The Cuju is a sport of ancient Chinese. This ancient sport is the prototype of contemporary football. It is considered to be the origin of the modern football.

The game of Cuju similar to modern football, but there are several different ways to play and rules. There are three categories of games: the game direct, indirect and the game play individually.

The history of Cuju can be traced over 2300 years. Everything began to Linzi, the capital of the Qi State during the Chun and Qiu Periods. The Cuju experienced a tremendous increase during the Han dynasty.

Cuju became very popular during the Tang and Sung dynasties. Fresco drawing a game of Cuju horse (playing Cuju on the horses), shows a scene of noble playing Cuju on horseback. The Cuju has greatly developed during the Sung dynasty. In the novel Water Margin, there are several paragraphs describing the emperor play Cuju with officers of the court.

The Cuju greatly influenced the modern football. During the Tang Dynasty, the Cuju was extended to Japan, Korea, and Western Europe, and turned into football in Britain.

On 15 July 2004, at the press conference of the Third International Exhibition of Chinese Football, FIFA had officially declared that China is the origin land of football.

In order to seek spiritual enjoyment, Chinese ancient people once created a lot of recreation methods. People add the fun of life through various recreation way. I can say that the recreation is not only a pastime way, but also the accumulation of the social civilization at the same time. I introduce some popular amusement project in Chinese ancient times to everybody.

Cockfighting

Cockfighting is a kind of traditional recreation way in China’s ancient times. It’s a popular pastime means. People utilize cock’s bellicose instinct, select and foster cocks, then let them mutual fight for amusement. In order to win, ancient Chinese had invented a lot of methods. For example put on the special armor for cock, protect the body of cock. Or put the sharp metal hook on cock’s claws; strengthen the attack of the cock. In addition, some people daub fox oil on the cockscomb. Fox is natural enemy of cock. Fry the fat of the fox into oil and daub on the cockscomb. The other side’s cock will fear and avoid once smelling the smell. Ancient Chinese racked their brains for cockfighting winning.

Cricket-fighting

People began to play “Cricket-fighting” game in the Tang Dynasty. The game is the most popular in the Sung Dynasty period. “Cricket-fighting” not only is a kind of pastime game, but also is a kind of gamble game. People often make a bet and make an appointment in advance, then place the win hope on cricket. The gamble things can be money, cake or fruit… The main purpose lies in recreation. Cricket-fighting is a welcomed pastime game in ancient China.

Grass-fighting

This is China’s ancient woman game. Perhaps you have not heard of this game. In fact this game is very simple. Girls picked some flower and grass, then say the flower or grass name each other in the form of couplet. Whose grass kind is more, couplet level is higher than others and insist on the end, who wins. So it needs certain plant knowledge and culture to play this game.

Kicking shuttlecock

Kicking shuttlecock is a kind of old Chinese games. It already had a history of more than 2,000 years so far. It is said this game was very popular in the Tang Dynasty. The shuttlecock is generally made of the feather and metal coin. It is a kind of interesting sports game. Someone still plays with it now.

Soccer

Most people think the soccer originates from Britain. In fact the soccer originates from China (Mr. Blatter, president of FIFA, announced “the soccer originates from China” to the world formally on July 15, 2004). The soccer is named as “Cuju” in China’s ancient times. The history of the Cuju is over 2,300 years. It originated from the Chun and Qiu Period. It is an old pastime sport.

Tang and Sung Dynasty emperors mostly like Cuju sports and regard it as a kind of military training means. They liked watching the Cuju match. So Cuju sport is very popular in Tang and Sung Dynasty periods. But the emperors of Qing Dynasty liked hunting with bow and arrow and prohibit Cuju sport by official order. This causes this amusement sport decline.

Flying kites

It is mankind’s long-standing idea to fly in the sky. According to the record, the Chinese ancient people pared the bamboo into extremely thin slice and made it can rise against the wind, so the most primitive kite was named as “Wooden Bird”. People made this kind of flyer by every possible means after the “Wooden Bird” came out, let it soar on sky for obtaining pleasure. After the papermaking skill was invented, people used lighter paper to make the kite, changed its name as “Paper Bird” at the same time. This kind of kite has been spreading till now.

