Chinese Herbal Medicine

Chinese herbal medicine is a theory of chinese herbal therapy, which is a large portion of traditional chinese medicine. The chinese have been using herbs to heal sickness and wounds ever since 168 BC. It is believed that the chinese uses these herbal medicine to cure diseases, restoring balance to the body, and to prolong health and longevity. The chinese herbal medicine includes everything that can be found in nature either in the land or the sea. There are different forms of herbal medicine such as herbal powder, extracts, and also herbal pills. The most common plant used in the Ginseng because of the aged root, it is a highly used commodity and can sometimes be expensive.There are also other different herbs as well such as mushrooms, ginger, wolfberry, dang gui, and rhubarb. The list goes on to a long list of herbal suppliments the chinese use. The chinese also uses creatures such as sea horses, rhino horns, and turtle plastron. Chinese herbology has been around for such a long time that there are cases of things that are toxic as well but none of them are life threatening. My parents has used some of these methods and they have been very effective so far, things such as ginger and ginseng are some of the ones that my parents uses.

Qixi Festival

The Qixi festival or the Qiqiao festival is well known festival of love. It is kind of like the Valentines day in the U.S. It falls on the seventh day of the 7th month on the Chinese Calendar. The history behind this is a love story between a cowherd and a goddess who weaves colorful clouds. They were torn apart and separated by a river where they could only meet one day a year. This festival is known as a festival of love where paper offerings are burned to show respect. This festival is mainly used by girls who seek a caring husband and to show off their cosmetic skills. The festival is also for newly weds because traditionally, they would worship the celestial couple for the last time and bid farewell to them. This showed that they have a good symbol for marriage and the married women would be treasured by her new family. For the most part, this festival is about love and is celebrated by young girls who want to find a good spouse by showing respect and showing off their needlework skills. I think this holiday in chinese culture is great because it has a very long history behind it and a good story.

Ghost Festival

The ghost festival is also known as the Hungry Ghost festival or Yu Lan, which is celebrated by the Chinese. It takes place on the 15th night of the 7th month. It is a festival to worship the ancestors by offering food and burning joss papers. There is also the chanting of scriptures and this festival is to ensure that the ghosts are receiving food and drinks. There are also paper mache items such as clothes and other jewelry will be burned with these to offer them up. It is mainly vegetarian meals that are served on this day and it is traditional that this is liek that. This is not a well known festival but some people still celebrate it. This history behind this is that on the fifteenth day, heaven and hell are open and it is mainly buddhists and taoists that perform rituals to absolve the sufferings of the deceased. I have taken part in this festival before but I did not know what it was called.

Online Video Gaming in China

Online gaming has taken a strong popularity in China. It is now one of the past times that are used and China has the largest PC gaming sector in the world. On average, there is 457 million active users in China and two thirds of the Chinese population has played or is playing a part of online gaming in China. It has gotten to the point where the Chinese government has to limit the amount of playing time for gamers in China because of their additions and negative influences from video games. China is also known for its online video farming, where they would take online items in a game and sell them for real money. There are different places that employs younger kids to play video games and to sell these products. China plays video games similiar to ours in the U.S such as League of Legends, World of Warcraft, and other massive online games. Of course, China has the highest revenue because of the amount of people they have in their population and the amount of people playing video games there as well. China has also played games such as games from Shanda entertaniments and a game called The9 (第九城市).

Chinese Martial Arts

Chinese martial arts is a very well known type of fighting style that has been heard of all around the world. It is refered to as kung gu or gong fu. Chinese martial arts emphasizes on discipline and control with ones body that focuses on physical health and mental health. It is to improve the muscle and physical traits by sometimes mimicing animals.The term kung fu means any individual asscomplishment or skill cultivated through long effort and hard work. This means that anyone can learn martial arts, but it takes a mindset to keep at it and control your efforts. The earliest history of chinese martial arts dates abck to the 5th century BCE. It includes hard and soft techniques as well as strikes, throws, joint manipulation, and pressure attacks. Since the chinese were typically smaller people, martial arts gave them the ability to overcome greater challenges and to overpower larger people. I find this very interesting because chinese martial arts is always interesting and the background is rich in information. Most people only know of this from movies with people such as Jackie Chan, who uses martial arts in his movie and has trained extensively. There are different kinds of martial arts that range form wu shu to shaolin based temple martial arts.

The Great Wall of China

The great wall of china is a historic landmark in China that dates back all the way to 220 BC with the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. It was then later reconstructed during the Ming Dynasty. This wall is roughly 13,171 miles long and it was used for protection back in the days from foreign intruders. Another purpose of the great wall was used for border control, such as trade and immigration along the silk road. Actual construction started in the 7th century BC and is still standing today. Today, the wall is used for tourists to see and as a playground for kids. Erosion is slowly taking the wall away and eventually certain parts will become unusable. The wall originally was built to protect the Chinese Empire or to protect against different nomadic groups or military interference. I think this is interesting because the history of the great wall is very rich and full of different eras building and adding onto the wall. As of today, the great wall is more of a cultural symbol as oppose to a military symbol back then.

China Gambling

In traditional Chinese Gambling, it is a little different then the ways of Americans. The old Chinese games that they play are things such as Mahjong, Sic bo, and traditional poker. Mahjong is a game set with tiles that have symbols and value to them. Mahjong is typically played by 4 players and is played by using 144 tiles. There are different variations to playing mahjong but the way that it is played in China is the Hong Kong style. Each person is deal a certain number of tiles and by using those tiles, they make hands from them to gain points and eventually use all their tiles to win. There are other ways to gain tiles as well, by stealing them from your opponents and drawing the right tiles. Mahjong is a strategy game where it requires alot of thinking and planning ahead so you do not fall into another persons trap and hand them the tile they are waiting on to win. Sic bo is a game that is named "Big and Small". It is a game of luck where three dice are rolled and the person bets on a number to use or even odds or even. If the three dice adds up to the number, then it is a win or if you gambled on odds or even. This is a more modern game that is very popular in China as well as other Asian Countries.