Introduction

The purpose of this page is to provide readers some assistance in understanding the challenges of Chinese Heritage research, in particular such matters as:

• Reading Chinese on the Web
• Chinese Date System
• Chinese Names etc.

Our intention is to keep growing this Page, as and when we have questions from visitors on what is "common knowledge" to students of Chinese Heritage.

{This Page is provided with the courtesy of the Chinese Heritage Interest Network}

Reading Chinese on the Web

In accessing Chinese heritage web sites, if you come across Chinese characters, your pc may not display Chinese characters correctly unless you select the View encoding { View, Fonts, Chinese Traditional (Big5) or "Chinese Simplified (GB) }.  To view Chinese characters, you need to have the latest version of Internet Explorer (ideally IE 6 and above).    To install Chinese reading capability, suggest you try this sequence:

Start   Setting   Control Panel   Internet   Options   General   Language   Add.

Select Chinese Big5 etc.

If you still encounter difficulties, we suggest you browse through the web and you will find the appropriate solution for your browser.

Date System used by the Chinese Pioneers:

 Date: one needs to take care, as there is never certainty if the word moon corresponds to the relevant Gregorian month, or the Chinese Lunar Calender, which is a lunisolar Calender, formed

 Month and Day: The month and day of death is written as “moon” and “day”.   In trying to deduce the date of death, even though it is clearly written on the headstone, one needs to understand the Chinese Calender system.

Year: The Chinese Pioneers chose to use a Chinese Emperor Era name (年號) to record the year of their passing.  This is the Emperor Era Name, Emperor Reign Period, or regnal title used when traditionally numbering years in an emperor's reign (for deeper exposition on this subject, see reference  www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Chinese-year.   Thus, the date in Chinese could be, “Guang Xu Reign year number 2”which corresponds to CE 1876.

In rare cases, they choose to use the Ten Celestial Stems and the Twelve Terrestrial Branches, a 60-year cycle Chinese calendar system (干支) in use since the 12^th century BCE.  For the convenience of the reader and future researchers, we have generated such a calendar, from CE 1821 to CE1911.

Chinese Emperor Era name (年號)