Chinese culture

Chinese culture is one of the world's oldest cultures, tracing back to thousands of years ago. Important components of Chinese culture includes ceramics, architecture, music, literature, martial arts, cuisine, visual arts, philosophy and religion.

Ethnic Groups-Officially there are 56 recognized ethnic groups in China, Han Chinese being the largest group. Many ethnic groups, though merge into Han identity, have maintained distinct linguistic and regional cultural traditions. Even within one ethnic group, there are probably diverse groups of people. Various groups of the Miao minority, for example, speak different dialects of the Hmong-Mie languages, Tai-Kadai languages, and Chinese, and practice a variety of different cultural customs. Typically each minority group has their own costumes, festivals and customs. For example, various marriage customs are found amoung different minority groups. There is actually a museum that features marriage customs of ethnic groups-Guizhou Museum of Marriage Customs. See more about our Minority Tours.

Religion-Confucianism and Taoism, later joined by Buddhism, constitute the "three teachings" that historically have shaped Chinese culture. There are no clear boundaries between these intertwined religious systems, which don't claim to be exclusive, and elements of each enrich popular or folk religion. Folk or popular religion, the most widespread system of beliefs and practices has evolved and adapted since at least Shang and Zhou dynasties. During the period fundamental elements of a theology and spiritual explanation for the nature of the universe emerged. Basically, it consists in allegiance to the "shen", a character that signifies a variety of gods and immortals, who can be deities of the natural environment of ancestral principles of human groups, concepts of civility, cultural heroes, many of whom feature in Chinese mythology and history. Recent surveys estimated that some 80% of Han Chinese practice some kind of Chinese folk religion and Taoism; 10-16% are Buddihists; 3-4% are Christians; and 1-2% are Muslims.