XTREME SPORT IN CHINA

Beigin Ma Hetai of Guangzhou takes regular weekend rock climbing trips to Yangshuo, a tourist city in the karst peaks about a day's drive from home. He piles into a car with friends and stays with another friend who owns a bar in Yangshuo. Ma owns his gear, a one-time expense, so his trips cost 100 yuan (US$12) to 200 yuan per trip, mostly in road tolls, an acceptable price for the average Chinese wage-earner. Scaling cliffs "meets needs" that ordinary nightlife and tourism - staples of China's young moneyed generation - cannot, says Ma, who has practiced the sport for three years. The number of people like Ma - practitioners of "extreme sports" like rock climbing, bungee jumping and skateboarding - has been increasing by about a factor of five each year in China since the mid-1990s, when extreme sports first appeared here.

ESTREME SPORT IN CHINA

FOOD IN CHINA

Chinese cooking is one of the greatest methods of cooking. Since ancient time, many factors that have influenced its development. Confucius once said: "Eating is the utmost important thing in life." Cooking Chinese food requires more time and effort, and is considered a very sophisticated art. As a result, many travelers who have visited China consider Chinese cuisines one of the best.

meal in Chinese culture is typically seen as consisting of two general components:
main food - a carbohydrate source or starch, typically rice (predominant in southern parts of China),noodles, or buns (predominant in northern parts of China), and accompanying dishes - of vegetables, fish, meat, or other items.

As China is a geographically huge country, it is diverse in climate, ethnicity and subcultures. Not surprisingly therefore, there are many distinctive styles of cuisine. Traditionally there are eight main families of dishes, namely
Hui (Anhui) , Yue (Cantonese) , Min (Fujian) , Xiang (Hunan), Yang (Jiangsu) , Lu (Shandong), Chuan (Szechuan), Zhe (Zhejiang)

CELEBRATIONS IN CHINA

Legal holidays in China are New Year (January 1st), a national one-day holiday; Spring Festival (New Year by the lunar calendar), a national three-day holiday; International Working Women's Day (March 8th); Tree Planting Day (March 12th); International Labor Day (May 1st), a national one-day holiday; Chinese Youth Festival (May 4th); International Children's Day (June 1st); Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) (August 1st); Teacher's Day (September 10th); and National Day (October 1st), a national two-day holiday.

China's major traditional festivals include the Spring Day Festival, the Lantern Festival, Pure Brightness Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Double Ninth Festival. Ethnic minorities have also retained their own traditional festivals, including the Water Sprinkling Festival of the Dai people, the Nadam Fair of the Mongolian people, the Torch Festival of the Yi people, the Danu (Never Forget the Past) Festival of the Yao people, the Third Month Fair of the Bai people, the Antiphonal Singing Day of the Zhuang people, the Tibetan New Year and Onghor (Expecting a Good Harvest) Festival of the Tibetan people, and the Jumping Flower Festival of the Miao people.

NATIONAL MUSIC

Guoyue are basically music performed on some grand presentation to encourage national pride. Since 1949, it has been by far the most government-promoted genre. Compared to other forms of music, symphonic national music flourished throughout the country. In 1969 the cantata was adapted to a piano . The Yellow River Peno Concert was performed by the pianist Yin Chengzong, and is still performed today on global stages. During the height of the Cultural Revolution, musical composition and performance were greatly restricted

CHINA - MUSIC IN CHINA

Traditional music

Traditional music in China is played on instruments or in small ensembles of plucked and bowed stringed instruments, flutes, and various cymbals, gongs, and drums. The scale is pentatonic. Bamboo pipes and are among the oldest known musical instruments from China; instruments are traditionally divided into categories based on their material of composition: skin, gourd, bamboo, wood, silk, earth/clay, metal and stone. Chinese orchestras traditionally consist of bowed strings, woodwinds, plucked strings and percussion.