac-screenshot-archive]

Ming dynasty hanfu - aoqun

(ignore the shoji I don't have much Chinese stuff ok. Imagine she's an ambassador or whatever)

(^^^^^ not the hanfu I was inspired by, just an example, but I changed the design enough anyway so it doesn't matter)

[countriesgame]

Please reblog for a bigger sample size!

If you have any fun fact about China, please tell us and I'll reblog it!

Be respectful in your comments. You can criticize a government without offending its people.

[asiaphotostudio]

Weizhou Island, 2000 Weizhou Island, beihai, Guangxi, China. 中国 広西 北海市 涠洲岛 Photography by Michitaka Kurata

[mengjue]

What's Happening in China? The November 2022 Protests

Hello! I know that there's so much going on in the world right now, so not everyone may be aware of what is happening in China right now. I thought that I would try to write a brief explainer, because the current wave of protests is truly unprecedented in the past 30+ years, and there is a lot of fear over what may happen next. For context, I'm doing this as someone who has a PhD in Asian Studies specialising in contemporary Chinese politics, so I don't know everything but I have researched China for many years.

I'll post some decent links at the end along with some China specialists & journalists I follow on Twitter (yeah I know, but it's still the place for the stuff at the moment). Here are the bullet points for those who just want a brief update:

Xi Jinping's government is still enacting a strict Zero Covid policy enforced by state surveillance and strict lockdowns.

On 24 November a fire in an apartment in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, killed 10. Many blamed strict quarantine policies on preventing evacuation.

Protests followed and have since spread nationwide.

Protesters are taking steps not seen since Tiananmen in 1989, including public chants for Xi and the CCP to step down.

Everyone is currently unsure how the government will respond.

More in-depth discussion and links under the cut:

First a caveat: this is my own analysis/explanation as a Chinese politics specialist. I will include links to read further from other experts and journalists. Also, this will be quite long, so sorry about that!

China's (aka Xi Jinping's) Covid Policy:

The first and most important context: Xi has committed to a strict Zero Covid policy in China, and has refused to change course. Now, other countries have had similar approaches and they undoubtedly saved lives - I was fortunate to live in New Zealand until this year, and Prime Minister Ardern's Zero Covid approach in 2020-2021 helped protect many. The difference is in the style/scope of enforcement, the use of vaccines, and the variant at play. China has stepped up its control on public life over the past 10 years, and has used this to enforce strict quarantine measures without full regard to the impact on people's lives - stories of people not getting food were common. Quarantine has also become a feared situation, as China moves people to facilities often little better than prisons and allegedly without much protection from catching Covid within. A personal friend in Zhengzhou went through national, then provincial, then local quarantines when moving back from NZ, and she has since done her best to avoid going back for her own mental and physical health. Xi has also committed China to its two home-grown vaccines, Sinovac and Sinopharm, both of which have low/dubious efficacy and are considered ineffective against new variants. Finally, with delta and then omicron most of the Zero-Covid countries have modified their approach due to the inability to maintain zero cases. China remains the only country still enacting whole-city eradication lockdowns, and they have become more frequent to the point that several are happening at any given time. The result is a population that is incredibly frustrated and losing hope amidst endless lockdowns and perceived ineffectiveness to address the pandemic.

Other Issues at Play:

Beyond the Covid situation, China is also wrestling with the continued slowdown in its economic growth. While its economic rise and annual GDP growth was nigh meteoric from the 80s to the 00s, it has been slowing over the past ten years, and the government is attempting to manage the transition away from an export-oriented economy to a more fully developed one. However, things are still uncertain, and Covid has taken its toll as it has elsewhere the past couple of years. Youth unemployment in particular is reaching new highs at around 20%, and Xi largely ignored this in his speech at the Party Congress in October (where he entered an unprecedented third term). As a result of the perceived uselessness of China's harsh work culture and its failure to result in a better life, many young Chinese have been promoting 躺平 tǎng píng or "lying flat", aka doing the bare minimum just to get by (similar to the English "quiet quitting"). The combination of economic issues and a botched Covid approach is important, as these directly affect the lives of ordinary middle-class Chinese, and historical it has only been when this occurred that mass movements really took off. The most famous, Tiananmen in 1989, followed China's opening up economic reforms and the dismantling of many economic safety nets allowing for growing inequality. While movements in China often grow to include other topics, having a foundation in something negatively impacting the average Han Chinese person's livelihood is important.

