Hello People, This is very unusual post. There can be no better place than this one in asking for some help in uncovering historical past of China. I have been a bit curious about the following topics and like to study more. But, I seemed to have difficulty in finding a proper material to read over internet.> Healthcare system in ancient China: Were there any hospitals? Were there any institutions dedicated to train the Doctors or anyone else of the similar ranks?> Messaging services: Were there any post offices like we have today? Was there any other system in place? How people used to communicate with each other?There are many more areas to ask, but that may be later. Can I get some help on these topics from any one of you? Please provide any information in the comment sections or directly message me. Looking forward!

I live in Bengaluru, which is known as Silicon Valley of India. But not all the areas are IT hub. I live in outskirts of the city, which is home to local population,still unaffected from this IT boom. An old area, where you can hardly find any skyscrapers unlike other parts of the city. I have moved 2 years earlier to finish my self-designed learning path. China Daily has been part of my reading daily. Over the years, I have developed a depth of knowledge in many different Chinese matters though such readings. Just with a laptop and internet, I have exchanged information with my Chinese friends. We exchanged Hindi-Chinese learning lessons. But unlike virtual world, it is rare to find anyone from China in this part of the city. But life is all about surprises, isn't it? One day, I was traveling through BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) for some work to other parts of the cityI found myself sitting next to the person, who seemed not to belong from this place. Thanks to the advantage of wide screen, I could sneak very easily into his smartphone. Can you imagine, what I found out? He was reading China Daily. After reading this newspaper for more than 3 years, it is not difficult for me to identify logo in a single glance. Subsequent glancing showcased few Chinese characters. I may not know Chinese characters that well, but at least I can tell which one belongs to this language. I did not wait a second to ask, if he is from China. He said yes.Then I asked, 'from which place?' He said, you would probably do not know the place other then Beijing or HongKong. Then, I told him that I read the same newspaper as him and reading it from past 3 years, so I know a lot abut China. He smiled and said, 'Nanjking'. I said,'Wow! You are from the ancient capital city of China'. He was very surprised on listening the word, 'ancient capital city of China'. Probably, no Indian has ever described his hometown so historically correct to him. We started talking further and I told him more about 'Zhu Ge Liang', 'Rice Dumpling', 'Confucianism', and importance of Red Color in Chinese traditions. He was very surprised with my knowledge about China. He was more surprised to find that I even know about by 'Romance of 3 Kingdom' novel. During all these conversations, everyone sitting around in the Bus was looking with equal surprise. But this conversation could not last longer, as I had to get down from the bus to make a transit. This 20 minute quick conversation ended with his firm handshake and his introduction, 'I am John from Nanking. Please to meet you'. I did not get chance to either get his contact details or his where about as I had to get down quickly. I simply said, 'Enjoy your stay in India'. This entire conversation had not happened, if there was no China Daily. After this incident, I will study China Daily in more depth and may be meet 'John from Nanking' again in the bus. Unlike others, I have started reading China Daily just 3 years ago, but it has become my best friend to know anything about China. May this friendship continue forever and I hope to meet many from 'John from China' in near future.

