The Chinese have a great sense of humour. Here’s an example:

An emperor, returning to the capital after many years touring his empire, hears that one of his concubines has given birth to a son. He thinks, “I’ve been away for so long, how can she be pregnant? It must be one of the eunuchs!” In a rage, he summons all the eunuchs, commands them to line up and number off: 1, 2, 3, 4 (high-pitched eunuch’s voices), 5 (deep voice). “Stop!” barks the emperor. “Lock up number five. We’ll behead him tomorrow.” At the third watch, the concubine, holding her child, sneaks into the prison and says to number five “I’ve bribed the guard. We can run away to a place where no one will find us and we can live happily ever after.” Number five says “No we can’t. You’re already too late” (high-pitched voice).

Ever wondered what your research is really about? What patterns are buried beneath the surface of your data and in your unconscious mind?

This neat little program displays the frequency of words in any given text in a cool graphical form. Use it identify patterns in your data. It can also identify favorite words you never knew you had, also.

Nothing is quite as colourful, noisy and downright Chinese as a dragon boat race. Roaring spectators, pounding drums, churning white water and exploding firecrackers make enough noise to deafen the gods. Chinese often use the word renao to describe dragon boat races. Renao literally means “hot and noisy” and has a very positive meaning (translate as lively/bustling). Over the past two decades dragon boat fever has spread far and wide so that now everyone from English grocers to Midwestern soccer moms can be found donning coloured headbands and chopping madly at the water.

Legend has it that the custom of dragon boat racing began over 2300 years ago with the drowning suicide of poet Qu Yuan. When fishermen failed to save him, they beat the water with their paddles and threw rice dumplings into the river to keep the fish from eating his body. However, the history of dragon boat racing as we know it today is surprisingly short. The International Dragon Boat Federation was only established in 1991. Even in the birthplace of modern dragon boating, Hong Kong, the local Dragon Boat Association only dates back to 1976. Perhaps dragon boat racing is not so ancient after all. Maybe the myth of the drowning poet is simply a fig leaf covering a very recent fiction. Social scientists enjoy nothing more than sneaking up on such sacred cows and tipping them over. As it happens, Chinese dragon boat racing traditions are not as recent or as one-dimensional as they might appear at first glance.

For one thing dragon boat racing traditions vary greatly from region to region. In the fishing villages in and around Hong Kong, for instance, the dragon boat festival is bound up with the worship of Tin Hau, the sea goddess. Fishermen place her statue on the dragon boat to pay their respects and pray for good catches and calm seas throughout the coming year. In Xianyou County, Fujian Province, locals race boats two months earlier, on the 30th of March, to commemorate the deaths of Song Dynasty loyalists who refused to surrender to the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. Xianyou oarsmen keep time by singing the verse:

Strike the drum!
Strike the drum!
Sing of spring!
Sing of spring!
Mourn loyal souls!
Though spring light fades
It will return!
The loyal soul roams
One thousand years!

Read more! »

1898

Jian Bozan, Chinese Muslim and Marxist historian, born in Taoyuan County, Hunan Province. Jian studied at the University of Calfornia in 1924-26, later writing the first Marxist interpretation of Chinese history. Jian joined the CCP in 1937 and was promoted to Dean of the Peking University Faculty of History. Criticized by Mao at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Jian committed suicide along with his wife in 1968 following a campaign of sustained persecution.

1981

China triumphs at the thirty sixth Table Tennis World Championships, winning all seven gold medals on offer.

1997

United Nations vetos Anti-Chinese Rights (fan huaren quan) legislation for the seventh time. “With the direction and support of America, Western nations have raised anti-Chinese motions at seven separate hearings of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights since 1990, out of so-called “concern for the human rights situation in China”. China united developing nations to defeat Western attempts to apply a double standard and use human rights as an excuse to meddle in China’s domestic affairs”.

在美国的操纵和支持下,一些西方国家从1990年起,以“关心中国人权状况”为名,在联合国人权会议上, 7次提出反华议案。中国团结广大发展中国家,共同挫败了西方国家在人权问题上搞双重标准、借人权问题干涉中国内政的企图

Original text here .