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The secrets of ancient Chinese coins

 

Joseph is our first4mandarin student who fancies a lot Chinese culture. Last Saturday, when I was giving lessons to him and other students, he asked me a question about Ancient Chinese coins. I think it was very interesting, so I have decided to write today’s blog about it.

 

A few days before that lesson, Joseph visited the Chinese hall of the British Museum. There he found a lot interesting staff, especially the coins. As he has learned some Chinese characters at first4mandarin, he asked me the meaning of four of them in the back of the coins.

 

This question reminded me the time when I was in the secondary school. At that time, we needed to do the examination about Chinese history. I liked that exam quite a lot, because there were always some interesting questions. The coins were one of them: we had to answer to which dynasty belonged the coins.

 

Some people may ask how a small coin can give you this information. The answer is to focus on the characters that are in the back of the coins. Now let me give you an example.

 

Image

 

Coins with four characters are always read with the following order: top, bottom, right and left. The top and bottom characters always refer the period title, and the right and left characters together mean ‘currency’. The coin above is from Qing dynasty, because ‘康熙 (kāngxī)’ is the period title of Emperor Kang Xi of Qing dynasty.

 

As you can see, even small objects from China can give you knowledge about this country’s history and culture. Therefore, we recommend to all our students in London to visit the British Museum whenever they have time. Do not be afraid to ask us because we welcome all kind of questions related to China.

 

If you want to know more about Chinese coins, please visit primal trek.

 

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