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| Jingju |
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It is suggested you watch "Jingju"--the special Chinese art genre. Many people translate "Jingju" into "Beijing Opera", but actually "Jingju" is different from operas performed in Beijing .
Jingju is a special Chinese art genre, with a history of 200 years. It is regarded as "the quintessence of China ". Jingju has four forms of performance: "Chang, Nian, Zuo, Da". "Chang" is analogous to singing in opera, but the tone-pattern is special; "Nian" is similar to reading in drama, but the pronunciation of some words is far different from that of modern Chinese word; "Zuo" and "Da" resembles dancing, using movements to describe the plot, which is easy for the foreign guests to understand. In a Jingju performance, actors wear costumes manifest enough to show their identity. There are strict rules of the patterns and styles of the costumes and misdressing is by no means allowed; while performing, the actor's face is colored with various standard patterns, suggesting loyalty, duplicity, pulchritude, ugliness, wit or stupidity, etc, of that role. |
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| Siheyuan |
Siheyuan is the traditional residential compound of Beijing. Taking shape in the Liao Dynasty, it matured through the Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties to become the most characteristic residence of Beijing.
The name siheyuan means a courtyard surrounded by houses on all the four sides. Over hundreds of years, the Beijing siheyuan formed a style unique to the capital city in layout, inner structure, furnishing and decoration. |
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| Hutong |
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What are most fascinating about the modernized Beijing are not the skyscrapers or broad streets, but the winding, secluded hutong, where there are beautiful siheyuan.
It is therefore fitting and proper to call the culture of the ancient capital ¡®hutong culture¡¯ or ¡®siheyuan culture¡¯.
Beijing used to comprise tens of thousandsof siheyuan of different sizes orderly arranged in rows. The passages between the rows were hutong.
In the Yuan Dynasty, each hutong was as wide as a large three-courtyard quadrangle. It was later divided into many nameless narrower lanes by houses built in it. Hence the saying that goes, ¡®there are 3,600 hutong with names, while nameless ones are as many as the hairs on a cow¡¯. |
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| Pailou |
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The pailou has a long history, and came in a great variety of forms. Through ages it became a cultural phenomenon unique to China. Researchers found that its first appearance dates far back to the Zhou Dynasty. It was mentioned as hengmen in Book of Songs, which was compiled in the Spring and Autumn Period. The poem in which the word occurs was written between the early Zhou Dynasty to the middle of that period. That is to say, hengmen appeared no later than the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period. Composed of two columns and one horizontal beam, it was a primitive form of paifang. In an architectural complex, a pailou, though serving but for decoration, signifies the identity of the complex or a street, like the cover of a book or the face of a man. The pailou is a cultural symbol of Chinese architecture.
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| Folk Woodblock Picture |
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It is a kind of picture enjoying popularity among the people with a large variety. A few of them are singled out for appreciation, but most of them are used for different worldly life and protocols, such as the portrait of the Gate God, the portrait of gods, illustration, pictures for packaging and decorating, window flowers, lamp pictures, kites, paper cards, colourful squares, flags, embroidery patterns. Of these pictures some are printed in a single colour (black), some others are printed in chromatography or by the continuation of colour applying. It is a characteristic way of picture popularization from the invention of China's woodblock printing to the contemporary printing skill. Their authors are professional painter and engravers. Some of them are anonymously created by farmers. |
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