Merchants Tradition in Ancient Shanxi

Merchants Tradition in Ancient Shanxi Overview & Map Weather Transportation Information

For centuries Shanxi was a center of trade and banking, and the term "Shanxi merchant" was once synonymous with wealth; the well-preserved city of Pingyao, in Shanxi Province, also shows many signs of its former dominance as a center of trade and banking. The term "Jinshang" is a tribute given to these Shanxi merchants for their achievements in building China's commercial culture. Although they lived in closed residences, their sense of business possibility was not restricted.

History

Earliest Merchants

Early in the Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC), China was still an agricultural society with an undeveloped commodity economy. Salt, at that time, was a necessity in people's daily life. Moreover, it was the most important commodity. In virtue of the abundant salt produced in Shanxi Province, the earliest Shanxi merchants arrived on the historical stage.

Prosperity

However, it was during the Ming and Qing Dynasties that the Jinshang reached their period of great prosperity. Their footsteps not only covered China but reached Japan, Southeast Asia, Arabia and Europe. Their business interests ranged from salt, iron, cotton, silk and tea to various financial endeavors, including pawnshops, private banks and account bureaux.

Honesty

In a society deficient in efficient commercial regulations, it was not easy for just a few people to achieve great success in their business. What held Shanxi merchants together and made them a strong force was their common adoration of Guan Yu, a respected general of the State Shu in the Three Kingdoms period (220 - 280 AD). They adored Guan Yu not simply for his military talents but for his loyalty and honesty, which were two crucial virtues for doing business.

Decline

Until the late Qing Dynasty Shanxi merchants still monopolized a number of commercial activities in China. For instance, it was through the development of trade between China and Russia that Kyakhta near the Russian-Mongolian border grew up into a thriving commercial city.

And this trade was for a long time monopolized by Shanxi merchants. However, this strong commercial group approached the end of its days just as China entered the modern era.

On their way to success, most Jinshang dared to go forth from their closed residences, traveling from one place to another to expand their businesses. But when their wealth had been accumulated, they would rather maintain what they inherited from their predecessors than restart new businesses. They seldom invested their money in modern industry. Much of their money was buried in the ground or used to build luxurious residences.

• During the War of Resistance against Japan (1937 - 1945), a great deal of silver was found buried on Qiao family property by the Japanese army. China's traditional culture greatly influenced the merchants' ways of dealing with wealth.

• In the traditional culture, merchants were placed at the bottom of the whole social body. Any conception related to profit was discriminated against by the common social ethics, which hindered the further development of these merchants.

Today

Today, the luxurious residences left by the Jinshang have become attractive tourist sites. Surrounded by strong brick walls, most of the rooms in these mansions have no windows. This kind of closed architecture is very suggestive of a closed psychology, perhaps providing additional clues as to why this once dynamic social group finally disappeared from the historical stage.

Merchants Tradition in Ancient Shanxi Highlights

Merchants Tradition in Ancient Shanxi Highlights Related

Merchants Tradition in Ancient Shanxi

It was during the Ming and Qing Dynasties that the Jinshang reached their period of great prosperity. Their footsteps not only covered China but reached Japan, Southeast Asia, Arabia and Europe. Their business interests ranged from salt, iron, cotton, silk and tea to various financial endeavors, including pawnshops, private banks and account bureaux.

Merchants Tradition in Ancient Shanxi FAQ & Travelers's Tips

1. What are the major traditional festivals in China?
2. Where Can I See Temple Fairs and What Should I Notice When I Go?
3. What traditional sports does China have?
4. What traditional marriage custom does China have?
5. How do people greet each other during festivals?
6. Does Traditional Chinese Medicine Really Work? How?
7. Apart from national festivals, is there any particular Chinese festival that's worth mentioning?
8. What is a traditional Chinese wedding like?
9. Why do Chinese people use characters?
10. What are some Chinese Taboos?
11. What should I notice when visiting traditional Chinese architectures or gardens?

1. What are the major traditional festivals in China?

   • Spring Festival: Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people. All people living away from home will go back. Before the New Year comes, people completely clean the indoors and outdoors of their homes as well as their clothes, bedclothes and all their utensils. Then people begin decorating their clean rooms featuring an atmosphere of rejoicing and festivity. All the door panels will be pasted with Spring Festival couplets, highlighting Chinese calligraphy with black characters on red paper. People attach great importance to Spring Festival Eve. At that time, all family members have dinner together. Waking up on New Year, everybody dresses up. Burning fireworks was once the most typical custom on the Spring Festival. People will pay some visits to their relatives and friends and send their best wishes to them. Children are usually the happiest ones because they can receive much lucky money wrapped by red packets.
     