The Spark - 24 Nov 2022 Urumqi Apartment Fire:

The current protests were sparked by a recent fire that broke out in a flat in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province. (This is the same Xinjiang that is home to the Uighur people, against whom China has enacted a campaign of genocide and cultural destruction.) The fire occurred in the evening and resulted in 10 deaths, which many online blamed on the strict lockdown measures imposed by officials, who prevented people from leaving their homes. It even resulted in a rare public apology by city officials. However, with anger being so high nationwide, in addition to many smaller protests that have occurred over the past two years, this incident has ignited a nationwide movement.

The Protests and Their Significance:

The protests that have broken out over the past couple of days representing the largest and most significant challenge to the leadership since the 1989 Tiananmen movement. Similar to that movement, these protests have occurred at universities and cities across the country, with many students taking part openly. This scale is almost unseen in China, particularly for an anti-government protest. Other than Tiananmen in 1989, the most widespread movements that have occurred have been incidents such as the protest of the 1999 Belgrade bombings or the 2005 and then 2012 anti-Japanese protests, all of which were about anger toward a foreign country.

Beyond the scale the protests are hugely significant in their message as well. Protesters are publicly shouting the phrases "习近平下台 Xí Jìnpíng xiàtái!" and "共产党 下台 Gòngchǎndǎng xiàtái!", which mean "Xi Jinping, step down/resign!" and "CCP, step down/resign!" respectively. To shout a direct slogan for the government to resign is unheard of in China, particularly as Xi has tightened control of civil society. And people are doing this across the country in the thousands, openly and in front of police. This is a major challenge for a leader and party who have prioritised regime stability as a core interest for the majority of their history.

Looking Ahead:

Right now, as of 15:00 Australian Eastern time on Monday, 28 November 2022, the protests are only in their first couple of days and we are unsure as to how the government will respond. Police have already been seen beating protesters and journalists and dragging them away in vehicles. However, in many cases the protests have largely been monitored by police but still permitted to occur. There seems to be uncertainty as to how they want to respond just yet, and as such no unified approach.

Many potential outcomes exist, and I would warn everyone to be careful in overplaying what can be achieved. Most experts I have read are not really expecting this to result in Xi's resignation or regime change - these things are possible, surely, but it is a major task to achieve and the unity & scale of the protest movement remains to be fully seen. The government may retaliate with a hard crackdown as it has done with Tiananmen and other protests throughout the years. It may also quietly revamp some policies without publicly admitting a change in order to both pacify protesters and save face. The CCP often uses mixed tactics, both coopting and suppressing protest movements over the years depending on the situation. Changing from Zero Covid may prove more challenging though, given how much Xi has staked his political reputation on enforcing it.

What is important for everyone online, especially those of us abroad, is to watch out for the misinformation campaign the government will launch to counter these protests. Already twitter is reportedly seeing hundreds of Chinese bot accounts mass post escort advertisements using various city names in order to drown out protest results in the site's search engine. Chinese officials will also likely invoke the standard narrative of Western influence and CIA tactics as the reason behind the protests, as they did during the Hong Kong protests.

Finally, there will be a new surge of misinformation and bad takes from tankies, or leftists who uncritically support authoritarian regimes so long as they are anti-US. An infamous one, the Qiao Collective, has already worked to shift the narrative away from the protests and onto debating the merits of Zero Covid. This is largely similar to pro-Putin leftists attempting the justify his invasion of Ukraine. Always remember that the same values that you use to criticise Western countries should be used to criticise authoritarian regimes as well - opposing US militarism and racism, for example, is not incompatible with opposing China's acts of genocide and state suppression. If you want further info (and some good sardonic humour) on the absurd takes and misinfo from pro-China tankies, I would recommend checking out Brian Hioe in the links below.

Finally, keep in mind that this is a grass-roots protest made by people in China, who are putting their own lives at risk to demonstrate openly like this. There have already been so many acts of bravery by those who just want a better future for themselves and their country, and it is belittling and disingenuous to wave away everything they are doing as being just a "Western front" or a few "fringe extremists".

