Interesting Facts about China

Fact #1 – Chinese go to the hospital for everything. There are no personal family doctors. When I first came to China this came as as a surprise. My friends would tell me they have to go to the hospital. I thought they had a serious illness or disease. But it turns out most of the time it was a common cold or flu bug. Still whenever I have a cold someone will invariably ask me if I am going to the hospital and I have to remind myself that hospitals are the only place to go for medical care, no matter how small. It's no wonder they are so popular. To register and get a consultation with a doctor (often times Master or P.H.D. program graduates) costs between $0.25 and $.0.75!


Fact #2 – Driving has a whole different set of rules here. No doubt if you have been in China before, you know that taking to the roads can be a heart stopping experience. At the beginning of my time in China every single trip across time would present five to ten moments when I thought there was no way the driver could possibly avoid a crash. My friend told me that in China if you let other drivers in, then you will never get where you are going. There is just a continuous stream of vehicles. The rule of right of way is “whoever gets their bumper in first has it!” After several years in China, I now find myself upset if the driver is slow and doesn't race through traffic changing lanes. Lest you think that Chinese drivers are poor, think again. They go through rigorous and costly driving lessons far more difficult than what the States puts its drivers through. Drivers here have lightning fast reflexes and can stop on a coin if a pedestrian gets in their way.

Fact #3 – Want to know the biggest migration in the world every year? It is not birds going south or arctic reindeer, it happens right here in China. Each year at Chinese Spring Festival roughly 230 million Chinese city workers head back to their hometowns to celebrate Chinese New Year. Ticket prices soar and public transportation turns into a sea of people. One reason for this mass migration is that China institutes a 15 day nation wide holiday. Actually China has four or five public holidays every year when everyone gets off at the same time. Because everyone is off at the same time, everyone travels at the same time. This is in stark contrast to America, where nationwide holidays are short and workers have a lot more discretionary time off.

Fact #4 – China boasts one of the highest percentages of male hand bag carriers in the world. Whereas top brands like Gucci and Prada cater to women in Western countries, they are starting to realize the importance of targeting men here. The reason so many Chinese men carry expensive handbags is simple. The highest denominations of Ren Men Bi (Chinese Yuan) is 100. That is the equivalent of about $14. Checks aren't used and cash is. This means that large wads of cash are carried about as a must to conduct business. Wealthy businessmen buy these handbags to put in piles of cash. Also Chinese guys will cheerfully carry their wives or girlfriends purses and handbags. Sometimes you can catch sight of a burly gym rat carrying a bright red handbag with hearts on it, quite a sight!

Fact #5 – Elderly people in China have a completely different lifestyle than their Western counterparts. Early in the morning you might hear music drifting in your apartment window. It is probably women (and a lot of men too!) who have gotten up early to dance. Parks, local complexes, and sports stadium grounds are filled with public dancing. It is a great form of exercise as they really get into it. Besides that many occupy their time with social exercising, jianzi (kicking a weighted shuttlecock in a group), Tai Ji, or Ma Jiang. I have found that most elder people in China keep in great shape because of their daily exercises. Many times they will walk backwards or tap their biceps or other body parts to loosen up and keep limber.

10 interesting facts about China as an economic powerhouse

A two-decade long run has catapulted the Chinese economy to amazing heights. It is said China will will become new economic powerhouse in the next few years. And China has always been the topic of much conversation world wide. Let`s review China from the following 10 interesting facts to see how China’s economy has reached incredible scale.

1. Artificial christmas trees

China is not only the world’s largest textile producer, but also a leader in Christmas tree manufacturing industry. 85% of the world’s artificial Christmas trees are made in China.

2. Pig-keeping Empire  

China is not only the most populous country in the world, but also a counry with the biggest number of pigs. United Nation`s 2008 data shows that in 2008, there were 446.4 million pigs in China, more than the total of other 43 countries.

