I am Proud to Be Asian

As a Chinese American, I am proud because China has a long cultural history of 5000 years! China has 23 dynasties, including Xia, the first known dynasty in China, and Qin, the first dynasty that united China. Also, there is the Tang dynasty, the greatest dynasty in China. The culture and economy expanded very quickly during the time. It was the golden age of poetry, painting, tricolored glazed pottery, and woodblock printing. The last dynasty is the Qing dynasty.
 
China has 24 holidays, so it is a lot of time to celebrate. They include Chinese New Year, also called Lunar New Year, an annual 15-day festival in China and Chinese communities around the world that begins with the new moon, which occurs between January 21 and February 20. Chinese Memorial Day is a traditional Chinese festival and an important day of sacrifice to sweep tombs and commemorate ancestors. On this day, tomb-sweeping is one of the most important and popular activities to show respect to ancestors.
 
Also, China has tons of inventions that changed the world. The most famous ones are the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China. The Compass is an instrument for orientation and navigation, and it appeared for the first time in China between the 2nd century BC and 1st century AD. In the 9th century, Gunpowder was made by Chinese alchemists searching for an elixir of immortality. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. Papermaking is a technique of making paper and has been known in China since the 2nd century BC. In about 105, Cai Lun created a sheet of paper using mulberry and other bast fibers with fishnets, old rags, and hemp waste. Printing is a process for reproducing text and images. In China, printing was improved with the technique of woodblock printing.
 
My ancestral homeland has a lot of places to see, such as the Great Wall of China. The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection. Several walls were built from as early as the 7th century BC, with selective stretches later joined together by Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. There is also the Terracotta Army. The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang. The figures, dating from approximately the late third century BCE, were discovered in 1974 by local farmers in Lintong County, outside Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.
 
I am very proud to be an Asian American who contributed to America.

Brendon Wang is a fourth-grader at Medina Elementary School.
His work has also appeared in our November, January, and February series.