The Far East: people and culture

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TEXT 15.

NANAI CLOTHES

Needles of Gold on Fish Skin

People are the Universe and

Their clothes are musical keys

These keys keep legends and

Fairy tales, so that you can

Play the melodies of ethnical

Artistic taste….

The Nanai always paid special attention to their national clothing. It was their essential feature that clothes of any type – festive, wedding or working – were in harmony with nature.

They observed the habits of animals, birds and fish with the keen eye of people who live in close contact with nature and take a great interest in their environment. Their impressions were then translated into the decorative motifs of different clothing.

It is quite surprising that people who were half-savages, with no written language could evolve in their decorative and applied art an artistic world of their own, based on the original conception of beauty.

In fact, it was a Nanai woman who created the unique national cut of clothing with its shape and colouring. It was very honourable for a woman to obtain high skills in sewing and decorating clothes. Thus, any Nanai woman was eager to have beautiful things made with her own hands, to be appreciated by men.

Hunting, fishing and reindeer-breeding provided the Nanai with the materials necessary for their artistic clothes.

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Fish-skin and the thread made from it, for example, were supplied by the rivers. This material, both original and practical, was used to make various articles of clothing (robes were especially popular).

Hunting gave them various furs and pelts for producing rovduga (a kind of soft leather (chamois)) which was used for making outer clothing. Robes made of rovduga were of great value and women decorated them with fine elegant embroidery using long white reindeer‟s hair in combination with coloured silk threads, which they had to buy.

Footwear (torbasi and unti) was made either of kamus (fur from reindeer‟s legs) seal skin or rovduga, and was usually embellished with fur mosaic and embroidery.

The principal ornamental motif in the art of the Nanai is a fanciful serpentine pattern intertwined with brilliantly stylized representations of birds, fish animals, snakes and sometimes fantastic dragons and double-headed birds.

Various decorative stitches were frequently used in embroidery and textile applique work in order to emphasize the original pattern of on ornament. A stitch of this kind, typical only of the art of the Amur peoples is as follows: the contour of the pattern is embroidered with different matching coloured threads, harmoniously alternating at short intervals. These stitches add considerably to the decorative quality of clothing and produce the impression of a velvet surface, though the embroidery is made on a cheap fabric, printed calico or sateen.

Common to all the peoples of the Amur region is the specific method of preparing the articles for ornamentation. For instance, all the embroidered parts of a robe or any other garment (men‟s shirt – “gahara” or women‟s pants – “akte peruni”) were made in batches. All these decorative pieces could be kept in store for a long time because the cut of garments was standard. If needed a new garment could be quickly produced as it was necessary to sew the available decorative parts of clothes in their proper places and disguise the seams.

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Wedding robes were especially rich in ornament. This garment was all covered with decorative embroidery patterns and had a frog at the front.

There was fine representation of symbolic life – a tree at the robe-front where you could identify birds sitting on branches that stood for human souls to-be-born; and at the back - large fish-scales that were supposed to protect the bride from evil spirits.

Nowadays the decorative art of the Nanai continues to play an important role in their life. At present modern clothes, slippers and gloves, which would never have been seen in the dwellings of these peoples previously, are decorated with national embroidery.

The fact is that national ornaments stay very high in the esteem of the Nanai for they seem to reach perfection in their unique and sophisticated ornamental art.

Assignment from the text “Nanai clothes”

I. Match words on the left with definitions on the right

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h.the skin and fur of a dead animal, or the skin with the fur removed

i.a group of things (or people) dealt with at the same time or considered similar in type

j.a special ability to do something

k.a long, loose-fitting piece of clothing worn on formal occasions

l.a piece of thread sewn in cloth

II.Find synonyms for the adjectives:

III. Give English equivalents:

a.высоко ценить

b.скрывать (маскировать) швы

c.олицетворять еще не родившиеся человеческие души

d.заготовить впрок

e.ощущение бархатной поверхности

f.бесконечно извивающийся ленточный узор

g.самобытное восприятие красоты

h.характерная особенность

i.цветные нитки мулине

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j.приобретать навыки

k.стилизованное изображение

l.украшать меховой мозаикой

m.аппликация на ткани

n.дешевая материя

o.отразить что-либо в декаративно-прикладном искусстве

p.набивной ситец

IV. Translate into English

1.Женской обязанностью было шитье обуви и одежды.

