Roast Duck(Kaoya)

The Beijing roast duck is a dish well-known among gastronomes the world over.
To cook ducks by direct heat dates back at least 1,500 years to the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, when "broiled duck" was mentioned in writing. About eight hundred years later, Husihui, imperial dietician to a Mongol emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, listed in his work Essentials of Diet (1330 A. D.) the "grilled duck" as a banquet delicacy. It was made by heating the duck-stuffed with a mince of sheep's tripe, parsley, scallion, and salt-on a charcoal fire.
Today the Beijing roast duck (or "Peking duck", as it has been called) is made of a special variety of duck fattened by forced feeding in the suburbs of Beijing. After the duck is drawn and cleaned, air is pumped under the skin to separate it more or less from the flesh. And a mixture of oil, sauce and molasses is coated all over it. Thus, when dried and roasted, the duck will look brilliantly red as if painted. Perhaps that is why it is known among some Westerners as the canard laqué or "lacquered duck."
Before being put in the oven, the inside of the fowl is half filled with hot water, which is not released until the duck has been cooked. For oven fuel, jujube-tree, peach or pear wood is used because these types of firewood emit little smoke and give steady and controllable flames with a faint and pleasant aroma. In the oven, each duck takes about fourty minutes to cook, and the skin becomes crisp while the meat is tender.
In the restaurant, the roast duck, after being shown whole to the customers, is served in slices, which are eaten rolled in thin pancakes with a dish of tianmianjiang (a sweet sauce made of fermented flour) and scallion (or cucumber) cut in thin lengths. Few people, if any, could resist the temptation of the crisp and delicious taste of the Beijing roast duck.
Before the duck appears, however, various warm or cold dishes are often served, made of kidneys, hearts, livers, webs, wings and eggs, all from the duck. Even duck tongues can beprepared into very tasty dishes, and the skeleton of the eaten duck normally goes into a soup which finds few equals. A highly experienced chef of a duck restaurant can produce an "all-duck banquet" of over eighty dishes made of different parts of the fowl.

Screen Wall

Foreign visitors may have noticed the isolated wall either outside or just inside the gate of a traditional Chinese house to shield the rooms from outsiders' view. Known as a "screen wall" in English, it is called yingbi or zhaobi in Chinese. It can be made of any material-brick, wood, stone or glazed tile.
The yingbi dates back at least to the Western Zhou Dynasty (11 century B. C. to 771 B.C.). Archaeologists have discovered in recent years from tombs of that period in Shaanxi. Province what remains of a screen wall. It measures 240 cm long and 20 cm high. This is the earliest known wall of its kind in China at the time of writing.
In ancient times, the yingbi was a symbol of rank. According to the Western Zhou system of rites, only royal palaces, noblemen's mansions and religious temples could have a screen wall. Apart from keeping passers-by from peeping into the courtyard, the screen wall could also be used by the visitor, who would get off from his carriage and, standing behind the wall, tidy up his dress before going in. It was not until much later that private houses (mainly the quadrangles of bungalows in the northern parts of the country) began to have screen walls.
The most exquisite of all ancient screen walls are three"nine-dragon walls" built of glazed colour tiles. The largest of these, 45.5m X 8m X 2.02m, is now in the city of Datong, Shanxi Province. It originally stood in front of the princely mansion of the thirteenth son of Zhu Yuanzhang, first emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Sculpted on it in seven different colours are nine dragons flying in clouds. The most splendid of the three is the one which belonged to a palace of the Ming Dynasty and now stands north of the lake in Beijing's Beihai Park. It is a mosaic of glazed colour tiles showing on each side nine curly dragons in relief. An observant visitor could also count 635 dragons of smaller sizes on the ridges and roof tiles of the wall. The third of these walls stands opposite the gate Huangjimen in the Forbidden City and is well-known to sightseers. All the three mentioned above were built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and all used to stand in front of the entrance to a courtyard, making a component part of the architectural complex and adding to the magnificence of the buildings.
Besides these, there are also screen walls with one, three or five dragons to be seen in different parts of the country.
There is a screen wall in each of the side palace courtyards of the Forbidden City. Whether made of wood, carved out of marble or built with glazed tiles, it is invariably a fine piece of work with designs symbolic of good luck.
Certain screen walls found in the eastern provinces of China bear the image of a strange animal called tan, either carved in brick or painted in colour. According to local belief, this animal was so greedy that it wanted to devour the rising sun on the sea, meeting its own death by drowning. The picture serves as a reminder that greed leads to self-destruction.
In the vicinity of theFive Dragon Pavilions (Wulongting) in the Beihai Park of Beijing, there is a so-called "iron screen wall," a relic from the Yuan Dynasty of the thirteenth century. At first glance, it appears to have been cast of iron but actually it is a piece of volcanic rock. Carved on it in vivid style are, on one side, lions playing with a ball and, on the other, a legendary unicorn; it is noted for its antiquity and simplicity of execution.

