Introduction

Many of us think of China as monolithic: a gigantic, singular entity defined by one land, one people, one culture. But China is composed of diverse landscapes, ethnicities, social statuses, and lived experiences that cut across both space and time. The Field Museum’s Cyrus Tang Hall of China explores this vast country and examines the paradox of constant change and strong continuity that define more than 5,000 years of Chinese cultural history, from the Neolithic period to the present.