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African Culture

The continent of Africa is a vast one and it contains as many as 53 countries. Although essentially similar these countries in Africa have some subtle differences in their culture.

African Tribes: There are a number of African tribes in the African continent. The Afar tribes are found in Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. The Anlo-Ewe tribes were once inhabitants of Notsie,from where they migrated in 1474 and are currently found in the southeastern areas of Republic of Ghana. The Amhara tribes are found in Ethiopia, Ashanti tribes in central Ghana, Bakongo tribes along the Atlantic coast and the Bambara tribes are located in Mali. The Bemba tribes are located in Zambia, the Berber tribes in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. The Bobo tribes are found inwestern Burkina Faso and Mali. The Bushmen tribes are located in the Kalahari Desert. The Chewa tribes are located in Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe. The Dogon tribes live in southeastern Mali and Burkino Faso. Some other tribes found in Africa are the Fang tribe, Fon, Fulani, Ibos, Kikuyu, Maasai, Mandinka, Pygmies, Samburu, Senufo, Tuareg, Wolof, Yoruba and Zulu.

African Arts: African art hascertain themes that are repeated throughout all the art forms, be it painting, pottery or any other handicrafts. Some of the subjects that are commonly portrayed are couples, the depiction of woman and a child, a male with a wild animal or the portrayal of an outsider. According to African culture, the depiction of the couples represents ancestors or even community founders. Often there is alsodepiction of twins. However the representation of the couple is rarely the kind to show sexual intimacy or loves, more often it depicts strength and honor. The portrayal of the woman and her child represents mother earth and the child represents the people living on the earth. The portrayal of the male with the weapon or with a horse is usually representing the power or status conferred upon that man.Finally the portrayal of the stranger represents a foreigner or an outsider. In ancient African culture, the stranger was not welcome and there always existed a gap between the stranger and the African people in the pictures. In the African culture, the songs are used as a mode of communication. Melodies in African music are organized within a scale of four, five, six or seven tones. Common musicalinstruments used in African music are drums, slit gongs, double-bells, rattles, harps, musical hows, xylophone, flutes and trumpets. Drums are particularly popular which explains the use of several different types of drums like - tama talking drums, bougarabou, djembe, water drums and the ngoma drums.

African Languages: There are close to 2000 languages spoken throughout Africa. All theselanguages can be broadly categorized into four major categories, which are Afro-Asiatic languages, Nilo-Saharan languages, Niger-Congo languages and the Khoisan languages. Some of the Nilo-Saharan languages are Kanuri, Songhay, Nubian, and the Nilotic family languages, which include Luo, Dinka, and Maasai. The Niger-Congo languages include the Bantu and Niger-Kordofanian language families. The Khoisanlanguage family includes around thirty languages categorized into five Khoisan families. In addition to these above-mentioned languages, there are also certain non-African languages as well as a large number of sign languages.
Modern Chinese Culture Facts

It is very difficult to pin-point the exact cultural changes which took place in China. There were many forces that influenced the sociallife in China. Therefore, an exhaustive study would be required to put a proper picture of modern Chinese culture. Let us pick out some important details through this write up.

Cultural Revolution
The beginning of Cultural Revolution (1966) saw an end to the traditional practices, belief systems and thought processes of old China. The ideology propagated by Mao Zedong had a deep impact on the...