3.Daily smoking

Chinese people light 50,000 cigarettes per second. The WHO said the number of smokers in China is constantly increasing in the past few years, 66 percent of Chinese men smoke at least one cigarette a day.

4. “Ghost Towns” spread all over the country

In recent years, China carried out large number of constructions including rural areas. And “ghost town” also appears in many places. It is estimated there are more than 64 million vacant apartments around the country.

5. Lonely McDonald

South China Mall, the world’s largest shopping mall, should have 1,500 stores, but in fact 99% of the shops are still vacant at present, only a small number of restaurants, including McDonald’s can be found there.

6. Construction boom continues

China still make great efforts to carry out construction. The result is that there is no country consumes so much cement than China, 53% of the global demand for cement is from China.

7. Barbie dolls are too sexy

Chinese are either high on building houses or produce textiles and toys, such as Barbie dolls and stuffed animals. Nearly 70% of the toys in the world are from China. However, Chinese people rarely buy Barbie, because blond Barbies are too sexy for them. In China the market manily sell cute Barbie dolls.

8. There are tens of millions of Christians in China

In this Confucian-and-atheists-dominated country. There are about 19 ​​million Christians according to the 2008 figure.

9. Rapid development

In 2010, China overtook Japan to become the second largest economy, Chinese people today have 4 times of wealth than that of 10 years ago.

10. Everything is under control

Giant companies in China are all controlled by the state including Petro China and the Bank of China. Business managers and government are closely linked.

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Interesting Facts About The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City occupies 720,000 square meters (7,747,200 square feet / 180 acres). The Topkapi Palace in Istanbul measures 700,000 square meters; the Vatican measures 440,000 square meters; and the Kremlin measures 275,000 square meters.

There are 9,999 rooms in this series of exquisite palaces inside the City. Nine is a lucky number for the Chinese. (Some books quote 8886 rooms — but this does not include antechambers.)

The walls are 32 feet high (10 meters). The surrounding drainage moat is 165 feet wide (50 meters). The main part of the city was constructed over 14 years (1407-1420) using 200,000 laborers. Building materials were shipped over thousands of miles from all parts of China using the network of canals constructed in the 6th and 7th centuries.

All of the buildings are made from painted wood. To deal with the fire risk, giant bronze cauldrons filled with water were placed at intervals throughout the Palace.

At the end of the 18th century approximately 9000 people lived within the Forbidden City, composed of guards, servants, eunuchs, concubines, civil servants and the Royal Family.

The inner sanctum rooms were forbidden to women except to the Empress on her wedding day.

The tradition of castrating male servants dates back over two thousand years. The Qing Dynasty started with 9000 eunuchs, reducing to about 1500 in 1908. Their testicles were mummified and stored in jars, to be buried with them after their death. Many eunuchs were harshly treated, or executed at whim. Corruption, power struggles and personal vendettas flourished.

Emperors were entitled to several wives and many concubines. (Qianlong had two official wives and 29 concubines). Concubines were well-educated women selected from the best Manchu families. Nightly, the Emperor would decide which concubine would visit him that evening. She would then be stripped, bathed and depilated before being carried to his chamber. The wife or a concubine that was chosen by the emporer was brought into his room naked all the way from her room. This was not done to make her horney bu8t to make sure that she is not carrying a weapon. The number of times a concubine was chosen secured her social standing.

Depending upon status, each rank would dine from "color-coded" plates, cups and bowls. Only the Emperor and Empress were entitled to use real gold or "radiant yellow" porcelain. Over 3000 pieces of gold and silver plate were held in Qing kitchens during the 18th century.

The Emperor's choice of successor was usually kept secret until after his death, when it was verified by bringing together a document held by the emperor with a document previously concealed in a sealed box.

Ministers and officials had to prostrate themselves on the floor before reporting to the Emperor.

No one was allowed to see the emporer's face in the whole dynesty except from a very few people. The panelty for seeing the emporer's face was none other than death.