     
   • Lantern Festival: Lantern Festival takes place on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. On the night of the festival, decorative lanterns depicting birds, beasts, historical figures, and any one of a number of different themes are carried by children or adorn temples. People also celebrate Lantern Festival by eating tang yuan, which is an important custom symbolizing family unity and indispensable to the day's festivities.
     
     
   • The Mid-Autumn is a very important Chinese festival. It falls on the 15th day of August. All family members try to get together on this special day. It is a happy occasion where people feast on scrumptious mooncakes. Some Chinese families today still stay up late to observe the occasion while eating mooncakes, sipping tea and gazing at the beautiful moon.
     
     
   • Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, and together with Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival forms one of the three major Chinese holidays. Since the summer is a time when diseases tend to be spread easily, Dragon Boat Festival began as an occasion for warding off evil spirits and pestilence and for finding peace in one's life.
     
     
   People will hold dragon boat races. In order to ward off evil spirits and disease, people will do some practice such as hanging calamus and moxa on the front door, and putting up pictures of Chung Kuei (a nemesis of evil spirits). Adults drink hsiung huang wine and children are given fragrant sachets, both of which are said to possess qualities for preventing evil and bringing peace. The most popular dish during Dragon Boat Festival is tzung tzu, originally eaten in memory of the patriot Chu Yuan, but gradually evolving into a snack eaten during normal occasions as well.




2. Where Can I See Temple Fairs and What Should I Notice When I Go?

   Many places such as: Ditan (The Earth Temple), Baiyunguan, Changdian, Shijingshan Amusement Park, Beijing International Sculpture Park, Longtanhu Park, Chinese Ethnic Culture Park. Dongyue Temple, Chaoyang Park (Sun Park), Ritan Park and the Grand View Park (Daguanyuan) will hold fairs from the first day to the seventh day of the Chinese new year. You can enjoy Folk performances and shop around. Delicious snacks are displayed in lines of booths, just asking to be tasted! It's one way to sample the many flavors of different ethnic groups across China. Fried pie, soybean milk, rice cake, fried cake, bean curd, tea soup, toasted sweet potato, ravioli soup, baked sesame-seed cake and delicacies from land and sea can all be found.

   Due to a large population of China and the high popularity of Temple Fairs, there are usually many people visiting the Temple Fairs and the parks that hold this activity are always jammed with a huge crowd. Here are some advices for you when you go to a Temple Fair:

   1. When you go, please wear comfortable shoes so you can walk comfortably among people.
   2. Do watch out for your belongings. There are thieves everywhere in the world. A crowded activity like temple fair is certainly a best opportunity for thieves.
   3. Bargain down the price. Some sellers might offer a high price. Ask your guide for a seasonable price and then bargain down.
   4. Get your guide's cell phone number and follow your tour group closely. If you get lost, please contact your guide or dial 110 and ask the police for help.



3. What traditional sports does China have?

   • Tijianzi: kicking shuttlecocks. It is a traditional Chinese sports played by both the young and the elderly. It exercises the waist, the legs and the feet because one has to keep kicking the shuttlecocks without letting it fall on the ground.
     
     
   • Taichi: Tai chi is typically practised for a variety of reasons: its soft martial techniques, demonstration competitions, health and longevity. Consequently, there exist a multitude of training forms, both traditional and modern, which correspond to those aims. Some of Tai chi chuan's training forms are well known to Westerners as the slow motion routines that groups of people practice together every morning in parks around the world, particularly in China.
     
     
   • Wushu: also known as modern wushu or contemporary wushu, is both an exhibition and a full-contact sport derived from traditional Chinese martial arts. It was created in the People's Republic of China after 1949, in an attempt to nationalize the practice of traditional Chinese martial arts. Most of the modern competition forms were formed from their parent arts (see list below) by government-appointed committee. In contemporary times, wushu has become a truly international sport through the International Wushu Federation (IWUF), which holds the World Wushu Championships every two years; the first World Championships were held in 1991 in Beijing and won by Clark Zhang.
     
