2024 China Series Masterpost

This has been quite the journey, thank you to everyone who stayed with me through these months!

Culture and History:

Xi'an Beilin Museum/西安碑林博物馆:

Xi'an City Museum/西安博物院:

Qinglong Temple/青龙寺:

Daci'en Temple/大慈恩寺 and the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda/大雁塔:

Shaanxi Archaeology Museum/陕西考古博物馆:

Shaanxi History Museum Qin and Han Dynasties Branch/陕西历史博物馆秦汉馆:

National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆:

Xi'an cultural landmarks

Announcement

Food Posts:

Life and Street Pics:

The 2025 China series will start around May/June 2025, see y'all then!

A fairly good general reference video about historical/traditional fashion of various cultures and peoples (including hanfu, but not just hanfu) that have been part of Chinese history:

The video is arranged in chronological order, below are the timestamps:

**Note: as mentioned by the OP, due to the lack of suriviving physical artifacts for some time periods/cultures/kingdoms/dynasties, there is a certain amount of speculation in this video based on other artifacts/records like wall murals, paintings, figurines, and historical records.

Think I just made the best pot of red braised pork belly (红烧肉) I've ever made in my life

Technology is great.

This is the recipe I followed btw (video has Eng sub in itself; just in case: this is not an ad for any kitchen appliance lol, I'm sure this recipe can be adapted to other types/brands of pressure cookers)

I used to question why Onion would choose to make biscuits on my feet over softer places like my lap, but I don't question it anymore

Feet biscuits feels great.

Onion with a shaved tummy

Onion had her ovariohysterectomy done a while ago, this time it's because I suspect she ate a piece of string that she may have dug out of the trash (if true it would be serious, the string was 3ft long and the entire thing was missing), so I took her to the animal hospital for an ultrasound. Turns out she's fine, phew. The string remains missing though, I've cleaned my home thoroughly and could not find it, so I guess she never played with it in the first place.

I thought she might be annoyed that her tummy is naked now but she didn't seem to care all that much

Afternoon nap

April, China, some fun stuff and the conclusion to the 2024 China series:

First up is something I came across while window shopping, a folk art of Tianjin and also a recognized Intagible Cultural Heritage of China called Niren Zhang/泥人张, translated as "clay figure Zhang". This folk art was passed down through a family of clay sculptors where the surname of the family is Zhang/张, hence the name. The family established their name as clay sculptors during the Daoguang era (1821 - 1850) of Qing dynasty, and up until the present day, there has been six generations of sculptors. Niren Zhang is known for their life-like depictions of people, characters, mythical figures, deities, and particularly of the life of commoners in Tianjin in late Qing dynasty to early Republic era. This piece depicts the scene in a shoemaker's shop, and it was, of course, in the display window of a shoe store.

Two pieces by the sixth-generation sculptor of the Zhang family, Zhang Yu/张宇 (both pictures from the Niren Zhang official site). The piece on the left is a painted clay sculpture of Guan Yu/关羽. The piece on the right is an interesting one, a somewhat rare depiction of Guanyin/观音 as a male (also how Avalokiteśvara was originally depicted in India), while Guanyin is most commonly depicted as a female in Chinese Buddhism today. This change in how Guanyin was depicted happened during Song dynasty (960 - 1276).

More "window shopping" (in quotes since we did go into the stores) pics, this time at a mall

There was a cool merch/toy store in the mall that has A TON of cute merch from various shows and games

Yao Chinese Folktales (中国奇谭) merch, this is the fox scholar from Ep 2 Goose Mountain

These are DIY toys from pretty well known Chinese toy brands (btw this is not an ad lol) so I'll just leave these pics here

And that's it for the 2024 China series! The 2025 China series will start around May-June 2025, see y'all then!

April, China, restaurant aaaaagain and misc food pics

The first 5 pics are all from a restaurant that had mainly Hubei cuisine, or so I was told. However many of the dishes on their menu are Hui cuisine (徽菜) though......especially this first one, a classic from Hui cuisine called chouguiyu/臭鳜鱼, lit. "stinky perch", so named because the fish was cured and lightly fermented, which helps breaks down some of the proteins into amino acids prior to cooking, giving the dish a unique umami taste (btw umami is called xian/鲜 in Chinese). Not sure how authentic this was, but I liked it.

