...As said previously, ancient politics had their flaws and enduring issues. An example was the idea that people have the power to rule from their god(s). This was an enduring issue because it gave the rule supreme power which meant the citizens had no say in decisions that would ultimately affect them. The Ancient Chinese’s term to describe this ideology was the Mandate of Heaven. Qin Shi Huangdi, the emperor of the Qin Dynasty, gained his position because of the Mandate of Heaven. Although he did bring unity and harmony to China, his way of gaining power did cause problems. Many know that during Qin Shi Huangdi's rule, he helped develop the Great Wall of China and his mausoleum which protected by a life-sized terracotta army statue. These great...
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...1 ANCIENT CHINA 1 Introduction and General Remarks for Ancient China Ancient civilizations of the Egyptians and Mesopotamians have long disappeared, but Ancient Chinese civilization and its transformation to modern times has lasted as the largest and most enduring one in human history. This is even more remarkable when observing the numerous leitmotifs of the Chinese society that were inaugurated so long ago, and many of these themes still resonate today. Ancestral worship, the Mandate of Heaven, and the numerous philosophical ideas, especially of Confucius, have been practiced or used for thousands of years. Remote and mysterious are two adjectives that Western Society has applied to China until recently. China is the only civilization where western thought had no influence until modern times, and also practically the only large region in the world where western men never ruled. For westerners, Chinese customs seem reversed to theirs. White is the color of mourning for the Chinese not black, and for them the left side is one of honor not the right side. Writing is read vertically from the top right-hand corner downward. These few differences reveal that Chinese culture evolved independently of western influences. One can only marvel at the longevity of Chinese civilization. Influence of Geography 2 Geography has played an important role in Chinese History as in most ancient, medieval, and modern cultures. While 85% of China is arid or inaccessible steppes...
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...Ancient Chinese Contributions This paper will highlight some of the inventions of the ancient Chinese and focus on four that many believe to be the most important to society today. China is the oldest living civilization in the world. Because of the vast history, dating 5,000 years, Chinese history is broken down into dynasties. The Chinese have made a copious amount of inventions in history, four of which we will go into great detail about in this paper- printing, gunpowder, compass, and paper. Theories abound as to why China was so successful inventing. Some of the factors contributing to the proliferation of innovation are wealth, an abundant population, and geographical isolation. The Chinese also had a very civilized and cultured society. The Chinese have always had a large population; historians estimate that during the innovation period for the Chinese they maintained 25% of the world’s population (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2014). This allowed for the Chinese to leverage many people to perform a task. China is located in Asia, and during the time they were extremely isolated, as evidenced by the building of the Great Wall, a tremendous feat in ingenuity and innovation in its own right. A few of the noted inventions listed in chronological order are silk, papermaking, cast iron technology, wheelbarrow, compass, tea, porcelain, gunpowder, brandy, whisky and printing. For the purposes of this paper we will focus on the compass, paper, gunpowder...
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...In our everyday lives, we have someone we follow. Whether it’s a teacher or the President. In order to function the structure of government is extremely important. Like most human beings we lead by example. Without some sort of leadership, we feel lost. In ancient Egypt, the people were lost without it. It was believed the Ancient Egyptians were had one of the best governmental functioning society's, ever. The leader of Egypt or the “pharaoh” was the “the divine representation of the gods on earth.” Together, religion and government ruled the Egyptian civilizations. The all the people looked up to the Pharaoh because they believe god had inhabited him, so they thought they were looking up to god and it would be a sin not to follow his orders. In ancient China Without government there would be no sense of control and the civilization would fall to the...
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...Tuan’s On Hearing Her Play The Harp 1. From my point of view, I think Xiao Qiao is seated beside a window on a day in winter. The window is made of wood as is the house made of wood and brick. It was fashioned from the pagoda’s design. She is seated on a wooden stool beside her harp. Judging from the fact that Xiao Qiao and Zhou Yu were prominent names in Chinese history, I believe that they resided in the city of Ch’ang-an, the biggest city in China. The city was the busiest city in China at the time. And probably outside Xiao Qiao’s window are shops and streets filled with people especially the tea shop where people go to warm themselves during a cold winter day. 2. Zhou Yu was the general of Qu of the three kingdoms in Ancient China. He was handsome and intelligent. A brilliant military leader and strategist, Zhou Yu was among the most coveted men during his time. Aside from being a brilliant character in the field of battle, Zhou Yu also has great musical capabilities as it was said that he could tell if there were mistakes in music even when he was intoxicated. Zhou Yu fought alongside Sun Ce and won the foundation east of Yangtze River. Upon the death of Yangtze, Zhou Yu assisted Sun Quan with military and political affairs. He died at the age of 36. Although he died young, he was very accomplished because until his last second, he was still doing his job as a militarist. 3. Xiao Qiao literally means “the younger Qiao”. She is called so because she is the younger...
