Qing Dynasty Palace Food and the Full Manchu-Han Banquet

During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) there were all kinds of palace banquets. Grand banquets were held for a number of reasons; when a new emperor came into power, when the government changed its title of reign, when a war was won, for the Spring Festival, or for special birthdays. Fish, deer and pork were very important food in the Mancu's daily life. The method they used for cooking was usually either toasting or boiling. After their occupation of the former Han areas and in order to strengthen their control of the Han people, they made a large number of former Han officials, landlords and scholars, their officials. In order to satisfy both the Han and the Mancu, banquets during the Qing Dynasty were divided into two forms-the Han banquet and the Mancu banquet. Different cooking utensils, dinner sets, materials, and cooking methods were used in preparation of the banquets.
In the middle period of the Qing Dynasty, the folk customs and cultures of the Mancu and Han became gradually blended, which promoted the development of a Qing Dynasty palace food culture where the two styles became mixed. During the period of Emperor Kangxi and Qianlong, when society and politics were stable and the economy was flourishing, luxurious customs became popular. It is said that when Emperor Kangxi first tasted the full Mancu-Han banquet, and wrote down its four characters, the banquet became famous in the palace, and became popular with nobles and rich businessmen. The materials used to cook the food were varied, and a characteristic of the food was that it looked very beautiful and tasted delicious, the only disadvantage was that the price was very high. As time went on, Mongolian, Hui and Tibetan foods were added in this banquet, so the Mancu-Han Banquet became a five-nation banquet, later known as the combined banquet. The exquisite appearance of the food had never been seen before and it became the most colorful and luxurious banquet in Chinese history.
Following the development of cooking methods, courses in the Mancu-Han banquet have undergone considerable change, its contents have became richer, its appearance has further improved, and today there are more 200 kinds of courses, including varied materials from the mountains and sea. Indeed this banquet has become a symbol of traditional Chinese a full Manchu-Han banquet
culture. Due to the fact that its courses are very rich, it is impossible to eat all courses at the same sitting, therefore such a banquet is usually eaten at several sittings. It can be eaten for lunch, dinner and supper or some people eat it over a two day period, others over a three day period. In order to fully appreciate such a splendid banquet, some Japanese guests relax and enjoy the food by six meals.
Where can this banquet be found? Go to Beijing Fangshan Restaurant in Beihai Park. The restaurant is located in a group of ancient buildings in the park. The restaurant was established in 1925 and has a history of more than 70 years, (its predecessor was the imperial kitchen of the Qing Dynasty). Since its opening, it has developed the original courses of palace food and now has more than 800 kinds of courses and desserts. The restaurant has received praise from both domestic and overseas customers.
The furniture and decorations are all in the traditional imperial style. Waitresses are dressed as Qing Dynasty maids and serve customers according to the customs of the Qing Palace. Customers will feel like they have steeped back in time by several hundred years, right into a splendid palace banquet.

