During the 29th Olympic Games held in Beijing in summer 2008, Chinese government had also organized lots of exhibitions, trying to introduce more about China to athletes and tourists from all over the world. Among these exhibitions, traditional Chinese art had taken an important part.

Obviously, visitors were all astonished by the huge diversity and artistic delicacy of Chinese traditional art. They experienced a deep impression of oriental culture from them. So somebody summed up a list of top 10 Chinese traditional arts that foreigners like most.

This is a video uploaded by Chinese Civilization Channel at youtube.com . This pipa piece is the most viewed one of its 风华国乐 (Grace of Traditional Chinese Music) playlist.

This is just one example of videos uploaded by Chinese Civilization Channel. So far, I found it the best “China” channel on youtube. Since joining youtube on June 19, 2008, in about one year and a half, this channel has uploaded 13,400+ high quality videos organized with 147 playlists. It has attracted 4,400+ subscribers and ~12 million total upload views.

Puppet show is a common form of performance art that you can find in many different cultures. Although its exact date of origin is hard to define, many historians believe that puppet show is developed with other drama forms around 2000 years ago independently in various ancient cultures.

As a performance art, puppet show is believed to be “originated in Han dynasty, and thrived in Tang Dynasty”. In Three Kingdom Period, puppets were used in juggling performances; in Sui Dynasty, puppet show was introduced in storytelling.

Welcome to the 9th (December 21, 2009) edition of China Carnival. Before going into posts, I wish everyone a merry Christmas and happy new year!

We have 8 posts (new record high~ applauds) today. Fangfang, a new “China” blogger at chinasundae.com contributes two, one about some opinions on Han Buddhism and another about some travel tips. Our old friends Zhu, Chris, Katie and Richard continue to present their posts about Beijing, Martial arts, travel tips, and spirituality, respectively.

The discovery of this red lacquer bowl indicates that at least six or seven thousand years ago, Chinese ancestors had been using lacquer to decorate the surface of apparatus. China is the first country in the world that became aware of lacquer and used it for decoration. And this bowl proves it.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art at New York City has a great collection of Ming and Qing Dynasty Chinese lacquerwares. Go have a look!