Yong Ping
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The Jade State of Yong Ping [永平] more commonly referred to as Yong Ping is a electoral oligarchic state made of the Five Ministries, each headed with their own Minister charged with keeping peace and balance in the State. Yong Ping is a mix of Proto elves and humans, with the occasional dwarf or orc residing within its borders. Located along the coast in between East and West of Xin Zhou (known as Almaris), the bustling Capital is home to Li-ren and Oyashiman cultures alike. Hailing from Ai-Zhou, the Jade State was founded by the main family clans of Li, Chen, Tianrui, Watanabe, and Masamune. The nation was created as a place of refuge from the ongoing wars back on the Ai Zhou peninsula, with its denizens seeking escape from the tyranny of the crumbling Li Dynasty. Now a prosperous trade city with a strong emphasis on preserving culture and peace, the Jade State of Yong Ping boasts its role as the home of Huajiao, and its many off shoots such as Shidoism as well as the Oyashiman worship of Kami.
Contents
History
Religion
The Li-Rens practice a variety of religions, primarily Huajiao and Kami worship as well as Shidoism. These main practices; Huajiao, Kami worship, and Shidoism each take a different approach to inner wellness and pursuit or rebirth and the after life. Whilst these are the State recognised religions, citizens are allowed religious freedoms in private spaces so long as it doesn’t disturb the peace.
Huajiao:
To become an individual that is connected to the world and enlightened to the true cycle that has the world’s peoples reborn continually, an individual must liberate themselves from the cycle of rebirth that has encompassed the land through the following of the Eight Noble Paths of the Huajiao religion. By following these Eight Paths, one can release themselves from the cycle, attaining the height of one’s existence by ending one’s ignorance and one’s rebirth - The true goal of the Path.
The Eight Noble Paths:
Right View (正見 Zheng-Jian): To accept all actions have consequences, to embrace your karma, and be resolved that death is not the end of it. This is called right view.
Right Thought (正思惟 Zheng Si-Wei): Being resolved on renunciation, on freedom from ill will, on harmlessness: This is called right resolve.
Right Speech (正語 Zheng Yu): Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, and from idle chatter: This is called right speech.
Right Action (正業 Zheng Ye): Abstaining from killing, abstaining from stealing, abstaining from sexual misconduct. This is called right action.
Right Livelihood (正命 Zheng Ming): To avoid any life that brings shame. To avoid causing suffering to sentient beings by cheating them, or harming or killing them in any way. This is right livelihood.
Right Effort (正精進 Zheng Jingjin): To eliminate evil and unwholesome mental states that have already arisen. To generate wholesome mental states that have not yet arisen. This is right effort.
Right Mindfulness (正念 Zheng Nian): To contemplate the body as body, resolute, aware and mindful. To put aside worldly desire and sadness. To contemplate feelings as feelings. To abstain from craving the four contemplations of body, feelings, mind, and phenomena. This is right mindfulness.
Right Concentration (正定 Zheng Ding): To have control over your own mind with iron discipline. To be able to focus on anything. To detach from sense desires and unwholesome states. This is right concentration.
Taikyo Worship:
The Kami; an infinite amount of spirits that embody the land, dwelling within every aspect of nature - from the smallest blade of grass to the highest mountain. While the Kami are infinite, a number of them are elevated to greater status and worshipped broadly as a pantheon through which they are venerated at numerous shrines across Oyashima that are dedicated to them.
Alongside the gods they worship, the Oyashimans have a wealth of folklore and mythology that spans centuries. These include various spirits and supernatural forces that are not given worship and reverence in the same way as the Kami are. These include beings such as Namazu, the Yūrei, which are the restless and oftentimes vengeful spirits of death deprived of a peaceful afterlife and the Yōkai, demons, monsters and spirits who range from anything from malevolent in nature to simply mischief-makers or beings that bring good fortune to those who cross their paths.
It is, in essence, a non-religion in the sense that there is no mandate or codified scripture admonishing its followers for failing to live to a specific purpose. Worship in Taikyō is made of two parts; the realization of one’s self through discipline, duty, virtue and loyalty and through the ritualism in which the Kami are exalted.
Shidoism:
The philosophy of Shidoism rests in the idea of doing one’s best to be morally good and achieve true inner peace through mindfulness. To be good to one another and free of suffering through the teachings of Huajiao and Kami. It is an off-shoot of the two main religions, taking more from the ancient religion of Hua-jiao than the other two more modern counterparts.
Language
A multitude of languages are spoken in Yong Ping due to the multiple subcultures that reside within its borders. For ease of communication, a combination of each language with common-tongue is used to get the general message across, with basic greetings and farewells usually done in the speaker’s mother tongue. Some of these languages include:
Li-Wen
Li-Wen, the language of Li-ren, is vastly different from any existing languages on Almaris, borrowing greatly from the hou-zi in both its characters and pronunciation, often very difficult for those unfamiliar to pick up. Words are often a collection of up to three syllables in phonetics, with five different inflections. Li-wen is tonal: tones must be correct in order to convey the correct meaning, which makes it more challenging to learn. One mispronunciation of an inflection can result in calling your mother a horse. It is heavily context-laden and lacks preposition, requiring knowledge of background information before one can gain full understanding of a conversation.
Furthermore, What differentiates Li-Ren names from Oyashiman (Japanese) is that Li naming practices consist of a surname of a single syllable which comes before the given name of the person. The given name will then be either one or two syllables long, but never anymore than two. Each name a person is given will have two different characters coming together to create one meaning, and depending on the tone of the character, two names spelt the same can mean different things.
[OOC: Hokkien dialect mix with Mandarin Chinese]
Oyashiman:
The Oyoshiman, much like their Li-ren neighbours, beholds an entirely unique native tongue. However, having never been influenced by the Hou-zi, it remains to this day as it’s own completely separate dialect with very little influence from the outside. The language remains almost completely obscure to those not raised around it, the Oyoshiman being a strictly homogenous group, secretive in certain aspects of their culture. However, the language would still employ bastardized loan words from the Li-ren, made to better fit their syntax, and employ their mode of writing of characters.
Naming within Oyashiman society is confusing to an outsider, a more fluid concept alternatively organized to most foreign cultures.The Family name, coming before one’s given name, and the entire name its self being used more so to denote one’s social status and affiliations than as the self identity denoter that is most common, thus taking on a more fluid form within Oyoshiman society. One might change their name with their most recent rise of rank, or to distinguish a change in allegiance, and upon one’s death a posthumous name would be given to be used to then later refer to said person. [OOC: Japanese]
Art
Government
Economy
Notable Clans, Famlies, and Houses of Yong Ping
Geography
