Chinese Traditions & Practices

Chinese Traditions & Practices
Author: Joey Yap
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: China
ISBN: 9789671520918

China has a long, rich history spanning centuries. As Chinese culture has evolved over the centuries, so have the countrys many customs and traditions. Today, theres a Chinese custom for just about every important event in a persons life from cradle to the grave. In recent times, there has been a resurgence in interest and adoption of traditional customs. More and more people want to know how they can combine the old with the new. Some Chinese customs and rites were created for purely practical reasons. Others are rooted in early religious beliefs and superstitious thinking. Many deftly incorporate elements of Chinese metaphysics. Although many Chinas customs have survived to the present day, some have been all but forgotten: rendered obsolete by modern day technology. This book explores the history of Chinese traditions and cultural practices, their purpose, and the differences between the traditions of the past and their modern incarnations. If you are a westerner or less informed about Chinese culture, you may find this book particularly useful, especially when it comes to doing business with the Chinese whether it be in China itself or some other country with a considerable Chinese population. If anything, it will allow you to have a better casual understanding of the culture and traditions of your Chinese friends or acquaintances. An understanding of Chinese traditions leads to a more informed, richer appreciation of Chinese culture and China itself. Key Highlights from this book: Learn about the elements that make up Chinese customs and what they represent. Explore the history and development of Chinese traditions over the centuries: find out where traditions came from and see how theyve changed over time. Discover the Chinese ceremonies that celebrate the important milestones in life including birthdays, weddings and more! Follow detailed step by step guides on how to conduct various ceremonies, just as others have for thousands of years. Learn the intricacies of conducting business with the Chinese population of countries like China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Discover the roots and gain a deeper appreciation of Chinese culture, whether you are Chinese or western educated.

Traditional Chinese Rites and Rituals

Traditional Chinese Rites and Rituals
Author: Zhengming Du
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2016-01-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1443887838

Traditional Chinese Rites and Rituals provides a comprehensive overview of the social practices of Chinese people on various occasions of cultural importance. While explaining how these rites and rituals are performed, it also introduces the reasons why certain norms are followed by individuals, families and the state as a whole. As such, the book offers a kaleidoscopic perspective on the plurality evident in all facets of Chinese culture.

The Tenacity of Chinese Folk Tradition

The Tenacity of Chinese Folk Tradition
Author: Morris I. Berkowitz
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2018-06-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

A new synthesis of the work of two studies: the first (Folk Religion in an Urban Setting) investigates the religious organization at village level and the second (Urban Chinese) shows practices from most of the various levels of possible Chinese practices as expected in a mixed community of urban dwellers. Reviews data and attempts to interpret it in terms of changes in traditional religious practices currently appearing and their implications for the future . With two figures.

Chinese Ancestor Worship

Chinese Ancestor Worship
Author: William Lakos
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 170
Release: 2010-09-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 144382528X

This book is a new approach to how we in the West understand China and Chinese culture. It challenges the master narrative of Confucianism and shows that ancestor worship has underpinned Chinese culture in many influential and vital ways and provides a nuanced and more efficacious paradigm through which Chinese culture may be viewed. It is an exposition and analysis of Chinese ancestor worship and its correlations, especially filial piety and ritual, and it shows the intrinsic importance of ancestor worship to Chinese culture. By using a practice theory—ritual—and communication theory approach this work highlights the relationship between the rituals of ancestor worship and their meaning within Chinese culture. In emphasizing the efficacy of ritual to cultural meaning it also questions and compares the master narrative of Confucianism in its role as the prime cultural symbol and paradigm of Chinese culture. China and Chinese culture is conventionally understood by the West through the paradigm and its articulated discourse of Confucianism. In order to ameliorate and overcome the epistemological problematic of a cross-cultural understanding of China, a new approach to the understanding of China and Chinese culture is proposed. The thesis approach is ‘meta-disciplinary’ and multi-viewed, and draws on a range of evidence and theories which focus on the problematic of ‘cross-cultural understanding.’

Oral Traditions in Contemporary China

Oral Traditions in Contemporary China
Author: Juwen Zhang
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2021-11-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1793645140

In Oral Traditions in Contemporary China: Healing a Nation, Juwen Zhang provides a systematic survey of such oral traditions as folk and fairy tales, proverbs, ballads, and folksongs that are vibrantly practiced today. Zhang establishes a theoretical framework for understanding how Chinese culture has continued for thousands of years with vitality and validity, core and arbitrary identity markers, and folkloric identity. This framework, which describes a cultural self-healing mechanism, is equally applicable to the exploration of other traditions and cultures in the world. Through topics from Chinese Cinderella to the Grimms of China, from proverbs like “older ginger is spicier” to the life-views held by the Chinese, and from mountain songs and ballads to the musical instruments like the clay-vessel-flute, the author weaves these oral traditions across time and space into a mesmerizing intellectual journey. Focusing on contemporary practice, this book serves as a bridge between Chinese and international folklore scholarship and other related disciplines as well. Those interested in Chinese culture in general and Chinese folklore, literature, and oral tradition in particular will certainly delight in perusing this book.

Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China

Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China
Author: Patricia Buckley Ebrey
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2014-07-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1400862353

To explore the historical connections between Confucianism and Chinese society, this book examines the social and cultural processes through which Confucian texts on family rituals were written, circulated, interpreted, and used as guides to action. Weddings, funerals, and ancestral rites were central features of Chinese culture; they gave drama to transitions in people's lives and conveyed conceptions of the hierarchy of society and the interdependency of the living and the dead. Patricia Ebrey's social history of Confucian texts shows much about how Chinese culture was created in a social setting, through the participation of people at all social levels. Books, like Chu Hsi's Family Rituals and its dozens of revisions, were important in forming ritual behavior in China because of the general respect for literature, the early spread of printing, and the absence of an ecclesiastic establishment authorized to rule on the acceptability of variations in ritual behavior. Ebrey shows how more and more of what people commonly did was approved in the liturgies and thus brought into the realm labeled Confucian. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Religions of China in Practice

Religions of China in Practice
Author: Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 515
Release: 2021-08-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0691234604

This third volume of Princeton Readings in Religions demonstrates that the "three religions" of China--Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism (with a fourth, folk religion, sometimes added)--are not mutually exclusive: they overlap and interact with each other in a rich variety of ways. The volume also illustrates some of the many interactions between Han culture and the cultures designated by the current government as "minorities." Selections from minority cultures here, for instance, are the folktale of Ny Dan the Manchu Shamaness and a funeral chant of the Yi nationality collected by local researchers in the early 1980s. Each of the forty unusual selections, from ancient oracle bones to stirring accounts of mystic visions, is preceded by a substantial introduction. As with the other volumes, most of the selections here have never been translated before. Stephen Teiser provides a general introduction in which the major themes and categories of the religions of China are analyzed. The book represents an attempt to move from one conception of the "Chinese spirit" to a picture of many spirits, including a Laozi who acquires magical powers and eventually ascends to heaven in broad daylight; the white-robed Guanyin, one of the most beloved Buddhist deities in China; and the burning-mouth hungry ghost. The book concludes with a section on "earthly conduct."