     
   • Qigong: refers to a wide variety of traditional cultivation practices that involve movement and/or regulated breathing designed to be therapeutic. Qigong is practiced for health maintenance purposes, as a therapeutic intervention, as a medical profession, a spiritual path and/or component of Chinese martial arts.
     The 'qi' in 'qigong' means breath or gas in Chinese, and, by extension, 'life force', 'energy' or even 'cosmic breath'. 'Gong' means work applied to a discipline or the resultant level of skill, so 'qigong' is thus 'breath work' or 'energy work'. The term was coined in the twentieth-century and its currency, Ownby suggests, speaks of a cultural desire to separate 'cultivation' from 'superstition', to secularize and preserve valuable aspects of traditional Chinese practices

   
   

4. What traditional marriage custom does China have?

   In the old China, there used to be arranged marriage. Arranged marriages are marriages which are negotiated primarily by the parents of the couple, rather than the couple themselves. For centuries, arranged marriage was the only way to marry in most cultures, and it was believed to ensure stronger, happier marriages which also took the form of economic, social, and political alliances. Although most Western countries frown upon arranged marriages because they believe these marriages restrict personal freedom, arranged marriages still occur in parts of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.
   
   There is another form of marriage in China which is called Walking Marriage, and it still exists in Mosuo. The Mosuo is a small ethnic group living in Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces in China, close to the border with Tibet. Walking marriage is a widely-used misnomer for the sort of romantic and sexual relationships embedded in the culture of, especially, the Mosuo ethnic minority of China. They call it 'sisi', which translates as "friend marriage."
   
   The traditional culture is strongly matrilineal and matrilocal. The women open their doors to their lovers every evening, and the men walk home to work in their mother's household next morning. A man is responsible for supporting his sisters' children. While it is possible for a Mosuo woman to change partners as often as she likes - having only one sexual partner would be neither expected nor common - the majority of such couplings will actually be more long-term. Few Mosuo women will have more than one partner at a time.
   




5. How do people greet each other during festivals?

   During festivals, people greet each other by saying auspicious phrases. The most famous one is Kung Hei Fat Choy. Kung Hei Fat Choy is the Cantonese greeting of Happy New Year. It means "Congratulations and be prosperous." The saying is now commonly heard in English speaking communities for greetings during Chinese New Year in parts of the world where there is a sizable Chinese-speaking community, including overseas Chinese communities that have been resident for several generations, relatively recent immigrants from Greater China, and those who are transit migrants (particularly students)




6. Does Traditional Chinese Medicine Really Work? How?

   Traditional Chinese Medicine, also known as TCM, includes a range of traditional medical practices originating in China. TCM practices include theories, diagnosis and treatments such as herbal medicine, acupuncture and massage; often Qigong is also strongly affiliated with TCM. There are four types of TCM diagnostic methods: observe, hear and smell, ask about background and touching.
   
   Beijing Tongrentang Chinese Medicine is a famous time-honored brand in traditional Chinese medicine industry. Unique recipes, best raw materials, and strict standards bring about excellent clinical performance and high reputation both in China and abroad of Tongrentang products.
   
   In fact, Chinese herbs are prescribed in most TCM practices. These remedies are often sophisticated and complex mixtures that were developed for organ imbalances and disease support--and standardized--centuries ago. Those most often used today have been carefully formulated to have minimal side effects.
   
   If you plan to take Chinese herbs, make sure any mixtures you use have standardized content and are processed under the direction of a licensed health professional familiar with their medicinal effects. Individualized herbal mixtures should be prescribed only under the advice of a TCM practitioner who has training in herbal drug compounding. A TCM herbal mixture could be as safe as an over-the-counter cold and flu drug mixture, or as powerful as a strong prescription drug.

7. Apart from national festivals, is there any particular Chinese festival that's worth mentioning?

   Yes. There are many other kinds of festivals in China. Some only take place in certain area. There are two special festivals that we would like to share with you:
   

   • Naadam is a traditional type of festival in Mongolia. Games are played during the festival, such as Mongolian wrestling, horse racing and archery and are held throughout the country during the holidays.
     