2.Одежду нанайцы шили из звериных шкур и рыбьей кожи, так было сотни лет.

3.Мастерицы очень старались сделать красивой каждую вещь, за что и пользовались уважением и почетом у мужчин.

4.В творчестве нанайцы отражали свои наблюдения за окружающей средой, что стало их характерной чертой.

5.Река не только кормила, но и одевала этих людей: удобной и легкой была одежда и обувь из рыбьей кожи.

6.В основу орнамента положен бесконечно извивающийся ленточный узор, иногда со стилизованным изображением животных.

7.Часто на свадебном халате вышивается символическое «дерево жизни», на ветвях которого изображаются птички, олицетворяющие

еще не родившиеся человеческие души.

8. Орнаментированные заготовки для халатов сейчас делаются на хлопчатобумажной ткани, чаще всего на сатине.

9.Некоторые мелкие вещи - унты, рукавицы, сумочки украшаются орнаментом из кожи: крупный орнамент делается из ровдуш, а мелкий и тонкий – из рыбьей кожи.

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художественному оформлению: они заготавливают впрок вышитые детали для халатов и любого другого одеяния.

V.Explain the meaning of the following set expressions:

-“The scales fell from my eyes”

-“It hangs by a thread”

Find in the dictionary some other set expressions with any words from your active vocabulary list.

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PART TWO

PACIFIC RIM COUNTRIES

TEXT 16.

CHINA

China is a country in East Asia, south of Russia and Mongolia. It is the world's third largest country by area and the largest by population. The capital of China is Beijing; the largest city is Shanghai. Including its more than 3400 offshore islands, China has a total land area of about 9,571,300 sq. km. This total does not include the Republic of China (Taiwan). Although most world governments do not recognize Taiwan, the island maintains a distinct government and economy.

China's six major geographic regions encompass a great diversity of landscape resources, climates, and plant and animal life. The Northwest region consists of lofty the Tien Shan mountain system and two basins: the fertile Junggar Pendi and the Tarim Pendi, which contains the vast Takla Makan, the driest desert in Asia. The Mongolian Steppe in north central China is a p1ateau desert region that grades eastward into steppe lands. The Northeast region incorporates the fertile Manchurian Plain and Liaodung Peninsula. North China, between the Mongolian Steppe and the Yangtze River Basin, consists of the Huangtu Plateau, the fertile North China Plain, and the Shandong Plateau peninsular.

South China embraces the valley of the Yangtze River, Asia's longest river, and the Yunnan Plateau with its steep-walled gorges; eastern Guishou‟s scenic limestone pinnacles and pillarlike peaks; the largely deforested and severely eroded Nan Ling hills; the infertile, hilly Xi Jiang Basin; the rugged Southeastern Highlands; and the broad delta plain, sometimes called the Canton delta. In remote Southwestern China is the Tibetan Plateau, the world's highest

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plateau region, dotted with salt lakes and marshes. Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world, rises in the Himalayas on the border of Nepal and Tibet.

The Asian monsoon (prevailing winds) exerts the primary control on China's climate. Summer temperatures are remarkably uniform throughout most of the country, but extreme temperature differences between north and south characterize the winters. Precipitation generally declines with distance from the sea.

China has a wide variety of animal life, including some species that survive only in China. Among these are the paddle fish, the giant panda, and the Chinese water deer (found only in China and Korea). China also possesses an extremely wide array of mineral resources.

Among the worlds leaders in production of antimony, and tungsten, the country claims to be second only to Saudi Arabia in oil reserves.

