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China is a large cultural region and civilization in East Asia. With over one-fifth of the world's population, the majority of China is governed by a state known as the People's Republic of China, with the exception of the other state known as the Republic of China which currently governs the island of Taiwan. The region has been home to a long-standing civilization comprising successive states and cultures dating back more than 6,000 years.
Aksu Anqing Baoding Baoshan Baotou Beihai Beijing Changchun Changde Changsha Changshu Changzhou Chengde Chengdu Chenzhou Chongqing Dali Dalian Dandong Datong Deqing Dongguan Dongyang Dujiangyan Dunhuang Fenghua Foshan Fuding Fuyang Fuzhou Guangzhou Guilin Guiyang Guizhou Gyalthang Haikou Haining Hangzhou Hanzhong Harbin Hefei Hohhot Huangshan Huizhou Huzhou Jiaxing Jiayuguan Jilin Jinan Jingdezhen Jinhua Jiujiang Jiuzhaigou Juyongguan Karamay Korla Kunming Kunshan Lanzhou Lhasa Lianyungang Lijiang Linyi Lishui Liuzhou Longyan Lujiang Luoyang Lushan Mudanjiang Nanchang Nanchong Nanjing Nanning Nantong Nanyang Ningbo Ningde Panjin Pingyao Puyang Qingdao Qingyuan Qinhuangdao Qionghai Qiqihar Quanzhou Quzhou Ringha Sanya Shanghai Shangyu Shantou Shaoxing Shekou Shenzhen Sheshan Shijiazhuang Suining Suzhou Taian Taicang Taiyuan Taizhou Tianjin Tiantai Tongxiang Urumqi Wanning Weifang Weihai Wenzhou Wuhai Wuhan Wuhu Wuxi Wuyishan Xiamen Xian Xiangfan Xianyang Xichang Xingtai Xining Xinxiang Xishuangbanna Xuzhou Yan An Yancheng Yangjiang Yangzhou Yantai Yichang Yichun Yinchuan Yiwu Yixing Yiyang Yuncheng Zhangjiajie Zhangzhou Zhanjiang Zhaoqing Zhengzhou Zhenjiang Zhongshan Zhoushan Zhuhai Zhuzhou Zunyi
China has one of the world's longest periods of mostly uninterrupted civilization and one of the world's longest continuously used written language systems. The history of China has been largely characterized by repeated divisions and reunifications amid alternating periods of peace and war, and violent imperial dynastic change. The country's territorial extent expanded outwards from a core area in the North China Plain, and varied according to its changing fortunes to include multiple regions of East, Northeast, and Central Asia. (The term "China proper" is used by some historians to describe the territory historically dominated by the majority Han Chinese, as opposed to lands associated later with China).
For centuries, Imperial China was also one of the world's most technologically advanced civilizations, and East Asia's dominant cultural influence, with an impact lasting to the present day. It is home to the Four Greatest Inventions of China — paper, the compass, gunpowder and printing — which eventually spread to the rest of the world.
By the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, China's political, economic, and military influence declined relative to the growing regional power of Imperial Japan and the influence of Western powers. The imperial system in China ended with the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC) under Sun Yat-sen in 1912; however, the next four decades of ROC rule were marred by warlord control, the Second Sino-Japanese War during which the Empire of Japan occupied parts of China, and the Chinese Civil War which pitted Chinese Nationalists against the Communist forces.
After its victory in the Chinese Civil War, the Communist Party of China under Mao Zedong established the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, forcing the Nationalists to retreat and relocate the ROC government to the island of Taiwan, which it had governed since the end of World War II. Since then, the ROC has maintained administrative control over Taiwan, the Pescadores Islands, several islands off the coast of Fujian province including Kinmen and the Matsu Islands, and some islands in the South China Sea.
China is composed of a vast variety of highly different landscapes, with mostly plateaus and mountains in the west, and lower lands on the east. As a result, principal rivers flow from west to east, including the Yangtze (central), the Huang He (central-east), and the Amur (northeast), and sometimes toward the south (including the Pearl River, Mekong River, and Brahmaputra), with most Chinese rivers emptying into the Pacific.
