Traditions Quiz 2

Shaoxing in Zhejiang province is famous for its potent wine (but more like a spirit) made from fermenting rice.

There are few materials that permit you to eat it from a bowl, sitting on a chair within a house all made from it. This most versatile of substances is bamboo. it can be made into almost anything: houses, furniture, baskets, pipes, fencing, paper, clothing, cups, plates, flutes, beer, hats – and you can even eat it as the young shoots are eaten as a delicacy.

General Hanxin (c. 231-196 BCE) used kites to measure the distance to enemy walls so that guns could be targeted and tunnels could be excavated to the correct distance. A kite was flown so that its shadow would just touch the target object, by knowing the length of string and the angle of sun and string the exact distance could be calculated.

The swastika is a Buddhist good luck symbol but in China it became used as a symbol for long life. The figure represents the flow of blood in the Buddha's heart.

The choice of date is based on the fact that 11.11 has four single 'ones' in it. It began in the 1990s at Nanjing. Single's day is now a popular day to declare love and propose marriage and for single people to buy themselves presents.

A pear has an unfortunate homophone 离 lí which means 'separate; divide' so it should never be given as a present to a couple.

The fire element is also associated with the number 7 and the planet Mars.

There are 181 black pieces in weiqi (game of go) and black always places a piece first on the 19x19 board. By the end of the game, if no pieces are removed half the places would be filled.

The Isles of the Blessed is the land of the immortals. Emperors have sought the islands to find the herb of immortality. It is possible they are based on the islands of Japan.

The peaches of immortality were famously stolen by the Monkey King as retold in 'The Journey to the West'.

Mao's third wife Jiang Qing was an actress and was put in charge of zealously reforming the arts. Traditional Beijing Opera was banned during the Cultural Revolution because the stories were about the old, feudal structures of society.

December 8th celebrates Buddha's enlightenment underneath the pipal or bodhi tree (c. 400BCE).

The Chinese qilin's similarity to the Western unicorn is mainly due to its association with gentleness, virtue and benevolence.

Rather than a mix of Greek legends the Chinese night sky is more logically arranged to be like the Imperial court down on Earth with prisons, courts, orchards and temples.

Beef steak is not considered to be a highly nourishing food, it is too high in protein to be well balanced.

Wang Xizhi is considered the master of calligraphy.

The lifelike statues were supposed to come to life to defend the Ming Tombs. As the dragon represents the Emperor himself it is not included in the set of defenders.

The vast grasslands of the Mongolian steppe are traditionally farmed by nomads herding sheep and goats. Lamb is much rarer food in southern China. Mongolian hot pot based on lamb is the best known Mongolian dish which also has vegetables and noodles.

The right-hand lion has a ball as it it the male lion, the lioness on the left traditionally holds a lion cub.

The English word 'tea' comes from the local Fujian dialect which pronounces 茶 as 'ti'. In mandarin Chinese it is pronounced 'cha' which is also sometimes used as 'char' for tea in English. British tea used to be imported mainly from the Fujian sea ports.