Help
Add this page to your book
Show book (0 pages)
Suggest pagesHuaxia
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2011) |
| Huaxia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 華夏 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 华夏 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Huaxia (simplified Chinese: 华夏; traditional Chinese: 華夏; pinyin: Huáxià) is a name often used to represent China or Chinese civilization.
Contents |
[edit] Etymology
According to the historical record, Zuo Zhuan, the ancient Xia Dynasty of central China was a state that held propriety and justice in high esteem. Thus the word xia (夏), which later took on the meaning of "great" or "grand", referred collectively to the peoples of the Zhou fiefs, who were also known as hua (華), and later took on the meaning of "cultivated" and used to refer to the Chinese, as opposed to the non-cultivated "barbarians."[1]
[edit] Historical development
In the narrow, original sense, Huaxia refers to a group (or confederation of tribes) of ancient people living along the Yellow River who formed the nucleus of what later became the Han ethnic group in China. In this sense, the term referred to a specific ethno-cultural group (the Huaxia tribe or confederacy 華夏族) that was distinct from other groups, such as the Miao and the Dongyi, who have by modern times been to a greater or lesser degree assimilated into Chinese culture. However, since the Zhou Dynasty, with the spread of Han culture over most of China, the term gradually lost the original specific ethnic designation and came to be used as a generic term for the Chinese nation itself, as well as for Chinese culture in general (including that shared by the overseas Chinese). This transformation is explained by Confucius in Spring and Autumn Annals ("夷狄入華夏，則華夏之")。
[edit] Modern references
Although still used in conjunction, Hua (simplified Chinese: 华; traditional Chinese: 華) and Xia (Chinese: 夏) are more often used separately to represent things Chinese. Hua, in particular, has become almost synonymous with the Chinese civilization.
The official Chinese names of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China refer to Huaxia in using the term Zhonghua (中华 / 中華) to refer the Chinese civilization. The PRC's Chinese name is "中华人民共和国" and the ROC's Chinese name is "中華民國". Zhongguo (中国 / 中國) usually refers to the country.
The character hua is also often used to refer to people of Chinese ethnicity in the term Huaren (华人 / 華人) and those overseas Chinese as Huaqiao (华侨 / 華僑).
The Chinese calendar is also known as the "Xia Li" (夏历 / 夏曆).
The Dynasty business class service on China Airlines is called "Huaxia Class" in Chinese.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History : A Manual (Cambridge, Mass.: Published by the Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute : Distributed by Harvard University Press, Rev. and enl., 2000), 95.