Most of China's arable lands lie along the two major rivers, the Yangtze and the Huang He, and each are the centers around which are founded China's major ancient civilizations.
In the east, along the shores of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea are found extensive and densely populated alluvial plains; the shore of the South China Sea is more mountainous and southern China is dominated by hill country and lower mountain ranges.
To the west, the north has a great alluvial plain, and the south has a vast calcareous tableland traversed by hill ranges of moderate elevation, with the Himalayas, containing the highest point Mount Everest. The northwest also has high plateaus among more arid desert landscapes such as the Takla-Makan and the Gobi Desert, which has been expanding. Due to a prolonged drought and perhaps poor agricultural practices, dust storms have become usual in the spring in China. Dust blows all the way to southern China, Taiwan, and has even been measured on the West Coast of the United States.
During many dynasties, the southwestern border of China has been the high mountains and deep valleys of Yunnan, which separate modern China from Burma, Laos and Vietnam.
The climate of China varies greatly. The northern zone (within which lies Beijing) has a climate with winters of Arctic severity. The central zone (within which Shanghai is situated) has a generally temperate climate. The southern zone (within which lies Guangzhou and other southern provinces) has a generally subtropical climate.
The Paleozoic formations of China, excepting only the upper part of the Carboniferous system, are marine, while the Mesozoic and Tertiary deposits are estuarine and freshwater or else of terrestrial origin. Groups of volcanic cones occur in the Great Plain of north China. In the Liaodong and Shandong Peninsulas, there are basaltic plateaus.
Chinese cuisine originated from the various regions of China and has become widespread in many other parts of the world - from East Asia to North America, Australia, Western Europe and Southern Africa.
Regional cultural differences vary greatly amongst the different regions of China, giving rise to the different styles of food. There are eight main regional cuisines: Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Szechuan, and Zhejiang. There are also featured Buddhist and Muslim sub-cuisines within the greater Chinese cuisine.
Presentation
In most dishes in Chinese cuisine, food is prepared in bite-sized pieces (e.g. vegetable, meat, doufu), ready for direct picking up and eating. Traditionally, Chinese culture considered using knives and forks at the table barbaric due to fact that these implements are regarded as weapons. It was also considered ungracious to have guests work at cutting their own food. Fish are usually cooked and served whole, with diners directly pulling pieces from the fish with chopsticks to eat, unlike in some other cuisines where they are first filleted.
This is because it is desired for fish to be served as fresh as possible, and more importantly, whole fish culturally signifies wholeness of things as it has a proper beginning (head) with an end (tail). It is common in many restaurant settings for the server to use a pair of spoons to divide the fish into servings at the table. Chicken is another meat popular in Chinese meals. While the chicken is cut into pieces, and similar to serving fish every single piece of the chicken is served including gizzards and head in order to signify completeness.
In a Chinese meal, each individual diner is given his or her own bowl of rice while the accompanying dishes are served in communal plates (or bowls) that are shared by everyone sitting at the table. In the Chinese meal, each diner picks food out of the communal plates on a bite-by-bite basis with their chopsticks. This is in contrast to western meals where it is customary to dole out individual servings of the dishes at the beginning of the meal.
Many non-Chinese are uncomfortable with allowing a person's individual utensils (which might have traces of saliva) to touch the communal plates; for this hygienic reason, additional serving spoons or chopsticks may be made available. In areas with increased Western influence, such as Hong Kong, diners are provided individually with a heavy metal spoon for this purpose. The food selected is often eaten together with some rice either in one bite or in alternation.
Vegetarianism in China
Vegetarianism is not uncommon or unusual in China, though, as is the case in the West, it is only practiced by a relatively small proportion of the population. The Chinese vegetarians do not eat a lot of tofu. Most Chinese vegetarians are Buddhists, following the Buddhist teachings about minimizing suffering. Chinese vegetarian dishes often contain large varieties of vegetables (e.g. bok choy, shiitake mushroom, sprouts, corn) and some imitation meat.