Links:

BBC live coverage page with links to analysis and articles

ABC (Australia) analysis

South China Morning Post analysis

Experts & Journalists to Check Out:

Brian Hioe - Journalist & China writer, New Bloom Magazine

Bonnie Glaser - China scholar, German Marshall Fund

Vicky Xu - Journalist & researcher, Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Stephen McDonnell - Journalist, BBC

M Taylor Fravel - China scholar, MIT

New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre - NZ's hub of China scholarship (I was fortunate to attend their conferences during my PhD there, they do great work!)

If you've reached the end I hope this helps with understanding what's going on right now! A lot of us who know friends and whanau in China are worried for their safety, so please spread the word and let's hope that there is something of a positive outcome ahead.

[giant-bear-cat]

Giant pandas have grown in the rice fields! In Chengdu, Sichuan province, colorful rice plants have been cultivated into patterns of giant pandas.

[noticiasarquelogicasjaponesas]

Sean bienvenidos japonistasarqueológicos, una nueva entrega en esta ocasión hablaremos del Tanabata una vez dicho esto pónganse cómodos que empezamos. - ¿Qué es el tanabata?¿Cuándo se celebra?¿Cuál es su origen?El tanabata, surge en China en la dinastía Han que posteriormente llegará a Japón durante el período Nara (710 d.C.- 794 d.C.) a través de la nobleza ,pero no fue hasta el período Edo (1600-1868) que se hizo popular. Esto lo podemos ver en el anime como es el caso de Doraemon (ドラえもん), pero hay montones de animes que tratan esta temática una película que trata estos temas podrían ser: Amor de Gata, Kimi no Nawa, Kimetsu no Yaiba podría hacer una lista que nunca acabaria de la cantidad de anime que hay que trata el Tanabata. ¿Qué es el tanabata? Cuenta la leyenda de Orihime y Hikoboshi que solo se pueden ver la séptima luna del séptimo mes, se crea un puente que les permite cruzar y estar juntos ¿Cuándo se celebra? Se celebra el 7 de julio y lo más característico de esta festividad son los fuegos artificiales y en Tokyo por ejemplo: el templo Zojoji, pero cualquier templo lo podréis apreciar muy bien. tanzaku ¿En qué consiste? Se coloca un trozo de papel con tu deseo y se colocan en árboles de bambú. Para terminar me gustaría mencionar que hay una constelación que representa esta maravillosa historia. - Espero que os haya gustado y nos vemos en próximas publicaciones que pasen una buena semana. - ようこそ、日本の考古学者たちへ。今回は七夕についてお話します。 - 七夕とは何か、いつ祝うのか、その起源は？ 七夕は中国の漢の時代に始まり、奈良時代に貴族を通じて日本に伝わった。 ドラえもんなどのアニメに見られるが、このテーマを扱ったアニメはたくさんある：七夕を扱ったアニメは枚挙にいとまがない。織姫と彦星は七夕の日にしか会えないという伝説がある。 いつ祝うの？月7日に行われます。このお祭りの最大の特徴は花火で、東京では増上寺が有名ですが、どこのお寺でもよく鑑賞できます。 短冊 短冊とはどんなものですか？願い事を書いた紙を竹に貼る。最後に、この素晴らしい物語を象徴する星座があることをお伝えしたい。 - それでは、また次の記事でお会いしましょう。

Welcome to the Japanese archaeologists, this time we are going to talk about Tanabata, so make yourselves comfortable and let's get started. - What is tanabata, when is it celebrated, what is its origin? Tanabata, which originated in China in the Han dynasty, later came to Japan during the Nara period (710 AD - 794 AD) through the nobility, but it was not until the Edo period (1600-1868) that it became popular. This can be seen in anime such as Doraemon (ドラえもん), but there are lots of anime that deal with this theme, a movie that deals with these themes could be: Love of Cat, Kimi no Nawa, Kimetsu no Yaiba I could make a list that would never end of the amount of anime out there that deals with Tanabata. what is tanabata? Legend has it that Orihime and Hikoboshi can only see each other on the seventh moon of the seventh month, a bridge is created that allows them to cross and be together. When is it celebrated? It is celebrated on the 7th of July and the most characteristic of this festivity are the fireworks and in Tokyo for example: the Zojoji temple, but you can appreciate it very well in any temple. tanzaku What does it consist of? You put a piece of paper with your wish on it and place it on bamboo trees. Finally, I would like to mention that there is a constellation that represents this wonderful story. - I hope you liked it and see you in the next posts have a nice week.