1 . Chinese food is well received by the world. Who doesn’t long for a favorite Chinese dish? But there is one interesting concept concerning Chinese food which is almost unheard of in the West, and which is becoming increasingly ignored by the youth of the East — the ancient custom of “tonic (滋补) food”.

Tonic food is food which is consumed to improve one’s well-being or avoid sickness. For instance, it was once the custom for new mothers to eat a sesame oil (麻油) hot pot every day for the first month after giving birth. It was believed that this dish would benefit the muscles, reduce pain, improve circulation, stimulate sweating, and warm the body. Some foods, such as goat meat and spinach, are seen as “hot”, while others, such as Chinese cabbage and radishes, are seen as “cold”. One should be careful not to eat too much of either “hot” or “cold” food. However, how much “hot” or “cold” food one should eat depends on the time of the year, how the food is prepared and what it is prepared with, and the individual’s health.

The custom of employing tonic food for a healthier life also influences the catering industry. Chinese herbal medicines, such as wolfberry (枸杞), can be found on many a restaurant menu, either added to fruit tea or as a beneficial addition to a dish. These herbs attract customers, such as overworked office staff, in need of a modest pick-me-up.

So, whether you need to boost your strength with a large helping of chicken soup, or increase your mental powers with a serving of fish soup, you may find that this ancient Chinese custom could be just the tonic you were looking for.

2 . Acupuncture (针灸) is a traditional Chinese medical practice of treating various physical and mental conditions. It won respect and interest in the United States after New York Times reporter James Reston visited China with President Nixon and needed an operation.

Chinese doctors used acupuncture on James after surgery (外科手术) to reduce his pain, and his recovery was quick. Curious about this, James was allowed to watch surgery on patients who received acupuncture for anesthesia (麻醉). Patients talked with their doctors during the operation and then walked back to their rooms on their own.

Acupuncture left James such a deep impression that he wrote a front-page article in New York Times about his operation upon returning to the United States. “A leading medical expert sent by Premier Zhou Enlai removed my appendix (阑尾). I was awake in the whole process.”

The National Institutes of Health began to organize some of their top doctors to visit China to investigate acupuncture and its possible functions in western medicine. With years going by, acupuncture has become popular across the world with magical effect.

4 . There are many interesting stories about Chinese fans in historical records, novels, and legends.    1    He was a famous military strategist during the Three Kingdoms period. And there are also stories about the plantain fan belonging to Princess Iron Fan, a fictional character in the classic novel Journey to the West.

    2     For example, men of letters preferred folding fans, military strategists preferred feather fans, girls of noble (贵族的) families liked circular fans while ordinary people usually used palm leaf fans.

The reason why fans evolved into artwork was largely related to men of letters, who liked to paint or write poetry on fans, and gave them to their friends as gifts.    3    That eventually led to fans becoming artwork.

It has been popular to draw fans or write poems about fans, and paint or write on paper fans. There is a story about Wang Xizhi, known for his Chinese calligraphy. Wang once saw an elderly lady selling fans. The business was not so good. She looked very upset, so Wang decided to help her.    4    On seeing Wang’s calligraphy on those fans, people all competed to buy them, which sold out very quickly.

It has been popular to paint on fans since Tang Dynasty. Artwork on fans is also a unique type of Chinese painting. As space is limited, the painters pay close attention to the composition on the half-circle fan.    5    

For thousands of years, Chinese people never stopped innovating fan design, and adopted different materials such as bamboo, paper, bones. They made fans of many shapes, such as circular and square shapes.

6 . Gong Linna, well-known Chinese musician and founder of Chinese New Art Music, put her music teaching methods to practice for the first time at the Tracing Roots practice concert and music festival of the Affiliated High School of Peking University on May 23.

The first song of the concert, Search High and Low, is an allusion (暗指) to the classical poem Li Sao(离骚), “The road ahead will be long. I shall search high and low.” “It’s arranged to be sung by all performers, indicating that we should all search high and low for our roots,” Gong says.

To explore the education and the popularization of Chinese music, in 2017, Gong established a research and development team, which includes ethnomusicologist, Du Yaxiong, and music historian, Zhao Zhongming, to introduce her music teaching methods and summarize the vocal skills of Chinese music.

Gong believed that the popularization of Chinese music should rely on primary and secondary schools rather than music academies. The children’s passion for music and their outstanding performance amazed Gong, “When singing, they are completely absorbed in the music. Music brings light and richness to one’s spiritual world. So, learning to sing is never about passing examinations, but about enjoying the music.”

