Lecture 9&10

Lecture 9 CalligraphyHow do you understand Chinese calligraphy?•Chinese calligraphy is also called the art of lines.•Calligraphy’s purpose is to retain the beauty of nature and illuminate man’s spiritual beauty. It stresses the overall layout and harmony between words and lines.•The Chinese saying “The handwriting reveals the person” (字如其人), is directly related to calligraphy.When did calligraphy originate?•This question probably interests everyone who wishes to study calligraphy. No precise date is given in ancient Chinese history. Legend says that during the reign of the Yellow Emperor a man named Cang Jie invented the Chinese language. Calligraphy came after invention of the language. We may attribute- the invention to 4,600 years ago, but this is only a legendary tale and may not be credible.Chinese Characters 1•Chinese characters have played a significant role in the development of the outstanding culture of the Chinese people. Chinese characters are one kind of the most ancient characters. In the world, there were originally ancient Sumerian闪族人and ancient Egyptian letters. However, the two disappeared successively and only Chinese characters remain extant.Eight Basic Strokes•dot (‵),•dash (–),•perpendicular downstroke (|), downstroke to the left, or left-falling stroke (É), •wavelike stroke, or right-falling stroke (),•hook (),•upstroke to the right (),•bend or twist (¬).“Eight Ways of Writing Chinese Characters”(永字八法)Chinese Characters 2•Chinese characters, based on pictographs and combining shape, sound and meaning, become akind of unique block-shape characters with meanings. Chinese characters originated from drawings.Chinese Radicals•Strokes form Chinese radicals (偏旁)• A radical is the prefix of the word.•Some basic character components are standalone characters (独立成字), lik e “土” and “山”, but most are just parts of them.The most complicated Chinese character ?•The number of strokes within a single Chinese character ranges from a few to more than 30 strokes.Character Formation•As is well-known, written Chinese is not an alphabetic language, but a script of ideograms.Their formation follows three principles:•Hieroglyphics Or The Drawing of Pictographs象形•Associative Compounds会意•Pictophonetics形声Four treasures of the study•Four treasures of the study : brush , ink, paper and ink stone•The best of each of these items is represented by:Hu brush (湖笔), Hui ink stick (徽墨), Xuan paper (宣纸) , Duan ink stone (端砚).•Different Chinese Calligraphy Scripts• 1.Oracle Inscriptions (Jia Gu Wen):• 2. Inscriptions on Bronze Objects金文/钟鼎文• 3. Bamboo and Wood Slips竹简与木简• 4. Inscriptions on Drum-shaped Stone Blocks石鼓文• 5. Inscriptions on Stone Tablets碑文• 6. Writings on Silk帛书Five categories of Chinese scripts•the seal form (zhuan 篆书)•the official form (li 隶书)•the cursive form (cao 草书)•the regular form (kai 楷书)•the running form (xing 行书)•唐张旭《肚痛帖》•"草书"，又称破草、今草，由篆书、八分、章草，沿袭多种古文字变化而成。

草书本于章草，而章草又带有比较浓厚的隶书味道，因其多用于奏章而得名。

章草进一步发展而成为"今草"，即通常人们习称的"一笔书"。

张旭\怀素是最优秀的草书家，书写速度极快，落笔龙飞凤舞，字迹难以辨认，被称为“颠张醉素”.颜真卿（709-785）---楷书唐褚遂良（596-659）《雁塔圣教序》楷书陕西西安慈恩寺大雁塔柳公权（778-865）欧阳询《九成宫醴泉铭》楷书原碑石在陕西麟游九成宫，现在保存在西安碑林The running Form (行书)•The running form is somewhere between the regular and the cursive forms allowing simpler and faster writing.•the running regular form 行楷•the running cursive form 行草天下第三行书：苏轼《黄州寒食诗帖》天下第二行书：颜真卿《祭侄文稿》“天下第一行书”王羲之《兰亭序》"行书"，是介于楷书与草书之间的，运笔自由的一种书体。

