~*Chinese Festivals*~ Sunday, Apr 27 2008 

Culture and Religion , , fablala 5:57 pm


Some of the most famous Chinese festivals are Chinese New Year, the Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat festival and Moon or Mid-Autumn festival.

Let me just give you a small overview about what each is about.

Let’

s start off with Chinese New Year. It is one of the most important festivals! The new years falls in between the months of January and February, of course it depends on the Lunar, or moon, calendar.

To prepare for this special occasion, houses are being cleaned thoroughly. Tangerine trees, Chinese paintings and calligraphy are sold in masses.

On the eve of the New Year you spend time with your family and friends where prayers are made. Then on the actual New Year you wear new 

shoes and new clothes to symbolize the New Year. You get small red packets containing money in them!

The days after, you spend time with your relatives and pray for good fortune, until the fifteenth day.

This is where the Lantern festival joins in. It lasts 3 days long. Good fortune, health and happiness are the main symbols on these lanterns. Many lanterns are also hung in homes.  Then after the Lantern festival, everything slowly settles down back to normal life.

Throughout the New Year, “lion” dances are performed. Being a “lion” dancer takes years of practice, as you have to have good coordination to dance the “lion”

.

But it is a spectacular event, which everyone must experience once in a lifetime!

The Dragon Boat Festival is held on the fifth day of the fifth moon, which is usually around June time. This day is to honour the Chinese port and patriot, Wut Yuan, as he drowned himself in the river. 

The local people threw food into the water so that the fish would not feed on his body. On this day boat races are held. The boats are long and decorated very colourful.  They are about 45 to 120 feet long.

The Moon festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. Traditionally, family members get together with friends and eat moon cakes and pomeloes outside under the moon. You see many carrying brightly, coloured lanterns and some are lit on towers. Mid-Autumn trees are planted as well. Similarly to Chinese New Year, there are fire dragon dances. 

Hopefully these gave you a nice insight on their traditions!

 

~*Culture Part III: Music*~ Saturday, Apr 26 2008 

Culture fablala 10:00 am

I’m quite new to the music area of China as I myself, listen to English songs instead of Chinese ones. So while writing this post, I am learning something new too.

I found out so far, that the music of China is divided into modern, national, traditional and regional music.

The modern music consists of mainly C-pop, which is either in Cantonese, or Mandarin, similar to J-pop, which is pop music from Japan. Then there is rock, Chinese rap and Hong Kong and Taiwanese hip-hop.

The forefather of Chinese rock is Cui Jian. His first rock song was called “I Have Nothing”. During this time, it was the first time an electric guitar was used in China. After this, he became one of the most famous performers of the 1980’s.

C-pop was apparently founded by Li Jinhui, with the shidaiqu genre. Shidaiqu is a mixture of Chinese folk/European jazz fusion music. It originated from Shanghai. 

Traditional music is Opera, Yayue and Instrumental. The music here, is usually played on solo instruments or in small ensembles. Some instruments include: plucked and bowed stringed instruments, flutes, cymbals, gongs and drums. 

National includes historical anthems, patriotic or revolutionary music, “March of the Volunteers” and “Three Principles of the People”. Mainly the music performed here encourages national pride. 

The different regions of music are Tibet, Guangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Manchuria, Xinjiang, Hua’er and Kuaiban.  

 

~*Culture Part II: Art*~ Friday, Apr 25 2008 

Art and Culture fablala 5:59 pm

Two words: Terracotta Army. 

One of the most fascinating things anyone could ever see. I considered this army as art because in a way, it is. 

In 1974 farmers discovered these terra cotta figures, which dated back all the way to 210 BCE. They were found near Xi’an, Shaanxi province. 

The figures differ in height, but they are in between 184 cm and 197 cm (6ft – 6ft 5in). They are pretty tall. They are taller than me! 

In the Terracotta Army you can find following figures: warriors, horses, officials, chariots, strongmen, musicians and acrobats. 

