What's Up Al ? 遊記隨筆 生活點滴

China's history could be traced back in an un-broken fashion through the millennia because Chinese writing played an important, key fundamental role in helping to achieve this feat. The Chinese writing not only helped keep historical accounts but also all manners of documents, book-keeping, royal summons, diplomatic records, literature, poems as well as translation of religious learnings and all because some cool dudes over 4,000 years ago, had the bright idea of engraving the initial, embryonic characters onto tortoise shells and animal bones and voila (!) - the birth of the famous ancient Chinese Oracle scripts. The main site where thousands of such engravings could be found was in Yin Xu (殷墟), popularly known as "The Cradle Of Chinese Writing", in the northern part of Henan Province and we took a day trip from our base in Zhengzhou (鄭州) where it was a quick journey on the high speed railway of just under 45 minutes. The site did not disappoint as the museum was full of spectacular artifact from the Shang Dynasty (商朝) over 4,000 years, including the famous massive brass/copper tripod/cauldron weighing 900 Kg (!) and I could relate how these writings and engravings talking and telling their stories of political intrigues, religious proceedings as well as records of hunting parties, court matters and commercial dealings. Coming face to face with these ancient Oracle bones was very satisfying and rewarding as I could appreciate how our present Chinese writing came about - through the development and growth of symbols, pictographs, emblems and surrounding sights. Yeh - the Chinese writing had come a long way !