Library>Culture ABC>Sports>Athletes

Zhan Xugang

Zhan Xugang was born onMay 19, 1974inEast China’sZhejiangProvince. Starting to practice weightlifting in 1984, Zhan entered theZhejiangprovincial team in 1987, and become a member of the national team seven years later.

He was champion in men’s 70 kg in the 1993 and 1994 World Junior Weightlifting Championships, and won the gold in men’s 70 kg forChinain the 1994 Asian Games.

In the 1995 Asian Men’s Weightlifting Championships, he claimed the men’s 70 kg title. In that year’s World Championships, Zhan was first in the total, second in the snatch and second in the clean and jerk men’s 70kg.

The following year, he ranked second in men’s 70 kg in the Asian Championships and was gold medallist in men’s 70kg at the Atlanta Olympics.

In 1997, Zhan was runner-up in men’s 70kg in the World Men’s Weightlifting Championships. One year later, he wonChinathe gold in men’s 77kg in the Asian Games, and finished second in the World Championships.

In 1999, he finished first in the clean and jerk, second in the snatch and total in the men’s 77kg in the World Championships.

In 2000, Zhan claimed the title in men’s 77kg in the Asian Championships inJapanand in men’s 77kg weightlifting at the Sydney Olympics.

He was voted one ofChina’s Ten Best Athletes for several years. In 1999, he was voted into the 50 Best Athletes in New China.

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Library>Culture ABC>Sports>Organization

Chinese Archery Association

The Chinese Archery Association, a national non-governmental organization based in Beijing, was established in 1964. It is a member of the All-China Sports Federation. In 1981, the International Archery Federation formally accepted China as a member.

Tasks of the Association are:

* to organize public activities so as to increase popularity of the game among all Chinese people, especially among the youth;

* to organize international games and promote international exchanges;

* to organize national games and training programs for athletes, coaches and judges;

* to formulate management rules on athletes and coaches, as well as work out competition systems;

* to select and recommend athletes and coaches for national teams;

* to organize training of the national teams and their participation in international and national games;

* to organize research programs.

There are the National Committee, the Standing Committee, the Secretariat, the Coaches Committee, the Judges Committee and the Research Committee under the Chinese Archery Association.

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Library>Culture ABC>Folk Way>Festivals

Double Ninth Festival

Double Ninth Festival

Chrysanthemum

The Double Ninth Festival, also namedChong YangFestival, falls on the ninth day of the ninth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, hence it gets name of Double Ninth Festival.

Origin

The festival is based on the theory ofYinandYang, the two opposing principles in nature.Yinis feminine, negative principle, whileYangis masculine and positive. In ancient times people believed that all natural phenomena could be explained by this theory. Numbers were also related to this theory.
Even numbers belonged toYinand odd numbers toYang. The ninth day of the ninth lunar month is a day when the twoYangnumbers meet. So it is calledChong Yang.Chongmeans double in Chinese.Chong Yanghas been an important festival since ancient times.

Legend

It is hard to say when these customs were created. But there are many stories which are closely related. As recorded in a historical book of the sixth century, in ancient times, there lived a man named Huan Jing. He was learning the magic arts from Fei Changfang, who had become an immortal after
many years of practicing Taoism. One day, the two were climbing a mountain. Fei Changfang suddenly stopped and looked very upset. He told Huan Jing, On the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, disaster will come to your hometown. You must go home immediately. Remember to make a red bag for each one
of your family members and put a spray of dogwood on every one. Then you must all tie your bags to your arms, leave home quickly and climb to the top of a mountain. Most importantly, you must all drink some chrysanthemum wine. Only by doing so can your family members avoid this disaster.

On hearing this, Huan Jing rushed home and asked his family to do exactly as his teacher said. The whole family climbed a nearby mountain and did not return until the evening. When they got back home, they found all their animals dead, including chickens, sheep, dogs and even the ox. Later Huan
Jing told Fei Changfang about this. Fei said the poultry and livestock died in place of Huan Jing’s family, who escaped disaster by following his instructions.

Since then, climbing a mountain, carrying a spray of dogwood and drinking chrysanthemum wine became the traditional activities of the Double Ninth Festival, to avoid evil spirits and misfortunes.

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Library>Culture ABC>Folk Way>Ethnic Marriage

Dong

Escorting the Bride in Dark

A Dong youth gives his sweetheart a silver bracelet in an exchange of gifts.