The Terracotta Army was buried with Emperor of Qin in 209-210 BC. The purpose of the Army was to help rule another empire with Shi Huangdi in the afterlife. Others think they were simply built for protection. 

Local craftsmen and government labourers created these figures. The body parts, head, arms, legs and torso were made separately and then put together. According to studies, eight face moulds were used. Clay was added to give them individual facial features.

The Terracotta Army lies in four pits. They are 1.5km east of the burial mound and are approximately 5 metres deep. In a way they act as guards to protect the tomb from an attack from the east (where all the conquered states were). The walls around them and ground layers are as hard as concrete. Sadly some figures are damaged and decaying. 

Outside of China, museums have had exhibitions about the Army. In Britain, for example, the British Museum hosted an exhibition called “The First Emperor – China’s Terracotta Army“. The exhibition lasted from 13 September 2007 until 6 April 2008.  

 

~*Culture Part I: Languages*~ Friday, Apr 25 2008 

Culture fablala 10:28 am

In China the main two languages that are spoken are Mandarin and Cantonese. Just like every other country, there are parts of China that have various dialects.

Sometimes you are able to understand each other and sometimes you can’t because the language is completely different.

From Mandarin and Cantonese, Mandarin is nowadays, the one spoken more often. It’s supposed to be the ‘easier’ one as it only has 4 different tones. Whereas Cantonese has 8 or 9 tones!

I am planning on learning Mandarin very soon. I feel strange when people ask me whether I speak “Chinese” and I say no. Not only do I want to know how to speak it, but I want to learn how to write as well. 

Believe it or not – Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world, on top of English. And I always thought English was the most common language. 

China is a booming country and will become an important country in the future. Knowing the language could give you, as a person, really good advantages.  

 

~*Traditional Chinese Dress*~ Thursday, Apr 24 2008 

Culture and Fashion and Religion fablala 6:58 pm

When it comes to Chinese New Year, or any related occasion, I think the best thing you can wear is the traditional Chinese dress that are available in a wide variety of colours.

Red, blue, white, pink, black etc. But the most common colour you would find in China is RED.

For girls, you can have the dress either short or long and combine it with anything that’s into fashion nowadays. Such as black tights, they would like fabulous under the shorter dresses. 

It doesn’t even have to be a dress if you are more of a prefer-jeans-with-top kind of person. They have blouses for that matter.

What I really like about them is how they make you look slimming. But the material feels nice too. I also love the different kinds of prints you can get. My favourite ones are the ones with the dragons on them or with flowers.

Even celebrities wear them as a fashion icon. 

 

~*Celebrities!!*~ Thursday, Apr 24 2008 

Celebrities fablala 9:59 am

When it comes to Hollywood, you don’t really see many Chinese actors or actresses. Only few actresses actually come on the big screen like Lucy Liu, starring Charlies Angels along with Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz or Jackie Chan (one of my favourite!) in Rush Hour.

Of course for both of them they’ve debuted in many more movies than just those and were clearly successful at it. 

But let’s not forget about other big stars that have recently…meaning, within the last couple of years, appeared on the red carpet such as success, Ziyi Zhang, who acted in the famous movie “Memoirs of a Geisha.” 

Chow Yun Fat, I remember him playing the king in “Anna and the King.” I actually really enjoyed that movie!

Bai Ling is another actress you see from time to time at premiers and galas. Also starred in quite a lot of movies. 

There are so many more actors and actresses that you would be able to fill an entire blog about them but these were the main actors and actresses I could think of. 

 

 

 

~*Nail Design*~ Wednesday, Apr 23 2008 

Art and Fashion fablala 5:01 pm

Okay. The French own the “French manicure”. It’s their thing. Everyone loves them! I’m a fan of them too.

I find that they make your nails look more ‘Posh’. The good thing is, you can get a french manicure set to help you by following simple steps. 

A French manicure sure seems a lot easier to do by yourself than for example, nail designs you can get done with flower or animal patterns, or actual animals, stars, hearts – anything! You can even get Hello Kitty nails if you’re a fan of those! 