Huangmei Opera

Huangmei Opera was formed in the 18th century, when Chinese local operas were flourishing. Originally it was a combination of local folk songs, dances and some widely spread ancient operas. Bordering on Anhui Province, Huangmei in Hubei is a count famous for its tea and tea-picking songs, from which Huangmei Opera got its original name, "tea-picking tunes" or "tea-picking opera".
Before 1949, rivers and lakes often flooded, and the displaced victims had to seek refuge in neighbouring provinces. Thus Hubei's Huangmei Opera was brought to Anhui by victims of flood and famine. It developed from folk tunes to short operas and complete dramas. Nowadays, the lively short operas, called "everyday shows", are still performed frequently. Even "big plays" are almost always about folk life. The performers manage to infuse simple humour into plays about the privileged, so that audiences see a down-to-earth way of life in all the 72 short plays and 36 full-length dramas that have accumulated.
From the time when Huangmei Opera earned its initial popularity in the rural areas, it had a long way to go from recreational activity there to professional performances in the cities. It began as a diversion acted by and for peasants and artisans, usually at festivals and special solar times (the 24 weather-oriented divisions of the year).
As time went by, seasonal, semi-professional groups appeared, and they had to perform together with troupes specializing in more popular forms like Beijing Opera and Anhui Opera. Not until 1926, 140 years after its advent, did the Huangmei Opera manage to reach Anqing, then the capital of Anhui Province. It appeared in Shanghai in 1934, but only on the cheap stages of the city's poor quarters, where it was denounced as "bawdy entertainment" and where its unfortunate performers were harried by the local authorities.
Since 1949, with the support of the government, the Huangmei Opera has bloomed like a wildflower. In particular, the Anhui Provincial Huangmei Opera Troupe's "The Heavenly Maid and the Mortal" began a new epocj in its history. Though the play was a traditional favourite, the troupe revised the script, music and make up.
The opera tells how the Jade Emperor of Heaven has seven daughters, the youngest of whom, the ravishingly beautiful Seventh Fairy Maiden, daringly flees down to the world in search of a love of her own choosing, and marries Dong Yong, an honesr, kind-hearted serf, in defiance of her father. She makes the cruel landlord shorten Dong Yong's three years' indenture to 100 days, but just as they are leaving to set up their own home, the Jade Emperor has her snatched back to heaven, breaking up the happy couple. Pregnant and indignant, she writes a letter in her own blood to Dong, vowing, "When next spring comes and the flowers bloom, your son shall be yours beneath the scholar trees."
The moving plot, beautiful music and excellent singing made the play a household work. It was filmed in 1956, when there were few opera films, and given 150,000 domestic showings, also travelling to a dozen or so places abroad, so that the obscure wildflower became a masterpiece admired by thousands. The success owed much to the work of renowned performers, among them Yan Fengying, a country girl from Luojialing in Tongcheng County, Anhui Province. A versatile performer who played a variety of roles, she died young, a great loss to the profession. Anqing City put up a statue of Yan Fengying as Seventh Fairy Maiden in one of its parks.
The music of Huangmei Opera is its essential attraction. Three kinds of music are used: coloratura, character songs and basic tunes. The 104 coloratura tunes are taken from folk songs, tea-picking songs and other ditties. A short opera usually has its own features, whose name is often the title of the piece, which may owe most of its popularity to the tune. The music of Huangmei Opera is light and lyrical, so a good performer must have facility in this style. Singing is not only the main approach to characterization but also makes Huangmei Opera distinctive stylistically and musically.
Huangmei Opera is easy to understand and learn, thanks to its lyrical tunes, simple words and literary tradition. Like other Chinese local operas, Huangmei Opera also used local dialect, in this case that of Huangmei and Anqing, where the opera originated and matured. The language is a mixture of northern and southern and therefore easy for others to imitate while remaining pleasant to native ears. This was conducive to the spread of Huangmei Opera. Its local flavour and folk style are most vividly revealed in its original and lively dialogue, both spoken and sung.
Passion, natural and simple, is what makes Huangmei Opera an enduring drama appreciated by all.
During the First China Shakespeare Festival in 1986, audiences both at home and abroad watched with respect and inteest an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Much Ado about Nothing" presented by the Anhui Provincial Huangmei Opera Troupe. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sent a message of congratulation to Cao Yu, chairman of the Chinese Dramatists' Association, suggesting that Shakespeare would have been greatly amused by the imaginative representation.

Writings on Silk(Boshu)

