China-Related Resources on This Site (& Elsewhere)
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Unless otherwise indicated, these materials were all written by me and may be freely used by teachers and students without additional permission.
Data Bases
Chinese Names & Terms Data Base Insert a romanization with or without tones and get back the full romanization, traditional and simplified Chinese characters, and explanation.
Mandarin Romanization Data Base Type in a spelling and see what it is used to represent in various different romanization systems. One use of this is to convert between the WG spellings you are likely to find in older published sources and the PY spellings used today. If you work off-line or prefer to scroll through the full list rather than looking up individual entries, you should instead use the Mandarin Romanization Table.
Chinese Stories About 125 retellings of myths, opera plots, and popular stories in general, arranged as a data base.
Tables and Maps
Periods of Chinese History (Table) (The Chinese History page contains some very brief remarks on cultural accomplishments associated with each period; someday I hope to expand it or to find an on-line history of China to which I can link it.)
Full Table of Chinese Imperial Reigns (Table) A date like "period 21a" used on other pages of this web site refers to the numbering explained and used in these pages.)
Maps of China & Taiwan (Maps) (These maps are accompanied by official spellings, current and obsolete, as well as the actual Chinese names. The maps themselves make use of abbreviations and can conveniently be used to review Chinese place names in addition to their reference function.)
Chinese Stories (About 125 retellings of myths, opera plots, and popular stories in general, arranged as a data base.)
Text: The Life of the Buddha As Seen From China (A retelling of the life of the Buddha with all proper names following their usual Chinese pronunciations rather than the original Indian names.)
Text: Tales of the Living Buddha of Golden Mountain (English reworking of a comic book produced by a monastery for the education of children and of lay beginners in Buddhist studies.)
Translations
Selections From the Penal Laws of China relating to marriage and divorce (Translation Only) (This 1810 translation of the Qīng 清 dynasty marriage code can provide the basis for useful class discussion.)
Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars (Èrshí Sì Xiào 二十四孝) (Annotated Translation & Original Text) (This text is the most important folk statement about filial piety. Dating from the Yuán dynasty (XIII-XIVth century), it is by no means part of the Confucian Canon, but belongs rather with the category of widely distributed popular morality texts.)
Maxims for Managing the Home (ZHŪ Bólú zhī Zhìjiā Géyán 朱柏卢之治家格言言) (Annotated Translation & Original Text) (Like the "Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars," the "Maxims for Managing the Home" is a widely distributed morality text that vividly lays out the traditional value system of China in the form of advice to the head of a family.)
The Tractate of the Most High One on Actions and Consequences (Tàishàng Gǎnyìng Piān 太上感应篇) (Annotated Translation & Original Text) By far the most popular morality tract in late imperial China, this probably remains the most widely read text ever written in Chinese.)
Sū Dōngbō's 苏东坡 Letter Against Infanticide (Annotated Translation and Original Text) (This brief letter by the famous Sòng Sòng 宋 dynasty poet and essayist urges a magistrate friend to try to stop the practice of killing children in his district. The examples he cites and arguments he uses shed interesting light on the custom, the period, and the writer.)
