This might be old news to some (as the original painting was done during the Song Dynasty) but a digital version was created for the China pavilion during the Shanghai Expo 2010. After the expo it was displayed from November 9 to November 29, 2010 and is currently in Taipei from July 1 to October 4, 2011.
This has always been one of my favourite painting so I think I will share it here. The actual painting is (24.8 by 528.7 cm) (9¾ in by 17 ft 4 in) Hope you like the digital version below:
A different version:
YinYang says
This is beautiful.
One thought that comes to mind after watching it was what a drastic change in pace our lives are today compared to before. Not that they were more environmentally conscious then, but their lifestyle was infinitely more self-sustaining then than we are today.
Also, looking at the landscape in the animated painting, you get the sense that the land has sustained civilization for ages.
Ray says
Well, I agree but we need modern science, medicine and utilities. Going back to the past is no longer an option for humanity. The only way is to avoid excessive consumption and find a sustainable development path for all mankind. Let’s hope we have the wisdom for that.
As for me I always like beautiful painting from any country but I have a thing for those VERY long scroll painting especially this one.
TonyP4 says
The good old days are great. It is amusing that some folks still boast our ancient discoveries, but we have not contributed a lot in between. China is changing fast, and will contribute more to the world like new drugs.
All generations have their own challenges. We do not know how to feed the growing population of our world, control the climate, respond to natural disasters, educate our kids with less TV and video games… However, the richest folks did not have 3D TV playing 3D video games as most of us can afford today. Our life expectancy increases substantially with better quality of life for most.
dan says
Was the original a live, on-site illustration of an actual city? If it was, does any one know has there been any attempt to discover the site by archaeologists /historians? The scenery seems like it would be in Suzhou somewhere.
Ray says
@dan
You can see the original here and a 18th century rendition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Along_the_River_During_the_Qingming_Festival
raventhorn2000 says
Should be familiar to CIA, these guys leave China and end up on the “spy watch list” in US and Canada.
Wen Ho Lee would know.
dan says
The same article as linked in #6 can be found here also:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/for-chinas-wealthy-their-fondest-wish-is-to-leave/article2157290/
Read the comment section especially one by ‘Watching China’.
raventhorn2000 says
Lots of Americans want to go to China, and send their kids to learn Chinese nowadays.
What does that say?
Rich people have money to burn outside of their own country. That’s common for all Rich People.
TonyP4 says
The net number of folks migrating legally or illegally to America tells the story: America though declining is still the best country to live and has more opportunities than their native countries.
The reason the corrupt officers and policemen immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada, Australia and USA is the government was cracking down. It was a easy choice to enjoy life with their loots than go to jail.
The reason for the majority of HK folks is escaping from communism. That turns out that a country with two systems works well to the point that some actually move back for better opportunities in home.
The middle class of India moves to US for better opportunities and it will be a long, long time for India to provide a good place to live such as infrastructure, environment, health care… China has far better attractions to some of the Chinese professionals in US to move back. We call them ‘sea turtles’.
Migration to other countries is not a good option to most. We have to leave our friends and relatives and will face unknowns, language and cultural barriers. However, when we cannot face our problems at home like starving, we need to escape. US (Canada, Australia…) welcomes immigrants comparing to Japan.
raventhorn2000 says
http://gawker.com/5334521/china-land-of-opportunity-for-downtrodden-americans
I guess someone is jealous. 🙂
raventhorn2000 says
http://blog.paragonrelocation.com/index.php/americans-relocating-world/
In July, UniGroup Worldwide put out their “Migration” report that was cited by the Wall Street Journal. This report highlighted which countries American’s relocated to from the US, as well as what countries people are relocating from to the US. The results indicated some interesting statistics which included a rise of 46.7% of the numbers of American’s relocating to China for work over the last 3 years.
China currently stands at #3 destination for Americans relocating abroad. (~12% of total relocated)
raventhorn2000 says
http://www.mla.org/pdf/2009_enrollment_survey.pdf
Survey 2009 by MLA finds ~61,000 US students enrolled in Chinese language classes, #7 studied modern language other than English in US, including the American Sign Language.
