PLA Foe or Enemy - Paranoid Panda Gangster

Interesant cum armata populară de eliberare a fost mereu folosită împotriva poporului. Cât despre eliberare, ea a fost folosită pentru a invada Tibetul, anexândul Chinei antipopulare. Tot armata eliberatoare este folosită în militarizarea Mării Chinei de Sud.

 好铁不打钉, 好男不当兵.

Din fier bun nu se face cuie, așa cum oamenii buni nu devin soldați.

Panda Gangster - Chinese Commercial

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUAA8pGux-4

Rice paper

Rice paper 

Paper is widely considered to be one of China’s major technological achievements, and it has often been viewed as its greatest contribution to the world. It is said that Cai Lun 蔡伦, a eunuch and minister to an emperor during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE), was the one to invent paper. Rice paper is the best kind of paper to use when writing calligraphy because of the way it absorbs ink. It can create a blurry quality, which is particularly well suited for watercolor paintings in addition to calligraphy. It is made by hand and is both soft and tough — perfect for all types of creative brush strokes the calligrapher might want to draw. Fun fact: The term “rice paper” is a misnomer because it is actually made with bamboo, hemp fiber, and the bark of mulberry trees. These basic materials were actually inexpensive to produce and easy to find, so it is no wonder that the art of calligraphy was able to flourish and survive throughout the centuries.

The Four Treasures of Chinese Calligraphy

The Four Treasures of Chinese Calligraphy We now turn to the instruments used by the ancients (and not-so-ancients) to create works of art, Chinese calligraphy, and even just a letter to a friend. Okay, so it may have taken that letter several months to get to its intended recipient, but by the time it arrived, the person on the other end would be able to keep it forever (as opposed to accidentally deleting it from an Inbox). Any calligrapher worth his salt will have the wénfáng sìbǎo 文房四寶 — the four essential tools of a scholar: »»Writing brush bǐ (笔) »»Ink mò (墨) »»Paper zhǐ (纸) »»Ink stone yàn (砚) These tools are known collectively as the Four Treasures of the Study, or the Four Treasures of the Scholar’s Studio. They were used by scholar-officials not only for ordinary communication or official decrees but also, and more importantly, to express their thoughts and feelings through calligraphy. These four tools are considered treasures because calligraphy materials have always been held in the highest regard. They are the same materials Chinese painters use as well, which leads me to the next point. In China, painting has actually been seen as secondary to calligraphy as a visual art. If you look at a traditional Chinese painting, you will also see a poem or other inscription invariably written, if ever so tiny, in one or another corner. It is the quality of the poetry and the style of calligraphy with which it was written that adds value to the painting. The Four Treasures make it possible for the calligrapher (and the painter) to bring the thoughts, feelings, and, some would go so far as to say, the very soul of the Chinese people to life. Even though the Four Treasures were determined centuries ago, they remain the key elements needed to practice Chinese calligraphy today. So even though this book teaches you how to write characters with a plain old pen and paper, if you want to write calligraphy, you will need the very same Four Treasures that the ancients used.

Stroke order (Part 2)

»»Rule 4: Create diagonal strokes that go from right to left before writing the diagonal strokes that go from left to right. You write the character meaning culture — 文 wén — with four separate strokes: First comes the dot on top, then the horizontal line underneath it, then the diagonal stroke that goes from right to left, and finally the diagonal stroke that goes from left to right. »»Rule 5: In characters that are vertically symmetrical, create the center components before those on the left or the right. Then write the portion of the character appearing on the left before the one appearing on the right. An example of such a character is the one meaning to take charge of: 承 chéng. »»Rule 6: Write the portion of the character that’s an outside enclosure before the inside portion. For example, the word for sun: 日 rì. Some characters with such enclosures don’t have bottom portions, such as with the character for moon: 月 yuè. »»Rule 7: Make the left vertical stroke of an enclosure first. For example, in the word meaning mouth — 口 kǒu (ko) — you write the vertical stroke on the left first, followed by the horizontal line on top and the vertical stroke on the right (those two are written as one stroke) and finally the horizontal line on the bottom. »»Rule 8: Bottom enclosing components usually come last. For example, the character meaning the way: 道 dào. »»Rule 9: Dots come last. For example, in the character meaning jade — 玉 yù — the little dot you see between the bottom and middle horizontal lines is written last.

Stroke order (Part 1)

If you want to study shū fǎ 书法 (shoo-fah) (calligraphy) with a traditional Chinese máo bǐ 毛笔 (maow-bee) (writing brush), or even just learn how to write Chinese characters with a plain old ballpoint pen, you need to know which stroke goes before the next. This progression is known as bǐ shùn 笔顺 (bee shwun) (stroke order). Without further ado, here they are: »»Rule 1: Top to bottom. That’s it. (Just kidding.) The first rule of thumb is that you write the character by starting with the stroke that’s the highest one in the whole character. For example, the number one is written with a single horizontal line: 一. Since this character is pretty easy and has only one stroke, it’s written from left to right, without any concern about which stroke appears on top. It’s completely self-sufficient and stands alone. The character for two, however, is composed of two strokes: 二. Like the number one, these strokes are also written from left to right, but the top stroke is written first, following the top-to-bottom rule. The character for three has three strokes (三) and follows the same stroke-making pattern. For more complicated characters, such as léi 雷 (lay) (thunder), you must write the radical that appears on top (雨) first before writing the rest of the character underneath it. »»Rule 2: Write horizontal strokes before vertical strokes. For example, the character meaning ten (十) is composed of two strokes, but the first one you write is the one appearing horizontally: 一. The vertical stroke downward is written after that. »»Rule 3: Write strokes that have to pass through the rest of the character last. Vertical strokes that pass through many other strokes are written after the strokes they pass through (like in the second character for the city of Tiānjīn: 天津 [tyan-jeen]), and horizontal strokes that pass through all sorts of other strokes are written last (like in the character meaning boat: 舟 zhōu [joe]).