Thousand Characters Classics and Hundred Family Surnames (Chinese Edition) - Softcover

Zhu Hua; Deng Qitong

Softcover

ISBN 10: 7564162562 ISBN 13: 9787564162566

Publisher: Southeast University Press, 2016

Synopsis

Three Character Classic, Thousand Characters Classics and Hundred Family Surnames are the most popular introductory books for children since ancient times. It is often said that read Three Character Classic to improve behaviour, read Thousand Characters Classics to have some common sense and read Hundred Family Surnames for daily use. Legend says that Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty commissioned Zhou Xingsi to compose Thousand Character Classics by copying Wang Xizhi's calligraphy. Zhou was given the task of restoring these slips to their original order. He worked so intensely to finish doing so that his hair turned completely white overnight. It contains exactly one thousand characters, each used only once, and grouped into four-line rhyming stanzas to make it easy to memorize. It was regarded as an amazing book and remained its popularity for over a thousand years. Hundred Family Surnames is an anonymous book. According to Song dynasty scholar Wang Mingqing, it was very popular among the ordinary people and used for imperial exam. He pointed out it was not composed by ordinary people because the first four surnames listed represent the most important families in the empire at the time. With four-letter-verses, it is easy to read and memorize. Thousand Characters Classics and Hundred Family Surnames (Chanting Edition with Big Characters, Pin Yin and Bicolored Illustrations) is a finely printed paperback edition with big characters, pin yin, notes, antique illustrations, and bicolour pages. At the same time, some redundancy is deleted and the price is more attractive.

About this edition

• Publisher: Southeast University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 7564162562
• ISBN 13: 9787564162566
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 120