Set off the firework

It is a traditional Chinese recreation to set off the firework. People should light various fireworks on the great festival, set off the festival atmosphere by contrast with beautiful color, express the happiness of heart.

There was one kind of fireworks that was named “Mouse” in ancient China. It can stampede everywhere after lighting and leave a flame route. It’s very funny! Another wonderful firework is known as “The light of nine stones”. This is a burning big ball. It is shot to the sky by the special cannon, will separate 10,000 small lights after exploding, very magnificent sight! Chinese still set off the firework to celebrate festival now.

In fact there are a lot of recreation ways in China’s ancient times. For example tug of war, wrestling, hide-and-seek, duck-fighting, goose-fighting, quail-fighting, ox-fighting, sheep-fighting, breed goldfish, take a walk, play the musical instrument, play on a swing… In a word, various recreation way had enriched the life of the Chinese ancient people. They lived a happy life with another way.

Spring Outing

At the beginning of spring, the rivers and mountains revival, all sorts of flowers will be open soon. Chinese forefathers never miss this wonderful season. The people go outside outing and enjoy the sight of change of the nature. The climate is pleasant in spring. Peoples are intoxicated in the wonderful spring scenery, ride a horse, or take a walk, or sit and drink, full of vigor everywhere.

Chinese ancient people tour in spring and still develop the varied game and exercise at the same time, include cockfighting, play on a swing, fly the kite, tug-of-war, play polo, wrestling, horse race, play Chinese chess, row the boat, etc. Enrich the spring outing content from various angle, add the happy atmosphere.

The famous painting in China — The Spring Outing Painting

Summer

Summer come, the weather is hot. In order to spend hot summer happily, Chinese ancient people invented a lot of methods. For example make use of ice stored in winter to freeze the food in summer; use the Chinese fan…

In the Tang Dynasty, emperors had a cool hall especially in the palace. Installed the mechanical refrigeration apparatus in the hall. This kind of apparatus adopts the method of the cold water circulation, rotate the fan, produce the wind and send the cool air into the hall. Meanwhile, still utilize mechanical force to send the cold water onto the roof, then let water flow along the eaves, form the artificial water curtain, evoke the cool air, achieve the goal of cooling. And furnish various fragrant flowers around the hall, transmit the fragrance through cool wind. The fragrance is full of room. This is the earliest air conditioner in the world.

Ancient Chinese fan

Enjoy autumn

The autumn air is fresh and the scenery is bright and beautiful. Chinese ancient people regard autumn as a fine season. The people have another pastime style, for example enjoy the full moon on the Mid-autumn Festival, and ascend a height on the Double Ninth Festival…

The climax of China’s ancient enjoying autumn main appears on the 15th of August and September 9. One is the Mid-autumn Festival; the other is the Double Ninth Festival.

On the every 15th of August, the Chinese ancient has good aesthetic mood enjoying the full moon at night. People assembled in the pavilion, enjoyed the moonlight and night scene with the comfortable wind, eat moon cake and all kinds of fruit and chat until late at night.

Chinese ancient people set off an upsurge of amusement in autumn when the Double Ninth Festival. It is the most attractive recreation that ascends a height. So-called “Ascend a height” is that take mountaineering as the core, and climb the floor or climb the tower. Meanwhile, people still develop the activity of other amusement, for example picnic, wear the cornel, drink the chrysanthemum wine etc., full of happy atmosphere everywhere.

The Mid-autumn Festival

Play in winter

Cold winter come, but Chinese ancient people often launch various recreation, fully enjoy every seasons which the nature vouchsafe, never miss every day in life.

Enjoying the snow scenery is one of the ancient Chinese pastime manners in winter. People utilize ice and snow and make into various artificial views, view and admire and seek pleasure from it. Most of residents in Hangzhou stepped on snow to the West Lake at that time, appreciated the outdoor snow scenes. West Lake boatman will prepare more ship for visitors. The people viewing snow scene was spread all over the West Lake.