China takes 2-0 lead over Germany in Fed Cup play-off

China's Zheng Jie returns the ball to Germany's Kathrin Woerle in the first day competition of the Fed Cup. Zheng Jie won 2-0. China's Li Na and Zheng Jie helped China take a 2-0 lead over Germany in the Fed Cup tennis play-off for World Group in Beijing, capital of China, July 15, 2006。
China's Zheng Jie returns the ball to Germany's Kathrin Woerle in the first day competition of the Fed Cup. Zheng Jie won 2-0. China's Li Na and Zheng Jie helped China take a 2-0 lead over Germany in the Fed Cup tennis play-off for World Group in Beijing, capital of China, July 15, 2006.

Exorcising Ghosts Opera

had heard a long time ago that Guizhou was the only place where an ancient opera of primitive culture, the exorcising ghosts opera (nuoxi), was still played. On my trip to Guizhou this time, I happened to see a few shows.
The performers were all farmers. The accompanying musical instruments included gongs, drums, and cymbals. With simple costumes and masks, they danced to the importance. Although this opera died out long ago in its birthplace, it still lives on in a border province hundreds of miles away.
The exorcising ghosts opera originated from a sacrificial ceremony for driving away evil and pestilence in ancient times. The unearthed objects from the Yin ruins in Henan Province showed the mask worn by the official of the exorcising ceremony. It province that this kind of ceremony was found in the Rites of Zhou, a book recording the system of the court of the Zhou Dynasty (c, 11th century-221B.C.). It reads, "With eyes shining like gold, bear paws over his palms and a red coat over his shoulders, a masked man waved a spear and a shield and led a hundred slaves to exorcise the pestilence...."
By the Han (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) and Tang (618-907) dynasties, the scale of the court exorcising ceremony grew even larger. "Masked Dance" and "Dance of Twelve Gods" appeared in the Han Dynasty. Folk exorcising dances became popular and more entertaining, with stories added to the rituals of offering sacrifices to the gods and exorcising ghosts.
During the Song Dynasty (960-1297), the plot of the story became more complicated and complete, and its masks more varied. Gradually, the ceremony developed into an opera.
By the 13th to 14th centuries, zaju, poetic dramas set to music, flourished in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Instead of wearing masks, performers painted their faces with colourful paint and the exorcising opera was also replaced by different local operas. By the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the exorcising ghosts opera was introduced to China's southwest area by war refugees from the Central Plains. Later in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), soldiers stationed in the Guizhou border area also brought the opera there from the interior.
Now, the exorcising opera and many of its offshoots are still popular in Guizhou.
However, the exorcising opera and sacrificial rite dance popular among the ethnic groups such as the Yi and Bouyei still remain at their early stage, similar to the sacrificial northeast Guizhou has reached the zenith of its development.
This opera is characterized by various masks made by local artists. In Guizhou, there are almost a thousand exorcising opera troupes and each one has some masks handed down from previous generations.
Looking at the masks, I could not but admire the ingenuity of those who carved them. By the hands of a skilled artisan, a piece of lifeless wood was transformed into an image full of artistic power. Ghost or human, every one of them looks unique and vivid. Further-more, the performers' exaggerated gestures and humorous lines also add dramatic effect to the masks. Though already different from their original form, these bold and vivid masks still capture attention with their artistic beauty.

