Portal:China/Selected article/2006
Portal:China selected articles
These articles have appeared on the Portal:China page in 2006. They are (or were at the time of listing) Featured Articles or from the list of selected articles.
Archives
June
Go (board game), also known as Weiqi in Mandarin Chinese (Chinese: 圍棋; Chinese: 围棋), and Baduk in Korean (Hangul:바둑), is a strategic, deterministic two-player board game originating in ancient China, before 200 BC. The game is now popular throughout East Asia and on the Internet. The object of the game is to place stones so they control a larger board territory than one's opponent, while preventing them from being surrounded and captured by the opponent.
The English name Go originated from the Japanese pronunciation "go" of the Chinese characters 棋/碁; in Japanese the name is written 碁. The Chinese name Weiqi roughly translates as "encirclement chess", the "board game of surrounding", or the "enclosing game". Its ancient Chinese name is 弈 (Chinese: yì). The writings 棋/碁 are variants, as seen in the Chinese Kangxi dictionary. The game is most commonly known as 囲碁 (igo) in Japanese. (Read more...)
This article was the Selected Article from May 2005 to June 2006.
July
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 4th Incident, or the Political Turmoil between Spring and Summer of 1989 by the government of the People's Republic of China, were a series of demonstrations led by students, intellectuals and labour activists in the People's Republic of China between April 15, 1989 and June 4, 1989. The demonstrations centred on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, but large scale protests also occurred in cities throughout China, such as in Shanghai. (Read more...)
August
Sun Yat-sen (Chinese: 孫逸仙) (November 12, 1866 – March 12, 1925) was a Chinese revolutionary and political leader who is often referred to as the "father of modern China". Sun played an instrumental and leadership role in the eventual overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. He was the first provisional president when the Republic of China was founded in 1912. He later co-founded the Kuomintang (KMT) where he served as its first leader.
Sun was a uniting figure in post-imperial China, and remains unique among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being widely revered in both mainland China and Taiwan. On both sides of the Straits he is frequently seen as the father to republican China. In Taiwan, he is known by the title officially given to him in the Republic of China, Father of the Nation (國父), as in his posthumous name Father of the Nation, Mr Sun Yat-sen (國父, 孫中山先生). On the mainland, Sun is also seen as a Chinese nationalist, the "Forerunner of the Revolution" (革命先行者) and "the Father of Modern China". (Read more...)
September
The Dayuan or Ta-Yuan (Chinese: 大宛; pinyin: dàyuān; Wade–Giles: Ta-Yuan, lit. “Great Yuan”) were a people of Ferghana in Central Asia, described in the Chinese historical works of Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of Han, which follow the travels of Chinese explorer Zhang Qian in 130 BCE and the numerous embassies that followed him into Central Asia thereafter. The country of Dayuan is generally accepted as relating to the Ferghana Valley.
These Chinese accounts describe the Dayuan as urbanized dwellers with Caucasian features, living in walled cities and having "customs identical to those of the Greco-Bactrians", a Hellenistic kingdom that was ruling Bactria at that time in today’s northern Afghanistan. The Dayuan are also described as manufacturers and great lovers of wine. (Read more...)
October
The Octopus card is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card used for electronic payment in online or offline systems in Hong Kong. Originally launched in September 1997 as a fare collection system for the city's mass transit system, the Octopus card system has grown into a widely used electronic cash system used not only for virtually all public transport in Hong Kong, but also for making payment at convenience stores, supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, on-street parking meters, car parks and many other point-of-sale applications (e.g. service stations and vending machines). In addition the system is used for access control to offices, schools and apartments. It can even be used to donate money to charities. [1] Using a card involves simply holding the card in close proximity above, or on, an Octopus reader, and cards can be recharged with cash at add-value machines or over the counter in shops (notably 7-Eleven and Circle K), or directly through credit cards and bank accounts. (Read more...)
November
Du Fu or Tu Fu (712–770) was a prominent Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty. Along with Li Bai (Li Po), he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets. His own greatest ambition was to help his country by becoming a successful civil servant, but he proved unable to make the necessary accommodations. His life, like the whole country, was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion of 755, and the last 15 years of his life were a time of almost constant unrest.
Initially unpopular, his works came to be hugely influential in both Chinese and Japanese culture. He has been called Poet-Historian and the Poet-Sage by Chinese critics, while the range of his work has allowed him to be introduced to Western readers as "the Chinese Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, Béranger, Hugo or Baudelaire". (Hung p. 1). (Read more...)
December
The guqin (Chinese: 古琴; Pinyin: gǔqín; Wade–Giles: ku-ch'in; IPA: [kutɕʰin]; literally "ancient stringed-instrument") is the modern name for a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument of the zither family (中華絃樂噐/中华弦乐器). It has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favored by scholars and literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinement. It is sometimes referred to by the Chinese as 「國樂之父/国乐之父」, meaning "the father of Chinese music" or 「聖人之噐/圣人之器」, meaning "the instrument of the sages". (More...)