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‘Yang Xiang trying to throttle the tiger to rescue her father’ is a well-known story passed down from generation to generation in ancient China. However, Yang Xiang has sometimes been portrayed as a male figure on traditional Chinese artworks. Let...
Through analysing a famous theme that depicts Bo Yi and Shu Qi Stopping the Zhou Army, Dr Yibin Ni has compared a number of porcelain vessels from Ming and Qing dynasties, and demonstrated his unique insight which can facilitate the correct dating...
The Legend of the White Snake is one of China’s four great folktales, the others being Lady Meng Jiang, Butterfly Lovers, and The Cowherd and the...
Paintings featuring mothers (and/or fathers) and children are commonly referred to as ‘Ke Zi Paintings 课子图’, which in modern terms would be called ‘Parent-Child Paintings’. In these images, the mother is depicted either sitting or standing, guiding, and disciplining one or several children as they play, read, or...
Deer were reputed to live for a very long time and hence, like Continue Reading
Early in Jin dynasty (晋 265–420), Yang Feng 杨丰 and his teenage daughter, Yang Xiang 杨香, were harvesting the millet crops in the fields when he was attacked by a tiger. Th...
Wang Xiang (王祥 185–269) served as the Grand Protector (taibao 太保) in the Western Jin court (西晋 265–316 CE) and, as a significant politician, has his biography in the Book of Jin (jinshu 晋书), an official historical text covering the dynasty’s history. When Wang Xiang was a boy, his mother passed away. Hi...
The Chinese deeply respect the elderly and consider a long existence – ideally accompanied by health and happiness – to be one of the five most important blessings (wufu 五福) in a person’s life, which were believed by the ancients and recorded in the Book of Documents 书经 in the Zhou Dynasty (...
According to the Account of Wu (吴志) in The Records of the Three Kingdoms (三国志), Lu Ji (陆绩), was a native of Wu. At the age of six, he had an opportunity to meet Yuan Shu (袁术), who at the time controlled the region of Jiujiang. Yuan Shu put out some tangerines for him to eat. Lu Ji surreptitiously stuffed three of them in...
This is a story of a righteous woman. As the army of the state of Qi (齐国) launched an invasion against the state of Lu (鲁国), soldiers approaching a Lu suburb saw a woman struggling along the road with two children. When the army got closer, she abandoned one of the children and grabbed the other, moving toward the mounta...
Pun Design: Two + Quails
Punning Details: The word ‘an 鹌’ in ‘an chun 鹌鹑’ for ‘quail’ makes a pun on ‘
Butterflies in ancient Chinese art were not merely natural insects, but were also widely invested with auspicious symbolism. In Chinese, the word dié 蝶 in Hú dié 蝴蝶 (butterfly) is a homophone of dié 耋, a term referring to advanced age. The ancient dictionary Erya states that ‘eighty ye...
