Our new series on "Trademarks of the Chinese" introduces various characteristics of what it means to be Chinese, and we've invited Li Yih-yuan of Academia Sinica to start the series off with a general overview.
Sinorama has asked me to talk about the "trademark features of the Chinese," although I don't feel that that is necessarily the most suitable term. All I can do is discuss some of their more characteristic features and ways of behavior, which can perhaps best be discussed in the three aspects of physical appearance, dress and beliefs, paying the most attention to beliefs and behavior.
As for physical appearance, Chinese people belong to the Mongoloid race, one of the three main races in the world along with Negroid and Caucasoid. The most important physical characteristics of the Mongoloid race are flat noses, prominent cheekbones, rather prominent eye sockets, straight black hair, tawny skin and slanted, or almond-shaped, eyes. There are thirteen major and minor characteristics in all, which will be examined in more detail in another article.
Another characteristic feature is clothing. Foreigners have always considered typical Chinese-style attire to consist of a skullcap and a scholar's gown, plus a long pigtail, but what is the reality? It is a subject with much scope for discussion and will be explored in detail in a later article.
The beliefs of the Chinese people are extremely complicated and not easy to explain clearly. But in the final analysis, their thinking about existence and the world around them boil down to a search for harmony and balance, or the unity of man and heaven. This concept of harmony and balance is expressed on three planes, from which it is easy to observe the behavioral characteristics of the Chinese people. The three planes are those of the individual, of nature and of society.
At the level of the individual, the search for harmony and balance can be divided into internal and external aspects and is expressed mostly clearly in the fields of diet and medicine.
As part of this way of thinking, Chinese people strive to maintain a balance within the individual between the forces of yin and yang (the dual principles of male and female, or positive and negative), which have influenced the concepts of hot and cold in Chinese food and medicine. The root of Chinese goldthread, for instance, is considered "cold" and can relieve internal heat, while ginger duck is considered "hot" and a fortifying dish in the winter. Certain foods are also said to "cross" with other foods and to produce a harmful effect when eaten together. None of this may be completely true, but many people believe it all the same.
As for chin-pu, or fortifying oneself with special dietary supplements, Chinese men pay special attention to the problem of kidney deficiency, and there are many concoctions designed to increase the yang element in the system. We have the concept now of protecting endangered species, but that is really a Western idea and demanding that the Chinese make a fuss over the environment is a bit unreasonable. The world of the Chinese is centered on man, and as long as something is beneficial to man it has meaning.
Chinese medicine is a science unto itself, even though we often don't know why it works the way it does. The prescriptions and remedies that have come down to us today have undergone thousands of years of experimentation, but we only know how to follow them, not why they are effective. Chinese medicine is based on experience rather than speculation and belongs to a higher plane than belief, I believe.
In addition, many Chinese people practice nei-tan ch'i-kung, or special breathing techniques, in order to regulate their respiration and stay healthy by balancing the forces of yin and yang.
Both diet and Chinese medicine relate to an individual's internal balance. An example of external balance is how a person's name relates to the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth.
Chinese people have long chosen names on the basis of the number of strokes in each character and their relation to the five elements. In popular belief, any imbalance among the five elements is dangerous, so that a person whose constitution is believed to be deficient in the water element would be given a name with a water radical in it and one who is low on metal would be given a name related to metal, thereby seeking to achieve balance within the individual through an external method. Similarly, names are chosen with an appropriate number of strokes in them to match the date and time of a person's birth.
As I have mentioned, the Chinese consider the unity of mankind and heaven as the highest ideal in man's relation to the cosmos, and harmony and balance as the highest criteria in making value judgments.
Balance in nature, the second plane of belief, can be explained in terms of time and space. The Chinese understanding of time involves both public time and personal time.
Chinese people believe there is a public time in the universe that constantly flows forward and against which personal time can be oriented. The most crucial element in personal time, and the part that is fixed at birth, is a person's pa-tzu, or eight-character horoscope: the heavenly roots and earthly branches of a person's year, month, day and hour of birth.
