Huaxia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Huaxia (Traditional Chinese: 華夏; Simplified Chinese: 华夏; pinyin: Huáxià) is a name often used to represent China or Chinese civilisation.
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[edit] Etymology
According to the historical record, Zuo Zhuan, the ancient Xia Dynasty of central China was a state that held propriety and justice in high esteem, thus the word xia (夏), which has the meaning of "great" or "grand", was used by subsequent dynasties to refer to the entire country as a mark of refined culture. The word hua (華) was also used in reference to the beautiful clothing that people in ancient China wore, as the word means "illustrious" and "splendid".
It is also possible that xia referred to Xiashui (夏水), another name for the Han River, and hua referred to Mount Hua. Both the river and the mountain were historically and culturally significant to ancient China.
[edit] Historical Development
In the narrow, original sense, Huaxia refers to a group (or confederation of tribes) of ancient people living along the Yellow River who formed the nucleus of what later became the Han ethnic group in China. In this sense, the term did not originally represent China or Chinese civilisation as a whole, but referred instead to a specific ethno-cultural group (the Huaxia tribe or confederacy 華夏族) that was distinct from other Chinese peoples at the time, such as the Miao and the Dongyi. Subsequently, with the spread of Han culture over most of China, the term came to be used as a generic term for the Chinese nation itself, as well as for Chinese culture in general (including that shared by the overseas Chinese).
[edit] Modern references
Although still used in conjunction, Hua (華) and Xia (夏) are more often used separately to represent things Chinese. Hua, in particular, has become almost synonymous with Chinese civilisation.
The official Chinese names of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China refer to Huaxia in using the term Zhonghua (中華) to refer to China as a country. The PRC's Chinese name is "中華人民共和國" and the ROC's Chinese name is "中華民國".
The character hua is also often used, in the terms Huaqiao (華僑) and Huaren (華人), by the Overseas Chinese to refer to themselves. The term does not denote citizenship, but makes a reference to their ancestral origins.
The Chinese calendar is also known as the "Xia Li" (夏曆).
