China Reading response

In ancient times the Chinese called their country the "Middle Kingdom" because they believed that China was the center of the civilized world. They thought that the father away you went form China the less civilized and more barbaric you became. The emperor of China was more than royalty he was the "Son of Heaven" and ruled "everything under heaven." So in the end the Chinese thought they created civilization and that they are more superior to anyone else in the world.
The Chinese hold the record for the longest unbroken line of one continuous civilization in the same place, dating from the Bronze Age to the Space Age. The Chinese developed a very complex system of writing and it is still used today. It became the vehicle for a literary tradition of prose, poetry, drama, history, and philosophy. It was so rich and prolific that half of the books written before 1750 were written in Chinese. The Chinese invented paper, brush , ink, and ink stones, and they called them their "four treasures." Another invention by the Chinese is silk, it was one of their most valuable treasures. They used silk for trading with the western European countries and to the Europeans silk was just as valuable as gold. The Chinese guarded the secret of making silk very closely anyone who tried smuggling silk worms out of the country was punished by death. Silk was so big that they they named the trading route between East Asia and The Mediterranean world the Silk Road.
China invented many valuable things like paper, the magnetic compass, gunpowder and printing and these are called the "four inventions." They also invented watertight ship compartments, canal locks, suspension bridges and crossbows.
In China the Father in the family had complete authority. He could divorce his wife at anytime but the wife was not allowed to leave him. The daughters were treated like garbage and the boys were not. During times of Famine the family would starve the daughters to feed the sons.