Middle Kingdom
Tour Highlights
Places Covered
Beijing, Xi’an, Urumqi, Turpan, Chengdu, Lhasa, Kunming, Guilin/Yangshuo, and Shanghai Duration
11 Days
Months Available
Feb, March, April
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Tour Program Summary
Discover the wonderful variety of landscape, people and culture in the center and four corners of China.
Middle Kingdom is a literary translation of “Zhong Guo,” the Chinese name for their modern country (e.i. Chinese name for “China”). It dates from 1000 B.C., when it was designated the capital during the Zhou Dynasty.
The land area and political entity referred to as “Zhong Guo” changed many times in history and “Zhong Guo” did not become the formal name for the country until 1911 when Republic of China was founded. However, the sentiment that China was in the center of the world politically, culturally as well as physically was profoundly rooted in the Chinese psyche through the millennia. This is due to the dominance of Chinese civilization in East Asia and the lack of knowledge of western civilization.
Even today, that sentiment is still very strong among most Chinese citizens. “The sentiment that allows Chinese to believe they are the center of the world runs far deeper than what is customarily associated with the term ‘complex’ and certainly involves more than what is usually thought of as pride,” observed the late Prof. Lucian Pye of MIT.