#This is the e-mail sent to the Chinese Premier# Nothing has been edited Ni Hao Premier Xi Jinping, My name is Ankit Khandelwal and I am from India. I am a regular reader of The China Daily. I am studying about China from past 3 years. I studied many online courses from Chinese universities and interacted many people from China. I have made strong bonds with Chinese people by helping them in improving their English. I also enjoyed learning more Chinese culture, society, and festivals from them. I can consider myself someone who have deep interest and understanding of China. Allow me to give following suggestions. Idea 1: Let us go to back to villagesThe beauty of China lies in its villages. The 5000 year old civilization can never be understood completely without the preservation of many ancient customs and rituals. The responsibilities shared by citizens in those countryside is hard to imagine today. Unfortunately, rising urbanization is rapidly deserting these places living a big void in passage of cultural heritage. Youngsters may lose out a big part of their identity, if something has not been done. Youngsters can be encouraged to spent 1-2 weeks each year in any village of China. They can be given incentives(certificates, credits) to feel the life in a village. They can also be given tasks to solve rural problem using their educational background. This will enhance their bond with their motherland and also enhance their ability to see themselves as part of China. Idea 2: Helpline for youngstersMajority of youngsters are living alone in the growing big cities. They are away from their loved ones and often face severe depressions, loneliness, and feeling of not being cared. The number of people suffering from this type of syndrome will continue to rise in future. I will be much more glad, if you can include this kind of study as mandatory in school, university, and in vocational studies curriculum. There can also be a dedicated helpline set up to help people talking to someone during the need. The future of any country are it's youngsters and China need to tackle this issue. I have many more ideas to share and I will try to pen down in the upcoming days. Thanks for going through my message and I do hope, that you will take my ideas into consideration to make China even much more better place to live for the upcoming generationRegards,Ankit KhandelwalIndia

Though I am a regular visitor of this blog forum, it has been long since I have written any post here. New Year is around the corner and I have been asked to write about it by one of the forum member. So, here I am. The post with title, ‘Make New Year Resolution: Write Diary Every Day’ explain the need to have a conversation with yourself on regular basis. . In the age of technological advancements, we are giving a lot more time to others (including our gadgets). Somehow, ‘I’is missing in this entire context. In my observation, this is also leading to rise in stress level and loneliness especially among the tech savvy generation. We are not expressing ourselves the way we are. We are expressing ourselves to look good in the eyes of others but somehow ignoring to talk to ourselves. It is like despite being problem, we will post a nice photo on the social media to showcase that we are good. Social media gives us the possibility to avoid spontaneity, edit, and modify our opinions. Therefore, many of us sometime chose the represent ourselves the way we want the world to look on us (comments, photos etc). But, it may not be us(or I). It is just that way I am pretending to be like someone but that is not me (or I). Working with people from all around the world, I have also seen some sort of deep mistrust prevail during the communication. I observed it many times and finding it difficult sometime to even get a clear picture of what other has in mind. In professional language, it is called ‘lack of communication skills’. I prefer to call ‘lack of expressing oneself’ properly. I do not like to tell more about how you can be social, but rather 'How you can express yourself'. The more you express yourself, the more you will inch towards becoming 'I'. Obviously, if you have group of friends to hang out, partner to share your day out, then none of these is required. There are certain ways, it can be done. I am using them regularly and I believe, they can be useful for you too. If you have any more suggestions, then please post in the comments box. -Writing diary/ taking notes: I have already written a long post last year about writing 'Diary' to express yourself more. Making a notes during a lecture, attending a speech, and during the work helps you to put down your thoughts into words. It just releases burden from brain and makes a person more comfortable. If you feel unhappy from a arrogant e-mail, then just write your frustration on to paper. If you are feeling sad, then just keep writing about it. You will not be judged while writing such remarks. We are human being and we love to express ourselves. If you cannot find enough time to socialize or hesitate meeting people, this can be one of the best key to express yourself and relax. You can type things on your mobile phone too, but I advise to use pen and paper. It has been proven by research that writing with hands(or taking notes) improve the retention capacity(or memory) of our brain. Why not give it a try? - A lone walk: This is not something very new. Every night, I go to a nearby stadium after my dinner. That is the time, when I do not have to do anything and my mobile phone is switched off. While walking, I talk to myself. I revise the entire day schedule and figure out what was right and what was wrong. In this entire process, I am speaking(sometime soft and sometime loudly), thereby expressing myself. Those 30 minutes walk digest the food, refresh the mind, and sometime gives idea to do many more things. Sometime, this becomes a thinking walk of a new idea. If I am working on a presentation; then during this walk, slide number 15 may move to 5 or it can be deleted all together. If I am going to write down a poem, then I just take my imagination to that state and thoughts start to come automatically. You may not need to do all these things, but talking to oneself helps. If you do not have a sports ground like mine then just walk in your own room. You just need to switch off the lights and feel the silence in your life. It is like you are with yourselves. I am still not sure, why I have written this post. But, I do hope that my experience can be helpful to others.

