Comparison between North and South China - Essay Example

? Comparison between North and South China Though geographically and politically seen to be one country, China is subdivided into two main regions, namely northern China and southern China. The two regions have a several considerable differences. This paper seeks to establish the differences between the two main regions of China in terms of religion, arts, language, and technology. Comparison between North China and South China Introduction The concepts of northern China and southern China originated in 1142 and are purely centered on the dissimilarities between the two sections in terms of culture, climate, physical traits, and geography. Although the two regions have never been precisely defined by a boundary, the main geographical division between the two regions of southern and northern China is the Huai River – Qinling Mountains line. The Chinese people’s self-perception and stereotyping is dominated by the concept of northern and southern China (Wright, 2011). Important ecological and climatic differences between southern and northern China are also demarcated by the Qinling range. Southern China received more rainfalls than northern China, and with the introduction of the seeds and technology necessary for wet rice cultivation into southern China in A.D. 200, there was a population explosion because of the increased food production in the South. The South had very large rice harvests, which were able to sustain a much larger population than northern agriculture ever could. This was responsible for causing the population of southern China to grow both through a net migration into the region and by natural increase. As a result of this, by around A.D. 1100, the south was the home to the majority of China’s population, a situation which is currently prevalent (Wright, 2011). Although northern China has a smaller population in comparison to southern China, it is vital to remember the fact that the north and not the south was the cradle of the Chinese civilization (Wright, 2011). Large parts of the people of China are of the Han decent. The Han identify themselves with China’s dominant national culture in addition to having a huge sense of tradition and history that can be traced back to more than a thousand years and encompasses many scientific, artistic, and cultural accomplishments. Some of China’s minority groups like the Manchu have almost been totally assimilated, although they still maintain their own religion and languages. When the Mao who led the communist government took over in 1949, the new government quickly set out to try and establish and form a sense of national uniqueness that was based purely on the common ideals of hard work and equality. Minority groups like the Mongolians, Kazakhs, Zhuangs, and Tibetans have not been totally assimilated and they still try and maintain their cultural, historical, and linguistic distinctness (Barabantseva, 2011). Currently, the Chinese government officially recognizes about fifty five minority groups spread out all over the country, each having its own distinct culture and set of traditions. Most of the minority ethnic groups in the country are found to live in the outer China region. This is because the Hans have consistently and persistently been forcing them over the centuries into those generally harsh and less desirable lands. The Hans also seem to consider these other minority groups as greatly inferior to them, if not totally not sub-human, and have been using the Chinese character for “dog” to refer to them until very recently. As a result of this, the minority groups are found to harbor a great deal of resentment for the Hans, with some of them, like the Xianjiang and Tibet, repeatedly attempting to secede and separate themselves from the main Chinese republic (Barabantseva, 2011). Religious Comparison between North China and South China Modern day religious differences between north and south China are not very vast. In describing religion in China, basically two sorts of religiosity can be mentioned that are of importance: ethnic religiosity and local religiosity. Local religiosity can be demonstrated by the high visibility of regional variations of the various different religions all over China. This is seen in southern china’s high levels of religiosity where main religious beliefs are considered to be mostly Buddhism and popular religion (Xie, 2006). The other particularly strong aspect of religiosity in China is seen to exist in regions occupied by some of the ethnic national minorities. In most cases, the entire population of each Chinese ethnic minority can usually be identified with one religion. A good example of this is that almost all of the Northern China’s Tibetans are normally Buddhists, while most of the Southern China’s Huis are Muslims. Each community’s particular religious belief is a powerful sanction to the community’s social structure. Each religion’s doctrines, commandments, and creeds are essential in forming norms undergirding the social life (Xie, 2006). Because of China’s large population, statistics on the exact number of religious followers in both the north and the south of the country are difficult to