Shandong Culture
With a long history, Shandong enjoys profound culture. Shandong culture part give you information about varying special and local Shandong-featured culture like dialect, religion, Lu cuisine, etc.
Dialect
According to Chinese Language Atlas of Chinese Dialect, dialects of hundreds of counties and cities in Shandong belong to the northern dialect, and dialects here are mainly divided into three categories: Jilu Mandarin, Zhongyuan Mandarin and Jiaoliao Mandarin.
Jilu Mandarin: It mainly refers to those dialects used in Heibei province, Tianjin municipality and over cities and counties in Shandong province like Jinan, Liaocheng, Dezhou, Binzhou, Zibo, Tai’an, etc.
Zhongyuan Mandarin: It largely distributes in Henan province, Shaanxi province, north of Anhui province, northwest of Jiangsu province and more than 30 cities and counties in Shandong Province like Linyi, Heze, Zaozhuang, Jining, Qufu, etc.
Jiaoliao Mandarin: The dialect primarily distributes in Shandong Peninsula and Liaotung Peninsula. The local language of Qingdao, Yantai and Weihai belongs to the Jiaoliao Mandarin.
Religion
There are mainly 5 sorts of religion in Shandong: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Christianity (Protestantism). Buddhism and Taoism in Shandong province have one thousand years of history, and Islam is mainly started since the 13th century, along with the arrival of Shandong Hui nationality. Catholicism and Protestantism were mainly spread here rapidly after the Opium War.
Cuisine
Shandong cuisine is an important part of Chinese food culture, and it is one of the eight regional cuisines in China, with its fresh taste, crispness, unique flavor, and fine making. The cuisine gets good reputation both at home and abroad. With large geographical differences in the province, Shandong thus formed three cuisine systems: coastal Jiaodong cuisine (seafood), inland Jinan cuisine and the Confucian Temple systems vegetables. After the Song dynasty, it became one of the representatives of north food. Shandong cuisine is one of the most widely coverage of local flavor cuisine in China, being spreadsheet in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei areas and the three northeast provinces.
Traditional (Chinese) Opera
Shandong province is one of the areas of China's early opera activities. Early forms of opera appeared in Sui Dynasty, and in Tang Dynasty, Chan-Jun-Dram formed. In song dynasty, Zaju of Song Dynasty was also spread to Shandong. During the period of late Jin State and the early Yuan Dynasty, Shandong is one of the most popular places for Yuan zaju opera. In Ming and Qing Dynasty, Chinese opera saw a booming period. Modern opera is divided into over 30 categories like the Bangzi Tune-pattern which is popular in Shandong.
Regional Culture
Qilu culture is a regional culture in Shandong including Taoist culture, Legalism culture, Master Sun's military culture, Mohist culture, the Yin and Yang philosophy, etc. The core culture is the Confucian culture. It is said that Qilu culture gradually varied from a regional culture to an official culture and mainstream culture. Qilu culture could be traced to the oldest people living here 5,000 years ago : Dongyi people. Since the 20th century, a large number of prehistoric archaeology excavated cultural relics and thousands of sites testify that it is a nation with early developed culture with high degree of civilization.