Cuju, ancient predecessor of soccer ready to be China's nonmaterial heritage

Cuju, the ancient form of modern soccer game has been anticipating a recognition as China's nonmaterial heritage, which would enable the endangered game under the national protection, local officials said Friday.
Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA acknowledged in 2004 that Cuju is the true origin of the sport. And Peter Velappan, General Secretary of the Asia Football Confederation declared in the same year that football originates from the Linzi district of China's Shandong Province.
According to historical records, Cuju was an very popular game in China's Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC - 476 BC) in Linzi, the capital of the Qi State (479 AD-502 AD) and one of the largest cities in the world at that time.
But officials with the Linzi government said that the game was hard to be revitalized as it had been losing popularity during the reign by minorities in Yuan (1279-1368) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911), whose lifestyles were totally different from those of the game inventor, Han nationality. And some master-hands who knew how to play the game died without passing the skills on to next generations.
Earlier this year, the Chineses Ministry of Culture launched the program of nonmaterial heritage aiming at collecting and protecting some fork arts ever prosperous among the people from extinction, including drama, sports and distinct customs.
According to Linzi government, once the game were listed among the national nonmaterial heritages, they could get a fixed amount of fund every year from the Ministry of Culture to protect the game.
Linzi District said in the application that they planned to build a cuju school to train professional players and were ready to do further studies on the game's history and rules, which required the country's support for financial reasons.
Before the program, Linzi District had set up an office of soccer industry development under local government and formed China's first Cuju team, spending a total investment of over two million Yuan (about 250,000 US dollars) in order to revive the game.
Some historians even suggested that Cuju be China's fifth great invention, along with the compass, gunpowder, paper-making and printing, as the game was also exported to ancient Egypt, then Greece, Rome and the rest of the world.

Chinese Furniture

Chinese traditional furniture has a strong aesthetic appeal due to its apparently simple lines and the fact that it makes use of "natural materials" such as the finest hardwoods-no fusty stuffed couches here. Ready comparisons can be made to Danish furniture, with its sparse lines.
With Chinese furniture, you see what you get. Nothing is hidden, and the wood is polished, stained or lacquered to evoke its natural earthiness and grainy patterns.
Despite the appeal of this simplicity, scholars of Chinese taste inform us that in many cases, those minimalist chairs and side tables were draped in sumptuous brocades and embroideries, as their Chinese ownerS in dayS of yore had a strong distaste for whatever was plain and simple. And thus to some degree, modern connoisseurs have mistakenly assumed that they are the inheritors of the refined taste of the classical Chinese scholar.
Chinese furniture uses a number of types of wood that are only known by their is that some types of wood have several Chinese names, and the same Chinese name can be applied to several types of wood.
The two most valued types of wood are huali and zitan. The former is a tropical hardwood that grows in China, and has a wide range of colors. In its lighter variations, it is called huang (yellow) huali, and in its darker manifestations, lao (old) huali.
Zitan, with its purplish brown color, can be considered the most precious type of timber, and its expense and rarity are related to the fact that it was imported. More common timber types are oak, elm, maple, chestnut, poplar, birch, hongmu and nanmu.
No one knows why the Chinese gave up their habit of sitting on mats and begin sitting on chairs around the year 1000, during the Song dynasty. But early literary evidence suggests that the chair and the bed were clearly recognized as foreign inventions. Archaeological excavations have produced many examples of woodenfurniture from the Song (960-1279), but the real heyday of furniture making, and the period that provides us with most of the examples found in museums and private collections today, is the 16th to 19th century, from the late Ming to the late Qing dynasty.
The fact that most early chairs come in sets of two suggests that Chinese furniture was customarily arranged symmetrically in rooms, but there is little evidence to back this up. Here again, the Western mind seems to want to impose order where no order was originally intended.
Curios markets in Beijing and Shanghai offer rich pickings in Chinese furniture.
The price of Chinese furniture has rocketed in the past few years, most markedly in 1985-6. The market has settled somewhat since then, but prices remain high and fine pieces are naturally harder to find than before. Yet as it is true with any category of fine goods, "what is cheap is not cheap, and what is expensive is not expensive."
To become acquainted with Chinese furniture, one could start by collecting boxes in a variety of types of wood, and move on to bigger pieces. Or if you want to enter the world of Chinese furniture in style, acquire a walk-in bed and sleep in your collection.