Traditions Quiz 1

The Chinese have a long standing tradition of maintaining their social standing, which has been very loosely translated as face 面子 miàn zi. In everyday life this means that taking criticism in front of other people ‘loses face’ 丢脸 diū liǎn and is not acceptable.

More than one legend attempts to explain the end figure of the set of glazed clay figures on the ridge of a roof. The man riding on a hen probably symbolizes ‘impossibility’ as a man can't ride a hen, and a hen can't fly; so the figure is therefore doubly rooted there and protects the roof and house.

There are three different types of dragon in Mahjong: red, green and white and there are four copies of each type making 12 in all.

Chrysanthemums represent autumn (fall) and so contrasts with the plum which is the flower of spring.

In a winning mahjong hand, an eye is a pair of tiles that is independent of the other sets so a pair of 5 characters would be an eye only if 5's and characters do not feature in the other sets.

The dragon is considered the most auspicious astrological year with couples choosing to wait so their child can be born as 'dragons'. Dragon years include 2000, 2012 and 2024.

Confucius is believed to have lived 551 to 479 BCE while Laozi (founder of Daosim) Lao Zi 604 to 531 BCE. There is a rather unlikely account of their meeting.

The pearl is represented as a largish decorated ball held in front of the dragon on a stick. It may represent the moon or the 'pearl of wisdom'.

Dimsum literally means 'dot on the heart' which is boiled dough with a variety of spicy and savory fillings; it is a form of the more general 'small eats' .

Many additional flavorings have been used in Chinese tea. Milk and sugar was needed in Europe to cover the rather strong bitter taste that developed during the long voyage from China, Chinese teas have much subtler flavors and do not need sweetening.

The Pekingese was the 'Lion Dog' of Imperial China. Dowager Empress Cixi had 200 or more at the Imperial palaces.

Red is the luckiest color and is associated with many Chinese celebrations. After a festival the firecrackers leave a mass of red plastic to be cleared up.

The ink stone is traditionally of fine grained slate on which the ink-stick is ground with water to make ink. Anhui province is considered one of the best sources of good ink-stones. The stone has to be fine grained to create a smooth ink.

Yellow is a very auspicious color in China, it is probably best translated as ?golden? as that gives to a non-Chinese a better idea of its attributes. Yellow was the color of Qing dynasty Imperial robes and the roofs of Imperial buildings.

The Pipa came to China from Central Asia at about the time of the Han dynasty and is a kind of lute.

The 二胡 èr hú means literally two whiskers and has two strings between which the bow is tied. At the base of the erhu is a small sound box.

The legend for why the rat is first is that the astrological animals formed an orderly queue before the God of the Golden Star ready to be named but the rat jumped over the back of the ox so it could be named first.

A Yi Jing divination can generate all binary combinations (yin or yang) of six lines. This gives a total of 64 combinations (2 to the power of 6).

‘Om mani padme hum’ or ‘an ma ni ba mi hong’ in Chinese can be very roughly transliterated as ‘May I become like the jewel of the Lotus. Amen’. ‘Padme’ (or ‘ba mi’) is the Tibetan name for the lotus.

An expanse of green grass would not only upset the color balance of a garden but be difficult to maintain in most parts of China.