China has a population (1994 estimate) of 1,190,431,106. Government efforts at population control include limiting each Chinese family to having only one child. Nearly three-quarters of the people are classified rural. Approximately 92% of the people are ethnic, or Han, Chinese, but the minority population of non-Han peoples is significant in that its members have settled over nearly 60 percent of China's area. More than 70 million people belong to 56 national minorities distinguished from the Han Chinese by language or religion rather than by physical characteristics.

The Chinese have had a written language for more than 3000 years. Although there are more than a dozen major dialects, the official spoken language of the Chinese is Putongua (standard speech), sometimes known to Westerners as Mandarin. China's minority groups have their own spoken languages, which include Mongolian, Tibetan, Miao, Tai, Kazak. The Mandarinbased language is taught at schools, and its knowledge is requisite throughout China.

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Traditionally the economic mainstay of China, agriculture remains the most important sector of the national economy, supporting the vast majority of the population. In the early 1980s the government restructured the agricultural sector. Instead of communes and production brigades households became responsible for producing a certain quantity of crops. Any additional output was available to sell on the open market. The large majority of farmed land is devoted to food crops, primarily rice. Other important crops are wheat, tea, and oilseeds, particularly soybeans and peanut.

The Chinese textile industry is the largest in the world, and the country is the world's leading cotton producer. The country has rich mineral resources, especially coal, natural graphite and petroleum.

China is a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat, led by the world's largest Communist party, with more than 52 million members (only a small percentage of the total population). The office of president is largely ceremonial. Executive powers rest with the State Council, headed by the premier. The indirectly elected National People's Congress officially holds legislative power, but in practice it has little real power. When it is not in session, a committee-elected from its membership acts in its place.

Tradition names the Hsia (2205? - 1766? BC) as the first hereditary Chinese dynasty. However, the Shang dynasty (1766? -1 122 BC) is the earliest one for which reliable historical evidence exists. During the Qin dynasty (221206 BC), from which the name China is derived, a standardized system of written characters was adopted and the Great Wall, a barrier along the northern and northwestern frontier, was completed. Under the Manchu, or Qing dynasty (1644-1912), the power of the Chinese Empire reached the highest point in its 2000-year history and then collapsed, partly from internal decay and partly from external pressures exerted by the West. The two Opium Wars (1839-1842, 1856 - 1860) resulted in so-called unequal treaties, which ceded Hong Kong and Kowloon to Great Britain and established a devastating network of foreign

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control over the entire Chinese economy. In 1911 a revolutionary movement, led by Sun Yat-sen, began armed rebellion against the Manchu dynasty. China became a republic in 1912.

During World War I Japan sought to take control over China. Disillusioned by the Western powers, some Chinese became more interested in

Marxist-Leninist thought in order to reestablish national unity. Headed by Mao Zedong, the Communists took to the countryside of central China, mobilized the peasant Red army, and set up several local governments. By 1938 Japan had control of much of China. During World War II (1939 - 1945) the central (Kuomintang) government suffered serious debilitation, while the Communists, with support from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), significantly expanded their territorial bases, military forces, and party membership. In 1945, shortly after Japan surrendered to end the war, fighting erupted between Communist and Kuomintang troops, and in 1949 the Kuomintang resistance collapsed. The new Communist regime, called the People's Republic of China, was officially proclaimed on October 1, 1949, under the leadership of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. In 1966 Mao and his supporters launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to eradicate the remains of so-called bourgeois ideas and customs. In 1975 moderate Deng Xiaoping, a rehabilitated victim of the Cultural Revolution, was named Deputy to Premier Zhou Enlai. During this period China's foreign relations improved dramatically. In 1971 it was admitted to the United Nations (UN) upon the expulsion of Taiwan.

In 1972 U.S. President Richard M. Nixon made an official visit to China, during which full diplomatic relations, and the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Taiwan, were agreed upon.

Deng Xiaoping was the dominant figure in China throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Leadership changes came in the late 1980s after a wave of student demonstrations calling for increased democratization and freedom of expression. The wave of demonstrations swelled when Soviet leader Mikhail