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 word books:
“The book borrower of real stature whom we envisage here proves himself to be an inveterate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures and by the deaf ear which he turns to all reminders from the everyday world of legality as by his failure to read these books.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)