The Character: Jing

As we all know, Beijing and Nanjing are two of China’s modern metropolises. Well, do you know the reason that whey they both use the character jing in their names? In fact, jing means capital city, and accordingly Nanjing and Beijing were both once imperial capitals. Also, Xi’an and Luoyang were also both known respectively as the West Capital and East Capital for the same reason.

To get a clear view of how jing and the meaning of capital relate, it’s best to turn to the character’s construction. A redesigned version of jing was used as the 2008 Beijing Olympics logo and quickly became recognizable all around the world as China’s logo. The character was made to look like a person runing about with his arms spread out. Nevertheless, the image is totally independent of jing’s true origins. Initially, a pictograph representing structures built on tall platforms. The oracle bone inscriptions of jing reveal that the upper part of the character is a large roof and the bottom is the foundation for a tall platform made of stamped earth. In imperial times such platforms were topped with awesome structures that only the imperial court would have had the power to build. Therefore most cities with such edifices were capitals and jing was used to denote them. Also, because of the tall platform component of the character, it was used tin ancient Chinese to represent stateliness or refer to a tall mound. Oracle bone inscriptions additionally used another pictograph gao (high), whose shape was similar to jing’s and shared interrelated connotations. Representing tall platform structures, gao borrowed the familiar shape of the towering buildings to illustrate the more abstract concept of height. Throughout three thousand years of evolution it has totally blurred the original liaison between jing and gao. The affinity between them is now only apparent to use through Oracle bone inscriptions.

Xiaonian

Small annual traditional festivals of China’s Han, also known as Xiaonian (literally, Small Year), is the day offering sacrifice to the kitchen god – the stoves Kings in traditional Chinese culture – and also the beginning of Chinese New Year. As for the festival, different dates are in different places that in ancient times, there were the "officials three, civilians four, and vessels five" tradition, that is, the officials take the day 23 years of the twelfth lunar month for the festival, common people’s homes take the twelfth lunar month 24, while the boat dwellers take the twelfth lunar month 25. This tradition has been passed down till nowadays. The northern China, the political center since the Southern Song Dynasty subjected to heavy bureaucracy influence, spends Xiaonian on the day of twelfth lunar month 23th; on the contrary, the South away from the political center, the Small Year is on the 24^th of the twelfth lunar month; while along the lakes, the residents, while retaining the boatmen’s tradition, have the festival fixed on 25th of the twelfth lunar month. No matter which day it is, the people’s New Year’s wishes are the same.

Xiaonian is day for Kitchen God Worshipping. As the Chinese have the basic food of rice, cooked done food, though, is not easy to keep in fresh unlike the West, bread, which can be baked many for a time and preserved well for a long time. Therefore, for the Chinese people "Chai" (firewood) bears the first important position among the daily life "seven things" (i.e., firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy, vinegar, and tea), and there is no fuel, even if one got all the other six, there is no way to eat basic food. It is true in a village in the West that only one bread furnace is sufficient, yet in China each family must have a stove.

In association with the stove there accompanied a legend. In the presence of every house’s stove, the Jade Emperor dispatches a supervisor – Kitchen God – that is, the stove portrait Kitchen God affixed at vicinity of the stove, to oversee the investigation that a year’s actions of each. After a year smoky, portraits have been old, covered by thick dusk. The old kitchen god is then peeled off at the day of Xiannian, so that he can go up to the heaven to give the Jade Emperor God good and evil report of the family, based on with, the Jade Emperor returns rewards and punishments. But before that, the family should also set the fire to melt sugar and had it coated in the kitchen god’s mouth, so that except sweet words, he could not say cuss in front of the Jade Emperor. After New Year festival a new portrait of Kitchen God will be brought – in old days, it should be “invited” – to the stove again. And in the middle of these days because there is no supervision of Kitchen God, most people eat as much as they like, and gambling, indulging themselves in something which they ordinarily think as small fault in the usual time.

Konghou

Konghou, also called Kanhou, is an ancient plucked stringed instrument in China. There are mainly three kinds of Konghou: one is played lying flat, one is played upright and another one is the phoenix-headed Konghou.

As early as the Spring and Autumn (770-476BC) and Warring States (475-221BC) period, there appeared the rudiment of Konghou played lying flat in the Chu Kingdom in southern China.

Konghou was originally used in Yayue(court music), and was used in Qingshangyue (a music genre) in the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD). It was used in Yanyue(music played in court banquets) in the Sui Dynasty (581-618), and gradually prevailed among the ordinary people and in places inhabited by ethnic minorities. 

Konghou played upright appeared in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) and got popular in the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties. It was generally played in rites and ceremonies.

The phoenix-headed Konghou was introduced from India to the Central Plains of China in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420), and was prevalent in the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

Konghou, with its sweet tamber and wide diapason, can be used to play not only cantus but also chord and has many advantages in both solo and tutti performances. It was an indispensable instrument in China’s ancient royal courts. From basso-relievo in the Yungang Grottoes of Datong and Dunhuang murals we can see people playing Kouhou. This shows that Kouhou playing was very popular in China a long time ago.