Maoxuewang/毛血旺, or boiled blood curd. This is a famous dish from Sichuan cuisine/川菜. The blood curd used in this dish is made from duck blood

Left is fried tofu (doufu/豆腐 in Chinese), but it seems to be made with a specific cultivar of soybeans that's black (it's literally just called "black bean"/黑豆), and that's why the tofu itself is darker colored. It's hard to tell but on the right is spicy frog legs, as a food frogs are called tianji/田鸡 in Chinese, literally "farm field chicken"

Fancy duck soup with jujube (zao/枣), goji berries (gouqi/枸杞), and other herbs

And then some miscellaneous food pictures from other places. Left is tofu and fish roe stirfry, right is an interesting dessert called fried milk (zhaxiannai/炸鲜奶, lit. "fried fresh milk", but the recipe doesn't just call for milk though), dipped in sweetened condensed milk before eating. It's basically a lot of sugar and fats, but man it's good.

Some street food BBQ skewers, top are lamb skewers, bottom left are vegetable skewers and bottom right are squid tentacle skewers. Btw skewers are called chuan/串 in Chinese, this character is pretty self explanatory lol.

April 22, China, restaurant a-gain

My hometown is right on the coast, so pretty much my whole family loves seafood. Personally this is my favorite restaurant from this entire month. What it offers is a little like hotpot, but with steaming instead of boiling, and the steaming is done right in front of patrons, one course at a time.

These were the seafood dishes we ordered (raw and waiting to be steamed):

All sorts of steamed clams

Steamed sea bass (bass is called luyu/鲈鱼 in Chinese)

Steamed button mushroom stuffed with shrimp paste and okra. This type of dish where something is stuffed into something else is usually called niangcai/酿菜

Left: Steamed razor shells (called chengzi/蛏子 in Chinese) with enoki mushroom (called jinzhengu/金针菇 in Chinese, lit. "golden needle mushrooms")

Right: personalized dipping sauces for the seafood, kind of like hotpot. Just for the sake of trying things out, I made two different dipping sauces, the one above is sesame sauce based, and the one below is soy sauce based with dried shrimp.

Huge steamed oysters topped with chopped garlic. It's great but personally I prefer raw oysters to cooked ones........

Mackerel dumplings (bayu jiaozi/鲅鱼饺子), these were relatively expensive and sold individually. Mackerel goes by different names in different regions of China, bayu/鲅鱼 and majiaoyu/马鲛鱼 are two of these names.

At the end, I was surprised to find that the steam used to cook the seafood was coming from a pot of millet porridge at the very bottom, which by that time had absorbed all that flavor from the seafood. That might've been the best millet porridge I've ever had. Not exaggerating.

This millet porridge does remind me of the seafood porridge hotpot/zhoudihuoguo/粥底火锅 from Guangdong, and if I ever get a chance to try the porridge hotpot I think I'm going to fall in love with it.

Some steamed yams and corn on the side, apparently they were supposed to be dipped in the sweetened condensed milk? I thought that was an interesting combination, albeit rather unhealthy. Also they gave us some free bite-sized mahua/麻花 (fried dough twists; the big version is what my hometown is known for)

April 21, China, restaurant again

It's pretty much all food pics from now on, mostly from family gatherings with different relatives, so I'm going to speed up with posting.

Beijing kaoya/北京烤鸭 (Peking duck), or simply kaoya/烤鸭/roasted duck. The duck had already been sliced and put into the plates on either side. The traditional way of eating kaoya is by wrapping the slices in the spring pancake (chunbing/春饼; also referred to as heyebing/荷叶饼/"lotus leaf pancake") along with sweet bean sauce (tianmianjiang/甜面酱), green onion shreds (usually just from the white part near the root), and cucumber strips.