Lu Yueming, instructor of the school’s art center, said, “The children worked really hard and kept in mind Gong’s instructions. Seeing their performance, I know that they truly fell in love with traditional Chinese music.”

Lu Yueming, instructor of the school’s art center, said, “The children worked really hard and kept in mind Gong’s instructions. Seeing their performance, I know that they truly fell in love with traditional Chinese music.”

“Seeing the children perform my pieces, I realized I should write more songs for them,” Lao Luo, Gong’s husband said proudly. “It’s a great encouragement for me to see how much they like the songs, and they really need content related to Chinese culture.” With an international vision, Gong will continue to write songs based on Chinese folk music or ancient poems.

Gong said children should learn about the beauty of Chinese music. Only when you know about your own sounds, can you have cultural confidence.

8 . It may seem as if Mother’s Day was invented by a company named Hallmark, but people have been taking time on the calendar to give a shout-out to Mom for a long time. The Greeks and Romans had mother goddess festivals — although their celebrations didn’t involve the menfolk taking their underappreciated mothers out to dinner. A more recent tradition was Mothering Sunday, which developed in the British Isles during the 16th century. On the fourth Sunday in April, young men and women who were living and working apart from their families were advised to return to their mothers’ houses.

Mother’s Day as it is observed in the United States started in the 1850s with Ann Jarvis, a West Virginia woman who held “Mothers’ Work Days” to promote health and hygiene (卫生) at home and in the workplace. During the Civil War, Jarvis organized women to improve sanitary conditions for soldiers on both sides, and after the war she became a peacemaker, furthering the cause by bringing together mothers of Union and Confederate soldiers and promoting a Mother’s Day holiday.

Jarvis’s work inspired another 19th-century woman, Julia Ward Howe. In 1870 Howe published her “Mother’s Day Proclamation”, which envisioned the day not as appreciation of mothers by their children but as an opportunity for women to exercise their collective power for peace. Howe started holding annual Mother’s Day celebrations in Boston, her hometown, but after about a decade she stopped footing the bill and the tradition faded away.

It was Jarvis’s daughter Anna who succeeded in getting Mother’s Day recognized as a national holiday. After her mother died, in May 1905, Anna started holding yearly ceremony on the anniversary and conducting a tireless PR campaign to have the day made a holiday. In 1908 she succeeded in enlisting the support of John Wanamaker, the Philadelphia department store magnate and advertising pioneer, and by 1912 West Virginia and a few other states had adopted Mother’s Day. Two years later, President Woodrow Wilson signed a resolution declaring the second Sunday in May a national holiday.

It wasn’t long, though, before whatever ideals the day was supposed to celebrate were buried under an amount of greeting cards and candy. By the 1920s Anna Jarvis was campaigning against the holiday she had been instrumental in creating. “I wanted it to be a day of emotionalism, not profit,” she said.

10 . In the hands of Chinese sill artisans(手艺人), flour is made into lovely models of people or animals. This art form is called dough figurine(面塑). Among the various styles, Beijing’s Dough Figurine Lang is a unique folk art. His delicate and lovely handicrafts are storytellers of old and new Beijing. In 2008, it was included in the list of national intangible cultural heritage.

It was created by Lang Shao’an. He created animals and characters from legends, historical stories, and local operas. The finished product is either put at the end of a thin stick, or on a table for display. Some are mostly for children to eat or play with, with simple forms and vivid decorations, while some are delicate pieces of artwork for display only. For this reason, during the making process they are often mixed with additives(添加剂)to prevent them from breaking up, and being eaten by insects. Over the course of his long career, Lang Shao’an developed a set of sill fingers with an elegant artistic sense.

Lang Jiaziyu, born in 1995, is the third-generation inheritor of Dough Figurine Lang. When he was 15, he created Beijing Olympic Mascot shaped dough figurines which were highly praised. He looks a bit more fashionable than other folk artisans. In his skilled hands, some figures such as Nezhe are popular with young people.

Like most of the other intangible cultural heritage handicrafts in China, Dough Figurine Lang does not get as much attention from the public. Few young people are willing to take the time to master a skill that does not make money, which has led to a decline in the number of those who are devoted to the handicraft. Good handicrafts need the devotion of artisans from one generation to another.