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Tag: Chinese genealogy

09

The Guo (郭) Surname: From Zhou Dynasty Nobility to the Wuyi Diaspora

The Guo (郭) Surname: From Zhou Dynasty Nobility to the Wuyi Diaspora The Guo (郭) surname carries one of the longest continuously documented lineages in Chinese history — three thousand years from the Zhou dynasty’s founding brothers to the diaspora communities of the Wuyi (四邑) region (trace your own surname origins with our Surname Compass).…

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Statue of the Hongwu Emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, founder of the Ming Dynasty — the only Chinese imperial dynasty named for a commoner's surname.

The Zhu (朱) Surname: 2,300 Years from Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism to the Wuyi Diaspora

In 1313, the Mongol Yuan dynasty made a decision that would shape education across East Asia for the next six centuries: it declared one man's commentaries on the Confucian classics the official standard for China's civil service examinations. That man was Zhu Xi (朱熹), a 12th-century philosopher from Fujian whose synthesis of Neo-Confucianism — his…

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