In the vast area of the north of China, the lake formed the thick ice in cold winter. People utilized this Heaven-sent chance, launched the diversified ice game. The earliest skating game is “drag the ice bed”. I.e. make into a small ice raft with the plank and bar iron. People sit above, or pull or push, rely on slippery strength of ice surface and speed along the ice surface.

Skating boots appeared in Qing Dynasty. The skating boots at that time were inlaying a bar iron under the shoes. It is different from the modern skating shoes. The Qing Dynasty people wore the skating boots and skated. They can make the complicated posture when fast skating. In addition, there were skating match and ice hockey match in Qing Dynasty period.

Skating Painting in Qing Dynasty

How about it? Do you think the life which does not have TV and computer is very fine too?

If you are interested in the life of the ancient people in China, then please continue paying close attention to the Mysterious China Blog.

Talk about China’s ancient feast, I have to talk about Man-Han style Banquet. Man-Han style Banquet is a kind of huge feast consisting of Manchu and Han foods. It originated from Qing Dynasty. It concentrates the quintessence dishes of the Han nationality and Manchu. Generally speaking, the dishes can reach more than 300 kinds and are divided three days to eat up. Man-Han style Banquet is large-scale and noble. It is very complicated to make course. We can say Man-Han style Banquet is the top of China’s ancient banquet.

There is a common saying in China: “It isn’t a banquet without wine”(The Chinese wine is different from the Western wine. Chinese wine is made by the grain and known as Chinese liquor too. The liquor can’t lack absolutely in any kind banquet. The liquor is the most important component of the banquet. Ancient Chinese mostly regard banquet as a kind of enjoying life and pastime. People had created various drinking way. For example urge the guests to drink, polite persuade guests to drink, toast in turn…

Though China’s ancient banquet takes fine food and good liquor as the core, the China’s ancients are not merely satisfied with the enjoyment of the taste. They will carry on some recreation, and increase the happy compositions of the banquet through the recreation, expand pastime range. For this reason, all kinds of recreation appeared during the feast. Such as drinkers’ wager game, song, dance, music, acrobatics, opera…

Drinkers’ wager game

The drinkers’ wager game is a kind of recreation that the Chinese ancients create for drinking. It incorporates intelligence and knowledge and adopts the varied way. The purpose is to improve the mood of the drinkers and regulate the atmosphere of the banquet. This kind of drinkers’ wager game often pushes the atmosphere of the banquet to the climax. The drinkers’ wager game usually has certain rules. Through the rules judgment win or lose, the loser should drink liquor as a forfeit. Drinkers’ wager game includes a lot game ways, for example finger-guessing game, hand flowers, exchange poetry…

Cast pot game

Cast pot game is a kind of game adding to the fun in China’s ancient banquet. It takes liquor pot as the target, takes wooden chopsticks as the arrow, throw and hit the pot mouth from certain distance, the chopsticks enter the body of pot. The ancient Chinese often have a competition with archery. However shooting arrows must have the corresponding location. In order to more conveniently recreation, Chinese ancients invented cast pot game, can imitate the archery and is simple. The game rule is very simple; the winner lets the loser drink.

Sing and dance

The sing and dance is a main project in China’s ancient banquet. But generally speaking, besides banquet scene of the imperial palace, the folk banquet take song disport as the core, dance disport as complement.

Acrobatics

The acrobatics actor performs the acrobatics in the banquet, appreciate for drinker. The content of acrobatics includes climbing pole, ropewalker, magic, swallow the sword, spit fire, step on the edge of the knife, somersault… some past master can use Qigong and float drinking cup back and forth even more, make people very surprised. (Qigong is a kind of Chinese kung fu, is named as breathing exercise too).

In a word, the banquet not only is enjoying table delicacies, but also is an exquisite way of life for Chinese ancients.