The Supreme Harmony Hall of the Forbidden City was attacked by fire and struck by lightening many times.

Manchu women did not bind their feet, but wore shoes mounted on six- to eight-inch platforms, giving them the tottering gait considered seductive.

There were alot of shemales in the Forbidden City who worked there. At one time there were 70,000 shemales in the forbidden city. They were not shemales naturally but males used to get themselves operated to live in the Forbidden City. Sometimes parents also turned their boy into a shemale by getting him operated without his consent. Though with the passage of time number of shemales kept on reducing and the last emporer had just 1500 of them in the Forbidden City.

Instead of jousting with lances, Chinese courtiers took part in the competitive sport of poetry composition.

Portraits have a special significance in China because of the widespread practice of ancestor worship.

"The Last Emperor", familiarly known as Puyi, succeeded to the throne when he was not even three years old. He was forced to abdicate in February 1912, but was held in the Forbidden City until 1924. During those years he had a British tutor, Reginald Johnston, who gave him his first bicycle.

Puyi once said that he was weeping when he first sat on that huge throne. People in his palace whispered that weeping is a bad omen and it proved to be a bad omen as he was forced to abdicate three years later. This ended the 2000 years old rule.

Puyi was imprisoned for a total of 15 years, first in Russia and then in China.

The forbidden city might have still been forbidden for the general public if the last emporer Puyi would not have planned to go back to the forbidden city. It was converted into The Palace Museum by the government to stop him from going back to the forbidden city.

The Palace Museum holds close to 50,000 items of paintings. Of these, more than 400 date from before the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). This is the largest such collection in China and includes some of the rarest and most valuable paintings in Chinese history.

The Palace Museum has one of the largest collections of mechanical timepieces of the 18th and 19th centuries in the world, with more than 1000 pieces.

The Palace Museum's bronze collection dates from the early Shang Dynasty (founded c. 1766 BC). Of the almost 10,000 pieces held, about 1600 are inscribed items from the pre-Qin period (to 221 BC). A significant part of the collection is ceremonial bronzeware from the imperial court, including complete sets of musical instruments used by the imperial orchestras.

The articrafts of the Palace Museum were moved away from the museum because of the Japanese invasion on China in 1933. Later they were restored to the Palace Museum and surprisingly it is claimed that none of the articrafts were lost or destroyed, though some of them are now in taiwan but not destroyed.(Some historians disagree with this and they are of the view that some articrafts were lost.)

The Palace Museum holds 340,000 pieces of ceramics and porcelain. These include imperial collections from the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, as well as pieces commissioned by the Palace, and, sometimes, by the Emperor personally. This collection is notable because it derives from the imperial collection, and thus represents the best of porcelain production in China. The Palace Museum holds about 320,000 pieces of porcelain from the imperial collection. The rest are almost all held in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Nanjing Museum.

The Palace Museum has one of the largest collections of mechanical timepieces of the 18th and 19th centuries in the world, with more than 1000 pieces. The collection contains both Chinese- and foreign-made pieces.

The first mechanical clock was brought to the Forbidden City by a priest in 1601.

The biggest time piece in the Palace Museum is more than 2 meters long.

Interesting Facts about Chinese Weight Loss Tea

Recently, another study concerning the weight loss benefits of the Chinese organic weight loss tea was conducted and the results of the research showed that people who drink certain type of tea have a better propensity for weight loss generally. Drinking Chinese weight loss green tea daily allows the organism to burn an additional 90 calories a day, something that weight loss fighters and enthusiasts would simply enjoy reaching.

Nowadays, Chinese weight loss tea or just green tea is widely available on the western market and it can easily be purchased in any weight loss products store, or even online. Buying these kinds of products on the internet is even easier and sometimes cheaper.

Buy Online Chinese Tea

It is well known that Chinese green tea can also prevent various forms of cancer. There is a form of cancer that starts in the blood-forming cells of the bone marrow. Afterwards, it invades the blood and can then spread to the lymph nodes, the spleen, liver, and other parts of the body.

