Archive for May 24th, 2009

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Beijing Olympic – Psychological promotion appealed for Chinese archery team

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

In the gear-up efforts towards Beijing Olympics, Chinese athletes committed to training heart and soul. The psychological promotion seems to lag behind as the archery team exposed here at the archery event.

Chinese women team suffered early exit with 212-214 loss to Britain in the first elimination round at the International Hockey Tournament on Tuesday.

The hosts, world No. 2, was ranked in the sixth place after preliminaries, in which they had already betrayed the withering form.

In the elimination, Chinese archers, the Athens Olympics silver-taking team, found their forms still intangible. The women’s team coach Lian Guofu deemed that Chinese archers are in trouble due to nervousness during the competition.

“The archers tried their best but some of the shooting was not dealt with very well due to their nervousness in fear of losing their advantage gained at the beginning,” said Lian.

“It is a pity we got eliminated at the first round though the team shot six 10 points,” added Lian.

It’s not a pity, but a gain if the Chinese team can learn lessons from the tournament. After all, it’s only a run-up to Olympics. The psychological strength is as important as contesting skill for victory as testified through numerous examples.

“Cask theory” is quite applicable here for skill-demanding sports like archery.

Chinese men’s team was also less impressive in the preliminaries on Monday, finishing in eleventh. The men’s team coach Guo Meizhen spelled a similar curse.

“Our men’s team did not perform well. All the athletes are under huge pressure,” said Guo. “There is really great pressure on the Chinese team. The athletes will practise harder hereafter.”

“There is still a gap between the Chinese team and the world-class teams,” added Guo.

International Archery Tournament is one of a series of pre-Olympic events in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.

There are 113 archers from 27 nations and regions taking part in the “Good Luck Beijing” archery tourney slated for Aug. 20-26.

(Source: en.beijing2008.cn)

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China Travel – Ang’angxi Site

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Ang’angxi Site is located near Ang’angxi Town in Qiqihaer City, Heilongjiang Province.

There is a large dune area located at the site near Ang’angxi Town. To date cultural relics were unearthed in four dunes. Tombs were discovered at the excavations in 1928 and 1930. After the foundation of the new China, a large number of fine stoneware and pottery were discovered at the site along with some ash pits and more tomb sites. The site belongs to the Neolithic Age during both the early and late periods.

Stoneware unearthed at the site can be grouped into three categories: fine stone implements, large chipped-stoneware and polished ware. Of the stoneware, the fine stone implements were most abundant, including arrowheads, sharp-pointed ware, scraping ware, knife-shaped tools and trapezoid-shaped gallets. Stone arrowheads were made of chert and stone marrow. The trapezoid-shaped gallet was embedded in the knife handle. Polished ware included knives and plates.

Bone ware mainly consisted of spearheads and fish darts — the longest measuring about 16.4 centimeters. Such fishing tools tied to the end of the spear are very common at the Ang’angxi Site. Also many animal bones were unearthed at the site, indicating that fishing played an important role in people’s lives back then.

Pottery discovered at the site was made by hand in a simple style. The underdeveloped pottery craft probably resulted from the period’s backward agriculture.

(Source: chinaculture.org)

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Chinese Culture – New Anecdote of Social Talk

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Zhiren Novels refer to the novels that record and narrate the anecdotes and behaviors of people. The name Zhiren was derived by Lu Xun from Zhiguai (Supernatural) Fictions.

New Anecdote of Social Talk is the representative work of the Zhiren Novels. The book was compiled by Liu Yiqing (403-444), who was also an imperial clansman and officer in the Song Kingdom of the Southern Dynasties Period (420-589).

The general edition of New Anecdote of Social Talk has six volumes, including 36 articles, like Virtue, Language, Politics and Literature, etc., which are mainly about the words, deeds and anecdotes of the persons with literary talent from the late Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) to the Jin Dynasty (265-420) and the Song Kingdom (265-479) of the Southern Dynasties Period. The people mentioned in the book are all real persons that existed in history, but the words and stories about them in the book do not necessarily to be in line with actual facts. A considerable number of articles in the book are compiled from other books like The Records of the Great Historian and The History of the [Former] Han Dynasty. Other parts are also from the predecessors. Some stories, such as the conversation between Xie Lingyun and Liu Yiqing, might come from contemporary hearsays, as these people lived roughly at the same time with the author.

There are more articles recording the words rather than acts. The recordings were usually the speeches written down word by word without many decorations, and some of the words are therefore difficult to understand now. Meanwhile, those articles could usually display the characteristics of a person only with a very few words. For instance, Gen Wen, a powerful and aggressive minister said: If I can’t leave a good name through ages, then why don’t I go down in history as a symbol of infamy? Within a few words, a picturesque image of an overweening, ambitious man was sketched. Since the articles in the book are all deliberately selected and the language is also very polished, the book is generally more readable than ordinary unofficial history. With the great ability to generalize, the author could visualize a vivid image of the character with a very limited number of words. Some of the stories about one person are scattered in the whole book, but they still portray a complete image of character.

Most of the articles in the book are in the form of prose in an unadorned style. Sometimes the articles adopt the daily language, but this makes the article even more expressive and meaningful, and distinguish them from other contemporary works. Hence this book has always been popular among the people, and some of Chinese idioms actually came from it.

（Source: chinaculture.org）

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