The painting is kept in National Museum of China now. But we can see pictures of the painting. Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival describes flourishing scene and beautiful nature scenery of Sung Dynasty capital Bian Liang (Sung Dynasty is the heyday of China’s ancient dynasty). We can see the ancient Chinese life from the pictures. There are China’s ancient city lives; there are China’s ancient countryside lives too.

We can see the people of all kinds of vocations in the pictures. Include vendor, performer, beggar, monk, fortune-teller, doctor, innkeeper, teacher, peasant, shepherd, mill owner, ironworker, carpenter, mason, scholar…

We can see various businesses in the pictures. Include hotel, market of grain, kitchen utensil shop, bow and arrow shop, lantern shop, musical instrument shop, jewelry shop, cloth shop, painting shop, drugstore, restaurant and various pedlar…

Include a lot of temples, private houses, official residences in the pictures besides various shops. People use different transportation means, horse cart, ox cart, donkey cart, sedan chair, etc. The river is full of fishing boats and yachts.

You can click the below pictures and enjoy big pictures. Have a taste of ancient China fine life!

As far back as primitive era, in order to keep the hunting food, the ancient Chinese will put food into the cave and put one big stone to block the cave. Afterward, people truss up the valuables with the wild beast skin. People began to put money into box of different material with the development of ware and lock. However, there were robbers unavoidably in ancient times. Thereupon China’s ancient bank — “money shop” appeared, also became more professional “sheltered the illicit money” organization.

Does China’s ancient paper money need anti-fake?

The earliest paper money of China was issued by the Sung dynasty government in 1023. Its anti-fake method is to affix two seal on paper money. Afterward, paper money pattern became very complicated, added the colorful pattern, in this way the anti-fake function is stronger. Hereafter, each dynasty had own unique anti-fake method.

How do the ancient Chinese carve jade and gem ornaments?

The ancient Chinese realized the preciousness of jade long ago. The ancient Chinese often carve jade ware with quartz and diamond. As everyone knows, the hardness of diamond is the highest in the world. Even harder jade can be carved too.

There are no TV and computer in China ancient times, so there are very few near-sighted. The usually near-sighted ones are intellectuals scholars studying diligently, because there is not electric light in ancient China, there are only oil lamps. Chinese ancient people treat eyes through Chinese medicine, massage and acupuncture. The glasses were introduced from the west to China in the Ming Dynasty. We injure our eyes with no fear to rely on the glasses now. For example crazy Net surfing and watching TV.

How does China transmit information in ancient times?

People transmit information through carrier pigeon and “Wolf Smoke” in ancient China. Carrier pigeon and “Wolf Smoke” were used in the military activity at first. So-called “Wolf Smoke” is that light the mixture of dry wolf excrement, dry reed, dry cattle excrement and hay. This kind of smoke will rising straight in the sky, don’t slope even blowing. “Wolf Smoke” is a great invention in the military defense system of ancient China.

Meanwhile, carrier pigeon is a good tool to transmit love letter too. Carrier pigeon become the “matchmaker” of many lovers. The ancient people tie the letter on carrier pigeon’s leg with red silk thread, in order to attract the attention of addressee. Nowadays, we use Email, telephone, video… Although is more convenient and more swift, but lack a little romantic and expecting.

Does the ancient Chinese smoke?

The tobacco was introduced from Philippine to China during the Ming Dynasty initially. There was a small amount of planting in Fujian and Guangdong province initially. But there are actually few people smoking. As everyone knows, the harm of the tobacco is enormous to people, especially the opium. The small opium, become the blasting fuse which rewrites China’s history. British businessman brought the opium into China in Qing Dynasty, sent off free at the beginning, began to sell in a large amount after people get into the habit. Had plotted to murder a lot of Chinese.

Ancient Chinese pay attention to oral cavity hygiene very much too. The China ancient people have invented “The poplar twig toothbrush”, have another name “the wooden tooth”. The usage is very simple: bite one end of poplar twig and soften it, dip in Chinese herb and then brush teeth, thus can clean teeth. There is a simpler method “chew the leaf of poplar”, then gargle with the fresh water, just as the giraffe chews leaves, this can get the result of cleaning teeth. When we modern “The wilderness survivorship”, if forget taking toothbrush, Perhaps can try such old method.