On the other hand, other forms of cancer can appear in these organs and then spread to the bone marrow, but these are not known as leukemia. Chronic myeloid leukemia can also modify into a fast-growing acute leukemia that destroys almost any organ in the human body. Chinese experts in traditional medicine claim that those who drink green tea can prevent such types of cancer.

This is not all the available information about Chinese weight loss green tea. However, if you’ve picked something useful from this article, then by all means, don’t just stand there, act! You won’t really be able to gain any benefits just from your knowledge if you don’t practice and use it properly.

We do hope that reading the above article was both enjoyable and educational for most of you. The learning curve in life should be ongoing. The more you know, the more you will be able to share with others and help them. With that being said, please don’t waste your precious time and find out more about Chinese weight loss tea on our blog. We update it often and you can easily find a lot of rare tips and tricks there so don’t miss this opportunity. There is nothing better then affording yourself to be able to treat others and your family using natural ways and excluding all possible medications. God bless you!

Source: articledashboard.com

Interesting Facts about Ancient China

With an ongoing history dating back over sixteen thousand years, China is the world's oldest known continuous civilization. While the 17 million square mile nation, now home to over 6 billion inhabitants, is known in the modern world primarily as a source for cheap plastic toys and bootleg CDs and DVDs, this gigantic portion of Asia is actually responsible for countless important and colorful discoveries and inventions; among them fireworks, tea, the modern mousetrap, kites, decorative vases, the fortune cookie, stationery, a variety of interesting and pain-relieving opiates, and the all-you-can eat lunch buffet.

Indeed, were it not for the important contributions of ancient China to the later civilizations of Europe and the Americas, the western world today might well resemble the crude and stinky medieval European world of the early fifteenth century. Luckily--thanks to the trade route known as "The Silk Road," and the riches it channeled toward influential western merchants like Pier One, life in the west has been forever enhanced by what were once considered exotic Chinese "novelties."

In order to understand the contributions China has made to the western world, it is important to try and unravel the mysterious traditions of its ancient culture--a culture whose earliest recorded history takes us back to nearly 14,000 B.C., back to the time of the first fumbling and painful experiments with acupuncture--the era of the Thang Dynasty.

The Thang Clan ruled most of what is now modern China for over twelve centuries. While little is known about Chinese life in those times, scholars do know that the written word made its first appearance during the rule of this powerful family. In 1969, archeologists digging near Feng To, in the northern province of Weng, unearthed the earliest specimen of human writing ever discovered, a scroll known popularly as "The Ancient Chinese Secret," a fifteen hundred word document listing the location and relative quality of all of Weng Province's public wells, washeries, and eateries. Amazingly, a few of the characters in this "pictograph" (picture-writing) document can still be found in the Japanese Kanji alphabet today.

One of the eight wonders of the ancient world, The Great Wall of China remains among the world's most thought-provoking antiquities still in existence. It was built by Emperor Tsu of the Chang Dynasty, a family of rulers who began their lengthy dominion in the eleventh century, B.C. Tsu was a deeply superstitious ruler, one who believed, as did most of his subjects, that spirits--both good and evil--roamed the earth in the form of animals. There were, it was believed, good spirits populating the Chinese countryside in the form of oxen, monkeys, giant pandas, dragons and rabbits. On the other hand, the Chinese during the Chang Dynasty were certain that other animals-- like snakes, ducks, voles and pigs-- had evil spirits within them, spirits intent on the destruction of their glorious empire.