This blog post is completely different from my previous posts. Today, I am not going to talk more about China but about a growing problem among many people. This phenomenon has always been there but now it looks in much larger proportion among ourselves.There was a time, when I faced loneliness and wanted someone besides me just to talk. This was not a good feeling but soon I have developed a mechanism to cope up with it. I have started to invest time in writing, painting and reading whenever I felt such situation. Now, I no longer feel such situation. But, I have realized the need to help others who might be in the same situation as mine and unable to speak up due to various reasons. It is true that in today's times, we tend to hide our true-selves behind the curtains of social media, pleasant looking pictures or just looking at virtual happiness. So the need to speak and reflect our true inner-self is necessary, even if this Often this does not happen because people do not trust others in sharing some information. This can be often a break-up, work stress or simply uncontrolled emotions. No one at present wants to look weaker and this prohibit us to share such darker side of ours. It can gets worse, if the person keep sitting on it for a longer duration. Sharing just heals and liberates our mind.Few months ago, I have joined a listeners website '7 cups of tea', which allows anyone to speak up about his/her problem without revealing the identity. At the same platform, many people like me are voluntarily giving our ears as listeners to those in need. This entire platform connects those who need help and those who wants help. The entire conversation is always anonymous. I can never know other person and vice versa is also true. So, I can only listen and try to understand his/her situation from the texts being typed in the chat box. I have improved my listening capability and felt great to listen many people in past few months. However, there is something which disturbs me a lot and I came across this very often. After thinking for a long time on question of writing this in public or not, it is time that you can also be aware of this. There were many guys who were depressed in life and felt that they will not be able to become something they wanted to be. When I have asked, why you think so? They told, everyone around them is successful, getting love from others and moving in the life. Again, I asked, aren't you moving in life? Many person replied, that they are not. I cannot dilute more information here from such conversations. But, all I found is that people were so obsessed by becoming celebrities, becoming the photo shoot person. At 3 years ago, they saw a person with nice smile fighting a immigrant case and they enrolled for the law school. Now, in the 2nd year, they do not see a future in law because this is what they never wanted to do. They quit the law school and tried aspiring for movie, because movie stars always gets every kind of publicity. It also did not work out and then they tried something else and something else. Now, they are under huge depression and still feel that other people are better. The social media picture of others humiliate them everyday and they just do not see any value in their own life. I am refraining myself from giving more information about such cases. In all, I could not understand why people want to become someone else? Why they cannot be just themselves? Has anyone of you has answer to my question 'why people want to become someone else?' 'why they cannot be just themselves?'

<div><br></div><div>'History' as what we call is the collection of events, incid ents and innovations happened in the life of people who came before us. It involved wars, social structure, religion, poor,rich, class system as well as the nat ural disasters. But, how we got to know about all of this so easily? Alright, not so easily but still we are able to extract so much from the past. Those pictur es on the walls carved inside the caves, those paintings in the famous temples and those scripts full of information brought so much from the past. But How this happens? </div><div><br></div><div>It is because, our ancestors pioneered something we all know very well. Something, we all practice in our day to day life but may not define its existence. It is not just Chinese culture, but almost all cultures in ancient society practiced, pre served and nurtured to pass on to the future generation. It is called, 'Art of Storytelling'. </div><div><br></div>&l t;div>Storytelling is not a new phenomenon. We all read stories of how evil kings were destroyed by a brave warriors. We also studied different folktales, wh ich literally shapes our ideologies and made many of us understand our culture. This is only through the art of storytelling, many of the ancient stories are st ill alive. Telling or describing anything in dramatic way increases the chance of understanding the knowledge inherited. This is how folktales shapes our thinki ng process, transform us what is now known as 'cultural identity'.Through puppet, dance , opera and theater ; stories were told in many different way s to convey a message to larger crowd. Many of the historical documents and monuments too tells some stories to us. </div><div><br>&l t;/div><div>I am sure, you have now understand enough about the 'Art of Storytelling'. In the upcoming post, I will talk more about specific incidents in history of China and importance of stories in bringing knowledge to us in the present form. </div><div><br></div>

