China - A personal revelation.

China - A personal revelation.
wallybenn May 12, 2013 18:50

   From a very early stage in my life, foreign cultures and traditions from all over the world fascinated me, a factor that contributed to me becoming a very ardent reader. By the time I was eight, I had already become a bookworm, delving myself into historical literature with the sole purpose of understanding the origins of various ethinic groups from around the world, trying to understand modern day social and cultural norms, as well as  the origins of modern humn communication, being language. Looking back millenia, three ancient civilizations captivated my mind, forcing me to search more into this subject which became my an intricate hobby. These civilizations being the Middle east settlememnts of the Tigris and Euphrates, Ancient Egypt along the Nile and of course The Chinese civilization along the Yangtze. out of these three, ncient Chinese civilization interested me the most.

   As I read more and more about ancient China, the founding of the dynasties , the unification of China and its culture, I was drawn further into reading and understanding more about the complexity of the development of The ancient Chinese kingdom, contributions by chinese literature writers and scientists of old, as well as China;s overll influence on other nations in the far east. My first general focus was the invention of chinese writing, which in all its complexity is considered an art form in its own right by many scholars. Using the representatin of various strokes and radicals to develop single or multiple characters with few or many different meaning was still a mystery to me untilI came to China, and my development of understanding how the Chinese language is built upon representations of nature and the ambiguity of certain symbols makes the language a challenge to study, but a worthwhile challenge at that. The sophistication of chines writing has taken it millenia to develop, and while certain characters have been intergrated to make the language more simplified, the traditional form of chinese writing still exisits in chinese territories such as the republic of Taiwan, and chinese large influence on modern day Japanese kanji and imperial goverment structure.

     The biggest focal point of my search into Chinese history and culture a s a whole was my zeal to acquire knowledge about religion, religious practices and philosophy. Many great philosophers contributed to modern dy chinese cultural norms and values, putting emphasis on humanism, family values, customs and traditions. Prior to the introduction of Buudhism from the Indian subcontinent, Ancient China did not hold any fixed concept on religion, but held an insight into moral codes attached to Taoism, not concentrating on a single deity but terming good and evil as independent entitities.

      Modern chinese culture highly values the role of famiy in social development, upbringing of children in social norms which are still traditionally chinese, but having a slight influence from the growong trends of western culture. Im happy to say that I have been accorded a chance to finally come to this great land and experience for myself first hand the things I read and  fantasized about as a child.

Tags:Lifestyle Language & Culture

1 Comments

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Guest2352074

It's very good.

Oct 25, 2013 09:05 Report Abuse