A person's pa-tzu determines his ming, or fate, which is fixed and immutable and determined at the point where personal and public time intersect. The so-called fatalism of the Chinese people has evolved from this concept.
A person's yun, or fortune, on the other hand, can be altered and changed. When the personal time of an individual is in proper accord with public time, good fortune is on its way, and vice versa. It is in order to seek such temporal balance that so many people have their fortunes told, even in the scientific era of today.
In terms of space, topographical advantages are important to the Chinese--a person's orientation should accord with yin and yang and the five elements--and from this developed the theory of feng-shui, or geomancy, which attempts to achieve spatial harmony and balance.
Feng-shui is a traditional way of viewing the world and the relations between nature and society. In the traditional view, the world is a whole formed by society and nature (both the natural and the supernatural), and maintaining the harmony of this whole is of prime importance. Although man is placed in a passive position in this system, he is not completely subservient to the will of the cosmos but can use his own powers to adjust the relations between nature and society and among societies themselves and seek harmony in the cosmos, and feng-shui is one of the ways of adjusting those relations.
The third plane of harmony and balance is social, and in this category the highest principle is maintaining harmony among people in their interpersonal relationships.
Interpersonal relationships can be divided into those involving the family, the community outside the family and the supernatural. The supernatural refers to heaven, ghosts, spirits and all the unknown.
The Chinese have extended their desire to maintain harmonious relations within the family to deceased family members, thereby giving rise to ancestor worship. Chinese people all maintain ancestral tablets in their homes, the meaning and symbolism of which resembles a form of idolatry.
Ancestor worship can be subdivided into two kinds: worship in the home, or worship of direct ancestors, and worship in the clan hall, or worship of ancestors in common.
Filial piety is another characteristic of the Chinese, and we say that "of three unfilial acts the worst is having no off- spring." Why is that so? Why should leaving no descendants be more serious than disobeying one's parents or neglecting to care for them?
It is because the Chinese believe that care for a person after death (for eternity) is more important than care during life, and that can only happen if there are descendants to make the necessary offerings. People who leave no descendants are thus unfilial not only toward their parents but toward all their ancestors before them.
Another extension of this way of thinking is ming-hun, or weddings with the dead, which always involve a ghostly bride and never a ghostly bridegroom. The reason is related to ancestral tablets.
According to custom, the spirit tablet of a woman who dies unmarried cannot be placed with her parent's family. So what is to be done? Some parents have the woman's tablet placed in a Buddhist nunnery, but a doting mother won't consider her daughter safe until she can marry her to another family for a permanent resting place. Our society is a male-dominated one in which women have no independent status and have to depend on the husband for protection, and that is why we only have ghostly brides and not ghostly bridegrooms. The chief significance of this unusual custom is to maintain harmony in the family whether in life or in death.
Next comes maintaining harmonious relations with the surrounding community. If a member of their family dies, Chinese people paste red paper on the homes of their neighbors to get rid of the bad luck. Other ways of maintaining harmonious relations with others are hanging up pa-kua (eight trigram) mirrors or setting up shih-kan-tang (stone talismanic steles) to ward off evil.
Finally comes relations with the supernatural, or ghosts, gods and spirits.
In traditional belief, the world of deities and spirits and their relationships are duplicates of those among men. There is an emperor or president in the human world, and so there is a Jade Emperor in the supernatural. There is a hierarchy of officials on earth, and so there is a celestial hierarchy of officials in the after-world. And just as people want to maintain harmony in their relations with their fellow men, they also want to maintain harmony in their relations with ghosts and spirits. Paper money and other offerings are made to keep the spirits on good terms and obtain their aid and protection.
The above ways of thought and behavior are all characteristic features of traditional Chinese life. Although believed in and adhered to by the Chinese people, they are not related to truth as such, but are outward manifestations of our view of the cosmos.
