Quail is a middle-sized bird, and is nowadays farm-raised for table food and their eggs. However, they play an interesting role in traditional Chinese art with an auspicious meaning. Quail’s Chinese name is ‘an chun’(鹌鹑). Its first character 鹌 (‘an’) …
Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium, 菊花 júhuā) joins the esteemed ranks of plum blossom, orchid, and bamboo as one of the ‘Four Gentlemen of Flowers’ – 四君子花 (sì jūnzǐ huā) in China. Just like peonies, chrysanthemums find their place in ancient classical …
The zhi pheasant 雉, also called Huachong 华虫 in ancient China, is one of the most popular birds depicted in traditional Chinese art. Due to its characteristic multicoloured long-tail, the pheasant is associated with the wide-ranging literary talents of the …
The Chinese deeply respect the elderly and consider a long existence – ideally accompanied by health and happiness – to be one of the five most important blessings (wufu 五福) in a person’s life, which were believed by the ancients …
In the oracle bone script, the earliest form of the Chinese characters, the pictograph ‘福 (fu)’ consists of a pair of hands holding a wine jar in front of a sacred ancestral symbol. It means that, if the ancestors were …
The tree commonly referred to in English as the flowering plum in fact belongs to the species Prunus mume, which is part of the apricot family. With the pine and bamboo, the plum is one of the Three Friends of …
Phoenix has been deemed as a holy, noble and beautiful bird in the Chinese folk myths and was regarded as the king of all birds. In Volume 915 of the comprehensive reference book ‘Readings of the Taiping Era’ (太平御览 Tai …