It has been a long time since I have written a post here. I have been lately busy working on my book Zero Cost MBA which is almost reaching the finishing stage. So, what should I write today? I am thinking about it for a long time. Today, with the advent of technology, it is possible to inquire and get information anytime, anywhere. We can check the other persons progress and even cross verify(in some cases), if he is lying. But what about ancient time, or lets say ancient China? Imagine the time of Zhu-ge Liang, when these type of cross verification were never possible. Lets go to the time, just before the battle of red cliff, when master of Zhu-ge Liang was very weak and could not resist the marching army of Cao Cao. It was Zhu-ge Liang who came up with the idea of making alliance with Sun clan to stop the advance of Cao Cao. Whats the big deal, you will say? Kings/rulers as well as politicians made alliances all the time throughout the history.But, what made such alliances succeed? Especially, when Liu-Bei asked Zhu-ge Liang to go on the horse trip to forge an alliance with Sun clan, did he have any second thoughts? Liu Bei could not forseen the response from the Sun clan for an immediate alliance. All he could do is to trust Zhu-ge Liang. He could also not check the progress of his adviser (Zhu-ge Liang) journey. And without the use of mobile phone, could he communicate to him during the journey? Well, I could hope is that Zhu-ge Liang woul deliver on his promise. It was the trust between the 2 people, who made such a blind faith possible. It is the trust, due to which Zhu-ge Liang could take his own initiative with an overall objective in his mind. Should the situation go wrong, there was no way to confirm, get help or modify the things. Zhu-ge Liang was on his own in the quest and he was right in honoring the trust placed on him by his master. Had their been a mobile phone that time, I doubt if Zhu-ge Liang was able to do things that effectively, as he had to constantly his master about the progress. The as well not getting freedom to use his own skills could very well change the course of history(I am assuming). So in a nutshell, I can say that people in ancient times trusted each other lot more than us. They traveled to long distances trusting all the information provided by previous is true. It was trust due to which, dynasties and empires could last for decade as well as centuries. The word of the people were the final statement and people died for keeping this honor. People considered dying more honorable than unable to keep up with their word. Trust placed on people also made such people more responsible cultivating in their leadership skills. Anyway, lets get back to 21st century. I believe, trust between 2 human is declining. Technology has already started death of conversation(most important aspect to build trust) and what is left behind has been filled with fear, concerns and suspicion. Trust only establishes, when we communicate and understand each other. However, this is vanishing and we are getting more scared in opening up ourselves to others. This is reducing our ability to understand ourselves better and in turn also placing great strain on ourselves. May be we can learn something from ancient China?

This was the topic of discussion earlier for this month. The month has almost ended :-) but still my opinion can matter.First,I could not understand how to write about 'Women proposal of Marriage'. Instead of developing my own thoughts on it first , I decided to ask opinion of others. So, I have spent time in asking both my friends from India and China about their opinion on it. The friends included people from both genders. They shared their own perspective and it was good enough to understand that I am not the only one, thinking on the similar lines. Well, my answer to this question will be, why not? I mean, we are living in 21st century, where majority of tasks are handled by both the genders, then why can not a woman proposing to a man for marriage has to be different? In fact, it will reduce the many burdens faced by man today. One of them is finding a life partner. I am sure, women are also facing this uphill questions but it is more difficult for man for many of the social reasons.Even if we are living in 21st centuries, where both men and women are earning good salaries, many things are still the same. It is expected from a Man to earn more money then his life partner, take lead in the relationship and arrange other things. Discussion forums are filled with examples describing the necessity to have a house, car and good bank balance before even thinking about marriage. A man, who is struggling to these things might feel very relaxed if job of finding partner can be taken by someone else. Or, as the article says, if a woman proposes a man, then it will reduce stress a bit. Today's man are at the crossroad. Earlier, they were taught (from childhood) about being focused fully on earning money, not to cry and show the weakness in front of audience and take care of the family. They may not have seen their mother going to offices. Instead, they have seen them taking care of family and staying at home. Now, when they see their prospective wives going to offices, they are finding it difficult to adapt to the new situation. However, in my experience, majority of them are able to adjust to this new reality very easily and learning to cook, clean house and helping in household work. Still, the society expect so much from them just like in the past. They may come under pressure in finding someone right.So,they will feel much more relax if a women is able to identify them and bring forward the relationship proposal. This only entails the confidence of the women and many men prefer to have such life partner. My talks with majority of the people confirmed this belief and I myself personally love being proposed by someone, if I looked as a good person to that person.

