General quiz about China 4

'Shi' is one of the most common sounds in mandarin Chinese. There are about 50 characters all pronounced 'shi' but spread over the five tones so there are only ten true homophones to take into account. This explains why many English words need two Chinese characters to make them unambiguous in meaning.

During the Ming dynasty the vast new Forbidden City was home to many thousands of eunuchs engaged in serving the Emperor and administering the Empire.

Henan attracts many martial arts enthusiasts particularly to Shaolin near Mount Song.

The large explosion at a storage depot at Binhai, Tianjin led to 173 deaths and 797 non-fatal injuries.

The signing of the Versailles Treaty in Paris May 4th 1919 caused uproar in China because the parts of Shandong that had been governed by Germany were given to Japan rather than returned to Chinese control. The treaty came at the end of WW1.

The Manchu kingdom built a mini-version of Beijing's Forbidden City before they conquered China in 1644.

In 1275 Marco Polo and his father and uncle went to China and all three spent 17 years there. On return to Italy he was imprisoned by the Genoese and it was while in prison that he dictated his book, the ‘Description of the World’. It was printed in many editions and languages and promoted a lot of interest and speculation throughout Europe about this vast, rich country far away.

Zhejiang is the province associated with production of gunpowder tea. It gets its name because it looks like pellets of gunpowder

Kites were used in fishing, the kite would trail a line with hooks and bait allowing the kite-flier to fish in areas some way out over rivers or the sea.

Du Fu held an appointment at Chengdu in Sichuan towards the end of his life. There is a commemorative museum that can be visited.

The Kunlun mountains have had a strong presence in Chinese legends. The Queen Mother of the West is said to have her palace there, and for centuries precious jade was mined there.

The provinces in China's far north-west are very dry and receive very little rainfall.

Chiang was kidnapped by his own generals at Xi'an, Shaanxi to force him to form to form a united front with the Communists against Japanese occupation of Manchuria

The Yangzi river is the 3rd longest river in the world (3,917 miles) after the Nile (4,130 miles) and Amazon ( 3,976 miles) rivers.

It was near Jingdezhen, Jiangxi that the first deposits of kaolin (China Clay) were discovered and exploited. Huge amounts of porcelain have been produced there since the Song dynasty

Sun Yatsen was born in furthermost southern China: Cuiheng, Guangdong in 1866. He had a brother living in Hawaii, and at the age of 12 joined him there to escape poverty and was educated at a Hawaiian school and converted to Christianity. He returned to China for an arranged marriage and studied medicine at Hong Kong, graduating as a doctor in Western medicine in 1892.

The Meiji system of 1868 allowed Japan to rapidly modernize and so provided a blueprint as to how an Asian country could catch up and take on the European powers.

Many Chinese spend considerable effort to cultivate a network of people that they may call upon at some time for a favor. A contact may get you a job, discounted prices or promotion.

The narrow and winding lanes between traditional courtyard houses are called hutongs 胡同. A few districts remain in Beijing which are famous for their hutongs.

Its orange color has led to an association with tigers. There is an ancient belief that the spirit of a tiger goes back into the earth on its death to form amber.