Do the ancient people in China install the false teeth?

Zhang ZhongJing (The famous Chinese medicine doctor in China ancient times) had invented the method of alloy filling caries as far back as the Han Dynasty. The professional doctor who inlays the false teeth appeared in Sung Dynasty. The ancient false teeth material in China is numerous, besides ivory, ox’s bone, there is hard white sandalwood. The false teeth have the function of ornamental and show-off besides actual function. Such as “Tooth Bridge”, tie teeth with the soft gold line, does not the function of chew, purely ornamental function.

Does the ancient man in China wear the long hair?

No matter men and women all wear long hair in China ancient times and the longer the better. They hardly cut the hair. Boy reach the age of study, boy reach age that study, will tie chignon, is named “Tie up hair reading”. A kind of criminal law is named “Bald punishment” in China ancient times, that is to say that shaves prisoner’s hair, this is the maximum insult to people in China ancient times.

Hangzhou city was the capital in Sung Dynasty (960 - 1279), China southern weather is hot, so the people were used to having a bath. At that time, the government official condition of work was better than what we imagine, there were bathroom and toilet in the government. The toilet next to the bathroom, wash basin and towel were put in the bathroom. The official should go to the bathroom to finish the procedure of wash hand, like this layout of space, very close to the bathroom of the modern room! There were special cleaner who maintain cleanness of bathroom and toilet. After official had a bath, the cleaner would clean the water and spot of the ground; there were always “The cleanly toilet paper” in the toilet. At that time, would use the soap beans (a kind of traditional Chinese herb with clean effect) while washing hands, so, there were dregs of soap beans in water basin used, the water must replace at once; Once the towel that wipe hands was dirty, should replace at once. Oh! My God! This has kept abreast of the hygiene management in the office building of today!

How does the ancient Chinese make a fire?

In China ancient times, there are a lot of methods that people make a fire, for example people make a fire with the concave bronze mirror, utilizing the principle that sunshine focus. But most frequently used and simple method is that use flint. The flint is China ancient people necessary in family.

How was needle of China ancient times made?

In China ancient times, it really needs very great perseverance and patience to make iron needle. Stretch the blazing iron into an iron wire first, and then cut into every section, sharpen one end, drill through another end, make into needle in this way.

There is no insecticide in ancient China, but ancient people have their own method. The medicament that ancient China prevents the agricultural pest is multifarious, the plant medicament includes the Jia herb, Mang herb, etc.; the animal medicament includes the powder of clam, the water of fish smell, etc.; the mineral medicament includes salt, sulfur, lime, arsenic, etc.. Operation method includes mix with the seed, accompanying seeds to plant, mix with water or boil and spray, light the smoked smoke, daub the worm hole, etc. As far back as the Chun and Qiu Period and the Warring States Period, the government had even specially officers and in charge of the agricultural pest. When the rampant season of the agricultural pest each time, this grand scene will appear “the whole country people catch pest”.

What time will ancient Chinese go to work?

Seeing the record that ancient Chinese went to work, you will think that you are very lucky as modern. You will think very humanization now. The time that ancient China civil servant go to work is: In spring and winter, sign in at six o’clock in the morning; in summer and autumn, must sign in at five o’clock in the morning. If someone dares to stay away from work without reason or come late without reason, that isn’t so simple a thing that deduct a part of pay, According to number of days which stay away from work without reason, can sentence the flogging as a punishment or other punishment. So, in China ancient times, if you are late for work, may suffer suffering of body.

Do ancient Chinese students have winter and summer vacation or weekend vacation?

Now the students often complain that vacation is too short, in fact they do not know that they have been already very lucky. In ancient China, students do not have special vacation, besides traditional China festivals such as New Year, student’s task of every day is the hard study. Only the government official has the right that has vacation in ancient China.