eTeacher's Chinese Offical Blog

Travel to Dali – Humanistic Part

Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, or simply as Dali, locates in the central west of Yunnan Province in between the Erhai Lake to the east and Diancang Mountains to the West. This 29,460 square kilometer municipal administrative region, including 1 city, 8 countries, and 3 autonomous counties, inhabits about 3.29 million inhabitants, over half of which [...]

Chinese Traditional Love Legends

Chinese Traditional Love Legends In Chinese, along thousands of years of history, are spread many touching love legends. Here are some of the most renowned ones. Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (Butterfly Lovers) The Butterfly Lovers is a Chinese legend about the tragic romance between two lovers, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, or Liang Zhu, [...]

The Chinese Way of Life in Modern China

Today, the way of life in China is not different at all from that anywhere else in the world due to Western influence. You can see in China today modern apartment complexes and towering high-rise buildings as well as modern style homes. Clothing in China is very similar to that of the Western culture now. [...]

Taoism: A philosophy or a religion?

There is some debate about a distinction between Taoism as a religious tradition and Taoism as a philosophical system. When most Westerners think of Taoism, they are often referring to the works of Laozi and Zhuangzi. These thought systems many be seen as philosophies rather than religions, as they include nothing within themselves about [...]

Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains in China

There are more than 200 mountains in China, which have associations with Buddhism. Among them are the famous Buddhism’s Four Mountain Sanctuaries. They are the domains of Buddhism’s four most venerated Bodhisattvas. Mount Wutai of Shanxi Province is the domain of Manjusri, or the Universal Great Wisdom Bodhisattva. Mount Emei is Sichuan Province is the [...]

Fox Spirits

Fox spirits in Chinese mythology are spirits of a fox type that are akin to European faeries and demons. They can be either good spirits or bad spirits. In Chinese mythologies, it is believed that all things are capable of acquiring human forms, magical powers and immortality provided that they received certain energy, such as [...]

The Chinese Stone Lions

Lion is a special animal to Chinese people. A pair of stone lions, a male and a female, can often be seen in front of the gates of traditional buildings. The male lion is on the left with his right paw resting on a ball, and the female on the right with her left paw [...]

Cricket Fighting

The cricket culture in China dates back 2000 years and encompasses singing insects and fighting crickets. During the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 A.D.) the crickets were respected for their powerful ability to “sing”. It was during this time that they started being captured and kept in cages so their songs could be heard all [...]

Tiger in Folk Art (2)

In Chinese legends, there are quite a few tales about how tigers saved human lives. One legend says in the ancient State of Chu, a man had an illegitimate child which he abandoned in a desolate field. A female tiger found the child and fed him with her won milk. Later, the child grew up [...]

Tiger in Folk Art (1)

The tiger is a popular theme in Chinese folk art. One may encounter numerous images of tigers in almost all forms of folk art: paper cuts, embroidery, sculpture, new year print and so on. The earliest image of the tiger was discovered in an ancient tomb unearthed in central China’s Henan Province in 1987. A [...]