Such imitation meat is created mostly with soy protein and/or mianjin (a preparation of wheat gluten better known in the West by the Japanese-derived name seitan) to imitate the texture, taste, and appearance of duck, chicken, or pork. Imitation seafood items, made from other vegetable substances such as konjac, are also available. Chinese Buddhist cuisine has many true vegetarian dishes that contain no meat at all.
Beverages
In traditional Chinese culture, cold beverages are believed to be harmful to digestion of hot food, so items like ice-cold water or soft drinks are traditionally not served at meal-time. Besides soup, if any other beverages are served, they would most likely be hot tea or hot water.
Tea is believed to help in the digestion of greasy foods. Despite this tradition, nowadays beer and soft drinks are popular accompaniment with meals. A popular combo in many small restaurants in parts of China is hot pot served with cold beer, a combination known as cold and bland cup, despite being strongly flavored), which is the very opposite of what traditional wisdom would admonish. Ideas from Chinese herbology, such as the four natures, influence the food combinations favored in traditional Chinese meals.
Contemporary health trends
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates for 2000-2002, 11% of the population of the People's Republic of China was undernourished. The number of undernourished people in the country has fallen from 386.6 million in 1969-1971 to 142.1 million in 2000-2002. The country still receives international food aid, but the World Food Program notes that the country achieved its goal of national agricultural self-sufficiency in the mid 1990s.
The WFP says that hunger is concentrated in rural, resource-poor areas of northern, northwestern, and southwestern China. A typical Chinese peasant before industrialization would have eaten meat rarely and most meals would have consisted of rice accompanied with green vegetables, with protein coming from foods like peanuts. Fats and sugar were luxuries not eaten on a regular basis by most of the population. With increasing wealth, Chinese diets have become richer with more meats, fats, and sugar being consumed.
While economic change has significantly reduced undernourishment, new health problems related to over consumption and poor dietary choices have increased significantly. The incidence of nutrition-related disease and obesity, including obesity (especially among children) has risen dramatically in mainland China over the last 10-15 years. Health advocates put some of the blame on the increased popularity of Western foods, especially fast food, and other culinary products and habits. Many Western, especially American, fast food chains have appeared in China, and are highly successful economically. These include McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).
An extensive epidemiological study called the China Project is being conducted to observe the relationship of disease patterns to diet, particularly the move from the traditional Chinese diet to one which incorporates more rich Western-style foods. Controversially, Professor T. Colin Campbell has implicated the increased consumption of animal protein in particular as having a strong correlation with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and other diseases that, while common in Western countries, were considered rare in China. He suggests that even a small increase in the consumption of animal protein can dramatically raise the risk of the aforementioned diseases.
The culture of China is home to one of the world's oldest and most complex civilizations, China boasts a history rich in over 5,000 years of artistic, philosophical, and political advancement. Though regional differences provide a sense of diversity, commonalities in language and religion connect a culture distinguished by such universally significant contributions such as Confucianism and Taoism. The culture of China is credited with shaping much of Chinese thought, Confucianism was the official philosophy throughout most of Imperial China's history, and mastery of Confucian texts provided the primary criterion for entry into the imperial bureaucracy.
With the rise of Western economic and military power beginning in the mid-19th century, however, non-Chinese systems of social and political organization gained adherents in China. Some of these would-be reformers totally rejected China's cultural legacy, while others sought to combine the strengths of Chinese and Western cultures. In essence, the history of 20th century China is one of experimentation to find a new system of social, political, and economic organization that would allow for the reintegration of the nation in the wake of dynastic collapse.
For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established an autocratic socialist system that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people.
After 1978, his successor DENG Xiaoping and other leaders focused on market-oriented economic development and by 2000 output had quadrupled. For much of the population, living standards have improved dramatically and the room for personal choice has expanded, yet political controls remain tight.
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