行书不同于隶、楷，其流动程度可以由书写者自由运用。

行书表现出浪漫唯美的气息•How to Practice Chinese Calligraphy?•Choosing a good copybook is a good beginning.•Different strokes are the first you should pay attention to.•The regular form is usually taken as the standard form for beginners to practice because it is the basic form for other inscriptions.•Furthermore, in order to develop this skill you must practice regularly and train hard.Lecture 10 SportsSport in ancient times•As an important part of popular culture, sports in China began to take real shape during the Qin,Han and Three Kingdoms periods. Sporting images have been recorded over the Dynasties by sepulchral (坟墓的) mural paintings, stone paintings (岩画), brick paintings (画像砖), pottery figurines (人物像) and poems.equestrian polo 击鞠Cuju 蹴鞠Chuiwan 垂丸•In the Yuan Dynasty, people like playing a game called Chuiwan, which is similar to golf as shown in the mural Hitting Balls.Ethnic Sport•With around 1,000 kinds of Ethnic sports, some of the more well known ones are Mongolian wrestling, horsemanship (马术) and archery; Hui kicking the shuttlecock (毽球) and the tug-of-war (拔河); Tibetan yak (牦牛) racing; Miao swinging and dragon-boat racing; Zhuang throwing of colored silk balls (抛绣球); Korean swinging and see-sawing jumping (跳板);Manchu skating; Dong walking on stilts (踩高跷); Yao whipping tops (打陀螺).What’s WUSHU called in the West?•Wushu, Chinese martial arts, known in the West as Kungfu, is a traditional folk sportcharacterized by various bare hands and armed combat techniques.The History of Wushu•In the Han Dynasty(206B.C-220A.D), wushu became quite popular.Tang Dynasty•During the Tang Dynasty, both military men and scholars were required to practice wushu.The boxing style of Shaolin Temple became very popular.Ming and Qing Dynasties•The Ming Dynasty saw the all-round development of Chinese martial arts. Qi Jiguang wrote two better-known books: New Martial Arts and Military Training Record.•In order to keep its ruling position, the government of the Qing Dynasty once restricted wushu practice, but that could not prevent wushu from spreading among the people.Types of Wushu•Bare-handed boxing•The wielding of weapons•Combat•Collective performancesFamous Boxing Styles•Changquan, taijiquan, xingyiquan, nanquan, shaolinquan, tanglangquan, zuiquan…Weapons•Long weapons: spears, broadsword;•Short weapons: short swords, daggers, hooks•Flexible weapons: nine-section cudgels, three-section cudgelsQi Gong•Qigong is believed to have started in the 17th century BC in the age of Lao Zi, the founder of Daoism.•Hua Tuo, a famous physician, created China’s first structured self-strengthening exercise, the Five-Animal Play, incorporating movements that imitated the tiger, deer, bear, ape and bird.Qigong has come to a long way since then.Functions of Qigong• 1. Invigorate and strengthen constitution• 2. Harmonize relationship between man and his environment• 3. A way to keep fit in both mind and bodyTypes of Qigong•The quiescent qigong, by means of concentration of the mind to have the qi move along the jingluo•The dynamic qigong, by means of body movements to achieve a calmness of the mind •The dynamic-quiescent qigongSeven Emotions and Six Weather Factors•Joy, anger, grief, anxiety, sadness, fear and terror•Wind, cold, summer heat, wetness, dryness and fireMajors Schools of Taiji•Chen school, Yang school, Wu school, Wu school, Sun schoolCharacteristics of Taijiquan• A. firmness in gentleness• B. the combination of fastness and slowness• C. continuity of movementNational physical fitnessDragon boat racingDragon and lion danceKite FlyingYanggeHorse racingTug-of-War (拔河)Rope Skipping (跳绳)Radio broadcasting callisthenics (广播体操)The Olympics and China•It was not until 1932 when the 10th Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles that China was invited for the first time to send athletes to compete.•By the end of the Athens Olympics, Chinese athletes had accumulated 112 gold medals over six Summer Olympic Games.29th Olympic in Beijing•One world, one dream.•Five mascots•Extraordinary Olympic in the history.Chinese Outstanding Competitive Sports•Table TennisTable tennis is very popular throughout China and is popularly known as the “National Ball Game” of China.Chinese table tennis players have performed exceptionally well in international competitions.•BadmintonChina became a formal member of the International Badminton Federation in 1981. Since then, Chinese badminton teams have won the Thomas Cup (托马斯杯) six times, the UberCup (尤伯杯) ten times and the Sudirman Trophy (苏迪曼杯) five times.•Volleyball•China has long had one of the best women’s volleyball teams in the world. They won two world championship titles in 1982 and 1986, the Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles in 1984, and two World Cup titles in 1981 and 1985, and then again the gold medal in 2004 Athens Olympics Games.•The Chinese Women’s volleyball team and its struggle for success was an inspiration to the Chinese people during the 1980s.•Basketball•CBA,the Chinese Basketball Association, was established in June of 1956. It is a non-government organization managing basketball at the national level. The advent of the CBA league represented a giant step in the development of professional basketball in China. •Gymnastics•Gymnasts have proven themselves to be among the most reliable of the Chinese Olympic squad (组队) since China began to compete at the Games.。