Mandarin Mondays: 中国

Because of China's National Day (guó qìng jié, 国庆节), we're studying about China this month. Each Monday I'll be sharing a few of the facts we've learned about this fascinating country. In this last week of learning facts about China, we focused on things that represent China.

China calls itself the Middle Kingdom (zhōng guó, 中国). This name comes from the belief that develop during the Zhou Dynasty (Zhōucháo, 周朝) that China was the center of the earth or at least the center of civilization. China is still an important center of industry and world trade.

China's National Flag (guó qí, 国旗) is red with five yellow stars in the upper left hand corner. Red represents revolution, and the four yellow stars around one larger yellow star represents unity under the Party.

Their national anthem is the march of the volunteers (yì yǒng jūn jìn xíng qǔ, 义勇军进行曲). It is a musical march that was first a part of a play in Shanghai in 1934. It talks about one million hearts beating as one.