A Preliminary Study of Relationship between Chinese Elegant Ideology and Environmental Mobilization

This study investigated the relationship between “Chinese elegant ideology" and environmental mobilization to explore a new possibility of consciousness awakening for environmental protection. The author considered the life posture of scholar-emits in the Tang and Song Dynasties. It conveyed a demand for the inheritance of ideas and civilizations as well as elegant and sustainable life orientation. The study will further identify the ideological and spiritual guidance and practical demonstration of cultural ideology for environmental movements by considering the causes and influential factors of environmental mobilization in modern society. It is supposed to get a trade-off between natural integration and social integration. The given elegant life dynamics of the Tang and Song Dynasty will construct an interaction between nature and mainstream human social behavior, which dramatically reduces the segregation and contradiction between social and natural integration. This study will advocate a sustainable and contracted "new form" that appeals to human spirits by studying the selection of the scholar-emits in the Tang and Song dynasties.

Could phenological records from Chinese poems of the Tang and Song dynasties (618–1279 CE) be reliable evidence of past climate changes?

Phenological records in historical documents have been proven to be of unique value for reconstructing past climate changes. As a literary genre, poetry reached its peak in the Tang and Song dynasties (618–1279 CE) in China. Sources from this period could provide abundant phenological records in the absence of phenological observations. However, the reliability of phenological records from poems, as well as their processing methods, remains to be comprehensively summarized and discussed. In this paper, after introducing the certainties and uncertainties of phenological information in poems, the key processing steps and methods for deriving phenological records from poems and using them in past climate change studies are discussed: (1) two principles, namely the principle of conservatism and the principle of personal experience, should be followed to reduce uncertainties; (2) the phenological records in poems need to be filtered according to the types of poems, background information, rhetorical devices, spatial representations, and human influence; (3) animals and plants are identified at the species level according to their modern distributions and the sequences of different phenophases; (4) phenophases in poems are identified on the basis of modern observation criteria; (5) the dates and sites for the phenophases in poems are confirmed from background information and related studies. As a case study, 86 phenological records from poems of the Tang Dynasty in the Guanzhong region in China were extracted to reconstruct annual temperature anomalies in specific years in the period between 600 and 900 CE. Following this, the reconstruction from poems was compared with relevant reconstructions in published studies to demonstrate the validity and reliability of phenological records from poems in studies of past climate changes. This paper reveals that the phenological records from poems could be useful evidence of past climate changes after being scientifically processed. This could provide an important reference for future studies in this domain, in both principle and methodology, pursuant of extracting and applying phenological records from poems for larger areas and different periods in Chinese history.

A Comparative Study of Urban Spatial Characteristics of the Capitals of Tang and Song Dynasties Based on Space Syntax

Space syntax has been widely used in studies with historical components to developing a common analytical language for the comparative study of urban morphology across time and space by visual diagrams. This paper uses space syntax to analyse the inner and outer city parts of the daily life of residents in the capital cities of two dynasties, Tang and Song, to reveal the impact of changes in urban planning on the overall spatial structure of the city, the structure of commercial space, and the role of urban squares in the two dynasties under centralised rule. Based on the quantitative analysis, the results show significant differences between the Tang and Song dynasties in all three aspects of comparison. The changes in the Tang and Song dynasties’ capital cities result from the interaction between the materiality of the ancient Chinese capital city form and the spatial function of the city, and the analysis of space syntax is useful for interpreting their relevance.

Beyond Respecting Mencius and Criticizing Xunzi: A Return to Equal Status for the Two Sages

Mencius 孟子 took Confucius’ idea of benevolence and, based on it, developed his theory that human nature is good. Xunzi 荀子 emphasized Confucius’ idea of ritual propriety and developed his theory that human nature is bad. This juxtaposition largely came to define their philosophies and their place in the history of Confucianism. Reconciling the two has been a point of contention ever since the Han dynasty. By the end of the Han dynasty, the scales had tipped in favor of Mencius, and this favoritism continued through the Six Dynasties era, the Tang and Song dynasties and beyond. As the Mencius became canonized, the Xunzi fell further out of favor with academics. Through all this, there have still been attempts to directly reconcile and even combine the two branches of Confucianism. This is an important cultural enterprise, which has gained new force in recent years. This article threads out some of the more important arguments in this continuing discussion and advocates for viewing the two branches with equal import and authority in the Confucian tradition.

How could phenological records from the Chinese poems of the Tang and Song Dynasties (618–1260 AD) be reliable evidence of past climate changes?

Phenological records in historical documents have been proved to be of unique value for reconstructing past climate changes. As a literary genre, poetry reached its peak period in the Tang and Song Dynasties (618–1260 AD) in China, which could provide abundant phenological records in this period when lacking phenological observations. However, the reliability of phenological records from poems as well as their processing methods remains to be comprehensively summarized and discussed. In this paper, after introducing the certainties and uncertainties of phenological information in poems, the key processing steps and methods for deriving phenological records from poems and using them in past climate change studies were discussed: (1) two principles namely the principle of conservative and the principle of personal experience should be followed to reduce the uncertainties; (2) the phenological records in poems need to be filtered according to the types of poems, the background information, the rhetorical devices and the spatial representations; (3) the animals and plants are identified to species level according to their modern distributions and the sequences of different phenophases; (4) the phenophases in poems are identified on the basis of modern observation criterion; (5) the dates and sites for the phenophases in poems are confirmed from background information and related studies. Finally, the temperature anomalies reconstructed by phenological records from poems were compared with those reconstructed by other historical documents in published studies to demonstrate the validity and reliability of phenological records from poems in studies of past climate changes. This paper proved that the phenological records from poems could be useful evidence of past climate changes after being scientifically processed and also provides a reference in both principle and methodology for the extraction and application of phenological records from poems.

Study on Twining Technologies Adopted by Bamboo Sutra Wrappers of the Tang Dynasty

Bamboo sutra wrapper is made of bamboo splints fastened together with silk threads using the warp twining method. Bamboo sutra wrappers dating to the Tang and Song dynasties are mainly found in Cave 17. They are usually in a rectangular shape with the geometrical, dotted or floral pattern which are quite favored in the Tang dynasty. Affected by Buddhism, sutra wrappers of this kind have also been found in other Asian countries such as Japan and Korea, with a similarity in structure, dimension and twining method.