Fortune Telling Taken To A Whole New Level

Ever thought what could be done with a pile of broken and unbroken sticks? Some people may think of them as just 'sticks' but according to the book of changes, the Zhou sure made good use of them.
For years trigrams have been used to predict future, fortune telling, and tell many things that represents people. How does this system works? All trigrams are really made of is sticks. These sticks are usually made from stems of yarrow plant. Many of the sticks are perfectly unbroken great conditioned sticks, other are broken right in half.
But the most important aspect of this system is Yin and Yang. The meaning of Yin and Yang according to Pangu is that everything Yin, would be cool and dark, and everything Yang would be warm and Bright. It may be though that this complicated system may have nothing to do with broken and unbroken sticks, but don't be fooled, because eventually everything goes together. Just like in life both Yin and Yang have separate meanings, it is the same in the process of the trigrams. The Yin stand for the sticks, or lines. And of course the broken sticks would stand for Yang. These lines arranged in groups of three and there were eight possible combinations of trigrams.And whenever there was two trigrams, they formed a hexagram, and there are 64 possible hexagrams.
Now is when the real fortune telling comes in. When a question is asked to the divine, he or she would randomly pick up long and short sticks and place then into groups of trigrams. This process is extremely complicated and this is just a simple explanation of how the system works, but they' re is really alot more to this complex process.
Despite the the complexity of the trigrams, they are currently very popular. Many emperors have used this system to see how they re ruling period will go. A good sign for emperors to fidn the Hexogram and trigram is 'water over fire', meaning conquest or success.

But now a days things have often changed, that includes the trigram. Now the trigram can mean more than just predictions for the future. Trigrams can represent many other things such as a persons characteristics. Body part, time, number, element,planet, color, direction and animals. These symbols and meanings can and have changed people in many ways, and only keeps getting more and more popular. Which is why as long as this 'pile of sticks' keeps doing its job, the trigram will be around for a long long time, bringing fortunate telling to a whole new level.

laquer a hit the chinese

For years now,lacquer, a substance in which is used to form a smooth and hard protective coating similar to plastic, has been very popular and it all started when it was founded is just a liquid sort of like sap. But this substances is not found everywhere, it is mainly found in tree's along the basin 0f the yellow river. from time to time this strange substance was often experimented with until someone decided to boil it over and over again until it turned into a viscous liquid and could be used. The way it could used now is that it is poured over the object in which is to be protected, and is left to harden, that is how it works to protect the object.

But you would probably wonder why and how this simple material has become such a hit in the world of Chinese culture. Well just like this materiel, it also simple. Lacquer is such an important recourse
in china because it is one of the few rare substances of our time that is both waterproof and fire proof and is very protective. In fact these objects are so protective that most of the objects covered with them today may last for thousands and thousands of year.

Now you may think that lacquer is just simply poured on the objects to coat them, and let dry until they harden, But the Chinese have adapted to many ways of making it. Another good way of pouring on the lacquer that is often done by craftsmen is to put multiple layers of lacquer on the substance and a cloth after, and then after the lacquer hardens it is remove and the cloth become solid standing.
Lacquer is now used on many objects now a days. now lacquer is used for bowls, spoons, coffins, bronze,silver and thanks to lacquer the zhou dynasty objects will last for years and become history.

goodbye zhou hello qin (editorial)

For years now the 7 different states of Chu,Han,Qin,Wei,Zhao,Qi, and Yan have been fighting viciously and violently. And all for what?Its quiet simple actually,Power. And as a result of the desperate need for power the Zhou dynasty lost it, and now they are no more. It's true, the worlds longest thriving dynasty finally came to the end of its journey, all for the greedy need of power. It all started in 475 BC when the development of new strong weapons, iron, and extreme tactics,the states of the eastern Zhou made sure to take advantage of it. It can all be simply explained in a simple equation.Weapons+need of power=WAR.That's what triggered one of the biggest most important period in Chinese history.
But was it worth ending a thriving dynasty all for power? Did the warring states know that this would trigger the end of a great dynasty? Could this tragedy have possibly been avoided? All of these question that will probably remain unanswered for years on end, but there is one other thing that these question have in common. the rulers that made the great warring period happen did not think of these question before creating such a dent in Chinese history. Clearly if they had though of these question before making such catastrophe, this tragic warring state may not have happened.

If those rulers would have though if these question they may have learned that they should have built rather than destroy. They should have comprised and make peace with other states. unfortunately they did, and now we are witnessing the outcome of this tragedy. Now what remains of the warring period is a new dynasty, one that shall prosper and thrive, but whether it would as great as the Zhou,is not known yet, but the Zhou dynasty had its chance and is now gone.

the new dynasty

After a fierce battle between Zhou leaders and the Shang dynasty, king Zhou ended up dead. How you ask? According to Zhou leaders and followers, it was all careful planning and preparations from Zhou
Wuwang . So your probably wondering why would Zhou Wuwang want to kill such a leader of thriving dynasty. The truth was, it had not been Wuwang who want him dead, it was his fathers(Zhou Wenwangs) dying wish. at the time, it was said that king Zhou acted terribly to his people and treated his followers badly making him lose the mandate of heaven. That's when Wenwang though it was the right time to attack, and so his son carried on that wish. therefor it was over for the Shang dynasty, but it is also commonly said that whenever there's an ending, there is always a beginning, that's why now, one year later, the Zhou dynasty has begun. Now the only question that remains is, what does this mean for the remaining Shangs. While it is common that most dynasty's would kill the remaining members of the defeated dynasty, Wuwang did not.And he has been praised for that. fortunately for the royal Shang families, Wuwang spared them. Along with sparing the royal family, Wuwang also allowed a son to rule the small state called song. So as it turned out, the creation of the 'new dynasty' ended out benefiting everyone else. Now all that's left to do is wait and see how long it will last.