Chinese Culture and Ancient Science

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes covering Chinese ethnic groups, folk customs, traditional virtues, ancient scientific inventions, medical practices, and language characteristics.

Han

The most populous ethnic group not only in China but also throughout the world.

Yunnan Province

An area where minority groups are most concentrated with more than $20$ represented.

Zhe

Poetic drama set to music, usually consisting of four acts.

Jiaguwen

Referred as the ancient Chinese character, it can be found on many bronze vessels of the western Zhou Dynasty or carved on tortoise shells and animal bones.

Nuzhen

An ancient Chinese ethnic group living in present day Jilin and Heilongjiang that was the ancestor of the Manchu ethnic group.

Huangtaiji

The person who ordered in $1635$ that Nuzhen would be renamed as Manchuria.

Nurchachi

Leader who used a military system to administer the Manchu people by organizing them into eight banners.

Banner People

Another term for the people of Manchu, also known as Eight Banner People.

Cao Xuequin

The author of the 'Dream of Red Mansions'.

Nadam Fair

An annual grand festival for Mongolians held from July to August meaning 'entertainment' or 'happy together,' featuring horse racing, wrestling, and archery.

Hua'er

A kind of folk song popular in Gansu and Qinhai provinces and with the Hui people.

Zhuang

The most populous among the minority groups in China.

Huashan Cliff Murals

A man-made attraction along the Zoujiang river created by the Zhuang people.

Liu Sanjie

Known as the 'immortal singer' in the Tang Dynasty who invented Zhuang ballads.

Uygur

A name meaning 'rally' or 'unity' for the populous group living mainly in the area south of the Tianshan Mountains.

Gaba

A diamond-shaped skullcap worn by Uygur men and women.

Karezan

An irrigation system in dry areas of Xinjiang consisting of a series of wells and underground channels to draw newly-melt snow to fields.

Kang

A rectangular heating and sleeping platform built of bricks or slates, which requires guests to take off their shoes before sitting.

Kayago

A stringed instrument used by the Korean ethnic group.

Gaoshan

The earliest residents of the island of Taiwan, mainly distributed in mountainous areas and the Zonggu plain.

Miao

A relatively populous ethnic group in southwest China associated with the Sheng reed pipe instrument.

Yi

The most populous ethnic group in southwest China, with their largest community in the Yi autonomous prefecture of Liangshan.

Yunnan Baiyao

The white medicinal powder of Yunnan compounded according to a secret recipe of a folk Yi doctor.

Dai

An ethnic group mainly living in the Xishuangbanna area, known as the 'land of peacocks'.

Xiangjiaogu

A drum on a pedestal shaped like an elephant's leg used by the Dai people.

Bada

A piece of specially made white long cloth used in Tibetan culture.

Spring Festival

Also called Chinese New Year, it is the most important and bustling festival happening on the first day of the lunar month.

Zishi

Another term for midnight, representing the period of the day from $11\,pm$ to $1\,am$.

Shuxiang

Also called shengxiao, it is an animal used to symbolize the year in which a person was born.

Four Deities

The kylin, phoenix, tortoise, and dragon, serving as symbols of propitious omens in ancient times.

Legendary Kylin

An animal of morals and benevolence with a deer's body, scales, one horn, horse's feet, and an ox's tail.

Ruyi

An S-shaped wand or scepter usually made of jade that symbolizes smoothness and good fortune.

Li, Wang, and Zhang

The three commonest surnames of the Chinese people.

Maotai

A world-famous brand of Chinese wine.

Yue Fei

A Song Dynasty figure who served his motherland with selfless loyalty, representing patriotic sentiment.

Mencius

An ancient ideologist who defined moral standards as not being corrupted by riches, departing from principle, or submitting to force.

Wang Xizhi

A great calligraphist from the Eastern Jin dynasty known as the 'calligrapher of the first magnitude'.

Bi Sheng

The inventor of movable type printing during the Northern Song Dynasty who used clay pieces to engrave characters.

Zheng Heng

An Eastern Han scientist who made the ancient seismograph and the first water-driven celestial globe.

Zu Chongzhi

A Southern and Northern dynasties mathematician who calculated the value of pi ($\pi$) to fall between $3.1415926$ and $3.1415927$.

Milu

The approximate value of pi ($\pi$) calculated as $\frac{355}{113}$ by Zu Chongzhi.

Sundial

An hour counter that uses the sun to determine time, featuring a round plate carved with $12$ hours and a copper needle.

Copper Clepsydra

A water clock or hourglass that evolved into a set of four pots: the Sun pot, Moon pot, Star pot, and Water Receiving pot.

Abacus

A rectangular calculating tool with a wooden frame and beads on rods, used for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Acupuncture Therapy

A core of Chinese medicine involving jabbing specially made needles of different lengths into a patient's body.

Bian Que

A Warring States doctor who used observation, auscultation, olfaction, interrogation, and palpation for diagnosis.

Putonghua

The standard language of Chinese, also called Guoyu, Huayu, or Mandarin.

Xiaozhuan

The first standard script of the Qin dynasty.

The Book of Songs

The earliest collection of poems in China, containing $305$ poems created over a period of some $500$ years.