Transcript for China :Journey to the East video

[James Peachey]This is China today – a land of amazing size and beauty.  It’s larger than the whole of Europe with many different landscapes. 

China has one of the fastest growing populations in the world and more people speak Mandarin Chinese than any other language.  

We know China for its history, food, wildlife and, of course, its New Year celebrations.

I’m here in London’s Chinatown at the heart of the Chinese community. If you look around at the different shops and restaurants, you can start to get a really good idea about Chinese lifestyles and you can see many Chinese traditions still continuing today.

But what about China’s past? And how can history tell us how people lived hundreds of years ago? 

Well if you go to the exhibition, China: Journey to the East you can find out about one of the most important and influential civilisations in the world.

This exhibition, China: Journey to the East spans 3,000 years of Chinese history and culture through an exciting collection of objects – both old and new. 

This model of a theatre tells us a lot about how Chinese people used to spend their spare time and still do today. Watching plays was one of the main ways that people learned about legends and their history. This model is more than 300 years old. 

As well as plays, Chinese people go to the theatre to see puppet shows. These are called shadow puppets and are worked from behind a screen. These shadow puppets are just some of the ones you can see in the exhibition. They are made from donkey skins and feature in plays which are adapted from folktales.  All sorts of stories are told in shadow puppetry. This horse is probably about 50 years old.   

Food is a very important aspect of Chinese life. When people meet up they’ll often say ‘have you eaten?’ as a way of saying ‘hello’. And food is used to celebrate all sorts of religious and family events. This is a plate of dim-sum, or dumplings, and was made by a Chinese artist in 2007. Dim-sum is a traditional dish. Families and friends gather together to wrap, cook and eat these dumplings as part of their New Year celebrations. 

Here in Chinatown, dumplings are as popular as ever today.  Each one is made by hand in the traditional way. And this is what the dim-sum looks like once it has finished cooking. And this one looks very similar to the porcelain painted dumplings which are on display in the exhibition.

In the past, when someone died in China, friends and families would put food offerings in the dead person’s grave.Now this is for the dead person to appreciate in what’s called the afterlife. The afterlife is very important to Chinese people. It’s a place where it’s believed you go, when you die. These flower-shaped food objects are actually jam tarts and they are from the graves of people who died about 1200 years ago. And this is a biscuit, which is rather like a pretzel, and this is a wafer.  They were found in a cemetery in a desert region where the dry conditions have preserved the pastries perfectly. And these model food dishes were also part of a magnificent banquet for the soul in the afterlife. They tell us what sort of food people enjoyed some 500 years ago. There is pork, fish and pomegranates and they would be put in graves to be enjoyed in the afterlife. 

These are just a few of the treasures in the exhibition. But to find out about China’s past you should come and see them yourself, I’ll see you there.