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...and wounded many men and women. Most importantly this attacked was not only spontaneous, but also had a great execution plan which allowed for Japanese forces to withdraw their forces completely untouched. In “Military Misfortunes”, authors Cohen and Gooch present the matter in such way that the mistakes were made due to inability to communicate and to disburse proper intelligence information to naval commander Admiral Kimmel. Communication is a vital part of the military planning and lack of “Knowing your enemy” can be catastrophic. Inadequate communication also leads to inability to attack enemy weaknesses and to avoid strengths, which United States failed to do, but on the contrary was mastered by Japanese forces during Pearl Harbor. Another mistake made during in 1942 attack was the inability to mask critical, American, plans and keep them secret. By lack of communication and inability to protect secret information both principles of war were a failure resulting in death of many people and dismissal of potentially good commanders of Naval and Air forces. Principles of war include deliberate planning and analyses. Another example provided in “Military Misfortunes”, was a mistake of German Army on western fronts during 1918. German supreme command put together thousands of troops and equipment to make a large scale attack against Allied forces. Unfortunately for German’s, the attack was a failure because German’s not only underestimated the size of the enemy, but also were...
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...Why did China fall behind Europe in the 15th century? In my opinion, the main reason that China fell behind Europe in the 15th century is the closing down of itself with other civilizations and the banned international trades strategies which severed the communication and connection of the Chinese people with the outside world. And in the same time the rapid growth of the European countries had boosted those civilizations in the other direction thanks to the newly discovered resources on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I would like to explain these ideas from the following aspects: The early developments of China: China has gone through a period of rapid technological advances in the first centuries of human history thanks to its particular geographical location and the early coming together of the nations within its boundary. Although there were lots of nations fighting wars against each other, aiming to control all the territory on the land of the so-called East Asia nowadays, the Chinese empire was finally founded by the Qin and the united nation has adopted lots of governing strategies to develop the livelihood of its people not only in literature but also in science. Because of these factors, the Chinese people have invented ways to preserve the cultural and technological achievements and also have developed ways to explore the 1/7 outside world. Such decisions have been made since the Han dynasty when the empire opened up the Silk Road to the west, connecting...
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...later part of ancient China (e.g Han dynasty), states started to adopt a mixture of Confucianism and Legalistic ideology. Why did Legalism and Confucianism fall off? In this paper I will explore and provide my own insights on the shortcomings of both ideologies; how Legalism was more persuasive in getting people to accept their ideas and more effective as an ideology and how Confucianism lost out in both aspects. Persuasiveness of Legalism The central idea of legalism was to provide absolute power to the person in charge and the supremacy of authority. Legalists like Han Fei Zi believed that human nature was “evil” and strict rules should be in place to ensure order, similar to a shepherd and sheeps3. With this theory in mind, the idea of absolute power was very attractive to rulers of states. Rulers will exercise the “two handles” of reward and punishment accordingly to keep their subjects obedient and loyal. This ideology is even more appealing towards newly founded states that lack in the department of control over its subjects. If states can adopt the legalistic way of ruling, rulers can exercise their control over the whole state to maintain order. Therefore it is more likely for rulers to be persuaded into adopting legalism as their state ideology since it aligns with their objectives. When compared to Confucianism where rulers are encouraged to trust officials in states with their own ruling, power dilution was a very glaring problem to the rulers. China underwent many...
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...Yun Gee's overall experience in the Western world was filled with unacceptance as a Chinese Modernist painter. He died living with unfulfilled dream. On the other hand, his works have become a reflection of the Chinese American point of view in times without unity and boundaries set to constrain and control the lives of fellow humans. The painting, 'New Year's Day in San Francisco's China Town' opens the viewer to a grand monumental depiction of China Town in vivid blocks of colors, but the lack of social activity and emptiness of the place lead us to think just that of it. The strokes created rays of light in a hopeful direction. The lack of social activity might relate to an illusion of a place with horizontally hopeful structure. It is an...
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...Introduction to the case 2 2 Critically and systematically analyse the global strategic advantages of IKEA 3 2.1 Branding , designer appeal 3 2.2 Critical mass, low cost, low price 3 2.3 Quality, green credentials 3 2.4 Global appeal, local sensitivity 3 3 What were the key challenges that IKEA faced in a) China and b) Japan? 4 3.1 Key challenges faced by IKEA in China 4 3.1.1 Cultural 4 3.1.2 Structural 4 3.2 Key challenges faced by IKEA in Japan 4 4 Critically discuss the marketing strategies used to address the challenges the company faced in China and in other markets. 6 4.1 China 6 4.2 Other markets 7 5 Discuss and justify what IKEA’s marketing strategies should be in the future in these two markets. 8 5.1 China 8 5.2 Japan 8 6 Conclusions 9 7 Bibliography 10 1 Introduction to the case From humble origins in the woods of Sweden in 1926, IKEA has developed into a major retail experience in 41 countries / territories around the world, with a current turnover of €23.1 Billion (IKEA, 2010). This case study explores the establishment and development of IKEA’s retail ventures in China and Japan – its first moves outside westernised countries and its first significant retail activity in Asia, despite substantial sourcing activity in the region, and discusses how IKEA might continue its market development in these territories. 2 Critically and systematically analyse the global strategic advantages of IKEA...