Below you can see a range of different designs that you can get in a typical nail beauty store in South East Asia.


It’s interesting how not only can you put diamonds onto handphones or earphones but on nails too. It’s a fashion trend that seems to continue to spread all over the world. It started off with simple body glitter tattoos that you can stick on. Maybe in a few years time we’ll find out where else you can wear small diamonds. 

A manicure contest was held in BeautyAsia in Singapore last year in 2007. It’s amazing with the unique creations these ladies have come up with. When I saw these pictures I was stunned. I didn’t know that anything like – what you’ll see – was even possible to do on nails.

Pretty good though, isn’t it? I’d call creating something that another talent. We all know there’s singing, acting and dancing. But this – wow – this takes a lot of time and patience as well. Creativity especially! 

 

~*Make Up*~ Wednesday, Apr 23 2008 

Art and Fashion fablala 10:05 am

In relation to my earlier blog, I thought I’d give a quick overview or a few tips about what kind of make up is best for the Chinese skin colour.

It’s important to have colours that work with each other and not contradict each other.

Also it depends whether you want it as an everyday make up or going out at night make up.

For the everyday, I’d stick to simple eyeliner. Doesn’t matter if it’s liquid or pencil. Liquid is definitely becoming trendier though.

Many like to wear a flick at the end of the eye. Like this:

You can put on a light bronze – brownish colour to give you a natural look.

At night, feel free to experiment. I find the smoky eye a classic. It looks elegant and stylish. Works with pretty much anything you wear as well.

I personally also like blue. It’s not too bright like pink or green. Green might actually look nice as well but I think it depends on what your personality is as well. It might suit some and others not.

I find that purple can be quite nice too! Be careful how to apply it though, because otherwise it can look like someone gave you a punch. Mix it with gold, that’ll look very glamourous! 

 

~*Thick Asian hair*~ Tuesday, Apr 22 2008 

Culture fablala 6:32 pm

That’s always something I hear every time I go to the hairdresser in Europe, “Wow – you have such thick hair.” Hairdressers have actually told me that they love cutting thick hair. They say that you can cut off a lot and there’d still be plenty of hair on your head.

I always have to laugh.

The thing is though; it is hard to find hairdressers that are able to cut different types of hair, because European hair is different to Asian hair.

So either way, whether a European woman/man is at an Asian hairdresser or an Asian woman/man at a European hairdresser, it’s rare to find professionals who have the talent to cut all hair.

I think that hair is one thing, which everyone usually complains about.

Like if you wake up one morning and find that one side is flatter than the other – this is especially if you are a girl – you either rush to wash your hair or use electrical appliances for example our closest friends: the hair straightener and the hair curler.

Those are amazing inventions, I must admit!

 

~*Chinese Eyes*~ Tuesday, Apr 22 2008 

Culture fablala 10:26 am

The most common Chinese eyes are monolids. It’s a term to describe eyes that have no crease. I’ve always wished I had a crease because I find that they make your eyes more attractive. But I’ve gotten to like them just the way they are. 

When you are young you don’t seem to realize the difference with eyes because everyone’s eyes are beautiful even if they are different.

There’s a stereotypical face that people make to show what Chinese eyes look like. Even though some find it funny or laugh along with it, it’s actually hurtful. I’m pretty sure there are other stereotypes that many people don’t like.

It’s one thing to be born with them and another to be made fun of for having them.

But on a more positive note, I’ve met some people who actually preferred to have our almond-shaped monolid eyes.

Apparently you’d be able to see the eye shadow colour more.

However, not only do most Chinese girls fight to get creases by using tape or glue but they also spend years trying to make their eyes look bigger. Funnily enough, their older sisters usually would tell them at a young age.

If you notice, there aren’t many magazines that show mono lid eyes. So it does make you feel left out because how are you supposed to use make up properly when there’s no actual help written down on paper?

Everyone has something that they don’t like about themselves. For Chinese people it’s mainly their eyes.

But…truth be told: “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.”

So love yourself! 

 

 

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