give, and the government does not include unregistered religious groupings in its statistics. The total number of religious followers in China is estimated to be at around 200 million people (Xie, 2006). Both the northern and southern regions of China are seen to practice a mixture of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. This practice is commonly referred to as syncretism and is the most common religion practiced by China’s religious believers. This practice of mixing religions derives its longevity rules form Taoism, its meditation practices are obtained from Buddhism, and Confucianism lends it its ethical standards. As a result of this, the most distinguishing aspect of Chinese religion is its emphasis on “unity” or “harmony” of these three main traditions of belief (Xie, 2006). There has also been a major increase in the emergence of some new religious sects in both the north and south Chinese society. Most of these sects have appeared as a result of their members ardently refusing to participate in the officially recognized religious organizations in China. It can be safely assumed that the future of both northern and southern Chinese religious activity will most probably be prominently shaped by a constant transformation discerned by syncretism. It will most probably be based on multiform and pluralism (Xie, 2006). Comparison between Arts in North China and Arts in South China Just like its history, Chinese art is generally classified by the successions of ruling Chinese dynasties and the emperors who defined them. During the second half of the sixth century, China, which had for a long time been divided into north and south, was further subdivided into two more regions, namely the northeastern region and the northwestern region. The two regions were ruled by two dissimilar offshoots of the North Wei Empire, which was once very powerful. Later on in history, the reunification of all of China under the Tang and Sui dynasties served to initiate a period of far reaching influence, better trade relations, and increased prosperity (Sullivan, 1986). The capital of Chang’an was hailed as one of the richest and largest cities in the entire world. Both literature and art flourished, and they reflected vast influences from the various cultures with which China was keenly maintaining cordial trade and diplomatic relations. In addition to both calligraphy and painting, the Tang dynasty is noted for its beautiful metal work, ceramics and Buddhist sculptures. It produced both white-bodied vessels and brightly glazed tomb figures. With the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907, China returned to being ruled by competing kingdoms and dynasties that divided the kingdom back into north and south China (Sullivan, 1986). Chinese calligraphy painting was regarded in both north and south China to be both the purest and highest form of painting. The artists used implements that were made of animal hair, animal glue, and pine soot. Both their paintings and writings were mostly done on silk (Sullivan, 1986). Apart from calligraphy, various other forms of art, such as painting, evolved in both north and south China, with each dynasty preferring different forms of paintings most of which had landscape as their main subject matter. Art was also practiced in the form of architecture, pottery, paper cuts, which were first seen around the first century AD, jade culture, and bronze casting which was used in making sculptures and various images. Modern day art in north China is depicted by displays in Beijing 798 Art Zone. The name of the art zone was derived from the name of the 798 factory that was built back in the 1950’s. The zone covers an area of roughly 0.6 square kilometers and has quickly grown to become the exhibition center of Chinese culture and art. Some of the most popular north China pieces of art are seen in the Buddhist carvings in the Yungang Caves and the Wutai Shan, which is currently one of the most famous Buddhist pilgrimage sites in China (Sullivan, 1986). Language Comparisons between North and South China Spoken Language The Chinese language is characterized by having extremely high levels of internal diversity. Most of the diversities portrayed in the language stem from analytic and tonal differences. The most widely spoken form of Chinese is known as Mandarin. The People’s Republic of China recognizes standard Chinese to be its official language (Lewis, 2009). Both the north and south dynasties such as the Song, Sui, and the Tang used Middle Chinese from the 6th to the 10th century. Most of the inhabitants of the Chinese south-west in Yunnan, north-east in Manchuria and Sichuan are found to use the Mandarin dialect as their main home language. It is found that there is a very high prevalence of the use of the Mandarin through-out the entire northern China, a fact which is largely attributed to the plain-like nature of southern China(Lewis, 2009). Southern China, which is mostly comprised of rivers and mountains, is seen to promote the use of a large linguistic diversity. Up until the mid-20th century, it was found that most of the people living in southern China were only able to use and speak in their own local Chinese