74 Interesting Facts About . . . China
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74 Interesting Facts About . China 1. The modern word “China” most likely derives from the name of the Qin (pronounced “chin”) dynasty. First Emperor Qin Shi Huang (260-210 B.C.) of the Qin dynasty first unified China in 221 B.C., beginning an Imperial period which would last until A.D. 1912.k 2. China is often considered the longest continuous civilization, with some historians marking 6000 B.C. as the dawn of Chinese civilization. It also has the world’s longest continuously used written language.c 3. China is the fourth largest country in the world (after Russia, Canada, and the U.S.). It has an area of 3,719,275 square miles (slightly smaller than the U.S.) and its borders with other countries total more than 117,445 miles. Approximately 5,000 islands lie off the Chinese coast.a 4. One in every five people in the world is Chinese. China’s population is estimated to reach a whopping 1,338,612,968 by July 2009. China’s population is four times that of the United States.a 5. Fortune cookies are not a traditional Chinese custom. They were invented in 1920 by a worker in the Key Heong Noodle Factory in San Francisco.i 6. China is also known as the “Flowery Kingdom” and many of the fruits and flowers (such as the orange and orchid) are now grown all over the world.i 7. Toilet paper was invented in China in the late 1300s. It was for emperors only.m 8. The Chinese invented paper, the compass, gunpowder, and c printing. 9. The Chinese invented kites (“paper birds” or “Aeolian harps”) about 3,000 years ago. They were used to frighten the enemies Invented in China, toilet paper was initially only for emperors in battle, and Marco Polo (1254-1324) noted that kites were also used to predict the success of a voyage. It was considered bad luck to purposely let a kite go.i 10. Cricket fighting is a popular amusement in China. Many Chinese children keep crickets as pets.m 11. Despite its size, all of China is in one time zone.h 12. Many historians believe soccer originated in China around 1000 B.C.f 13. Ping-pong is one of the most popular games in China, but it was not invented in China. It originated in Britain, where it is called table tennis.m m Viewed as a status symbol, stamp 14. The number one hobby in China is stamp collecting. collecting is China’s number one 15. Giant Pandas (“bear cat”) date back two to three million years. hobby The early Chinese emperors kept pandas to ward off evil spirits and natural disasters. Pandas also were considered symbols of might and bravery.i 16. White, rather than black, is the Chinese color for mourning and funerals.i 17. Though Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is credited with designing the first parachute, Chinese alchemists successfully used man-carrying tethered kites by the fourth century A.D. Parachutes were not used safely and effectively in Europe until the late 1700s.m 18. The custom of binding feet (euphemistically called “golden lilies”) began among female entertainers and members of the Chinese court during the Song dynasty (A.D. 960-1279). Tightly wrapped bandages gradually broke the arch of the foot and caused the woman’s toes and heel to grow inward toward one another. Her leg muscles would also atrophy and become very thin. Bound feet were seen as highly sexual.m 19. Historians speculate that as the Chinese population grew, people had to conserve cooking fuel by chopping food into small pieces so that it could cook faster. These bite-sized foods eliminated the need for knives and, hence, chopsticks were invented.c 20. In A.D. 130, Zhang Heng, an astronomer and literary scholar, invented the first instrument for monitoring earthquakes. The machine could detect and indicate the direction of an earthquake.c 21. China invented ice cream, and Marco Polo is rumored to have taken the recipe (along with the recipe for noodles) back with him to Europe.i 22. A civil servant named Su Song built the first mechanicalclock between A.D 1088 and 1092. It could tell the time of day and also track the constellations so that accurate The Chinese invented ice cream by c packing a milk mixture and rice into horoscopes could be determined. snow 23. On September 27, 2008, Zhai Zhigang made the first spacewalk by a Chinese astronaut.l 24. The Chinese were the first to invent the waterwheel to harness water in A.D. 31—1,200 years before the Europeans. China was also the first country in the world to use an iron plow. Europe