Essays on Chinese History

[Class title]

Introduction China is home to the most ancient and enduring human civilization. This civilization flourished for thousands of years and have survived through many succession of rulers and dynasties. The study of China’s civilization is important in order to understand China’s contemporary society. Chinese civilization can be categorized into three broad historical periods: ancient China, Imperial China and modern China. These periods, however, only serves as an imaginary partition in order to identify a certain time in the history of China. But in reality, Chinese civilization is continuous and was never interrupted even through there ...

Ningbo’s newly completed Central Business District (CBD) belies its status as one of China’s oldest cities. The austere downtown landscape is the equivalent of architecture’s white-washed wall: a place of erasure, forgetting, and dubious progress. With the completion of Wang Shu’s Ningbo Museum in 2008, however, the Ningbo of the present is confronted by the forgotten landscape of its not too distant past. A craggy mountain of a building inspired by the region’s natural topographical features as well its unique crafts and architectural traditions, the Ningbo Museum is not simply an obligatory nod to ...

The Ming dynasty in the 1600s made considerable and deliberate efforts in a bid to ensure that its regions remain under one ruler. A Buddhist monk who was also a peasant found the dynasty, rose to the rank of an army general and led a rebellion against the Mongols. The monk assumed the name of Hong Wu and made the decision to have Nanjing as the capital of China, but a latter emperor of the dynasty moved the capital back to Beijing. One of the major roles that Hong Wu assumed as the emperor include reorganizing every aspect of ...

The Dynastic Cycle in China

As Usher writes, “A dynastic cycle is a periodic alternation of society between despotism and anarchy.” The political theory of a dynastic cycle implies to the idea that each dynasty undergoes four major steps of development: foundation, consolidation, deceleration, and extinction. After its creation, the dynasty reaches its peak giving the country all possible benefits and making it prosperous, and then declines and falls being replaced by the new dynasty. Throughout its history, China was under the reign of lots of dynasties and, hence, experienced lots of repetitive dynastic cycles. All of them had similar structures but different causes ...

The Chinese epic “Farewell My Concubine” by Chen Kaige is a cinematic masterpiece. It is a spectacle of action, history, culture, views of social and political landscapes that all intertwine in a love story that spans 52 years. It won the top prize in the 1993 Cannes International Film Festival and several other accolades in its time (Canby). The movie is vastly entertaining and enthralling. It is easy to get lost in the richness of the story – consider it a cultural achievement. This is an epic that covers years 1925 through 1977 in Beijing (formerly Peking), China. It showcases ...

Sima Guang helped improve historiography in ancient China; the concepts that he espoused in co-authoring the Zizhi Tongjian have formed the basis for recording historical events and the same concepts have continued to be in use, even for the modern day historian (Buckley, 45).

Introduction

Sima Guang was a pioneer in the structured recording of historical events in ancient China. He compiled the Zizhi Tongjian, which offers a historical timeline of key events in China from 403 BCE to 959 BCE. Zizhi Tongjian is often referred to as the “comprehensive mirror for aid in government” (De Crespigny, 73). Historians have ...

Ching K’o was a guest in Prince Tan’s house, an assassin who would kill for his host and a noble man who did not renegade on his promises.. He was an expert in martial arts, spiritually disciplined and loyal to the core. Ssu-ma mentions Ching K’o in his book Shiji as an assassin who attempt to kill the Chin king failed. The short story about Ching K’o is reminiscent of Chinese short stories of that era. The principles espoused in the stories and by the characters share no similarity with their European counterparts and the ...