Dry-braised (ganshao/干烧) halibut fish

Fried shrimp cakes (with dipping sauce)

Seafood stirfry and Chinese yam with blueberry sauce (lanmeishanyao/蓝莓山药). Apparently the latter was invented by the chef Sun Lixin/孙立新, one of the hosts of the popular internet cooking show Laofangu/老饭骨 (I think I have linked some of their videos in the past)

Stirfried clams (炒花蛤; this type of clams is called huage/花蛤). The popular version of this dish is usually spicy and called "spicy stirfried clams"/辣炒花蛤, but I don't remember this particular version here being spicy so...

Left is Chinese steamed egg/zhengdan/蒸蛋 (also known as jidangeng/鸡蛋羹 and "water egg"/zhengshuidan/蒸水蛋) with mantis shrimp on top, and right is duck soup made from the rest of the roasted duck. I love all kinds of soup, but duck soup remains one of my all-time favorites (btw cooking tip, if you want a milky white soup/stock made from fish or poultry, try lightly frying or roasting the meat first to help the fat emulsify)

April, some life pictures and hotpot:

My cousin's doggo named Duo Duo/多多, a chihuahua mix, she's over 10 years old now

My cousin's yueji/月季 (China rose) and hydrangea:

Grandpa's flowers, the one that's blooming is a striped Barbados lily. It's called "柱顶红" in Chinese, meaning "red atop a pillar"; it's also called "一炮四响" or "a canonball that explodes four times", referring to how each flower stalk can grow 4 flowers at once

Two tiny strawberries grown by my cousin, they were pretty sweet

More of grandpa's plants (welp I don't think I inherited his green thumb, but I know who did......)

Grandma's books, she was a music professor that taught kids and other teachers

A simple hot pot right after the trip to Beijing. The restaurant had freshly made bayberry (yangmei/杨梅) and mulberry (sangshen/桑葚) purees, which were great

Chinese New Year Eve's feast for......myself😂

Fish dish (yú/鱼), meaning "may there be a surplus every year" (年年有余；yú/余）

Napa cabbage dish (bái cài/白菜), meaning "lots of wealth" (bǎi cái/百财; as I understand it, bǎi/百 or "hundred" here means "many" and not a specific number)

Dish of mainly corn (yù mǐ/玉米; name literally translates to "jade rice"), meaning "may gold and jade fill the halls" (jīn yù mǎn táng/金玉满堂; this comes from corn's name "jade rice" and the golden color of corn)

And finally the best dumplings (jiǎo zi/饺子) I've made so far, meaning "coming of a new year" (jiāo zǐ/交子). Dumplings also look a little like yuanbao/元宝, or a gold/silver ingot currency used in imperial China, which came to symbolize wealth

As many people have probably noticed, a lot of Chinese traditional auspicious symbols and modern internet memes are homophones or puns. If anyone is still exploring red note/xiaohongshu atm, keep that in mind and you will start to understand a lot of the memes

2025 CNY Limited Edition Onion

April 20, Beijing, China, National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Part 7 – Ancient Chinese Food Culture exhibition/中国古代饮食文化展):

Happy Chinese New Year and Lunar New Year to everyone in advance! Wishing everyone success in the Year of the Snake! 祝大家蛇年吉祥，万事如意！

CNY and LNY traditions vary by region, but the one thing that is definitely shared by everyone is that there's bound to be a family feast on the Eve (which for this year will be the 28th of January), so today's post will be quite fitting. Let us begin with alcohol-related artifacts:

The Alcohol (酒/jiǔ)*:

Liao dynasty (916 - 1125) gold wine vessel, where this type of vessel is named zhihu/执壶. Typically when you see similarly shaped vessels in Chinese period dramas, wuxia or xianxia shows, or animated shows, regardless of the material, it's always a wine vessel. The detailed low relief motifs of bird and flowers was crafted using repoussé and chasing techniques, together called zanke/錾刻 in Chinese:

*Note: although in this post I will be alternating between using "wine" and "alcohol" as the translation for jiu/酒, jiu can refer to all types of alcoholic drinks, and usually a descriptor will be added before jiu to create a new word for a specific type of alcoholic beverage. For example, wine would be called putaojiu/葡萄酒 in Chinese (lit. "grape alcohol"), and cocktails would be called jiweijiu/鸡尾酒 in Chinese (lit. "cocktail alcohol"). The names of traditional Chinese alcohols are descriptive in other ways, for example baijiu/白酒 (lit. "white alcohol"; actually it's colorless) and huangjiu/黄酒 (lit. "yellow alcohol"). Beer is called pijiu/啤酒 (lit. "beer alcohol") in Chinese, where pi/啤 is a homophonic translation of the English word beer.