From sometime in the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.) and over a long period of time in ancient China, plain silk of various descriptions joined bamboo and wood slips as the material for writing or painting on. Silk had advantages over the slips in that it was much lighter and could be cut in desired shapes and sizes and folded, the better to be kept and carried. But owing to its much greater cost, silk was never so popularly used as the slips.
The most valuable find of ancient silk writings was made in 1973 from an ancient tomb known as the No.3 Han Tomb at Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan Province. It is in the form of 30-odd pieces of silk, bearing more than 120,000 characters. They consist largely of ancient works that had long been lost. For instance, Wuxingzhan describes the orbits of five planets (Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn) and gives the cycles of their alignment, all with a precision far more remarkable than similar works which appeared later. Also found were three maps drawn on silk, showing the topography, the stationing of troops and the cities and towns of certain regions of China. They are the earliest maps in China, and in the world as well, that have been made on the basis of field surveys. Contrary to their modern counterparts, they show south on top and north at the bottom. The topographic map is at a scale of 1 : 180,000, and the troop distribution map at about 1:80,000/100,000. Their historical value may be easily imagined when one remembers that they are at least 2,100 years old.
Silk was considered in old China an exquisite material for writing on; some were pre-marked with lines in vermilion. During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), it was the fashion to weave the lines into plain white silk to be used exclusively for writing.
Many artists of today have carried on the ancient practice of painting and writing on silk.

A Wedding Without Bridegroom

Occasionally the procedure of some of minority nationalities' marriage in Yunnan like this, engaged, married, the bride goes back her mother's home for living, pregnant, birth and bride come back to husband's home, then begin to fall in love and romantic life again. It is quite different from ours. It is happened to meet a wedding of Yi nation without the bridegroom in a county of Yunnan. A bride is sitting on the grassland and a colorful scarf covers the face, many people around her, it seems no any merry atmosphere on the wedding ceremony. The sisters of the bride prepare ready the wine, cooked pig head and eggs, the aunt of the bride takes off the scarf and combs the hair for her under the sun. She looks a little bit of shames on face. The wedding is going on officially. Every three eggs are put in five bowls separately, a half of pig head and a bottle of wine; all of these are set before the bride. An old man, Bimo (a priest with rich traditional cultural knowledge) prays for the happiness for her, then the relatives of the bride, who are the people with the red cloth strips around the heads, enjoy and share the pig head, eggs and wine. They pray the good lucks for bride together while they drink, they will send the bride back home before sunset. It is a greatly question that where is the bridegroom?
In the fact the bride had lived with her lover for a time, called common-law marriage, which had been considered as a very happy marriage by all people in the village, she can be living with her husband after 3 years of at her home. The bridegroom now is drinking at his home and waiting for her bride.

Colours and Clothing

ColoursIn Chinese culture there are three central colours: red, black and white.Red, being the colour of blood, symbolises the positive aspects of life such as happiness, wealth, fame etc. Red is always associated with good luck.
Black, being the colour of faeces is associated with dirt, sin, evil, disasters, sadness, cruelty and suffering among other negative things. Black signifies bad fortune and must not be worn during festivals, wedding celebrations etc. or used in home decoration. Black symbolises a lack of civilisation and backwardness. However, traditions associated with this colour are quickly fading, and among the younger generations black can be frequently seen as a clothing colour.
White symbolises the mother's milk and is intermediate between red and black, balancing the two colours. It signifies moderation, purity, honesty and life, but is also used at funerals as it is believed it can harmonise all elements. It can be used in all rituals and ceremonies as it is essentially neutral. Other colours are classified according to their relative darkness and lightness and associated significance thereof.
ClothingThere are no specific rules in Chinese custom governing dress. Traditional costumes are rarely worn and clothing is usually chosen for comfort or according to the fashion of the day.Bright colours are preferred for clothing in Chinese culture, but the colour of one's clothing is generally suited to the environment: for example manual workers and farmers will often wear dark colours because of the nature of their work. Some conventions are considered with regards to age: the elderly are not encouraged to 'dress young', for example t-shirts and jeans.