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...Confucianism Religion /133 1/13/16 Confucianism What is Confucianism? "Confucius," the common name of Confucianism's founder, is a Latinized form of the Chinese K'ung-fu-tzu, "Master K'ung." The terms "Confucianism" and "Confucian" are not meaningful terms in Chinese. They are Western terms, coined in Europe as recently as the 18th century. As we dive deeper into this paper on Confucianism we will learn about the Five Great Relationships and the role of Confucianism in Chinese culture and society today. Five great Relationships According to Confucius, each person had a specific place in society and certain duties to fulfill. Confucius hoped that if people knew what was expected of them they would behave correctly. Therefore, he set up five principal relationships in which most people are involved. These relationships were (1) ruler and subject; (2) father and son; (3) elder brother and younger brother; (4) husband and wife; and (5) friend and friend. All, except the last, involve the authority of one person over another. Power and the right to rule belong to superiors over subordinates; that is, to older people over younger people, to men over women. Each person has to give obedience and respect to "superiors"; the subject to his ruler, the wife to her husband, the son to his parents, and the younger brother to the older brother. The "superior," however, owes loving responsibility to the inferior. ...
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...it is the least metaphysical and the more practical of the Eastern philosophies considered. Confucius was a contemporary philosopher and also a contemporary Buddha. Below are the basic tenets of Confucianism; 1. Confucius never aimed at teaching anything new or founding anything new to the system; his aim was to simply give a re-interpretation and transmit to posterity the wisdom of the ancients. Thus he says and I quotes; “I communicate and do not invent. I have faith in antiquity and consecrate all my efforts to its cause”. The center of Confucius teaching is the concept of Jen, which has variously translated as human-heartedness (Derk Bodde, Fung Yu-lan), that by which a man is to be a man(Chan), the virtue of perfect humanity (Wei), compassion (Lin Yutang), and man – to – manness (E.R. Hughes). Jen is that which distinguishes man from animas and all the virtues, like reciprocity, loyalty, trustworthiness and courage, are expressions of it. 2. Confucius was a great lover of tradition and have great reverence for the wisdom of the ancients 3. Confucianism liberates china from the period of socio-political upheaval and moral degeneration. This he achieved after devoting sometime to the study of...
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...In order to spread chinese culture to the world, I choose this subject about the Giant Buddihsm in Leshan Sichuan Province. In this paper, I will introduce ancient stories about the Giant Buddihsm, and some figures related to it. First, I will try to analysis these pages by myself, and then use some tools, like transgod to help me, and after that, I will send it to my supervisor and accept his advice, to correct some mistakes or revise some of my contents. Of course, during my translation, I will use some electronic dictionary tools to check some strange worlds, like Youdao, Jinshan, and also some relevant websites to search some information about the Giant Buddihsm, and some information about Leshan as well as some other traditional cultures,...
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...MANAGEMENT Confucius on Management History has shown that China is a significant creator and repository of great philosophies, yet we know little of Chinese philosophies on leadership. With China becoming a global economic and political force, we need to learn from and to understand Chinese leadership philosophies. We must also consider that China is now in the process of blending its tradition, customs and practices with Western concepts and ideas. In the business world, it is the blending of its wisdom and Western practices. Successful leadership behavior of today's more culturally diverse workforce is one of the most important challenges organizations face. CHINA The People's Republic of China today seems to be entering the modern world, coming out of the shadow of the warlords, the 20-year struggle between communism and nationalism, and the Cultural Revolution. Moves are afoot to shift the Chinese economy more toward the market-oriented end of the spectrum. China’s 1978 open door policy initiated rapid economic development, and consequently exposed china to a flood to Western management practices. CHINA 2 China is a country of old and new and one that is in transition. With the rise of China in the global economy, it has never been more important for business leaders to understand Chinese leadership philosophies and practices. Ancient Chinese thinking and Western ideas have shaped the development of leadership styles in China. Leadership theories (paternalistic leadership as practiced...
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...UYO AKWA IBOM STATE, NIGERIA. FEBRUARY, 2012 1. INTRODUCTION All human societies have medical beliefs that provide explanations for birth, death, and disease. Throughout history, illness has been attributed to witchcraft, demons, astral influence, or the will of the gods. These ideas still retain some power, with faith healing and shrines still used in some places, although the rise of scientific medicine over the past millennium has altered or replaced mysticism in most cases. The ancient Egyptians had a system of medicine that was very advanced for its time and influenced later medical traditions. The Egyptians and Babylonians both introduced the concepts of diagnosis, prognosis, and medical examination. The Hippocratic Oath, still taken by doctors today, was written in Greece in the 5th century BCE, Horstmanshoff et al (2004:7). In the medieval era, surgical practices inherited from the ancient masters were improved and then systematized in Rogerius's The Practice of Surgery. During the Renaissance, understanding of anatomy improved, and the invention of the microscope would later lead to the germ theory of disease. These advancements, along with developments in chemistry, genetics, and lab technology (such as the x-ray) led to modern medicine, O'Leary (1939:65). 2. PREHISTORIC MEDICINE Although there is no record to establish when plants were first used for medicinal purposes (herbalism), the use of plants as healing...
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