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CULTURES - CHINESE
Background
The first census of China since the communist takeover was compiled
in 1953, in an effort to assess the human resources available for
the first five years plan. At the time, the population was to be
found 582,600. A second census, taken in 1964, showed an increase
to 696,500,000; the third, in 1982, revealed a population of 1,008,180,00
making China the first nation ever to pass the billion mark. China's
population currently is over 1.3 billion, more than 20% of the world's
population.
Immigration
Chinese immigration began in California in the middle of the 1800s
when young married men travelled across the Pacific in search of
gold. These men left their families behind with the intention of
returning to China to reunite with their families once they had
made their fortune. While migrants began working in California around
1850, in that year the state legislature passed a foreign miner's
tax which forced foreigners to pay a disproportionate amount of
money in state taxes. In spite of the tax imposed, between 1850
and 1860, the number of Chinese immigrants jumped from 450 to 34,933.
In 1868, the United States and China signed the Burlingame Treaty
which gave Chinese people the right to travel and live in the United
States and established trade relations between the two countries.
With the rise of Chinese immigration in the following years, anti-Chinese
hostility began to grow and riots and violence ensued. There was
even federal legislation passed in 1882 called the Chinese Exclusion
Act which halted Chinese immigration for ten years.
Education
Under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), education became a national
priority and a function of the state. The CCP instituted universal
public education, though the program's effectiveness ceased with
the launching of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s.
The traditional Chinese
school is typically staffed by men who have received a classical
Confucian education and had taken the civil service examinations,
but either failed or have passed but not taken up a government appointment,
to which they are entitled. Children at the age of four should be
practicing tracing and writing simple characters. At the age of
eight, children begin school with primers that often imparted core
Confucian doctrine in jingle form for easy memorization. At the
age of fifteen students should have moved on to more advance studies,
which would consist of memorizing texts from the Confucian canon
and learning composition.
Language
Chinese characters are extremely difficult and thus learning the
written language and producing it is tedious. Though this form of
writing is fascinating, beautiful, logical, and one of the most
scientifically constructed writing systems in the world, but until
1949, only 20% of the population was literate. The CCP pushed for
literacy and by 2003, the national literacy rate had reached 86%,
though a disparity still exists between the male literacy rate (93%)
and female literacy (79%).
The earliest known examples
of Chinese writing were found on carved tortoise shells and ox bones.
The majority of these characters are pictographs. Chinese is the
only major writing system of the world that has continued with its
pictographs-based development. Chinese characters are classified
into six different methods of character composition and use. These
six categories are called the Liu Shu. The Liu Shu categories are:
pictographs (hsiang hsing); ideographs (chi shih); compound ideographs
(hui I); compounds with both phonetic and meaning elements (hsing
sherg); characters which are assigned a new written form to better
reflect a changed pronunciation (chuanchu); and characters used
to represent a homophone or near homophone that are unrelated in
meaning to the new world they represent (chiachieh).
While the Chinese writing
system has been nationalized and has been in use for over 3,000
years, tremendous variation exists with regard to Chinese spoken
language. Mandarin is the major dialect of China and is recognized
as the typical language of China since the PRC established it as
the national language in 1955. However, there are six other major
dialect groups in China aside from Mandarin including the Wu, Xiang,
Kan, Hakka, Min, and Yue. Most recent immigrants to the United States
though are at least familiar with Mandarin to some extent.
Religion
Most Chinese did not consider themselves as "Daoist,"
"Buddhist," or "Confucian,"- each of these terms
designate a trained specialist, such as a priest, a monk, or a bureaucrat
who had passed the imperial examinations. A person who is engaged
in a composite religion is simply said to be, " worshipping
the gods" or practicing the "religion of the gods."
This popular religion is referred to loosely as "Daoism,"
but in fact it is reflective of the general concerns and ethical
teachings of Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. The popular pantheon
embraces figures and deities from all three traditions.
Ethnic Groups
In China’s population, 92% of the people are considered ethnic
Hans, a reference to the great unity achieved during the Han dynasty
of 206 BC to 220 AD. During this period, the people who lived in
the north, central, and southern plains and basins of China united
under the same written language and around the teachings of Confucius.
Some of the minority nationalities, such as the Tibetans and Uighurs,
can be readily defined by the virtue of their distinct homeland,
culture and language. Other groups consist of Chinese Muslims (Hui)
and Machus.
Resources
Banks, J.A. (1984). Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies (3rd
edition). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.
"China," Microsoft®
Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2004. Retrieved March 7, 2004 from
http://encarta.msn.com.
Park, C. C., & Chi, M. M. (1999). Asian-American Education:
Prospects and Challenges. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
Shaughnessy, E. L. (2000).
China: Empire and Civilization. Oxford City: Oxford Press.
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