Social Media Ideas for Chinese History

From gendered sacrifice to ancient politics: DNA lifts shroud on early Chinese civilisation

Thousands of years ago, a handful of burgeoning civilisations were forming the earliest cultures of what would evolve into China. Among these peoples were the Shimao, who construct...

Fan Zhongyan and the Family Legacy That Endured for Centuries

Fan Zhongyan (范仲淹, 989–1052) was one of the most influential statesmen, scholars, military commanders, and reformers of China’s Northern Song dynasty (960–1127). He is remembere...

Ming dynasty work shows how Chinese understood the world in the 1600s

Long before the digital age, a Ming dynasty scholar made it his mission to map human knowledge from a Chinese perspective. The result was an encyclopaedia spanning 127 volumes know...

The West studies China’s power — but not its civilization

At their Beijing summit on May 14, 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping asked US President Donald Trump whether China and the United States could avoid the “Thucydides Trap,” in whic...

China Focus: Global scholars explore new finds shedding light on origins of Chinese civilization

SHENYANG, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Recent excavations at a prehistoric site dating back roughly 5,000 to 5,800 years in northeast China's Liaoning Province have shed fresh light on the o...

Chinese man discovers family dining table is ancestor’s Qing dynasty academic record

A man in eastern China was stunned to discover that his family’s battered dining table was in fact a Qing dynasty (1644–1912) honour board commemorating an ancestor’s success in th...

How a Common Hat Became China’s Byword for Holding Office

The black gauze cap began as everyday headwear worn by commoners and clerks alike. It took roughly a thousand years, and one emperor's dress code, to turn it into a symbol of polit...

Virtual Tour of the Exhibition “Imperial China: The Qing Dynasty”

The exhibition “Imperial China: The Qing Dynasty (1644–1911)”, currently running in the Armorial Hall of the Winter Palace, is now accessible on the Hermitage Museum website in the...

Global scholars explore new finds shedding light on origins of Chinese civilization

SHENYANG, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Recent excavations at a prehistoric site dating back roughly 5,000 to 5,800 years in northeast China's Liaoning Province have shed fresh light on the o...

Ancient Chinese lord buried with bells meant to silence ancestral war rituals

Imagine, for a moment, that you lived in ancient China, with a rival state threatening your people’s very existence. In the quest for any advantage, one strategy might involve perf...

Ancient DNA Reveals the Hidden Origins of China’s Mysterious Shimao Civilization

Ancient DNA from Shimao reveals local origins, broad prehistoric connections, a patrilineal social structure, and gender-specific patterns of human sacrifice. At Shimao, a vast sto...

Reflections on the Virtues of Tea in Classical Chinese Culture

Serving tea to guests has been one of China’s traditional forms of etiquette since ancient times, and it became especially widespread during the Song dynasty. More than a simple re...

Exhibition on ancient Chinese civilization opens in Kyrgyzstan

BISHKEK, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- An exhibition titled "Harmony Creates Beauty: An Art Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Civilization" opened on Tuesday at the National History Museum of th...

23,000 bronzes, 14 years, 60 volumes: how China is mapping lost heritage held abroad

In the quiet of a Peking University research room, shelves groan under the weight of 60 thick volumes. Stacked, they stand taller than an average human. Inside their pages lie the...

How the Chinese Lunar Calendar Works, and Why China Still Keeps It

Its months follow the moon, its seasons follow the sun, and the 24 seasonal markers it produced still tell farmers across East Asia when to plant.

For a Thousand Years, the Chinese Pinned Catalpa Leaves to Welcome Autumn

The custom of wearing catalpa leaves on the first day of autumn began in Tang dynasty Chang'an and lasted through the Qing dynasty, carried by a pun on the tree's name.

The Jinluan Hall Was Not the Imperial Palace’s Main Hall, So Why Is It So Famous?

In Chinese drama and fiction, the emperor rules from the “Jinluan Hall.” The real hall of that name stood in the Tang dynasty’s Daming Palace, and it was never the main hall at all...

Chinoiserie

Text and Select Photography by Sharon McDonnell   The Allure of the Exotic East   Venetian explorer Marco Polo sparked a fascination with China with his sensational account of his...

2,300-year-old wine found near Great Wall ruin reveals ancient brewing secrets

“He who has never been to the Great Wall is not a true man,” former Chinese leader Mao Zedong wrote in a poem while passing through the Liupan Mountains in Guyuan, Gansu, during th...

Why China is nostalgic for another time

In His Final Months, Mao Zedong Read the Sky for Omens

The Party spent a decade prosecuting fortune-tellers. In the months before Tangshan, its chairman was reading the sky.

China's growingly diverse World Heritage portfolio

BUSAN, South Korea, July 25 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) added China's Jingdezhen Handicraft Porcelain Industry Sites t...

KYRGYZSTAN-BISHKEK-EXHIBITION-ANCIENT CHINESE CIVILIZATION-OPENING

(260819) -- BISHKEK, Aug. 19, 2026 (Xinhua) -- A visitor takes photos of an exhibit at the exhibition "Harmony Creates Beauty: An Art Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Civilization" at...

Xi Focus: Jingdezhen World Heritage listing highlights China's commitment to preserving cultural legacy

BEIJING, July 29 (Xinhua) -- For generations, porcelain makers in Jingdezhen have worked through a sequence of highly specialized tasks: preparing clay, shaping vessels, painting d...