Noodles (Miantiao)

Noodles are a form of staple food very popular among the Chinese. They can be made either by hand or by machine and, by the way they are made, are divided into "cut noodles" or "dried noodles." Made in whatever way, they may be of different widths, varying from ribbons to threads. As a prepared dish, they can be served warm or cold, dressed with chilli oil or not, eaten with fried bean sauce, port or chicken sauce, duck chops, soup of any concoction and what not.
There is also a variety of "instant noodles", which are precooked, dried and commercially packed. Before eating, all one has to do is to soak them in hot, boiled water for a few minutes. They are very handy for a quick lunch in the office or on a journey.
As noodles are always in the form of long strings, they are symbolic of longevity and are therefore indispensable at Chinese birthday parties.
Two types of noodles stand out among the rest and require professional skill. The "hand-pulled noodles" are probably unique to China and can be made only by a trained cook. He prepares the paste by stretching it in his hands and, holding it stretched and shaking it gently up and down four or five times, lets down the middle of the long paste and swings it in such a way that it twists around itself. He repeats the stretching, shaking and twisting many times until he feels the paste is firm enough. Then, on a work board he starts pulling the paste with his arms stretched. He folds the thick string of paste into two, pulling again. This he repeats many times over and the strings of paste become longer, more numerous, thinner and thinner, turning finally into very fine noodles. The whole process of making "hand-pulled noodles" is done with such magical dexterity that to watch an experienced cook at it is like enjoying a juggler's show.
Another speciality that one cannot make at is longxu mian (dragon beard noodles). Commercially they are available fried, so they are golden in colour, crisp to the bite and with a distinctive flavour. "Dragon beards" are also hand-pulled but are made extraordinarily fine. It has been calculated that a piece a paste prepared with 1.5 kilograms of wheat flour can make 144,000 hair-thin noodles, each 0.17 metres long, which means a total length of 2 kilometres.
At the beginning "dragon beards" were simply called "beards," but since they caught the fancy of an emperor and as the dragon was the symbol of all emperors, they have come to be known as "dragon beards."

Beijing's Hutong

A hutong is an ancient city alley or lane typical in Beijing, where hutongs run into the several thousand. Surrounding the Forbidden City, many were built during the Yuan (1206-1341), Ming(1368-1628) and Qing(1644-1908) dynasties. In the prime of these dynasties the emperors, in order to establish supreme power for themselves, planned the city and arranged the residential areas according to the etiquette systems of the Zhou Dynasty. The center of the city of Beijing was the royal palace -- the Forbidden City.
One kind of hutongs, usually referred to as the regular hutong, was near the palace to the east and west and arranged in orderly fashion along the streets. Most of the residents of these hutongs were imperial kinsmen and aristocrats. Another kind, the simple and crude hutong, was mostly located far to the north and south of the palace. The residents were merchants and other ordinary people.
The main buildings in the hutong were almost all quadrangles--a building complex formed by four houses around a quadrangular courtyard . The quadrangles varied in size and design according to the social status of the residents. The big quadrangles of high- ranking officials and wealthy merchants were specially built with roof beams and pillars all beautifully carved and painted, each with a front yard and back yard. However, the ordinary people's quadrangles were simply built with small gates and low houses. hutongs, in fact, are passageways formed by many closely arranged quadrangles of different sizes. The specially built quadrangles all face the south for better lighting; as a result, a lot of hutongs run from east to west. Between the big hutongs many small ones went north and south for convenient passage.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty unified and closed China came under influence from abroad, having experienced change of dynasties and the vicissitudes of life. The stereotyped arrangement of the hutong was also affected. Many newly formed hutongs with irregular houses appeared outside the city, while many old ones lost their former neat arrangement. The social status of the residents also changed, reflecting the collapse of the feudal system. During the period of the Republic of China (1911-1948), Chinese society was unstable, with frequent civil wars and repeated foreign invasions.
The city of Beijing deteriorated, and the conditions of the hutong worsened. Quadrangles previously owned by one family became a compound occupied by many households.
After the founding of the people's Republic of China in 1949, hutong conditions improved. In recent years, the houses in many hutongs have been pulled down and replaced by modern buildings. Many hutong dwellers have moved to new housing.
The hutong today is fading into the shade for both tourists and inhabitants.
However, in the urban district of Beijing houses along hutongs still occupy one third of the total area, providing housing for half the population, so many hutongs have survived. In this respect, we see the old in the new in Beijing as an ancient yet modern city.