CULTURE

Check out more cool trivia about China!

• Did you realize that the Great Wall was not especially to keep out the invading Hun warriors?  It would have been easy for those men to find parts of the lengthy wall to scale with ladders.  But horses couldn’t cross the wall!  And the Huns were a nation of skilled warriors on horseback.

• Did you realize that the Great Wall was not especially to keep out the invading Hun warriors?  It would have been easy for those men to find parts of the lengthy wall to scale with ladders.  But horses couldn’t cross the wall!  And the Huns were a nation of skilled warriors on horseback.

• Ice cream was invented in China around 2000 BC when the Chinese packed a soft milk and rice mixture in the snow as a treat.  That’s the same time in which Abraham of the Bible lived in Sumeria!

• Bamboo is the fastest soaring plant in the world.  Giant bamboo can (under good conditions) grow faster than one meter a day! It’s eaten by China’s native Giant Panda.  Southern Chinese folks eat plenty of bamboo shoots, too, and use bamboo leaves for wrapping the famous zòngzi’s during Dragon Boat Festival.

• The Rén Mín Rì Bào or People's Daily is the 2nd largest official publication in China.  It can touch the lives of 300 million people per day, and is one of the Top Ten Newspapers in the world for international influence. (UNESCO, World Assoc. of Newspapers).

• Century Eggs (also known as One Hundred Year or One Thousand Year Old Eggs) are a specialty in China. Usually these eggs are surrounded with natural or artificial alkaline ingredients and buried underground or in cloth-covered jars for some days or weeks. China is the largest producer of these green-and-brown specialties!

• During the days of Kublai Khan, paper money was issued called “silk notes.”  They were not made of silk, but rather were backed by bundles of silk yarn (instead of precious metals such as gold).  Marco Polo noted that anyone forging the silk notes would be punished by death!

• The story goes… in 550 AD, two Chinese monks smuggled silkworms out of China and started the western world's silk boom. It had been a closely guarded national secret prior to those days.

• The national bird of China is the Red-Crowned Crane, sometimes dubbed the Fairy Crane.  It symbolizes happiness, longevity, and loyalty.  Legend says that the red crown was given to the crane by the Dragon King, and is a precious orb gem.  Fairies are said to befriend cranes because cranes live so long!

• Peonies are called the “King of Flowers” by the Chinese.  Many emperors used peonies to express riches and honor.  Look on China’s 1 yuán coin, and there it is!