In my AP Environmental class we’re doing a mock-debate on population control. My group is supposed to be representing China. I already have some good information on their ‘one-child’ policy aka family planning policy but I have a few other questions I cannot seem to find.
One of which is: what are the predominant ethnic and religious groups in China?
What is China’s literacy rate?
And what is their Educatin Policy?
If you get your information from a website please provide a link.
All help is appreciated, thanks.
i think chinese people are buddhists but Im not totally sure though
the Hans Chinese are the predominant ethnic group
The literacy rate is low compared to western countries, I don’t have exact numbers
and “education policy” is too broad for me to answer.
I don’t know all of the various ethnic groups in China. The largest one is the Han or the ethnic Chinese. There are the ethnic Turks in the northwest, in the Xinjiang Republic, who are generally Muslims. There are the ethnic and linguistic Tibetans in the southwest, in what was historically the nation of Tibet. In the south, there are a variety of non-Han groups, including some who are sometimes called Miao tribesmen, Yao, and a variety of others. Some of these are related to other peoples who also live still further south, in Southeast Asia. For example the so-called Miao are akin to the Hmong who are mainly in Laos, as far as I know. Their language is thought to be related to Thai and Lao, not Chinese, but culturally they are distinct from all others. I am not as certain of the Yao’s affiliation, either linguistically or culturally. But you can discover the details on these and other groups by looking up Chinese ethnic groups on Google. I’ve been to such sites in the past, but there are so many, I don’t recall them all.
As far as religion goes, since the official position of the government for so long was anti-religious, I couldn’t say what exists now. In Tibet, the people have been Buddhist for a very long time. In the Xinjiang Republic, as noted earlier, the Turkic speaking people (Uighurs specifically) have been Muslims for a long time. There are also some Christians scattered about, but they are a small minority. Taoism was traditionally one of the major religions in China but it, like Chan Buddhism, suffered greatly under Communism, and may be extinct. The tribes in the hill country such as the Miao were traditionally shamanist, but again I don’t know how this stands today.
Literacy is strongly emphasized, at least for children. But the majority of the populace does not go past the equivalent of high school and I’m not convinced that it’s even that good, despite claims of greater than 90% literacy. After all, for most of the country, they have to not only learn to read, but to read a language other than what they speak at home, since most people don’t speak Mandarin as a first language. Even those who do, don’t speak the way it’s written. And Chinese isn’t written with an alphabet either. It’s almost like reading charades, with a “sounds-like” part for each word plus another part that indicates something about the meaning, derived ultimately from picture writing, but so changed that you wouldn’t guess what the picture was unless you studied it in school.
The education policy is to teach everyone to read Mandarin, if that’s what you mean. So in the south of China, where they speak Cantonese, they don’t learn to read Cantonese. No, they learn to read Mandarin. That’s comparable to having the Spanish learn to read French. The languages are related but they’re by no means the same! Now I studied Chinese from ordinary books and took courses in college, again using books, back when a computer was a gigantic object that filled a room the size of the average garage. So I can’t give you websites. You’ll have to find those yourself, I’m afraid. And the rest comes from speaking to Chinese people whom I’ve met over the years. I’ve only looked at a few websites over the years, none recently.
Han, buddaism
Google
Google, but I can tell you, primary and junior high are free! high school and uni are not. And uni is hard to get in, take a class for example, in a class of 60, 10 will have the chance to receive bachelor education. And rarely did they go to reputable unis. Famous uni? You have to be top 50 in your province (note millions of candidates).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhonghua_Minzu