In articles dealing with China, there should generally be one standard used consistantly for English transliteration. Pinyin is favored by the PRC, the older Wade-Giles is used by the ROC.
== What so special about 2200 BC?? ==
No, seriously, this is getting to be beyond a joke. A critic was kind enough to gently query what was so special about the year 2200 BC that it constituted the beginning of Chinese Civilisation, and asked how it came to be that the production of silk in that region is said (2 pars down) to occur in 2700 BC, a good HALF MILLENNIUM before the advent of“Chinese Civilization". And now, MONTHS later, there appears to be so little interest in the fortunes of a nation of ONE BILLION people in an emerging superpower that this pathetic drivel of an article – 418 words long! – has not received even the most elementary of amendments or extensions. 418 words! - that's just twice the length of THIS little note! Is that an example of "clean and concise" writing?
There are 2 line entries on gunpowder (used by the Chinese for firecrackers), and silk. Nothing yet on Fortune Cookies. The place is said to suffer from pollution. There is a solitary text suggested for “further reading”- "Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party” a very anti-communist work. I’m not objecting to its strident anti-communism, just that of the THOUSANDS of works on China, it appears ludicrous that this would be the one and only work recommended as the first primer for someone attempting to learn something about this ancient nation. Nothing here about the dynasties, nothing here about the Great March, about Foot Binding, about the Forbidden City... the list is endless.
MylesP (my page here)
myles325@yahoo.com.au (e-mail)