didn’t begin using the iron plow until the seventeenth century.m 25. The name of China’s capital has changed over the centuries. At one time or another it has been known as Yanjing, Dadu, and Beiping. Peking or “Beijing means “Northern Capital.” Beijing is the officially sanctioned pinyin spelling based on the Mandarin dialect. Beijing is the second largest city after Shanghai.h 26. It was customary for wealthy men and women in the late empire to grow the nails of their little fingers extremely long as a sign of their rank. They often wore decorative gold and silver nail guards to protect their nails.c 27. By the fourth century B.C., the Chinese were drilling for natural gas and using it as a heat source, preceding Western natural gas drilling by about 2,300 years.m 28. By the second century B.C., the Chinese discovered that blood circulated throughout the body and that the heart pumped the blood. In Europe, circulation wasn’t discovered until the early seventeenth century by William Harvey (1578-1657).m 29. The Chinese were using the decimal system as early as the fourteenth century B.C., nearly 2,300 years before the first known use of the system in European mathematics. The Chinese were also the first to use a place for zero.m 30. The crossbow was invented and first used by the Chinese. They were also the first in the world to use chemical and gas weapons, 2,000 years before gas was used in Europe during WWI.m 31. The Three Gorges Hydroelectric Dam spans the Yangtze River and is the largest dam in the world. It is also the most controversial dam in the world because it has been plagued by corruption, human rights violations, technological difficulties, and has caused dramatic environmental changes.e 32. According to popular legend, tea was discovered by the Chinese emperor Shennong in 2737 B.C. when a tea leaf fell into his boiling water. The Chinese consider tea to be a necessity of life.i 33. Martial arts are practiced throughout China and were largely developed from ancient farming and hunting methods.i 34. The most important holiday in China is the Chinese New Year or Tea was supposedly discovered when a tea leaf fell into a Chinese Lunar New Year. Chinese traditionally believe that every person emperor’s boiling water turns one year older on the New Year and, thus, that day is considered to be everyone’s birthday.i 35. Chinese is spoken by 92% of China’s population. There are at least seven major families of the Chinese language, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, Gan, Xiang, and Min.i 36. Red symbolizes happiness for the Chinese and is commonly used at Chinese festivals and other happy occasions such as birthdays and weddings.i 37. In ancient China, the lotus was seen as a symbol of purity and was sacred to both the Buddhists and Daoists. The peony (“King of Flowers”) symbolized spring, the chrysanthemum symbolized long life, and the narcissus was thought to bring good luck.i 38. The Chinese have made silk since at least 3,000 B.C. The Romans knew China as “Serica,” which means “Land of Silk.” The Chinese fiercely guarded the secrets of silk making, and anyone caught smuggling silkworm eggs or cocoons outside of China was put to death.i 39. According to a Chinese legend, silk was discovered in 3000 B.C. Anyone caught smuggling the by Lady Xi Ling Sui, wife of the Emperor Huang Di. When a silk secrets of silk making out of ancient China were put to death worm cocoon accidentally dropped into her hot tea, fine threads from the cocoon unraveled in the hot water and silk was born.i 40. The oldest piece of paper in the world was found in China and dates back to the second or first century B.C. Paper was so durable, it was sometimes used for clothing and even light body armor.m 41. The Chinese were the first in the world to use stirrups in the third century A.D.m 42. China’s “one child” policy has contributed to female infanticide and has created a significant gender imbalance. There are currently 32 million more boys than girls in China. In the future, tens of millions of men will be unable to find wives, prompting some scholars to suggest that this imbalance could lead to a threat to world security.m 43. The first known species of Homo erectus, the Peking Man, was found in China and lived between 300,000-550,000 years ago. It is thought that he knew how to manipulate fire.c 44. During the first half the twentieth century, Shanghai was the only port in the world to accept Jews fleeing the Holocaust without an entry visa.i 45.