[Picture Caption]
Their appearance, clothing and special habits and ways of behaving are all "registered trademarks" of the Chinese people. (photo courtesy of Hsin-hua Motion Picture Co.)
Chinese people pay attention to maintaining an internal and external balance and a harmony of the yin and yang, a way of thinking that has influenced the concepts of hot and cold in Chinese medicine. (photo from Sinorama files)
Fruits have been endowed by the Chinese with the qualities of "hot" and "cold."
Nei-tan ch'i-kung (aerobic kungfu) is another way many Chinese keep fit and balance their yin and yang.
(Left) The I-ching says that the Yin and yang together mean Tao. Chinese regard the alternation of the two principles as a fundamental rule of the universe.
In the view of Academia Sinica member Li Yih-yuan, Chinese horoscopes and similar methods of fortunetelling are all means of seeking temporal balance. (photo by Wen Chin Yang)
Fortune telling remains popular with Chinese people even today.
(Above) The Chinese regard ancestor worship as extremely important, and each clan maintains a temple in honor of its forebears.
Releasing water lanterns on the Ghost Festival to help free the ghosts of the deep from their watery prisons is another form of appeasing the spirits.
Geomancy, or the study of feng-shui, still has a place in the modern world. (photos by Wen Chin Yang)
Do hills in back and water in front mean good feng-shui? Chinese people often go to great expense in "seeking an auspicious siting for a building.
(Above left) Hanging a mirror with the eight trigrams over the door is another way of maintaining harmonious relations with others.
(Above right) The people of the Penghu islands have set up shih-kan-tang (ghost-busting stones) near their homes to drive away evil spirits.
Supplicating the spirits and praying to heaven for blessings is a familiar scene to the Chinese.
Those who believe in shou-ching (calling back a person's frightened soul) think it works. Those who don't have never tried. (photo by Wen Chin Yang)
Ming-hun (weddings with the dead) are a traditional Chinese custom. Do you know why there are only ghostly brides and no ghostly grooms? (photo courtesy of Fei Teng Motion Picture Co.)
Chinese people pay attention to maintaining an internal and external balance and a harmony of the yin and yang, a way of thinking that has influenced the concepts of hot and cold in Chinese medicine. （photo from Sinorama files）
Fruits have been endowed by the Chinese with the qualities of "hot" and "cold.".
（Left） The I-ching says that the Yin and yang together mean Tao. Chinese regard the alternation of the two principles as a fundamental rule of the universe.
Nei-tan ch'i-kung （aerobic kungfu） is another way many Chinese keep fit and balance their yin and yang.
In the view of Academia Sinica member Li Yih-yuan, Chinese horoscopes and similar methods of fortunetelling are all means of seeking temporal balance. （photo by Wen Chin Yang）
Fortune telling remains popular with Chinese people even today.
Releasing water lanterns on the Ghost Festival to help free the ghosts of the deep from their watery prisons is another form of appeasing the spirits.
（Above） The Chinese regard ancestor worship as extremely important, and each clan maintains a temple in honor of its forebears.
Geomancy, or the study of feng-shui, still has a place in the modern world. （photos by Wen Chin Yang）
Do hills in back and water in front mean good feng-shui? Chinese people often go to great expense in "seeking an auspicious siting for a building.
（Above left） Hanging a mirror with the eight trigrams over the door is another way of maintaining harmonious relations with others.
（Above right） The people of the Penghu islands have set up shih-kan-tang （ghost-busting stones） near their homes to drive away evil spirits.
Supplicating the spirits and praying to heaven for blessings is a familiar scene to the Chinese.
Those who believe in shou-ching （calling back a person's frightened soul） think it works. Those who don't have never tried. （photo by Wen Chin Yang）
Ming-hun （weddings with the dead） are a traditional Chinese custom. Do you know why there are only ghostly brides and no ghostly grooms? （photo courtesy of Fei Teng Motion Picture Co.）
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