Liao dynasty gold wine cups decorated with gold filigree, depicting clouds and birds:

Liao dynasty gold wine jug with a short spout in the shape of a beast head. The overall shape with flat ridges arranged vertically all around the vessel is called gualeng/瓜棱 (lit. "melon ridges"), so named because it resembles the shape of a ribbed melon.

China has a long history of making and drinking alcohol, which started at around 7000 BC. In the very beginning, alcohol was only produced in small amounts, so its use was reserved for ceremonies and celebrations. From roughly Han dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) to Northern Song dynasty (960 - 1127) was the time period during which traditional Chinese alcohol making had matured. The famous Tang-era (618 - 907 AD) drunk poet Li Bai/李白 lived during this period of time.

Warring States period (476 - 221 BC) bronze wine jug inlaid with gold and silver:

Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911) enamel wine cups:

Beishan Jiujing/《北山酒经》 or "The Classic of Wine" by Zhu Yizhong/朱翼中 of Northern Song dynasty. This book covered the history of alcohol in China, and described alcohol making methods of the time, specifically the methods used to produce alcohol on a large scale.

8 Types of bronze wine vessels from Shang (·1600 - 1046 BC) and Zhou dynasties (1046 - 256 BC):

The Tea (茶/chá):

China also has a long history of growing and drinking tea, being the country where the beverage originated from. Specifically, tea drinking first started in what is now Yunnan province, developed into a culture in Sichuan, then spread to all of China and beyond.

Qing dynasty duck-shaped tin teapot:

Qing dynasty Qianlong era (1736 - 1796) lacquered teacup, decorated with a poem by the Qianlong Emperor, the same poem as the jade gaiwan/盖碗 from the jade exhibition. The technique of decorating here is called diaoqi/雕漆, where different colored lacquer were layered onto the object, and then patterns would be carved into the thick lacquer, revealing the layers of colors.

A flowchart of the tea preparing and making process in Song dynasty (960 - 1276), called diancha/点茶, which influenced Japanese tea culture. Because of the complexity of the diancha process, it was abandoned in Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644) in favor of simply steeping tea leaves in water.

A video showing the Song-era diancha tea making process. This exact video also plays in the exhibition:

The Food (食/shí):

A Western Han dynasty (202 BC - 8 AD) small bronze hot pot, called a ranlu/染炉. Contrary to the modern Chinese hot pot where food cooked by boiling would be dipped in a bowl of room temperature condiments before eating, during Han dynasty people liked hot condiments, so this small hot pot was actually specifically for heating the condiments as people ate.

Various lacquered food containers from different dynasties.

Left: Western Han dynasty lacquered food container replica; when the original artifact was unearthed, it contained what seemed to be flatbread.

Middle: Ming dynasty 5-layered stacked lacquered food containers, held together with buttons, and decorated with diaoqi technique.

Right: Qing dynasty begonia-shaped lacquered fruit container, also decorated with diaoqi technique.

Qing dynasty tin tripod hot pot. This is a traditional Manchu hotpot, and its structure is quite similar to the classic Beijing style copper hotpot (I couldn't find anything that confirms a connection between the two, however). Both have a central chamber in the middle for charcoal (heat source), and the cooking is done in the heated water around the central chamber. The two biggest differences are the presence/absence of the tall "chimney" structure above the central chamber, and the material used. The reason this hotpot is tin may be because copper was mostly used to mint coins during Qing dynasty.

