The Agrarians believed that Chinese society should be modeled around that of the early sage king Shen Nong, a folk hero which was portrayed in Chinese literature as " working in the fields, along with everyone else, and consulting with everyone else when any decision had to be reached.

Although Confucius the man may have been a believer in Chinese folk religion, Confucianism as an ideology is humanistic and non-theistic, and does not involve a belief in the supernatural or in a personal god.

" Attributes that are seen as religious — such as ancestor worship, ritual, and sacrifice — were advocated by Confucius as necessary for social harmony ; however, these attributes can be traced to the traditional non-Confucian Chinese beliefs of Chinese folk religion, and are also practiced by Daoists and Chinese Buddhists.

* Chinese folk religion

There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and which is ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern mythologies, and the Chinese dragon, with counterparts in Japan, Korea and other East Asian countries.

Guanyin is an extremely popular Goddess in Chinese folk belief and is worshiped in Chinese communities throughout East and South East Asia.

Nasreddin often appears as a whimsical character of a large Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Judeo-Spanish, Kurdish, Pashto, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, Russian, Turkish and Urdu folk tradition of vignettes, not entirely different from zen koans.

New Age practices and philosophies sometimes draw inspiration from major world religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam ( especially Sufism ), Judaism ( especially Kabbalah ), Sikhism ; with strong influences from East Asian religions, Gnosticism, Neopaganism, New Thought, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Universalism and Western esotericism.

Early poems evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

As such, various modern scholars have begun to apply the term to three groups of separate faiths: Historical Polytheism ( such as Celtic polytheism, Norse Paganism, the Cultus Deorum Romanorum and Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism also called Hellenismos ), Folk / ethnic / Indigenous religions ( such as Chinese folk religion and African traditional religion ), and Neopaganism ( such as Wicca and Germanic Neopaganism ).

According to Encyclopædia Britannica estimates ( as of 2005 ), adherents of Chinese folk religion account for some 6. 3 % of world population, and adherents of tribal religions (" ethnoreligionists ") for another 4. 0 %.

The five largest religious groups by population, estimated to account for between 5 and 7 billion people, are Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism ( with the relative numbers for Buddhism and Hinduism dependent on the extent of syncretism ) and Chinese folk religion.

Taoism has had profound influence on Chinese culture in the course of the centuries, and clerics of institutionalised Taoism () usually take care to note distinction between their ritual tradition and the customs and practices found in Chinese folk religion as these distinctions sometimes appear blurred.

Taoism does not fall under an umbrella or a definition of a single organized religion like the Abrahamic traditions ; nor can it be studied as the originator or a variant of Chinese folk religion, as although the two share some similar concepts, much of Chinese folk religion is outside of the tenets and core teachings of Taoism.

The number of people practicing Chinese folk religion is estimated to be just under four hundred million.

* Chinese folk religion

Category: Chinese folk religion

Yet, if the purpose of Polo's tales was to impress others with tales of his high esteem and fond regard in an advanced civilization, then it is possible that Polo shrewdly would omit those details that would cause his listeners to scoff at the Chinese with a sense of European superiority.

From at least the Yuan dynasty, plays that recounted the subversive tales of China's Robin Hoods to the Ming dynasty novels such as Water Margin, on down to the Qing dynasty novel Dream of the Red Chamber and beyond, there developed a literature in written vernacular Chinese ( 白話 / 白话 ; báihuà ).

Similar Chinese narratives state that if a vampire-like being came across a sack of rice, it would have to count every grain ; this is a theme encountered in myths from the Indian subcontinent, as well as in South American tales of witches and other sorts of evil or mischievous spirits or beings.

Simultaneously, Pu Songling, in China, included many fairy tales in his collection, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio ( published posthumously, 1766 ).

" Standard Chinese língqì is translated by Chinese-English dictionaries as: "( of beautiful mountains ) spiritual influence or atmosphere "; " 1. intelligence ; power of understanding ; 2. supernatural power or force in fairy tales ; miraculous power or force "; and " 1. spiritual influence ( of mountains / etc.

Stepmothers also make many appearances in Chinese tales of family.

Chinese folk tales tell of fox spirits called huli jing that may have up to nine tails, or Kyūbi no Kitsune in Japanese.

Chinese mythology contains many tales of animal shapeshifters, capable of taking on human form.

Zhang Liang's encounter with Huang Shigong had also become one of the classic Chinese folk tales about humility for later generations to learn from.

Folk tales suggest Marco Polo thought the Chinese were using it as a diuretic.

Many holidays are associated with Chinese mythology and folklore tales, but more realistically, they probably originated from ancient farmer rituals for celebrating harvests or prayer offerings.

Under Kanishka, Gandhara became a holy land of Buddhism and attracted Chinese pilgrim to see monuments associated with many Jataka tales.

Chinese folklore includes songs, poetry and dancing in the moonlight dances, puppetry, and tales.

The main influences on Chinese folk tales have been Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism.