This ONLY includes survey data from post-secondary academic institutions, and not including any language institutions that are not part of any degree programs.
raventhorn2000 says
Don’t you know, Pete North?
It’s a Communist Plot for Han Chinese to take over the West by mass migration.
Afterall, Isn’t it why you keep on questioning the Chinese immigrants’ “loyalty” IF there is a war between US and China??
🙂
3.5 million people of “Chinese origin” in America? Dream on. these are Chinese Americans, “American origin” with Chinese “ethnicity”, ie. Chinese Americans BORN in USA.
By your logic, there are 1.3 billion people of “African origin” in China, since all humans originated from Africa! LOL!!
FACTually, total population in US of foreign born FROM CHINA in 2010, 1.9 million. That’s TOTAL, accumulated over many decades.
But naturalization rate for Chinese immigrants in US has stagnated, down to less than 30%.
I guess they come and then they go back.
“Why is it that more than 70 percent of Chinese students who go overseas to study dont return to the motherland?”
Where do you get this from? “don’t return”?? When? Upon graduation? How do they stay? It’s not like they all get free “Green Cards”? Dream on!
“more than 70 percent of Chinese students don’t return”?? Yeah, the US INS is that generous to allow more than 70% of Chinese students to have work visa’s or green cards. Right!! What planet do you live on?
IN 2009 (1 year), there were 596,231 student visas granted to Chinese students to study in US. Do you honestly believe more than 70% of them (about 400,000) will end up staying in US??
For your info, H1B visa (general work visa) quota for China in 2012 will be 65,000. So there goes you phony 70% number.
🙂
raventhorn2000 says
It’s all SECRET of the “Han Neo-Nazi Communists”, and it’s all a surprise!
You will find out, when there is a war between US and China! LOL!!
Oh yes, “more than 60 percent of Chinese multi- millionaires are planning to emigrate from China”. To hide their assets in US.
I guess no more trade-deficits. US economic problems solved. All those Chinese millionaires and billionaires moving to US, jobs for Americans!
Chinese economy will collapse immediately, without all those millionaires and their “assets”.
LOL! some body is living in a ridiculous fantasy. “more than 60 percent” indeed. 🙂
Ray says
There should be more Chinese in America. They are still grossly disproportionated to those of European
descents. There are more than 20 million ethnic Chinese in S.E Asia alone.
Using immigration figure to disparage a place is illogical. Around 10,000 US citizens (out of 300 million) immigrated to Canada each year while the figure is around 20,000 for Chinese citizens (out of 1300 million). So does this mean that China is better than the US?
I will delete any more post not related to the original article. Pete North is also quoting false figures. Here’s a respond by Watching China on G&M.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/for-chinas-wealthy-their-fondest-wish-is-to-leave/article2157290/comments/
“Mr. Su, a Chinese millionaire, builds skyscrapers in Beijing . . . on condition that only his surname be published.”
How many “Mr. Su’s” do you suppose there are in Beijing, who are millionnaire property developers? Another fake name, another fabricated.
And Rupert Hoogewerf said a foreign passport is like “taking out an insurance policy”? Well, I live in Shanghai and happen to know Rupert. I spoke to him about this, and he thinks you should not take his remarks out of context and print only the bit that assists your self-serving ideological article. Good luck getting any more quotes from him.
In all my years in China, I have also met rich Chinese who want to emigrate.
Some do it for reasons of education, some for business opportunities, and there are a few who do feel they have become rich so quickly that maybe somehow their money isn’t safe and it might be better to park it elsewhere.
But the great majority of those to whom the article refers (the undocumented 68,000), do so because they have reason to fear their assets might be unsafe. In the past decade, China has charged and punished more than that number for corruption, for enriching oneself by the illegal use of government funds
I doubt very much any Chinese told the reporter that the US has “a good educational system and excellent health care”. The US educational system is widely seen in China for what it really is – an elite system that is excellent at the very top, and mediocre to shameful at all other levels.