The bridegroom’s family does not have to prepare a bridal sedan chair, but send a way guide and another gift escort to the bride’s home. It is until the midnight that the bride is escorted to the bridegroom’s house. The gifts are simple, usually including 30 to 40jin(1jin= 0.5 kg) of pork, 20 to
30jinof wine and some dishes.

Engagement Tea

In Longsheng County, young people who find each other congenial exchange keepsakes to confirm their love affair. It is until the young lady sends the engagement tea to the young man’s family that their relation is made known to the public. The young man’s family prepares sticky rice cake, food,
and drinks, etc., for his uncle to send to the young lady’s home. Relatives of the pair’s parents then introduce the young man’s and the young lady’s disposition, moral quality and so on to each other. Hereafter, the two sides should scrupulously follow the promise and are not allowed to break the
engagement at will.

Way Guide

Way guide is a unique wedding custom of the Dong ethnic minority. The way guide, a man who guides the bride to the bridegroom’s house on behalf of the bridegroom, is usually served by a young man from a family with four generations, a flourishing population of family members, who is regarded as
the luckiest by local people in the village.

On the day before the wedding date, the way guide takes the gifts to the bride’s family. After the cockcrow, girls in the village wake up matrons of honor. The girls won’t let the bride go out of the door until they eat their fill. The way guide should have the gift of gab and be not afraid of
interrogation. The noisier the girls, the happier the bride’s relatives, because it shows the bride is gregarious.

Change Lantern Cord

On the eve of the wedding, the way guide hangs the bridegroom’s lantern on the bride’s door and hastens the bride three times to set off. After that, the bride goes out of the door reluctantly. Before leaving for the bridegroom’s house with the way guide, the bride cuts off the grass cord of the
lantern, and takes out a plaited colorful ribbon to fasten the lantern, indicating she and the bridegroom have already linked heart to heart.

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Library>China ABC>Religion>Taoist Holy Lands

Dongyue Temple

The Dongyue Temple has distinctive characteristics among the Taoist buildings of China. It is located on Baishan Mountain east of Puxian County in Shanxi Province, so it is also called the Baishan Temple.

The whole temple is grandiose and well organized with more than 60 buildings, including Temple Gate, the Lingxiao Hall, the Music Tower, the Discussion Hall, the Sacrifice Pavilion, the Dongyue Xinggong Hall, the Houtu Temple, the Shengmu Temple, the Qingxu Palace, the Dizang Temple, the Hell, the
Turret and surrounding corridors. Though the year when the Dongyue Temple was first constructed cannot be determined, it is sure that it had been very famous as early as in 1205.

The extant principal building is the magnificent Dongyue Xinggong Palace. It was once destroyed by earthquake and was rebuilt in 1318. All the columns are stone poles carved with five ancient poems. The statues of Dongyue Dadi (Great Emperor of the Sacred Mountain of the East) and other Gods are
enshrined in the hall. As to the Dongyue Temple, what is the most famous is that there is Hell of Eighteen Layers under the temple, which is composed of 15 caves. The statues of Wuyue Dadi (the Great Emperors of the Five Sacred Mountains), Shidian Yanluo (kings of Hell from ten halls), Liucao
Panguan (six officials in hell) and other Gods and ghosts of Taoism are arranged in the caves. The statues are of the height of a true person. Some scenarios of Hell such as various ghosts, knife mountain, oil bath, mill and saw, etc., are exhibited there. They are the very rare works of extant
clay sculpture in China.

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Library>China ABC>People>Lifestyle

Social Security

Every year, China has a large number of newly emerged urban workers, laid-off workers and surplus rural labor, making for acute employment problems. Whilst continuing to implement positive employment policies and to increase employment and re-employment opportunities, the government is speeding up
progress on a social insurance system that protects people’s interests and helps build a harmonious society. From 2006 to 2010, the urban unemployment rate will be restricted to five percent.

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Library>China ABC>Government>Parties and Election

The Election System

2. Recognition of the qualifications of the electorate during direct elections

(1) Registration of voters

The registration of voters is a legal recognition of the voter.

Citizens must register according to law and after verification of their qualifications, they are entered into lists of voters for publicity, before they become voters.

The registration of voters is presided over by the election committee and carried out in constituencies.

Before each election, those who have reached the age of 18 and those who have regained their political rights since the last election shall be registered.

Voters who have moved their residence out of their original constituencies after registration shall be entered in the list of voters in the constituencies they have newly moved into.

Names of voters who have died or been stripped of their political rights shall be struck out of the lists of voters.

Once recognized upon registration, the qualifications of voters remain valid.

(2) The publicity of lists of voters

The lists of voters shall be made public by the election committee 20 days before the day of voting.

