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Foot Binding
Foot binding (), or footbinding, was the Chinese custom of breaking and tightly binding the feet of young girls to change their shape and size. Feet altered by foot binding were known as lotus feet and the shoes made for them were known as lotus shoes. In late imperial China, bound feet were considered a status symbol and a mark of feminine beauty. However, foot binding was a painful practice that limited the mobility of women and resulted in lifelong disabilities. The prevalence and practice of foot binding varied over time and by region and social class. The practice may have originated among court dancers during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period in 10th-century China and gradually became popular among the elite during the Song dynasty, later spreading to lower social classes by the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Manchu emperors attempted to ban the practice in the 17th century but failed. In some areas, foot binding raised marriage prospects. It has been estimated that b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lai Afong
Lai Afong or Lai Fong (; c. 1838 or 1839 – 1890) was a Chinese photographer who established Afong Studio, considered to be the most successful photographic studio in the late Qing dynasty. He is widely acknowledged as the most significant Chinese photographer of the nineteenth century. Life and work Lai Afong was born in Gaoming, Guangdong and arrived in Hong Kong in the 1850s as a refugee of the Taiping Rebellion. It is not known how he learned the wet-plate collodion process, but, it is said that by as early as 1859 had learned the art of photography. At some point between 1865 and 1867, Lai Afong worked at the Hong Kong studio of Portuguese photographer José Joaquim Alves de Silveira; by 1870, the earliest known announcement of the Afong Studio was printed as an advertisement in the ''Hong Kong Daily Press''. Lai Afong's subject matters ranged from portraits and social life pictures to cityscapes and landscapes. Little is known about his life, although many of his image ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buddhism
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or 5th century Before the Common Era, BCE. It is the Major religious groups, world's fourth-largest religion, with about 500 million followers, known as Buddhists, who comprise four percent of the global population. It arose in the eastern Gangetic plain as a movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia. Buddhism has subsequently played a major role in Asian culture and spirituality, eventually spreading to Western world, the West in the 20th century. According to tradition, the Buddha instructed his followers in a path of bhavana, development which leads to Enlightenment in Buddhism, awakening and moksha, full liberation from ''Duḥkha, dukkha'' (). He regarded this path as a Middle Way between extremes su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manchu People
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636), Later Jin (1616–1636) and Qing dynasty, Qing (1636–1912) dynasties of China were established and ruled by the Manchus, who are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in northern China. Manchus form the largest branch of the Tungusic peoples and are distributed throughout China, forming the fourth largest ethnic group in the country. They are found in 31 Chinese provincial regions. Among them, Liaoning has the largest population and Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia and Beijing have over 100,000 Manchu residents. About half of the population live in Liaoning and one-fifth in Hebei. There are a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Chinese Dance
Dance in China has a long recorded history. Depictions of dancing in China appeared over 4,000 years ago. The early dances may be folk dances or ritual dances, some of which developed into court dances. The most important of the early dances served important ritual and ceremonial roles and are known as ''yayue'' which continued to be performed at the imperial court until the Qing dynasty. A profusion of dances in popular and court entertainment as well as folk dances have been recorded in ancient texts. The art of dance in China reached a peak during the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) when numerous dances were recorded. Dancing as an individual art form declined in the later eras when dances become incorporated into operas and female dancing also declined when footbinding became more prevalent. In more recent times dance has enjoyed a resurgence, and it is widely performed by the public and professionals alike. There are continuous written records of Chinese dances for over two thou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ming Dynasty
The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump state, rump regimes ruled by remnants of the House of Zhu, Ming imperial family, collectively called the Southern Ming, survived until 1662. The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor (1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the naval history of China, navy's dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marco Polo
Marco Polo (; ; ; 8 January 1324) was a Republic of Venice, Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known as ''Book of the Marvels of the World '' and ''Il Milione'', ), a book that described the then-mysterious culture and inner workings of the Eastern world, including the wealth and great size of the Mongol Empire and China under the Yuan dynasty, giving Europeans their first comprehensive look into China, Persia, India, Japan, and other Asian societies. Born in Venice, Marco learned the mercantile trade from his father and his uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, Niccolò and Maffeo, who travelled through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, exploring many places along the Silk Road until they reached "Cathay". They were received by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta (; 24 February 13041368/1369), was a Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar. Over a period of 30 years from 1325 to 1354, he visited much of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, Ibn Battuta dictated an account of his journeys, titled '' A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling'', commonly known as ''The Rihla''. Ibn Battuta travelled more than any other explorer in pre-modern history, totalling around , surpassing Zheng He with about and Marco Polo with . Name "Ibn Battuta" is a patronymic, literally meaning 'son of a duckling'. His most common full name is given as Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta. In his travelogue, '' The Rihla'', he gives his full name as " Shams al-Din Abu ’Abdallah Muhammad ibn ’Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf Lawati al- Tanji ibn Battuta". Early life All that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from the au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Odoric Of Pordenone
Odoric of Pordenone (c. 1280–14 January 1331) was a Franciscan friar and missionary explorer from Friuli in northeast Italy. He journeyed through India, Sumatra, Java, and China, where he spent three years in the imperial capital of Khanbaliq (now Beijing). After more than ten years of travel, he returned home and dictated a narrative of his experiences and observations called the ''Relatio'', highlighting various cultural, religious, and social peculiarities he encountered in Asia. His manuscript was copied multiple times and distributed widely across Europe, both in the original Latin and several vernacular translations including Italian, French, and German. The ''Relatio'' was an important contribution to Europe's growing awareness of the Far East. Odoric's account was a primary source for the account of '' Mandeville's Travels''. Many of the incredible reports about Asia in Mandeville have proven to be versions of Odoric's eyewitness descriptions. After his death, Odoric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Division of the Mongol Empire, its division. It was established by Kublai (Emperor Shizu or Setsen Khan), the fifth khagan-emperor of the Mongol Empire from the Borjigin clan, and lasted from 1271 to 1368. In Chinese history, the Yuan dynasty followed the Song dynasty and preceded the Ming dynasty. Although Genghis Khan's enthronement as Khagan in 1206 was described in Chinese language, Chinese as the Han Chinese, Han-style title of Emperor of China, Emperor and the Mongol Empire had ruled territories including modern-day northern China for decades, it was not until 1271 that Kublai Khan officially proclaimed the dynasty in the traditional Han style, and the conquest was not complete until 1279 when the Southern Song dynasty was defeated in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bundesarchiv Bild 116-127-075, China, Tsingtau-Chinesin
The German Federal Archives or Bundesarchiv (BArch) (, lit. "Federal Archive") are the national archives of Germany. They were established at the current location in Koblenz in 1952. They are subordinated to the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media ( Claudia Roth since 2021) under the German Chancellery, and before 1998, to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. On 6 December 2008, the Archives donated 100,000 photos to the public, by making them accessible via Wikimedia Commons. History The federal archive for institutions and authorities in Germany, the first precursor to the present-day Federal Archives, was established in Potsdam, Brandenburg in 1919, a later date than in other European countries. This national archive documented German government dating from the founding of the North German Confederation in 1867. It also included material from the older German Confederation and the Imperial Chamber Court. The oldest documents in this collection dated back to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
