C HINESE P EOPLE AND C ULTURES By: Drake Tuerk, Jack Bobruk, Melissa Mathis

C HINESE P OPULATION By the 1960s, population was growing in China by about 2.07% Mao Zedong encouraged the Chinese People to have many children Today, the Eastern coast of China has some of the highest population densities in the world The population of China is currently 1,330,141,295 people, as of July 2010

P OPULATION P OLICIES Mao Zedong, a communist, realized that power lay in numbers Realizing this, Zedong encouraged the couples of China to have many children By the mid 1960s, the population of China was growing by a rate of about 2.7 percent Mao realized that his policy caused a problem, that the huge population would cause a shortage of food and shelter

P OPULATION P OLICIES (CONT.) Realizing the predicament he was in, he agreed to a new policy, to encourage couples to have two children When Deng Xiaoping came to power in the 70s, he instated a one couple, one child policy Couples that followed this rule were given special rewards

E THNIC D IFFERENCES In Western and Northwestern China, there are about 56 ethnic minorities Each Ethnic Group has a unique language The government has recognized at least 52 different languages in China The largest groups in these minorities are the Mongols, the Uighurs, the Tibetans, and the Kazakhs 92% of the population of China belong to the Han ethnic group. For Centuries, the Hans have been the leading ethnic group in China

L ANGUAGE The Han Ethnic group speaks Chinese Chinese is nonphonetic language, which means its written form gives no explanation of how a word sounds The language of Chinese is written in ideograms that represent a thing or idea The northeastern dialect of Chinese, known as Mandarin Chinese, is the official language of China

R ELIGION AND B ELIEFS The most popular set of beliefs in China come from Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism Daoism comes from the teachings of Laozi, who lived from 531 to 604 B.C. According to this religion, true happiness in found through living in harmony with the earth Confucianism comes from the teachings of Confucius in a book called the Analects. Confucius lived from 479 to 551 B.C. While most Chinese follow a specific type of religion, the country is considered Atheist.

R ELIGION A ND B ELIEFS (CONT.) When Communists ruled, they discouraged the practice of religion. During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards were sent to destroy places used as places of worship. In 1980, the government began to ease its restrictions on religions based on the teachings of Buddhism and Daoism as well as meditation and exercises

T HE F AMILY Confucius tradition encourages settled roles in families to promote a stable and harmonious society Rural families will rely on having a large family to do the farm work

M EDICINE Many Chinese people prefer traditional Chinese medicine over modern Western Medicine Traditional Chinese medicine relies on herbs, special diets, breathing exercises, massage, and acupuncture Acupuncture is the practice of placing very thin needles at specific points on the body to cure diseases or pain

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