Evolution of the Chinese Character for Tiger
The main star of the Siberian Tiger Park is undoubtedly the Siberian tiger and for all intents and purposes, the entire place is just a place to see the Siberian tiger. There were a few rather lame stuff that was included in the park that didn’t really get any interest from the visitors since everyone was just here to see the tigers. However, it was also nice of the park to set up a small portion of the park for culture. This, of course, relates to how the tiger is in Chinese culture. First and foremost is writing. The Chinese character for tiger is 虎 or hu. Like much of Chinese writing it has gone through numerous changes and evolutions before gaining its present form. The original character was nowhere near what it is today and it was interesting to see how it came to be.
Tiger Themed Ethnic Attire in the Siberian Tiger Park 东北虎林园
Another facet of Chinese culture which is touched by the tiger are clothes, in particular, this is more apparent in the minorities of China. There were clothes and shoes which feature tiger motifs. Apparently, tigers were more widespread in the past for them to be incorporated into the traditional costumes of these ethnic minorities. There were other influences of the tiger on Chinese culture such as literature in the form of the fable of the fox and the tiger and even medicine. The culture area of the park wasn’t that big anyway, so I decided to leave. It was still early, maybe I could do something else here.
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