     
   • Losar, Tibetan New Year, is the greatest festival in Tibet. It is the most colorful festival of Lhasa. In ancient times when the peach tree was in blossom, it was considered as the starting of a new year. Since the systematization of the Tibetan calendar in 1027 AD, The first day of the first month became fixed as the New Year. On the New Year's Eve, families unite and an "auspicious dinner" is offered, and the auspicious words "tashi delek" are used to greet each other.
     
     
   • Shoton Festival is also an important festival of Tibet. It will be hold in Drepung Monastery. Activities of Shoton Festival are: Buddha Painting Show, Visiting Norbu Linka, Tibetan opera.

    




8. What is a traditional Chinese wedding like?

   The "Hair Dressing" Ritual
   

   • At dawn on her wedding day (or the night before), the bride bathed in water infused with pumelo, a variety of grapefruit, to cleanse her of evil influences C; and one suspects as a cosmetic to soften her skin in the manner of contemporary alphahydroxls. She put on new underclothes and sat before lit dragon-and-phoenix candles.
     
   • A good luck woman attended the bridal preparations. She spoke auspicious words while dressing the brides hair in the style of a married woman.
     
   • After her hair was styled, the bride emerged from her retreat. She was carried to the main hall on the back of the good luck woman or her most senior sister-in-law. There she donned a jacket and skirt and stepped into a pair of red shoes, placed in the center of a sieve. The brides face was covered with either a red silk veil or a curtain of tassels or beads that hung from the bridal Phoenix crown. (The photo below was taken at the mock wedding at a prior years Chinese Summer Festival.
     
   • After completing her wedding preparations, the bride bowed to her parents and to the ancestral tablets and awaited the arrival of the bridal procession from the grooms house.
     
     
   The "Capping" Ritual
   
   
   • Dressed in a long gown, red shoes and a red silk sash with a silk ball on his shoulder, the groom knelt at the family altar while his father placed a cap decorated with cypress leaves on his head.
     
   • The groom bowed first before the tablets of Heaven and Earth and his ancestors, then to his parents and the assembled family members. His father removed the silk ball from the sash and placed it on top of the bridal sedan chair.
     
   
   The Procession from the Grooms House to Obtain the Bride
   
   
   • The dim of firecrackers, loud gongs and drums marked the start of the procession from the grooms home. The groom led the procession accompanied by a child as an omen of his future sons, and the bridal sedan chair was proceeded by attendants with lanterns and banners, musicians, and a dancing lion or unicorn. According to Hsiang, "Several decades ago, when there was a wedding in Fukien, the groom would to the brides house to fetch her, taking with him the bridal chair, which was completely covered with red satin and fresh flowers. He himself made the journey there and back in a blue and yellow teak sedan chair. "
     
   • On arriving at the brides house, the grooms party was met by the brides friends, who would not surrender the bride until they were satisfied by red packets of money, ang pau from the grooms representative. This was the occasion of much good-natured haggling before the two parties could reach an agreement.
     
   • In some cases, the groom would take dinner with the brides family, and receive a pair of chopsticks and two wine goblets wrapped in red paper, symbolic of his receiving the joy of the family in the person of their daughter. In some regions, he would be offered sweet longan tea, two hard-boiled eggs in syrup and transparent noodles. Another variation was the grooms partaking of soup with a soft-boiled egg, the yolk of which he was expected to break, arguably symbolic of breaking the brides ties with her family.
     
   
   The Brides Journey to the Grooms House
   
   
   • The good luck woman or a dajin, employed by the brides family to look after the bride, carried the bride on her back to the sedan chair. Another attendant might shield the bride with a parasol while a third tossed rice at the sedan chair. Sometimes the bride was borne out in a wooden cage with her feet padlocked C; presumably a remnant from rougher times with extremely reluctant brides.
     
   • A sieve, shai-tse, which would strain out evil, and a metallic mirror, king, which would reflect light, were suspended at the rear of the brides sedan to protect her from evil influence. The bride might also attach a special mirror to her garment, which she would not remove until she was safely seated upon the marriage bed.
     
   • Firecrackers were set off to frighten away evil spirits as the bride departed in the sedan chair. The physical movement symbolized the transfer of the bride from her parents family to her husbands.
     
   • Great care was taken to ensure that no inauspicious influence would affect the marriage. The female attendants who escorted the bride to her new home were chosen with particular care that the horoscope animals of their birth years were compatible with that of the bridegroom. The sedan chair itself was heavily curtained to prevent the bride from inadvertently glimpsing an unlucky sight, e.g. a widow, a well, or even a cat. Attendants scattered grain or beans, symbols of fertility, before her.
     