Initially, I thought of only writing about the my experience of observing Chinese history and culture. However, a recent article and my knowledge in Economics has diverted my focus to write a blog post on Economics.I have always studied that some countries are called developed nations and others are developing nations. I believe, this was in my 5th standard. The definition did not change until I have extensively studied Economics as part of my Zero Cost MBA(Envisioning 21st century global manager) project. Through the study of Economics, I have finally able to understood, how a country is classified as either develop or developing. Though, I am not an expert in Economics but still understand lot of things giving me confides to write this blog post. Although, the term of developed and developing countries has remained different for different institutions, a general approach is to look at GDP, GNP, Per capita Income and Human Development Index. Will China remain a developing country?I was reading an article while traveling in the bus. It was more about developed world/developing countries and compared their economics climate. I have started to discuss this with a person sitting next to me. He seemed to have a lot of knowledge on the different mattes of Economics. We were discussing difference between developing and developed countries and how a country can become a developed nations. He made a joke in the middle of our discussion. He made a particular mention about the headlines surrounding the Greece Crisis (which has started from past 3-4 years and still not resolved). He simply said that despite so much debt and not much money to pay back, Greece is still considered a developed country. While, countries like China who have grown to become 2nd largest growing economy are still considered Developing countries. It took me some time to think and I believe he was right. And, if I look some of the parameters like GDP, GNP, Per Capital Income and Human Development Index , then China can easily surpass many of the developing countries. It is not just about Greece, many other countries can be ruled out to become a developing countries based on these criterion. So, will my text book change it in future? that countries like China and other growing economies can be considered now a developed nations. Hopefully, may be in future. What do you all think? Ps: No offense to my close friends in Greece. This article is just about making a logical opinion. Please do not take it personally.

Finally, my approximately 2 year long journey of learning more about China, in educational terms has come to the end. Few days ago, I have received this letter of accomplishment from Harvard University. It was the confirmation of my participation in the ten-part long course China X offered through edx.org. It has been taught by Professors Peter K. Bol and William C. Kirby with their amazing team and many other guests.It was a wonderful journey from start to the end. It has provided a detailed overview and depth of China's past, present, and future. On the top of it, this course has generated a sense of curiosity among many of us. I have became so much interested in China that I now study a lot about China, interact with Chinese people and even writing blogs on The China Daily. My major focus in the later part of the focus and today focused more on the economic development of China. I have also studied courses on RMB(Chinese currency), Chinese financial institutions and greater role China can play in the future. It has also comprised of International relations of China. Our leaner's group is still very much closely bonded and exchanging information on whatever we have learn about China's history, culture, political, economical and social developments. We have also offered our own perspective on China and listen to others. This course might have provided a very much outsiders's perspective to all of us, but still it has opened our eyes and ears to know more about 5000 old Chinese civilization, the fall and rise of dynasties, change at the helm of government and rapid progress at the end of 20th century. I like to celebrate and share my happiness with other fellow bloggers!! Hopefully, we all share our perspectives, keep enlightening and keep learning from each other about China in future too.