dialect. During the reign of the Nanjing Dynasty, which was mostly based in its capital of Nanjing, the use of Nanjing Mandarin was popularized and it grew to become dominant until towards the end of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty tried to establish academies that were to teach Beijing Mandarin, but the move proved to be unpopular with most people who continued to use their own dialects, as Beijing Mandarin was mostly only used by civil servants and government officials (Lewis, 2009). This situation continued unchanged until the mid-20th century when the government introduced into the education system a compulsory system of teaching Mandarin. This move has played a key role in ensuring that almost all the middle aged and young Chinese people are now able to use Mandarin. In Britain-controlled Hong Kong, Cantonese was widely popularized during the colonial period, mainly due to the fact that the area has a migrant populace and native inhabitants among whom there large proportions of native Cantonese speakers (Lewis, 2009). Written Language Chinese has a unified writing system that is similar across most of the major dialects, but its closest equivalent is the Han Chinese, commonly referred to as Hanyu. Most of the characters that are currently used to write in Chinese consist of logographs that mostly convey their semantics graphically as opposed to conveying them phonologically. It is found that most of the modern Chinese speakers prefer to communicate in writing using the standard Chinese language. This modern form of standard Chinese language is majorly modeled after the Beijing popularized Mandarin dialect. Written Chinese mainly employs the use of two main character morphemes, i.e. the wen and the yu (Lewis, 2009). Technological Comparisons between North and South China One of the earliest differences in terms of technology between the north and the south of China can be seen in the fact that the southern people used different technologies to preserve their food against hostile climatic conditions that their areas experienced. The northerners preferred to pickle and dry their food due to the long and cold winter periods that they frequently experienced. They also took to using salt to preserve their food and eating meat, and oily foods to try and store energy in their bodies in the severely cold weather (Fan, 2006) . Although most of the southerners in China did not face winter conditions that were as harsh as those experienced in the north, they still faced a challenge of coldness and dampness of the area and consequent rheumatisms. To counter this, the people took to inventing different spices for their foods (Fan, 2006). Among the earliest Chinese inventions was the use of the Abacus in performing calculations and the use of the shadow clock to tell time. The four main great inventions by the Chinese include the invention of gunpowder, which is still being used in making explosives, the invention of the compass, which greatly helped navigation, the invention of both printing paper and printing technology, which made possible mass reproduction of books and various other documents. Significant advances in medical technology, astronomical technology, and mathematical technology were made equally by both the northern and southern parts of China (Fan, 2006). Among the more significant technological advances made in early china are the development of piston pumps, suspension bridges, the propeller, the wheelbarrow, and the use of natural gas. In their efforts to make gold from mixing various materials and try to create an elixir for life, alchemists in both the north and south of China inadvertently stumbled on technology that enabled them to create new dyes, creams, ointments, and previously undiscovered metal alloys. In spite of all these earlier advances, China still fell behind the west in relation to technological development, and it is argued that this was mostly due to the country’s political system, which at times proved to be detrimental and hostile to any scientific progress (Fan, 2006). Both the northern and southern parts of China independently developed technologies that were suitable for them in terms of aiding them to control the water flowing into their farms by the use of irrigation. It is argued that the single most important technology to be developed and spread from the north to the south of China was the single system of writing technology. The technology replaced all other forms of writing systems (Fan, 2006). The development of technology is currently evenly distributed between north and south China. References Barabantseva, E. (2011). Overseas Chinese ethnic minorities and nationalism: De-centering China. Taylor & Francis. Fan, D. (1996). Chinese studies in the history and philosophy of science and technology. Dordrecht [u.a.]: Kluwer. Lewis, P. (2009). Ethnologue: Languages of the world. (16th ed.). Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Sullivan, M. (1986). The arts of China. Berkeley : University of California Press. Wright, D. (2011).The history of China Santa Barbara. Calif.: Greenwood. Xie, Z. (2006). Religious diversity and public religion in China. Aldershot [u.a.]: Ashgate. Read More