(3) Arbitration in case of disputes over the qualifications of voters

Disagreeing opinions for the lists of voters may be made to the election committee.

The election committee shall make a decision on the disagreeing opinion within three days.

Those who cannot accept the ruling of the election committee may appeal to a court five days before the election day and the court should make a judgement before the election day.

The ruling of the court is the final decision.

3. Guarantee of the rights of voters

(1) The guarantee of the voters of their rights

No one may take actions in whatever form at any time to investigate the electoral conduct of the voters.

(2) Secret voting and competitive election

1) Secret voting

All elections take the form of secret ballot.

If the voter is blind or physically disabled to write, he or she may entrust others to fill in the ballot.

2) Competitive election

Election of deputies to people’s congresses at all levels adopts the competitive election method.

II. Organs presiding over the election

1. Organs presiding over the election

Direct elections are presided over by election committees of the same level. Indirect elections are presided over by the standing committees of people’s congresses of the same level.

Election of deputies of the armed forces is presided over by election committees of the corresponding levels.

Election of deputies to the NPC in special administrative regions is presided over by the Standing Committee of the NPC.

The Standing Committee of the NPC presides over the electoral meetings of special administrative regions and the electoral meetings elect a presidium, which shall preside over the electoral meetings.

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SeekerOfPeace -

What would be the best possible translation for “run-down”?

I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last
Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy.

Would 灰心 do it?

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monto -

精疲力尽

may fit if you mean by run-down

“in poor physical condition; weak or exhausted”

SeekerOfPeace -

Ok, thank you.

According to the context, I thought it was more like mentally tired, exhausted, almost depressed.

But I’ll go with that suggestion.

muyongshi -

well what monto suggested does have a 精神方面. 精神疲倦 is how you could interpret the
first part. You may consider even just 疲倦. 灰心 doesn’t work from the way I read the
original text.

I think there is a little bit of a physical tiredness in the term run-down with an emphasis on
emotional exhaustion. So I think monto’s choice would work as it has both in there.

SeekerOfPeace -

Ok thank you.

I’ll just go with Monto’s suggestion then.

hidden12345 -

I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last
Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy.

I would say something like:
圣诞节的时候我忙得团团转（而）快发疯了，出了一些事让我心力交瘁所以�
��这里休息一下。
要告诉你啊~~~（then say all of your specific “madman stuff”)

SeekerOfPeace -

Thank you Hidden,

This is actually an excerpt from the Catcher in the rye.

My students are reading it and I wanted to explain to them the meaning of run-down.

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skylee -

I heard this song 喜洋洋 today (it is not unlike Christmas carols which are played throughout
December), and I hummed to myself “年，又過年，共慶歡樂年年”. The music is actually
very good (I like the parts where it sounds like bird singing) as long as you haven’t gotten sick
for listening to it for too many times.

Listen to 喜洋洋 -> 1　2　3

A sung version -> http://www.adamcheng.cn/yy/新春颂献.wma

Care to share what you hear during CNY?

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Quest -

Is this categorized as 岭南 music? I don’t think there’s a mandarin version for this song?
Here’s a version by Twins a few years back: http://youtube.com/watch?v=X-ofnUb3Y_8

Asiasy -

it reminds me of another very very funny song

http://www.hstph.com/s3/music5/嘻唰唰%20花儿乐队.rm

the lyric is pretty interesting just enjoy it…

trien27 -

財神到 is what I listen to every Chinese New Year.

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LaoZhang -

I’m sure it’s not hard to find a tattoo artist that will do what you want. Just be careful.

IMHO if the tat will be quite visible, at least consider what others are saying. Otherwise, it’s
your call.

BTW, how many toes do your dragons have?

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TriadDaiLo -

^^^^ 4 why?

imron -

Generally speaking, dragons have a different number of toes depending on the country. Chinese
dragons have 5 toes, Korean dragons 4 toes, and Japanese dragons 3 toes.

LaoZhang -

Quote from above.
toes

imron -

Quote:

Quote from above: toes

Toes isn’t a particularly long or informative quote P.S. that site isn’t accessible in China.

LaoZhang -

sorry, assumed people use proxies. my bad.

“Most dragons in Chinese art are shown with four toes and only the Emperor was entitled to five.
Anyone else who presumed to display a five-toed dragon without authorisation met with swift
retribution.”

imron -

Yeah I do have proxies, but sometimes it’s a pain to log in just for a random link. In any event,
the emperor no longer exists, so retribution would be non-existent

dufresne -

Not that strict I think.
I’m Chinese.

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