Intermediate level quiz all about Chinese traditions.
1. Shaoxing is famous for producing what?
black tea
rice wine
chillies
soy sauce
Shaoxing in Zhejiang province is famous for its potent wine (but more like a spirit) made from fermenting rice.
Zhejiang scenery near Hangzhou including a tea plantation
2. General Hanxin used kites in his military campaigns to do what?
lift troops
spread fire
making aerial noises
measure distance
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.
3. The Isles of the Blessed were thought to lie in which direction from China?
west
south
east
south-west
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.
Painting and calligraphy from a large format Chinese album illustrating stories of Taoist immortals -people who sought or achieved immortality. One of 15 paintings. The text concerns a Taoist adept, Wang Qiao, a Han period official. Image by British Library ➚ available under a Creative Commons License ➚
4. The swastika symbol in China symbolizes a wish for what?
death
wealth
children
long life
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 two forms of swastika combined to give a lattice window design motif.
5. Which of these is an inappropriate gift because of traditional symbolism?
apricots
wine
pears
chocolates
A pear has an unfortunate homophone 离 lí which means 'separate; divide' so it should never be given as a present to a couple.
6. Which is NOT included in pairs of animal statues along the sacred road to the Ming Tombs?
kylin
dragon
horse
lion
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.
Statue on the way of souls towards the Ming tombs near Beijing. This is one of a pair of facing statues representing an official waiting to deliver his reports to the emperor. The reports would be in the form of vertical ideogramic script brushed onto a number of wood or ivory tablets. Available under a Creative Commons License ➚
7. The English name 'tea' has what origin?
Fujian word
Guangzhou word
Indian word
Japanese word
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.
Demonstrating the elaborate tea ceremony at the Du Fu Thatched Cottage Museum, Chengdu, Sichuan
8. What grows in the garden of the Queen Mother of the West that bestows immortality?
peaches
cabbages
lychees
jujubes
The peaches of immortality were famously stolen by the Monkey King as retold in 'The Journey to the West'.
9. The stars in the Chinese sky are organized as what?
garden
Imperial court
chess game
mountain ranges
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.
10. Bamboo is used for many things, which of these is it NOT been used for?
making bread
making scaffolding
eating
making pipes
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.
13. In Feng Shui the fire element is associated with which taste?
sour
bitter
salty
umami
The fire element is also associated with the number 7 and the planet Mars.
14. How many white pieces are there in a standard game of weiqi (go)?
180
50
16
77
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.
15. Under what kind of tree did the Buddha achieve enlightenment?
oak
juniper
paulownia
pipal
December 8th celebrates Buddha's enlightenment underneath the pipal or bodhi tree (c. 400BCE).
The Longmen grottoes, Henan feature many Buddhist carvings
16. Single's day in China is on which day each year?
April 1st
January 1st
December 1st
November 11th
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.
17. Mongolian food has many dishes that use which meat?
chicken
beef
goat
lamb
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.
18. Lion stone statues are often placed at temples entrances, by tradition what does the one on the right hold in its paw?
cub
ball
toad
scroll
The right-hand lion has a ball as it it the male lion, the lioness on the left traditionally holds a lion cub.
Chinese lion door knocker in Yuyuan Garden, Shanghai
19. The Qilin is broadly similar to which western mythical creature?
centaur
chimaera
griffin
unicorn
The Chinese qilin's similarity to the Western unicorn is mainly due to its association with gentleness, virtue and benevolence.
20. Mao's wife Jiang Qing was responsible for major reforms in which area?
handicrafts
silk production
opera
steelworks
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.
Intermediate level quiz all about Chinese traditions.
