“Meeting Foreign Guests” (Left) is a mural from the Tang Dynasty, depicting officers of the Honglu Temple receiving guests from foreign countries. Details of the “Lady Guo Guo on a Spring Outing” (Right) by the Tang artist Zhang Xuan show that women enjoyed high social status in the Tang Dynasty. They could live like men, riding horses, playing polo and hunting.

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The Analects begins with a famous saying of Confucius, “That friends should come to one from afar, is this not after all delightful?” It relates to Chinese people’s attitude towards foreign culture, and it indicates that the Chinese highly respect people from other countries and are willing to learn from them. Meanwhile, the Chinese also wish to impress foreigners with the true glamour of Chinese culture.

The Tang Empire (618–907) may be the best example of this attitude. Stimulated by contact with the outside world, the empire saw a flowering of creativity in many fields, such as painting, sculpture, music, dance, literature and religion. The splendor of its art and the cultural milieu of the time made the Tang Empire a model for the world, representing a spirit of tolerance, openness and inclusiveness.

 

Diversity in art
During the Sui (581–618) and Tang dynasties, grand music and dance performances were standing traditions in palace banquets and ceremonies. The Sui organized imperial music into nine performing divisions, or jiubu yue. The Tang added one more division to the jiubu yue, thus creating shibu yue. These divisions represented ten regional music styles. The Yan Yue and Qing Shang consisted of Chinese folk music and formal Chinese court music, while the other eight divisions consisted of music from ethnic groups and foreign countries, such as the area of Xinjiang in the northwest of China, as well as India, Myanmar and Cambodia.

Exotic music was quite popular throughout society during the Tang Dynasty. Taste for exotic music started from the court, then swept through the upper classes and common people. The saying that “every household was learning hu yue (foreign music) in the city of Luoyang (the secondary capital of the Tang)” reflected its popularity. Foreign musical instruments were also popular among the public. For instance, the five-stringed pipa was adopted from India and Persia, and the bili (a double reed wind instrument) came from Persia. The hengdi (a type of flute) was the predecessor of the qiangdi, which used to be popular in India and later spread through western China. The famous “Nishang Yuyi Dance” (“Rainbow-Colored and Feathered Costumes Dance”) was believed to have been created by the Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (685–762) after he came back from a tour in the legendary Moon Palace. In fact, it originated from a Brahman melody from farther west and was adapted by Emperor Xuanzong. The “Nishang Yuyi Dance” is regarded as a cultural treasure that blended together musical styles from China and foreign countries.

Another foreign art prevalent in the Tang Empire was hu wu (foreign dance), particularly huxuan wu (also known as the swirling dance, from the area now located in Uzbekistan), huteng wu and tuozhi wu (from today’s Tashkent). According to the New Book of Tang, the dancer of the huxuan wu stood on a ball and swirled like the wind. Hu yue and hu wu were often performed in the Tang court. Emperor Xuanzong was a master of yudi (jade flute) and jiegu (a drum from the Central Asian region of Kucha).

 

Inclusion in religion
Most religions were welcomed in the Tang Empire, including Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. Emperor Taizong of Tang (598–649) extended official tolerance to their religious mission, allowing them to thrive in China for a long time.

During the reign of Emperor Taizong, the Nestorian Christian Church, later known as the Church of the East, was introduced into China and given recognition by the Tang court. Their first recorded mission to China was led by the Syriac monk known in Chinese as Alopen. Alopen arrived in the capital Chang’an in 635 and called his congregation the disciples of Jing Jiao. Emperor Taizong sent the chancellor Fang Xuanling (579–648) to receive the Christians warmly and invited them to translate their sacred works for the imperial library. The Tang court also built a church for the Christians in Chang’an.

Two other foreign religions officially recognized by the Tang court were Zoroastrianism and Manichaeanism. Zoroastrianism, a Persian monotheistic religion, began to appear in China in the early 4th century together with the economic exchanges between the East and the West. It was officially recognized during the Tang Dynasty. Manichaeanism was another Persian religion, which emerged in the 3rd century and appeared as early as 694 in China. The Tang court permitted the spread of Manichaeanism and the construction of their temples. Their doctrines won high praise from the female ruler of the Tang, Wu Zetian (624–705), or Empress Wu.

The Tang Dynasty’s religious tolerance was rooted deeply in ancient Chinese belief and philosophy. It can be perceived in an order for the approval of the Nestorian Christian Church from Emperor Taizong in 638, declaring that there was no certain interpretation for Tao, and no fixed form for Sheng (Sage). In traditional Chinese philosophy, Tao is the intuitive knowing of life and the natural order of the universe. This order implied that there was no need to treat foreign religions with conventions and taboos, because any foreign religion that was beneficial to people and the country conformed to the essence of Tao, and should be recognized and accepted.

Chang’an:  A cosmopolitan city
Chang’an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, was the largest metropolis in the world at the time, at 84 square kilometers. There were 14 east-west roads and 11 north-south roads in the city, with the widest road measuring 155 meters wide. Chang’an was also a populous city with more than one million citizens, 200,000 more than the population of Constantinople (the secondary largest city in the world at the time) in the Byzantine Empire.

Thanks to the cultural tolerance and openness of the Tang Dynasty, one could sense in the Tang capital a kind of internationalism that was unmatched until the mid-20th century, when modern technology provided their owners with the delights of a similarly diverse and extensive range of choices. At that time, there were a large number of emissaries, merchants and students from foreign countries living in the city. The Honglu Temple had received foreign emissaries from more than 70 countries, most coming with large groups. The countries that sent the most emissaries to China were Japan, Silla (today known as the Korean Peninsula) and the Arab Empire (632–1258, the area where Syria, Kuwait, Iraq and Libya are located today). Japan sent delegations to visit the Tang more than ten times, with delegates ranging from students and monks to craftsmen and specialists in many fields. They came to China by the hundreds. According to the Old Book of Tang, there were as many as 216 Silla students in China in 837.

Foreign culture widely influenced the customs and traditions of the Tang people, such as their clothes and diet. Hu fu, or the hu attire, was fashionable in Chang’an at that time. Hu fu was introduced from Persia and parts of Central Asia, featuring short tops with narrow sleeves for the convenience of riding horses and hunting. The capes that the Tang women favored came from India. There were many restaurants, jewelry shops and grocery stores operated by merchants from Central Asia and Western Asia. People were attracted by the restaurants’ exotic wine as well as hu ji, who were female dancers and singers from Central Asia and Western Asia. Among many famous poets who left behind poems about hu ji, the great Tang poet Li Bai (701–762) wrote some poems to express his affection towards them, such as, “As beautiful as flowers,/ hu ji smile like the spring breeze in the wine shops.”

 

The article was edited and translated from Insights into Chinese Culture, published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Ye Lang and Zhu Liangzhi are professors at Peking University.

(edited by REN GUANHONG)