This week we’ve been learning about Ancient China. We learnt about Confucius, a very ancient Chinese philosopher. His date was around 500 BCE. He made lots of peaceful sayings like “Respect yourself and others will respect you” and suchlike. When he got a job as a government official, no one would listen to him, so he got a job as a teacher instead and taught his students respect, love and happiness. When the first emperor of China, Shi Huangdi, ruled, he burnt all the books containing the copies of Confucian sayings and if anyone ever tried to write more about him and break Shi Huangdi’s rules, they would be thrown in a pit and buried alive. Though some very brave people, risking their lives, hid the writings of Confucius in secret cupboards in their houses, so we still know about him today. There are lots of programmes and films about him now, so everyone will be able to spread the news of Confucius the ancient philosopher.
Shi Huangdi didn’t used to be called that – he just called himself that because it means ‘first emperor’. When he was born in 259 BCE, he was named Ying Zheng. He became the king of Qin (pronounced Chin) after his father died, and made a lot of bloodthirsty battles in order to conquer the other six states of China. It was the Warring States period, and it had been even before Confucius was born. Once he had won them all, he named his country after Qin – China. But, even though Zheng thought he had brought peace to China, the Mongols from the North kept invading the Chinese villages. So he decided to build a huge wall across China – the Great Wall of China. He got all Chinese men to begin to build it, and when he died, all the the emperors after him tried to finish it, and so it is now completed.
But then again, that was not the only great thing the emperor did. He chose that when he died he would need an army with him to defeat all the spirits Zheng had killed when they came to get him. When the first couple soldiers were made out of clay, they were about ten inches big, so Zheng demanded for more. They were made out of terracotta and were even bigger than lifesize. Though the thing was, these warriors all were wearing intricate armour, had different faces and hair and were holding real weapons, better quality than any other in the whole world at that time. These were only found round about forty years ago.
In our China project, we have also been doing slightly more fun stuff, like writing in Chinese pictograms (what the Chinese use as letters). Unfortunately, the pictograms are getting less and less like what they mean, so you have to look very hard to decipher them. In pictograms, I wrote “Mother love, child dream, father smart” and Tilly wrote something like “Live, laugh, love”, though I’m not quite sure if that is 100% accurate. We also did things like watch videos and films about Shi Huangdi and documentaries about Confucius. I find it much more interesting when I watch things then read or write things, though I thoroughly enjoy writing and reading, just not from boring history books. (Though we did do some reading from books anyway.)
Also in this week, we went back to our usual club every other week. We made (well, I didn’t quite finish mine) lavender hearts with posh fabric and pink or blue threads. I got distracted because my friends were there. I made another friend called Lotte and played with her and Niamh. I also arranged a sleepover with Niamh, and so far we are planning on sleeping in sleeping bags on the landing 😉 After the club, we went to the park and played, though I didn’t get to write my story 🙁
Yesterday we went to a Japan festival in London. We watched all the ladies dressed up in kimonos dance around and the fan dancers too. There were some funny men dressed up who were fighting each other and one began to bang on about fishcakes for some unknown reason.
We ate things like sushi and potato cakes and preserved lemon with rice for lunch. It was very tasty, though William didn’t really like the raw fish (“It was chewy and slimy at the same time”). We got to stay up really late doing Japanese calligraphy. We used a really long brush the Japanese would have used and amazing shiny black ink. I wrote ‘HOPE’, William wrote ‘FRIEND’ and Tilly wrote ‘LOVE’.
We saw lots of art in the National Gallery too. There were some religious pictures, some normal pictures – but all were very, very good and intricate!
Then we hurried round to the Masala Zone, my favourite restaurant in the world. I had an absolutely delicious saffron chicken korma and rice. It was so tasty I wish I was eating it right now! In Masala Zone, they have shiny, twinkly dolls hanging from the ceilings dressed as Hindus wearing sparkly outfits. It is the best restaurant ever made, honestly it is!