These two books were actually on display over at the Science and Technology exhibition, but I moved them here because that post was getting a bit too long. Since both books are about agriculture, they fit into this post quite well. The book on the left is Qimin Yaoshu/《齐民要术》 by Jia Sixie/贾思勰 in Northern Wei dynasty (386 - 534 AD), translated as either "Essential Techniques for the Welfare of the People" (the more accurate translation imho) or "Essential Techniques for the Peasantry". It is an encyclopedia on a wide range of agricultural and food processing techniques. The book on the right is Nongzheng Quanshu/《农政全书》 by Xu Guangqi/徐光启 in Ming dynasty, translated as "Complete Treatise on Agricultural Administration". This book is also an encyclopedia that covers agricultural techniques, but also has long sections covering what to do in response to floods and famines.

Pretty interesting and self-explanatory chart on when some crops, vegetables, and fruits were introduced to China (arranged in chronological order). As one can see here, Chinese cuisine had changed a lot over the past ~3000 years, and much of the changes took place during periods when trading activities increased and new produce were introduced. The best example of this is the introduction of hot chilis in late Ming dynasty, which directly resulted in the famous mala/麻辣 flavor profile of Sichuan cuisine and heavily influenced many other Chinese regional cuisines (Hunan cuisine, Guizhou cuisine, Anhui cuisine, etc).

A diagram explaining the seating arrangement in a palace's main hall in ancient times (top half), and the seating arrangement around a table in Southern and Northern China (bottom half). In all of these cases, the seat facing south (which also faces the entrance in traditional halls) is always reserved for the person of highest status, kind of like the seat at the head of the table. For the bottom half, the numbering indicates the order of seniority and/or inferiority (1 is the highest status).

Some examples of famous dishes from different dynasties, these are arranged in chronological order if going top to bottom, left to right:

Finally, some bonus pictures to serve as the conclusion to my brief trip to Beijing. This oil painting of the Great Wall was in the lobby of the museum, I thought it was pretty neat.

A peek at the Zhengyangmen/正阳门 gatehouse. Zhengyangmen is the southern gate (front gate) to the inner city in imperial times, today it's the only gate of the inner city that still stands.

A closeup of the Zhengyangmen gatehouse. I think the caihua/彩画 (the colorful painting on the building; also called caihui/彩绘) here had some restoration work done on it in recent years? It looks a lot more vibrant than the caihua on other historic architecture.

This is the last museum post (long post) of the 2024 China series (PHEW), and the final posts will all be fairly short, most of them about the food I've had. See y'all after CNY/LNY!

April 20, Beijing, China, National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Part 6 – Ancient Chinese Jade exhibition/中国古代玉器展 and part of The Power of Science and Technology exhibition/科技的力量展):

Starting with the Ancient Chinese Jade exhibition today, this is a Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911) Qianlong era (1736 - 1796) jade brush holder. It's impossible to tell from this angle (my bad lol), but the relief on this brush holder actually depicts the Sanxing/三星 (lit. "three stars"), which is the name of a group of three Daoist deities: Fuxing/福星 (lit. "Fortune Star"; Jupiter), Luxing/禄星 (lit. "Prosperity Star"; Mizar of Ursa Major), and Shouxing/寿星 (lit. "Longevity Star"; Canopus). These three gods are frequently depicted together for auspiciousness.

A Qing dynasty Qianlong era jade gaiwan/盖碗 (lit. "lidded bowl"), decorated with gold inscription of Qianlong Emperor's poetry and plum blossoms. Gaiwan are a specific type of Chinese tea cup that can be used to both infuse tea and drink tea, and may consist of three parts--a bowl, a lid, and a saucer. Because of this three-part structure, it's also called sancaiwan/三才碗, where the lid, bowl and saucer correspond to "heaven", "human", and "earth" respectively. Alternatively gaiwan can be more literal like the one here, which only has a bowl and a lid. Some say the gaiwan originated in Sichuan in Tang dynasty (618 - 907 AD), but evidence suggests that true gaiwan (with lid) only appeared in late Ming dynasty to early Qing dynasty (around 16th-17th century). Gaiwan was very popular in Qing dynasty and remains popular today.

Left: Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644) diancui/点翠 and jade ornament, with egrets and lotuses carved into the jade part. As mentioned before in the second historical fashion exhibition post, diancui (the blue parts) is a method of decoration that uses the iridescent feathers of kingfishers. Because all species of kingfishers are now protected by law, all diancui on the market currently are imitations.

