Chinese Language and Culture

• Note: The people who maintain this web site have very limited skill in any form of Chinese language, ancient and modern. But they know enough to acknowledge that English language differs from Chinese in many ways, including grammar, phonemic patterns, inflection or tonality, writing system, and historical and cultural associations. Please note that two systems of transliteration (or approximation) of Chinese are still widely used -- the Wade-Giles system and the Pinyin system. See the following links for help with these matters, which are important if you are attempting to understand Taoism or Daoism through the medium of English.
  
  Chinese Language
• Chinese Romanization and Pictograph Guide
  http://www.edepot.com/taocalig.html
  [Brief and simple introduction to the meaning of a few Chinese characters relevant to Taoism and traditional Taoist texts.]
• A Chinese-English Database
  http://hua.umf.maine.edu/China/database.html
  [A page from the University of Maine that gives guidance about beginning study of Chinese language, with links to sites where suitable software can be found to deal with Chinese on the world wide web.]
• Chinese-English Etymological Dictionary
  http://zhongwen.com/
  [This dictionary uses traditional etymologies and a unique series of charts based on them to show the close relationships between Chinese characters -- which are all derived from about 200 simple pictographs and ideographs in ways that are usually quite logical and easy to remember. Since Chinese characters form a self-contained system, their etymologies are easier to understand and more helpful than, for instance, English etymologies with their myriad of foreign roots. The site is quite interesting, and does not require a special browser setting.]
• Chinese Language Information Page
  http://www.chinasona.com/bamboo/chinese.html
  [A page with a search engine and links for anyone who is interested in Chinese, including speakers and students of Chinese languages, China scholars, librarians, and others.]
• Sinologic
  http://www.certifiedchinesetranslation.com/sinologic/
  [Web links that are annotated and organized by topics including Learning Chinese. A good resource.]
  
  Chinese Cultural History
• China the Beautiful
  http://www.chinapage.com/china.html
  [An attractively presented set of resources provided by Ming L. Pei. Among the delightful materials at this site is a series of cyber "Flash Cards" for learning a few characters and "words" in Chinese language.]
• ChinaSite
  http://www.chinasite.com/
  [An extraordinary set of links to internet sites that was first compiled and maintained by Weiqing Huang. Includes, as you may imagine, many sites that are not relevant or even may seem to be antithetical to Taoism. The logo above is offered at the site to be used as a reminder to link to it and visit regularly. Mr. Huang is the president of Aweto (Advanced Web Topology) Company in Chicago (USA) with a subsidiary in Tianjin (China).]

Journals
• Qi Journal
  http://www.qi-journal.com/index.asp
  [Qi calls itself "The Journal of Traditional Eastern Health & Fitness." It is a great dim sum collection of snack-sized tidbits of entertainment and information about Chinese culture, acupuncture, astrology, the Taoist immortals, a translation of the Tao Te Ching, and some examples of Pinyin transliterated terms and the tonal system. Although a commercial venture, it belongs here and brings a light touch to the subject of language study.]
  
  Important Guides to Other Internet Resources
• Selected Chinese Studies Web Resources
  http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/eastasian/6550.cfm
  [A topically organized list of Internet resources maintained by the Richard C. Rudolph East Asia Library at the University of California, Los Angeles.]
• CEAL - Council on East Asian Libraries
  http://www.eastasianlib.org/
  [The organization for East Asian librarians in North America.]
• Internet Guide for Chinese Studies
  http://sun.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/igcs/
  [A World Wide Web Virtual Library site, managed by Hanno Lecher. This is a major resource for a large range of China Studies materials.]
• Marjorie Chan's ChinaLinks
  http://chinalinks.osu.edu/
  [A topically organized list of links maintained by Dr. Chan at the Ohio State University, USA.]

Daoism Index