F2F Class Notes (Whitney) [S + W]

Discuss about Yong Le Da Dian.

Vocabulary

abdicated
passed on the throne/the kingdom/mantle/kingship passed down to his grandson

Tang Bohu
Tang Bohu was a famous person who lived in the Ming Dynasty. His name was Tang Yan, Bohu was his courtesy name which he was more commonly known than his real name, Yan. which was more popular than Yan in folk. He was a talented poet, painter, calligrapher etc. He was the most famous guy of the “THE FOUR SCHOLARS in JIANGNAN”, which also included Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming and Qiu Ying.
There were many stories about Tang Bohu and his friends. The most well-known tale is about him and his favorite girl, Qiu Xiang(also named: Chiu-Hsiang), who was a servant of the Hua Family. Family Huas’.
One day Tang Yan (saw) glanced at Qiu Xiang on street and fell in love with her. He wanted to ask Qiu Xiang to marry him but family the Tang’s had a feud with family the Hua’s. Fortunately, no one from Family the Hua’s had seen him before. He pretended to be a servant and once got a job at the Hua’s home. People began to like him little by little by his plan and efforts. Finally, he won Qiu Xiang’s love even though Mrs. Hua knew his real identity.

Chinese people and Japanese people the appearance of them are simialr. if we don’t speak, maybe you can’t recognize; but the spirits of them are different. Maybe Japanese people the cooperationg spirit are maybe better than Chinese people because Japan is a very small island they have to cooperate with eachother. My country is so bigger than Japan. If I can’t live in hell, I can go to another area. Too big. In ancient China our resouce were more plentiful than Japan so people — it was easy for people living in an area. So maybe we don’t need to cooperate with each other very much.

The appearance of Chinese and Japanese people are similar, maybe if we don’t speak you can’t tell us apart but our cultures are still different. Japanese people are better at cooperating with each other compared to Chinese people because Japan is a small island. My country is so much bigger than Japan, if I can’t live here then I can go to another area. In Ancient China, our resources were much more plentiful than Japan, so it was easy for people to live in a new area, so maybe we don’t need to cooperate with each other very much. 

So in ancient China if people had enough food they didn’t want to change anything so the every dynasty changed, the leaders werewould always be poor pro-man who didn’t have enough food or housing — or the leader was flown from the isolated areas. For example, Qing’s country borders was in Shaanxi province, in that time, there it/that area was very very difficult to live there. The climate was harsh and the land was not fertile so they had to fight everyone, for example the climate, so their spirit was including they had a fighting spirit, so they can beat other six biggest kingdoms.

For example, in the Ming Dynasty, the leader was a beggar. One of his friend asked him to attend [join] an army to fight the government so he joined. He was a good leader. Maybe he couldn’t [perhaps] he could not fight very good but he can lead a team.

朱元璋 Zhu Yuan Zhang was a beggar and a monk when he was a teenager. He had a friend whose name is Chang Yu Chun, and he asked Zhu to join the army, which was controlled by Guo Shou Jin. Finally Zhu Yuan Zhang became the leader instead of Guo Shou Jin to lead the military. He beat the Yuan Dynasty and got the whole of China. He was the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty. (1368-1644)

Jian Wen Di