Health care is the same. It is not in dispute that the US health care system is more than twice as expensive as Canada’s, but yet is the worst of all developed countries.
And then we have this:
“Among the 20,000 Chinese with at least 100 million yuan in assets, 27 per cent have already emigrated and 47 per cent are considering it, according to a report by China Merchants Bank and Bain published in April.”
The G&M totally misrepresents – and in this case misquotes – yet another study. The Bain study listed more than 300,000 millionaires, not your “20,000”, and the study was directed to the private banking sector and problems of wealth management. It was unrelated to politics, but of course the Globe managed to politicise it and quite badly twist the context.
I’ve read the study. These are the three Chapter headings. Do you see anything here about emigration?
Chapter 1: Overview and Trends in China’s Wealth Market
Chapter 2: Chinese HNWIs’ Investment Behaviors, Segmentation and Attitudes toward Private Banking
Chapter 3: Implications for the Development of Private Banking in China
The only reference to emigration was in the context of volatile markets caused by the US financial crisis and the difficulty of protecting one’s accumulated capital. In no sense was it some blanket desire to “escape the country” – unstated but assumed – due to the political clmate.
Altogether, yet another trashy piece of work by the G&M. Thanks
jxie says
It appears that the first video was based on the original Song version, and the second video was based on the remade Qing version. You can see the wealth and the lifestyles of the Kaifeng city. Kaifeng was the capital of Northern Song, and not long after the original painting was done, was lost to Jin.
The capital of Southern Song, Hangzhou, was supposed to be an even wealthier city. Whenever I visit Hangzhou, it always fascinates me as to what exactly Liu Yong saw (something even better than the painting):
东南形胜，三吴都会，钱塘自古繁华。烟柳画桥，风帘翠幕，参差十万人家。云树绕堤沙，怒涛卷霜雪，天堑无涯。市列珠玑，户盈罗绮，竞豪奢。
重湖叠巘清嘉，有三秋桂子，十里荷花。羌管弄晴，菱歌泛夜，嬉嬉钓叟莲娃。千骑拥高牙，乘醉听箫鼓，吟赏烟霞。异日图将好景，归去凤池夸。
Rhan says
Perhaps we touch on Nanjing Qinhuai as well.
：“朱雀桥边野草花，乌衣巷口夕阳斜，旧时王谢堂前燕，飞入寻常百姓家。”
：“烟笼寒水月笼沙，夜泊秦淮近酒家。商女不知亡国恨，隔江犹唱后庭花。”
：“鼎革以来，时移物换。十年旧梦，依约扬州。一片欢场，鞠为茂草。红牙碧串，妙舞清歌，不可得而闻也；洞房绮流，湘帘绣幕，不可得而见也；名花瑶草，锦瑟犀毗，不可得而赏也。间亦过之，蒿藜满眼，楼馆劫灰，美人尘土，盛衰感慨，岂复有过此者乎！”
Though at different era, the writing is almost with the same message, the contrast of prosperous and gloomy at passage of time and course of history, or people never learn?
jxie says
Rhan,
Which is why they call the Chinese history cyclical. One thing bear in mind though, those periods of prosperity sometimes lasted centuries. If you lived in one, your feeling wouldn’t be much different than the folks live in today as if the good time will never end.
For the most part, China’s traditional Confucianism system offered social mobility and rudimentary social security. The social mobility aspect is well discussed here so I will not rehash it again. On the social security aspect, for instance, according to the Tang/Song legal code, a family is legally obligated to support its disabled and young/senior members, with the local government served as a backstop. Unlike the modern Western social security systems that have not been proven beyond a few decades, the traditional Chinese social security largely remained solvent for centuries.
There were two main types of threats that had brought down the Chinese system in the past: food security (#1), and foreign invasion (#2).
Milf says
I agree this is beautiful but then again i think the whole of china is fascinating.
Ray says
MILF? American Pie? LOL