Privileges of Chinese Culture

As is well known that China is one of four ancient and civilizational countries in the world. In china ,It’s easier for you to find a person than you can in any countries. that is, China has the largest number of population in the world. In fact ,It has a more long history than we have ever known. Because of this, China has profound and historical culture. There is no doubt other countries in the world have extremely rich cultures. In my opinion ,compared with other countries, china have three privileges in culture. Here are three following privileges.
Firstly, china have long-history traditional culture and strong culture heritage. The Chinese 5000-year-long civilization is extensive and profound, and has a long history, starts for back and runs a long course. Compared with other countries, our country have very traditional and unique culture, for example, Confucianism and Taoism. More than 2000 years ago, there emerged in China Confucianism represented by Confucius and Mencius , Taoism represented by Lao Zi and Zhang Zi, and many other theories and doctrines that figured prominently in the history of Chinese thought, all being covered by the famous term “the masters hundred schools”. In recent years, there are more and more Confucius Institutes being built all around the world, which shows that our Chinese culture become much more popular than ever. such as Japan, South Korea and other Asian and European countries. And this culture also have great influence on the Modern China and the world, especially the Confucianism. They deeply root in traditional Chinese culture and people’s daily lives. For example, one of aspects of Confucianism “humanity”, As the core of the political thoughts of Confucius, it put forward the problems of how to conduct oneself and deal with relationship between people. There should be respect, lenience, honesty, modesty and mutual favor between people. Middle school students in china have to learn it from history book at school’s request. During the study time, students are supposed to recite the main points of it. Another example is Chinese Dragon, Dragon worship in China has been around for the last 8,000 years. The ancients in China considered the dragon a fetish that combines animals including the fish, snake, horse and ox with cloud, thunder, lightning and other natural phenomena. The Chinese dragon was formed in accordance with the multicultural fusion process of the Chinese nation. To the Chinese, the dragon signifies innovation and cohesion. These two tradition culture are unique in the world.
Secondly, distinctive folk culture in China. We have a lot of folk culture that have a long history and deeply influence Chinese nowadays. For instance, The twelve Chinese zodiac, which signs the twelve animals. Chinese people customarily use to mark the year in which a person was born. The twelve animals and the order in which they are arranged are called “the twelve zodiac signs”. The twelve animals are rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. In china, people have a Chinese Zodiac, representing any of the twelve animals. Another example is Chinese kung fu ,has a history of a thousand years in China. People in china practice kung fu for physical training and self defens, and it is still popular today. As a folk culture, it not only enrich people’s life but also enrich Chinese art culture. Otherwise, it has aroused interest among foreigners in the world. They like it and love to learn it. Because it can make people strong and healthy, and also it is an interesting activity.
Thirdly, ethnic diversity in China. Our country is a multi-national country, in this vast nation, different languages and various dialects are used. Also mutual culture integration and exchange. China have 56 nations. Each nation has a distinctive and different culture. The largest nation , the Han, make up over 92％ of china ‘s vast population. The 55 ethnic minorities maintain their own rich traditions and customs. For example, Han people almost speak Putong hua, as a national language, now also has aroused foreigners interest to learn. Other nations speak their own languages, such as Man people speak Manchu, Tibetan speak Tibetic languages. What’s more, different nations have different clothing. Han people’s clothing is Hanfu, other ethnic minorities have their own dress. At last, in many ethnic minorities they have very unique customs, for instance, Dai nationality they can’t sit above the fireplace or across the fireplace, they should take shoes off at the door when enter a bamboo house etc. These are some of their customs. 56 nations live together in a country, although we have various different customs, languages and so on, which enrich our national culture.
In conclusion, china as a historical and civilizational country, which has rich and profound culture. In the world, cultures of other countries full of variety. Each country’s cultures have their uniqueness. As far as I am concerned, china has above three advantages by Compared with other countries, long- history culture, unique folk culture and mutual national culture. And these also are the important reasons why Chinese culture is so rich and profound.

References :
1. https://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/social_customs/zodiac/
2. http://kaleidoscope.cultural-china.com/9two.html
3. http://arts.cultural-china.com/27two.html
4. http://www.chinatoday.com/people/china_ethnic_information.htm