Chinese Genealogical Books
It is the Chinese tradition to record family members in a book, including every male born in the family, who they are married to, etc. Traditionally, only males' names are recorded in the books.
During the Cultural revolution, many of the books were forcefully destroyed or burned to ashes, because they were considered by the Chinese communist party as among the Four Old Things to be eschewed. Therefore much valuable cultural history was destroyed forever. Fortunately in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and areas untouched by the revolution, many Chinese people still kept their genealogy books, some of which are even a few thousand years old.
Read more about this topic: Genealogy Book
Famous quotes containing the words chinese and/or books:
“Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“In an extensive reading of recent books by psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and inspirationalists, I have discovered that they all suffer from one or more of these expression-complexes: italicizing, capitalizing, exclamation-pointing, multiple-interrogating, and itemizing. These are all forms of what the psychos themselves would call, if they faced their condition frankly, Rhetorical-Over-Compensation.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)