Q: What are the Chinese people looking for? What drives them to work so hard? A: To understand what the Chinese people want, we must first know what the Chinese people don't want. What the Chinese people want least are chaos and disorder, oppression and humiliation, and ignorance and poverty. In contrast, they aspire for unity and stability, equality and autonomy, and civilization and prosperity.
DeepChina is an elite academic initiative that offers objective and rational analyses on a broad spectrum of topics related to China, encompassing politics, economics, culture, human rights, diplomacy, and geopolitics.
Delicate, lustrous, and soft to the touch. The ethereal fabric that we now call silk has threaded its way throughout China's history.
Continue readingA leaf fell into the water and changed the taste of it. Henceforth, tea was born. China is known as the home of tea. Since ancient times, tea has penetrated Chinese culture, leaving its aroma in poetry, etiquette and customs.
Continue readingWandering sounds, irregular rhythms and a carrier of gentle emotions. This is the musical language of guqin, a plucked seven string instrument created in ancient China.
Continue readingDelicate strokes, carved onto wood, with ultimate precision. This is woodblock printing, an ancient printing technique that propelled human civilization.
Continue readingNature has been a source of inspiration for artists from past to present. When comparing traditional Chinese and Western landscape art, we can detect differences in perspective, the use of color, composition, and so forth.
Continue readingPortraiture has a long history in both East and West. These works are like time capsules, revealing the preoccupations of its subjects in different centuries, and the way in which they lived. In the third episode of "East Meets West," a four-part art series produced by CGTN, we look at portraits from various periods and cultures. The Tsinghua University Art Museum in Beijing houses a rich collection of old artworks, including some Qing Dynasty portraits completed hundreds of years ago.
Continue readingChinese woodblock prints can be traced back to ancient times and are believed to have influenced Japanese ukiyo-e print works, known as "pictures of the floating world." In the last episode of "East Meets West," a four-part art series produced by CGTN, we reveal some of the untold stories of this traditional art and learn how Chinese woodcuts played a prominent role in the nexus of Eastern and Western art. The art of printing developed in China as early as the eighth century, and historical records indicate the earliest use of woodblock illustrations was for religious texts.
Continue readingFrom antiquity to modern times, paintings of animals have played an important role in art history. Many animals, including cats and horses, have made their way into some of the world’s most famous works. Even tiny creatures like grasshoppers and crickets have captured the hearts and minds of artists. In the second episode of "East Meets West," a four-part art series produced by CGTN, we journey into the world of animal art and decipher their symbolic meanings. Insects are a common subject in both Chinese and Western paintings, yet they are often imbued with different meanings or connotations....
Continue readingLocated along the banks of Kucha River of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Subash Buddhist Ruins are the remnants of the largest cluster of Buddhist buildings in Xinjiang that were established in the 3rd century, and reached a peak during the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties.
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