April Quiz

Many people speak Chinese as a second language in Asia and so there are about twice as many speaking Chinese than English.

The first emperor to unify all of China brought in many far-reaching reforms. One was to impose a common writing script (the Qin script) all over China. To ensure that this reform was followed he ordered many historical books to be burned so that knowledge of the different scripts would be lost. It is claimed that he did this to suppress scholarship but in fact he built up a huge Imperial library.

The Wade-Giles system often used the local dialect pronounciation for placenames rather than how it sounded in the official Beijing dialect.

The route was not direct and took many turns from its start in the Jiangxi mountains all the way to Yan'an in Shanxi.

Nine was the imperial number. The set of nine kowtows was split into three sets of three between kneelings. Three is a very yang number and so 3x3 is even more yang and Imperial.

Although the Tang dynasty is considered the golden age of Tang poetry the Song dynasty had some fine poets too, of which Su Shi is the most famous.

The short leadership of Hua Guofeng is often seen as a continuation of Mao's legacy but he did act swiftly to arrest the Gang of Four and put them on trial for their part in the cultural revolution.

Leshan has the the Giant Buddha ?Dafo? 233 feet [71 meters] high carved into a cliff during the Tang dynasty - the largest Buddha in the world.

A good meal should have a balance of 'yin' and 'yang' foods. Beef steak and peanuts are other 'yang' foods.

Heilongjiang is the most northerly province and has bitterly cold winters - it borders Siberia after all.

China together with Russia has 14 land borders with neighboring countries. They are (running anti-clockwise from the East) : Korea (North), Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

Water sleeves are the very long sleeves worn by women it traditional opera. They are used to great effect in dances and gestures.

Zhuangzi is considered the second most important sage of Daoism after Laozi.

The Hui ethnic people are mainly Muslims. There are Muslims in most cities but there are also a significant proportion in the western provinces of Ningxia, Xinjiang and Qinghai.

Bamboo was the favorite subject for many artists in China, it has drooping leaves and straight stems that give it an architectural image.