Right: Ming dynasty wooden table screen with carved jade insert depicting a dragon. This is pretty cute tbh considering how small it is

Qing dynasty jade decor called a shanzi/山子, with a visual depiction of the chengyu 老马识途 ("old horses know the path") carved into the jade. Shanzi pieces are characterized by their retainment of the original shape of the jade, and depictions of scenes and stories within the jade with methods including reliefs, full reliefs, and openwork sculpting.

Left: Jin dynasty to Yuan dynasty (1115 - 1368) jade ornament depicting chrysanthemum flowers.

Middle left: a Ming dynasty copper daikua/带銙 (basically belt decoration) inlaid with carved jade depicting deer and pines.

Middle right: a Qing dynasty jade pendant in the shape of two badgers.

Right: Qing dynasty jadeite daigou/带钩 (basically belt buckle) with fish and bat motifs. In traditional Chinese symbolism, fish symbolizes "surplus" (鱼 is a homophone of 余), and bats symbolize "fortune" (蝠 is a homophone of 福).

Notice how each of the above pieces utilize the colors inherent in the jade itself to lend color to the subject depicted. This method is still widely used today in modern jade/stone sculpting, and sometimes the finished piece can be stunning. Here's a modern example that's not from this exhibition: the piece 山乡晨曦 ("Mountain Village in Dawn's Light") by 黄日富. This entire scene is fashioned from a single stone.

And back to the exhibition, I forgot to take pictures of the placards for the next two artifacts, and the museum's complete online catalogue doesn't have a search function (UGH)......so I'll put my best guess here, but don't take my word for it lol

A jade decor depicting a dragon, probably from either Ming or Qing dynasty:

This seems to be a jade jianzhi/剑璏, no idea what time period it's from. Jianzhi are basically flat belt loops attached to the sheath of the jian sword scabbard, so that the jian sword may be carried on its owner's belt.

And onto The Power of Science and Technology exhibition. The pictures I'm sharing here will be primarily focused on ancient Chinese science and technology.

Ink rubbing of the famous Southern Song dynasty (1127 - 1279) star chart stele (called 天文图碑 in Chinese), showing the positions of the Chinese constellations. This star chart was drawn by Southern Song dynasty astronomer Huang Shang/黄裳 based on observations made between 1078 and 1085 (during Northern Song dynasty), and the stele was erected in 1247. The stele itself still stands in the Confucian Temple in Suzhou, China. Here's a link if anyone wants to see a clearer image of the rubbing (to avoid confusion: the rubbing in this webpage was made in Qing dynasty, but the stele was erected in 1247).

Chart of the Twenty-Eight Mansions/二十八宿 from the Ming dynasty illustrated encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui/三才图会, Volume 1. The Twenty-Eight Mansions are regions around the ecliptic used to identify the location of the Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn. This is an important concept for both traditional Chinese astrology and astronomy.

Top left: ancient observation of a solar eclipse documented in the Book of Documents/《尚书》.

Top right: ancient observation of Halley's Comet in fall of 613 BC documented in Spring and Autumn Annals/《春秋》. Apparently Chinese historical records never missed a single observation of the return of Halley's Comet from 240 BC to 1986, which is pretty amazing (note: this author may have made a mistake regarding the year of the observation recorded in Spring and Autumn Annals).

Bottom left: ancient observation of a nova documented in Book of Han/《汉书》 (completed in 111 AD).

Bottom right: ancient observation of a sunspot documented in Book of Han.

If one flips through any of the 24 official histories of China (二十四史), one will find these records of historical events peppered with observations of astronomical phenomena. This is because of the traditional Chinese astrology concept known as "interactions between heaven and mankind" (天人感应), where it's believed that whatever happens in the heavens will be reflected in the mortal realm in some way, and vice versa. Because of this indistinction between astronomy and astrology, the vast majority of Chinese dynasties would have an imperial bureau set up just to observe, record, calculate, and interpret the movement of celestial bodies and astronomical phenomena, since these were viewed as reflections of the state and fate of the entire country. In reality however, this bureau often functioned as a special panel of political advisors to the emperor. This bureau is referred to by different names throughout Chinese history, but the two most well known names are 司天监 and 钦天监.