Well-known Chinese folk tales include:

Hu Shi of the National Peking University, who had published several articles in support of the adoption of Vernacular Chinese, concluded that when Chinese writers drew their inspiration from folk traditions like traditional tales and songs, Chinese literature experienced a renaissance.

" Cases of Judge Dee ") an original tale dealing with three cases simultaneously, and, which was unusual among Chinese mystery tales, a plot that for the most part lacked an overbearing supernatural element which could alienate Western readers.

While it is clearly of Indian origin, this tale was virtually indistinguishable from similar Chinese tales.

While these tales were a part of the Buddhist tradition, Chinese Buddhism raised them from a peripheral role to a central one.

Milieus encountered in the second series include the worlds of Irish myth and the Orlando Furioso ( again ) in " Professor Harold and the Trustees ," L. Ron Hubbard's setting from The Case of the Friendly Corpse and L. Frank Baum's land of Oz in " Sir Harold and the Gnome King ," the classical Chinese epic novel Journey to the West in " Sir Harold and the Monkey King ," the romantic fantasies of Miguel de Cervantes ' Don Quixote ( with the unique twist of its being Quixote's version of reality rather than Cervantes ') in " Knight and the Enemy ," Virgil's Graeco-Roman epic the Aeneid in " Arms and the Enchanter ," the old Russian Tale of Igor's Campaign in " Enchanter Kiev ," Bhavabhuti's Baital Pachisi ( or " Vikram and the Vampire "), a proto-Arabian Nights collection of Indian tales, in " Sir Harold and the Hindu King ," Edgar Rice Burroughs ' Barsoom in " Sir Harold of Zodanga ," and William Shakespeare's The Tempest in " Harold Shakespeare.

Observers claim that the Chinese community in Angola might include as many as 300, 000 persons at the end of 2010, but nothing near to reliable statistics are at this stage available on this point.

The philosophical roots of agrarianism include European and Chinese philosophers.

These include Hindu astrology ( also known as " Indian astrology " and in modern times referred to as " Vedic astrology ") and Chinese astrology, both of which have influenced the world's cultural history.

Modern weapons include the Russian ZSU-23-4 Shilka and Tunguska-M1, South Korean K30 Biho and K263A1 radar-guided Vulcan, Chinese Type 95 SPAAA, Swedish CV9040 AAV, Polish PZA Loara, American M6 Bradley Linebacker and M1097 Humvee Avenger, Yugoslavian BOV-3, Canadian ADATS, aging German Gepard, Japanese Type 87 SPAAG and similar versions with the British Marksman turret ( which was also adapted for a number of other users ), Italian SIDAM 25 and Otomatic, and versions of the French AMX-13.

The contest encourages users to suggest ideas that include ants for a Bud TV spot set to run in February 2010 during the Chinese New Year.

Within philosophy familiar names include Daniel Dennett who writes from a computational systems perspective, John Searle known for his controversial Chinese room, Jerry Fodor who advocates functionalism, and Douglas Hofstadter, famous for writing Gödel, Escher, Bach, which questions the nature of words and thought.

The findings at Anyang include the earliest written record of Chinese past so far discovered: inscriptions of divination records in ancient Chinese writing on the bones or shells of animals – the so-called " oracle bones ", dating from around 1200 BC.

Cultures and countries strongly influenced by Confucianism include mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, as well as various territories settled predominantly by Chinese people, such as Singapore.

The elements of the Chinese tea ceremony include the harmony of nature and self cultivation, and enjoying tea in a formal or informal setting.

Some common vegetables used in Chinese cuisine include Chinese leaves, bok choy ( Chinese cabbage ), Chinese Spinach ( dao-mieu ), On Choy, Yu Choy, and gailan ( guy-lahn ).

Also sponsored by the PRC is the view that Chinese history should include all of China's ethnic groups past and present ( Zhonghua Minzu ), not just the history of the Han Chinese.

Some well known stories include the Yuan Dynasty story Circle of Chalk ( Chinese: 灰闌記 ), the Ming Dynasty story collection Bao Gong An ( Chinese: 包公案 ) and the 18th century Di Gong An ( Chinese: 狄公案 ) story collection.

Traditional Chinese domino games include Tien Gow, Pai Gow, Che Deng, and others.

Adaptations of DDC for specific regions outside the English-speaking world include the Korean Decimal Classification, the New Classification Scheme for Chinese Libraries and the Nippon Decimal Classification ( Japanese ).

Some popular types of ethnic foods include Italian, French, Japanese, Chinese, American, Cajun, Thai, and Indian cuisine.

Many later Marxist theorists ( e. g. Eric Wolfe ) have generalized this characterization to include non-European societies, grouping feudalism together with Imperial Chinese and pre-Columbian Incan societies as ' tributary.

Other popular modern coins include the Austrian Vienna Philharmonic bullion coin and the Chinese Gold Panda.

Graphemes include alphabetic letters, typographic ligatures, Chinese characters, numerical digits, punctuation marks, and other individual symbols of any of the world's writing systems.