     
   Arriving at the Grooms House
   
   
   • Once again, firecrackers were set off just before the procession arrived. A red mat was placed before the sedan chair for the bride lest her feet touch the bare earth as she dismounted. All the household would be waiting to receive her.
     
   • The bride was required to step over a saddle or a lit stove to cross the threshold, since the words for "saddle" and "tranquillity" sound the same, ngan, and the fire would cast out of evil influences. An attendant might immediately place a heap of rice in a sieve over or near the bride. If the bride did not wear a lucky mirror, one might be used at this time to flash light upon the bride. In some regions, a grain measure and a string of of copper coins were laid out as talismans of prosperity.
     
   • After these rituals took place, the groom could finally raise the red scarf and view the brides face.

   The Wedding
   
   In contrast to the elaborate preparations, the wedding ceremony itself was simple. The bride and groom were conducted to the family altar, where they paid homage to Heaven and Earth, the family ancestors and the Kitchen God, Tsao-Chun. Tea, generally with two lotus seeds or two red dates in the cup, was offered to the grooms parents.
   
   Then the bride and groom bowed to each other. This completed the marriage ceremony, except in some regions, where both also drank wine from the same goblet, ate sugar molded in the form of a rooster, and partook of the wedding dinner together.
   

   The Nuptial Chamber
   
   

   Immediately after the ceremony, the couple were led to the bridal chamber, where both sat on the bed. In some areas, honey and wine were poured into two goblets linked by a red thread. The bride and groom took a few sips and then exchanged cups and drank it down. On the day of the wedding (and sometimes for the next three days), the bed chamber was open to visitors, who were given to teasing the young couple with ribald remarks.
   

   The Wedding Banquets

   Generally, separate wedding feasts were given by the parents of the bride and the groom for their respective friends and families. Even at the feast, men and women sat separately. There could be a single feast for each or a series of feasts over several days. However, the most important feast was that given the grooms family on the day of the wedding. It was generally considered as public recognition of the union.




9. Why do Chinese people use characters?

   A Chinese character, Han character or Hanzi is a logogram used in writing.
   
   The number of Chinese characters contained in the Kangxi dictionary is approximately 47,035, although a large number of these are rarely used variants accumulated throughout history. Studies carried out in China have shown that full literacy requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters.
   
   In the Chinese writing system, each character corresponds to a single spoken syllable. A majority of words in all modern varieties of Chinese are poly-syllabic and thus require two or more characters to write. Cognates in the various Chinese languages/dialects which have the same or similar meaning but different pronunciations can be written with the same character. In addition, many Chinese characters were adopted according to their meaning by the Japanese and Korean languages to represent native words, disregarding pronunciation altogether.
   
   Chinese characters are also known as sinographs, and the Chinese writing system as sinography. Non-Chinese languages which have adopted sinography and, with the orthography, a large number of loanwords from the Chinese language are known as Sinoxenic languages, whether or not they still use the characters. The term does not imply any genetic affiliation with Chinese. The major Sinoxenic languages are Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese.




10. What are some Chinese Taboos?

    In ancient China, the Chinese regarded the names of their emperors and elders as taboos. It was forbidden to write the name of an emperor when quoting anything old or composing anything new. To avoid such problems, later emperors were given names with characters invented for them -- characters that were utterly useless for any other purpose.
    
    To illustrate the principles involved here, let us take up the case of the man who founded the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). As an individual, he was a man of the Zhu family named Yuanzhang, so according to the usual manner he would be called Zhu Yuanzhang. However, once he ascended the throne, his personal name became taboo; thenceforth, he would be referred to by his dynastic name or Miaohao (temple name) Great Ancestor of the Ming, or Ming Taizu. According to the conventions of English usage, we would refer to him as Emperor Taizu.
    
    Since a Chinese character has different elements, or morphemes, and most Chinese names mean something, there were some ways to avoid tattoo words for ordinary people. For instance, a person can use any word element morpheme of a taboo word as his/her name; replace the taboo word with its synonyms or parasynonyms; use homophones or words with similar pronunciation as substitutes of the taboo word; change the pronunciation of the tattoo word when using it; use characters in similar shapes; add components to the taboo character to create a new one and so on.