Have you already planned out your gift list for this holiday season? Is your family planning for a trip to China next year and you want to know more about travelling in China? Do you have a junior one who is curious about the “Middle Kingdom”? Or you want to enrich yourself with some music cd / food cookbook of eastern style? Maybe you can try to give some “China” gifts this holiday season. Well, I mean, gifts which are about China, not just “Made in China” 🙂

Welcome to the 8th (November 19, 2009) edition of china carnival. This is also the 100th post at ChinaBlog.cc. I’d like to thank everyone for supporting me along the way. We have four posts today: one about Chinese food, one interview with a Chinese chess prodigy, and two posts about philosophy and spirituality. Enjoy~

But the organizers made a fatal mistake to use the “classic” word. “Classic” has the meaning of artistic value. “Classics” are naturally formed. It is obvious that to generate “classics” by ballot would be impractical. Who votes? What criteria? In what way? there are endless questions. If we only selected “the most representative works of each era”, perhaps we can have a more objective identification criteria.

This bronze ware perhaps was unearthed around mid 19th century during Daoguang or Jiaqing era of Qing Dynasty at Liangshan, Shouzhang County, Shandong Province. There are six other bronze wares unearthed at the same time. All together, they are known as “Seven Treasures of Liangshan”. As the most precious one of seven, Taibao Ding was owned by several people, such as Li Zong-dai, Ding Lin-Nian, Xu Shi-chang, etc. Xu even wrote a poem “Song for Obtaining the Ding” to celebrate his ownership.

China is one of many civilizations that have recorded juggling in early cultures. Most history books recorded this vivid performance art throughout Chinese history. The earliest juggling record dates to more than 2,000 years ago.

Here I list some Chinese juggling videos selected from YouTube for you. Some of them are totally unique for Chinese juggling; some are Chinese originated but also adapted by western juggling; some are universal but of Chinese characteristics.