The Great Wall began in 700 BCE in the Spring and Autumn period and was built over an astonishing 13 dynasties at 20,912 km long, from Liaoning to Gansu, and between 20-46 ft high, with 437 km still intact. The Forbidden Palace in Beijing, built by 1420 with almost 1,000 buildings, is China’s largest and most comprehensive ancient structure. 
 
Chinese profound literary classics include ‘The Journey to the West’ while Chinese poetry can be traced back to the early Western Zhou Dynasty (beginning in 1100 BCE). Coloured potteries displaying some of China’s earliest-known paintings are over 7,000 years old while Chinese music appeared around 6000 BCE. China’s earthenware and jade can even be traced back to the New Stone Age in 8000 BCE. Silk has a 4,000-5,000-year history travelling to India by 400 and the West by 600. Embroidery can be sourced back over 3,000 years while papercutting at over 2,000 years.
 
Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, begins in early February on the first day of the first lunar month and dumplings are eaten at midnight to bring in the New Year. Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month. The Dragon Boat Festival is on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month usually late May or early June. Moon/Mid-Autumn Festival is the 15th day of the eighth lunar month around mid-September. 
 
Chinese food belongs to around ten main cuisines. Tofu emerged in the Han Dynasty before being taken to Japan and Korea in 800, mushrooms began in the Tang Dynasty and spread to Japan, and seaweed as far back as 2,700 BCE. Cereal processing overall has over a 10,000-year history and rice more than 7,000 years. Tea has a more than 4,700-year history and there are more than 2,000 kinds. 
 
China is the third biggest country in the world by size. The Yangtze is China’s longest river and third globally at 6,300 km. The Beijing-Hangzhou Canal is the world’s first artificial waterway totalling 1,176 km and more than 2,500 years old. The Dujiangyan Irrigation Project in Sichuan began in 256 BCE and is still the only natural functioning water-diverting conservation project globally. The 20 GW Three Gorges Project, a ‘Great Wall on the water’ in Hubei, is the largest dam globally at 2,309 m long and 185 m high. China has a joint-global high of 55 UNESCO World Heritage Sites including the Mogao Grottoes in Gansu that are the oldest global collection of Buddhist grottoes. 
 
The Shang Dynasty (1600-1027 BCE) was responsible for engraved writing records, the ‘decimal’ system, and advanced manufacturing of bronze. The Zhou Dynasty (1027-255 BCE) produced codified laws, Confucianism (spreading to East Asia from the Qin Dynasty), the ‘Mandate of Heaven’, integers and fractional equations, steel and coke furnaces, a prototype-magnetised compass indicating south, and the abacus (spreading in the Ming Dynasty). The Qin Dynasty (221-207 BCE) established China’s first emperor, and centralised writing language, measurement units, and currency, and constructed a 6,800 km national road network. 
 
The Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) pioneered algebra, geometry, and the value of pi as well as bureaucratic examinations, a calendar, the seismograph, and paper (spreading first to East Asia from 581). The Tang Dynasty (618–906) established special maritime trading institutions, chemistry, gunpowder and fireworks, and federalism while niter was taken to West Asia and Buddhism to Japan. The Song Dynasty (960–1279) invented hard movable-type printing (invented in the Sui Dynasty 581-618) through clay heating, thermal weapons, an azimuth-plate multi-directional modern compass (taken to Arabia and Europe in 1180) and mechanised cotton. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) harnessed wood and metals for movable type-block printing influencing East Asia and the Arabic world while Zheng He pioneeringly voyaged to thirty countries in 28 years. 
 
Mandarin first appeared in animal bone and shells and bronze carvings and was the lingua franca for centuries in global history and was East Asia’s official communicative, administrative language until the early 1900s while also being the only surviving ancient script. 
 
Taoism believes that the universe is governed by an ultimate, dynamic way and one must practice cultivating their body, energy, and mind. ‘Qi’ permeates and binds all elements in the universe together as one unifying, life-giving energy force. Taoism contends everything has their opposite pair in nature (‘yin’ and ‘yang’) that are mutually reversible and connected to a wider, interconnected existence of consciousness. Confucianism is the study of human ethics in relation to social rituals that reinforce harmony with eight key virtue traits. Education, filial piety, and family are the key pillars society is built upon as part of one big dense, interconnected social web grouping known as ‘guanxi’. 
 
China has 12 lunar calendar animals with its 12-year zodiac cycle reflecting Jupiter’s orbit of the sun. China’s ‘Four Deities’ of the dragon, kylin, phoenix, and tortoise are able to transform to navigate different environments and worlds. Chinese astronomy dates from at least 500 BCE in a ’twenty-eight stars’ fixed-zonal orbital, annual circuit, or ‘zodiac’, including Jupiter and Saturn as well as detailing over 800 fixed stars determining 121 positions and facilitated by the hunyi and hunxiang in the Han Dynasty. Between 687-613 BCE, a meteor shower, meteorite, and Halley’s Comet were all recorded in addition to solar eclipses earlier in the Xia Dynasty (2070-1600 BCE). The guibiao and rigui sundials were produced in the Zhou and Qin Dynasties while the louke, emerging in the Han Dynasty, could be used in darkness to calculate time. 
 
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), dating back as far as 2,600 years ago, is a natural medicinal science. There are more than 300 acupuncture-sensitive nerve entry points that stimulate meridians (vibrational electrical currents) optimising disease prevention through the flow of blood and ‘qi’ around the body’s arteries and organs in harmony with the universe and rhythmically in tune with lunar cycles. TCM emerged in Japan and Korea in the Han and Tang Dynasties and later in the Arabic World and Europe in the Song and Yuan (1260-1368) Dynasties.