The Return of Chow-Chow Presented by: Judith, Dulip, Deepa, Sathya and Sandhya St. James High School

Around 4,500 years ago… The earliest civilizations grew up along the banks of great rivers: the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus, and the Huang He. Three of these civilizations—the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Indus—were geographically close and may have influenced each other. The fourth, China, lay thousands of miles from the other three and yet grew into an amazing civilization.

Chinese society in 7 th century bc The emperor was the boss! The soldiers were important people, along with the nobles, merchants, craftsmen, farmers and slaves. People lived in groups and had great respect for elders and ancestors. Ancestor worship was widely practiced. Oracles were the holy priests who were believed to talk with the gods.

Confucius Confucius was a very popular religious leader. He taught his disciples to be happy with the present world and cultivate the values of hard work, modesty and thoughtfulness towards others. The movement came to be known as Confucianism.

Jobs in Ancient China Farming: The ancient Chinese people were mostly farmers. The crops they grew were rice, wheat, millet, barley and soya bean. The Chinese were the first to cultivate tea. Sericulture: The Chinese were the first to make silk cloth. Silkworms were bred for their thread and were world famous.

More Jobs Pottery: The Chinese developed the art of making a special type of pottery called porcelain. They were the first to make cups, saucers and bowls. Woodwork: The Chinese were very good at making things with wood. They crafted beautiful furniture inlaid with ivory.

Chinese Script and The Great Wall of China Chinese Script: The Chinese language does not have any alphabets. It is in the form of picture writing. In the beginning, there were 40,000 word pictures making the script very difficult. That is why many people in ancient China did not know how to read and write and only a few could study. The Great Wall of China: It was built by Emperor Shih Hwangdi. It is about 2,400 km long with 10,000 watch towers at regular intervals. It is the only man made structure that can be seen from the moon and is one of the 7 wonders of the world.

Contributions of the Chinese Civilization Some of the major contributions are: Invention of paper and ink: Books were being printed by 9 th century AD The art of block printing Gunpowder The mariner’s compass The umbrella Kites The seismograph The water mill The wheelbarrow The porcelain cups, saucers and bowls

How do the contributions of the Chinese civilisation impact our life? Some of the contributions of Chinese civilisation that we still use today are: Printing: Our favourite comic books are printed The umbrella: We use it to protect ourselves from heat, and rain. Kites: We eagerly wait for the kite flying festival every year. Fireworks: Every celebration – marriage, festivals, new year is so much fun with firecrackers. Tea: A refreshing drink elders enjoy every day. Silk: Saris that make our mothers look like Miss Universe!

Resources "Shang Dynasty in China ( BC)," Microsoft« Encarta« Encyclopedia ⌐ Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. us&Scope=MC&Query=chinese Microsoft Encarta Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. Devi Kar, Davitya Datta. Orient Longman. New Delhi A Combined Textbook of History and Civics. D.N.Kundra.Goyal Brothers Prakashan. New Delhi History and Civics for the Middle School. Jayanti Sengupta. Oxford University Press. New Delhi