Chinese civilization originated in various city-states along the Yellow River valley in the Neolithic era. The written history of China begins with the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1750BC - ca. 1045 BC).
Turtle shells with ancient Chinese writing from the Shang Dynasty have been carbon dated to as early as 1500 BC.
The origins of Chinese culture, literature and philosophy, developed during the Zhou Dynasty (1045BC to 256 BC) that followed the Shang. It was the longest lasting dynasty and spans the period in which the written script evolved from ancient oracle script to the beginnings of modern Chinese writing. The feudal Zhou Dynasty eventually broke apart into individual city states, creating the Warring States period. In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang united the various warring kingdoms and created the first Chinese empire. Successive dynasties in Chinese history developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the Emperor of China to directly control the vast territories. The conventional view of Chinese history is that of a country alternating between periods of political unity and disunity and occasionally becoming dominated by foreign peoples, most of whom were assimilated into the Han Chinese population. Cultural and political influences from many parts of Asia, carried by successive waves of immigration, expansion, and assimilation, merged to create modern Chinese culture.
China's universities fall under either the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education ,over ministries of the Central government, provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities or certain major cities. Universities and independent institutes are all institutions of higher learning on the same footing. The academic year of full time universities is separated into two semesters (A few have three).The first semesters begins in September and the second in February. Each semester has about 20 weeks and each week has six school days. In addition to mandatory winter and summer vacarions, every 1 January students have a day-off, and 1May (International Labor Day) and 1 October (National Day) students have 7-day holidays. Universities operate normally on other anniversaries and traditional fetes.
Chinese students generally live in school dormitories and eat in the school cafeteria. A campus has many playgrounds with fully equipped facilities which are provided for the convenience of students for spare time sports activities. Apart from usual physical exercise, students have access to different sports events and competitions organized by universities, such as long distance running in winter, swimming in summer and ball games and chess games. Students strong in sports can join their university teams of basketball, volleyball, football, etc. Fans of Wushu (the martial art) and Qigong will have teachers available for them. The annual sports games of each university provide students and teachers with the chance to best demonstrate their talent in sports events.
China's universities attach great importance to good school spirit. In many universities, a good school spirit is personified by diligence, hard work, strictness, realism, pioneering and originality. Based on the characteristics of their specialties, different universities emphasize specific aspects of school spirit. For instance, medical universities install in their school spirit the concept of humanitarianism; normal universities recommend the students to develop the spirit of sacrifice and be paragons of virtue and learning; and universities of political science and law encourage the students to cultivate noble characters and to be upright and just, honest and faithful to the duties.
The cost of education in the universities in China is highly regulated and funded by the Ministry of Public Health of the Chinese Govt. They are very reasonable in contrast to the universities in other countries. The fee structure differs with each and every university. Please check the fee structure for the university in which you are looking for admission.
The Chinese Universities, normally occupy leading position in the world. Many of the medical Universities find a place in the World Health Organization (WHO)'s "Directory of World Medical Schools". This listing make a student graduating from such University eligible to appear for many of the selection tests like the USMLE, PLAB, UNESCO, PMDC, IMED, MOE.