A representation of a piece of ox scapula oracle bone from Shang dynasty (~1600 - 1046 BC; original artifact is in this museum) inscribed with terms from the Sexagenary Cycle, called Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches (tiangandizhi/天干地支) in Chinese, or Stems and Branches (ganzhi/干支) for short. This cyclical system of 60 terms is used to record the year, month, day, and hour in traditional Chinese calendar (for example right now is still the year 甲辰, but after Chinese New Year, it will be the year 乙巳); however, in Shang dynasty, this system was only used to record days. The Sexagenary Cycle is still used by traditional Chinese painters and calligraphers when dating their works.

Four of the calendars used in different time periods in Chinese history, the Taichu Calendar/太初历 of Han dynasty (top left), created in 104 BC; the Daming Calendar/大明历 of Southern dynasty (top right), created in 462 AD; the Dayan Calendar/大衍历 of Tang dynasty (bottom left), created in 729 AD; and the Shoushi Calendar/授时历 of Yuan dynasty (bottom right), created in 1281. All of these are lunisolar calendars.

The Northern Song dynasty (960 - 1127) official military compendium Complete Essentials for the Military Classics/《武经总要》, by Zeng Gongliang/曾公亮 and Ding Du/丁度. The version seen here is the version included in the Qing dynasty book collection Complete Library of the Four Treasures/《四库全书》, completed in 1782.

And the book that has appeared a couple times throughout this series of posts already, the Ming dynasty illustrated encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui/《三才图会》:

This is the Ming-era Chinese translation of the mathematical work The Elements by Euclid, titled 《几何原本》. The translators were the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi/徐光启 (there's more information on the placard).

Here is one of the ways in which ancient Chinese science and technology still contributes to the world today, a lesser known example than the famous Four Inventions: the discovery of the antimalarial drug artemisinin (named qinghaosu/青蒿素 in Chinese) by Chinese chemist Tu Youyou/屠呦呦 in the 1970s. Artemisinin is derived from the plant Artemisia annua L., which was recorded in The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergency Treatments/《肘后备急方》, a book on traditional Chinese medicine written by Ge Hong/葛洪 in 340 AD, as effective against malaria. Since its discovery, artemisinin and its derivatives have saved millions of people, and are now recommended by the WHO as part of the frontline therapy for malaria. For her discovery of artemisinin, Tu Youyou was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2015. On display here are Tu Youyou's letter to the Chinese plant biologist Qian Yingqian/钱迎倩, and her revisions to the draft of Discovery and Development of New Antimalarial Drug Qinghaosu (Artemisinin).

For thousands of years, Chinese people gazed at the stars in awe and wonder what messages the heavens wished to convey. Today, with modern science and technology, the heavens are not so mysterious and out-of-reach anymore, and people can appreciate the universe simply for its vast beauty. In 2013 China sent its first lunar rover, Yutu/玉兔, to the moon. In 2020, Chang'e 5/嫦娥五号 brought back a sample of lunar soil. The names of Yutu and Chang'e come from the names of the moon rabbit and the moon goddess of traditional Chinese mythology respectively (here's an old post I wrote on Chang'e and the moon rabbit, if anyone's interested in the legend).

Left: 1:1 model of the 2013 Yutu/玉兔 rover. (both pictures from National Museum of China official site; I saw the actual model and the actual sample but didn't take a picture of it)

Right: part of the lunar soil sample that Chang'e 5 brought back in 2020.

Looking at the lunar soil sample really made me appreciate how far humanity has come, and how much China has developed. I remember witnessing China's first manned spaceflight in 2003, that was just a little over 21 years ago. These are truly exciting times.

Phew. Another post that ended up being way more involved than I initially thought......the next post will be the last one of the museum posts in the 2024 China series, and it will be on the history of tea, wine, and food in China (mmm). It will be posted by the Friday before Chinese New Year. Stay tuned!