Legacies of Ancient China

China, located in the far north easterly corner of the globe is the largest country in Asia and home to over 1.3 billon people. Some sources claim China to be the oldest known continuous civilization in the world, with more than 5000 year of culture (see bibliography). Therefore it comes with no surprise that ancient China had some of the most influential ‘thinkers’ of that period who helped to shape their world. The early Chinese left behind a great number of legacies which were the forerunners to the ideas and technologies we enjoy today such as basic medicine, paper currency, deep drilling and the bureaucracy system.

For the ancient Chinese, most of their knowledge of early Chinese medicine was obtained from the yellow emperor’s Nei Ching. This is believed to have been from the 2nd century BC. These medicines were know as religious, magical and herbal cures however in addition they also used acupuncture, ginseng, meditation and introspective therapy . People in modern times however fail to see what they were trying to accomplish with their medicine. The Chinese thought of herbal cures, acupuncture and other Chinese medicines by themselves as only an important piece of a much larger puzzle. They believed that you would only properly accomplish good health by taking herbal medicine, eating a good diet and changing the type of lifestyle you live (through meditation and doing exercise such as tai chi). Nowadays however, ancient Chinese medicines such as herbal cures and acupuncture are still widely used all over the world in places such as health clinics. Acupuncture is used for pain relief and to treat problems such as back ache and it can also help with depression. Ancient Chinese herbal cures are also popular particularly...

... middle of paper ...

...in most countries, as bureaucracy is an extremely efficient and effective system. Australia for instance uses a system of bureaucracy, as it has many different levels of social importance. For example, there are the government officials on the top, who make the laws and do the decision making. There are the representatives who bring the people’s needs to the government and there are people who do all the administrative work for the government (such as the tax department and so on). There are also police officers who do most the physical work to insure that the laws are being carried out.

Whether it was through inventions like paper currency, or through ideas like bureaucracy, the legacies that have been left to us from ancient China have revolutionized the world we live today. This all goes to show that the Chinese really were a marvel of ancient ingenuity.