Though cats were popular pets in ancient China, having been domesticated as early as the Sh'ing dynasty some four centuries earlier, Tsu was highly suspicious of one breed of cat in particular--the feral Siamese Cat. By the end of the eleventh century B.C., Siamese cats had begun to breed out-of-control in Mongolia, the untamed tundra north of Ancient China. The cats had thrived on the billions of mice that infested Mongolian granaries and barbeques, and had begun making their way south into China's northern provinces. Tsu, and the northern Chinese in general, were spooked by the breed's capricious and selfish behavior, their cold, vacant eyes, and their devilishly raspy "Mee--yeeooooww." At the end of the century, a strain of typhoid illness actually caused by unsanitary laundering practices was believed to have been caused by the invading cats, and Emperor Tsu publicly proclaimed that the deaths of over 15 million of his northern subjects was the direct result of "We Kha Tchi," or "Cat-Scratch Fever."

Desperate to "save face" as a ruler, Tsu ordered the building of what is now known as "The Great Wall of China" to prevent the further infiltration of Siamese cats. While most of the cats walled out over the next several centuries eventually succumbed to starvation due to overpopulation in Mongolia, those already pouncing within the northern provinces of Ancient China suffered a more immediate, and explosive fate: The Emperor declared that any Siamese cats found within the empire were to be enticed with catnip and gunpowder-packed cat-toys and summarily blown to bits. The subsequent unjust purging of millions of innocent felines is considered the low-point of the history of animal rights as we know it and Chinese folklore is peppered with gruesome accounts of otherwise still evenings punctuated with "flashing, screeching blasts of demonic yowling followed by baleful snowfalls of liberated fur."

Less than ten years after Tsu commissioned the construction of The Great Wall, he passed away and was succeeded by his son Nhu. Construction of the wall continued under the Nhu regime, and then continued for the next nine generations of the Chang Dynasty. When the relatively short-lived Mang Dynasty followed, the construction of the wall doggedly continued, and Siamese cats, gradually, became a rare sight in China, though a few had managed to make it to the empire's southernmost reaches. It was only during the Chung Dynasty, in the year 2560 B.C., that the massive undertaking was considered complete. On what would have been July 9, 2560 B.C. on our modern calendar, Emperor Wang declared the wall finished and ordered three weeks of celebration that halted all labor in the sprawling nation. Celebrated Chinese songwriter, poet, and philosopher Lao Tzu wrote a song to mark the occasion. The jubilant refrain is still remembered today:

[English translation by Dr. Ronald Sveeeres]

Evil cats are, at last, gone ,

Walled off as is their pestilent bite, Now that there is nothing wrong, Strike up this song and dance into the night: So, HU! Everybody have fun tonight, So, HUH! Everybody Wang Chung tonight!

Unfortunately, when the dancing and fireworks were exhausted, the Chinese soon realized that their land was, in fact, not entirely free from Siamese cats. Though they enjoyed a brief period, during the Ming Dynasty, where their homes were relatively free from the troublesome and creepy felines, soon the problematic pussies could be found all over Asia once again, scratching up China's finest silks and rubbing up against-- and smashing to bits-- some of the Dynasty's most exquisite period vases. Though the passive and reflective philosophy of Confucius had taken hold by 1500 B.C., Emperor Foo, who died in 1478 B.C. was one of the most outspoken critics of Siamese cats, calling them "an enemy to the prospect of traditional Chinese 'joy-luck' foretold in the crispy cookies of [his] forebears."

Shortly after Emperor Foo's burial, nearly all of China's remaining Siamese cats disappeared. Until 1992, this was dismissed as the result of a feline leukemia epidemic that was thought to have swept Asia in the fifteenth century B.C. But could there have been some Ancient Chinese magic responsible for the demise of the "evil" cat-spirits in China? The excavation of Foo's tomb in the early nineties has left many wondering. When the imperial tomb was opened, hundreds of life-sized terra-cotta statues, a statuary legion dubbed the "Terra-Cotta Army," was found. These imposing statues, it is speculated, were thought by Foo to have insured that all remaining Siamese cats would be, by the time the emperor reached the afterlife, literally stomped out. The statues all wear thick, cat-crushing boots, and many hold ancient cat-toys and cat-lances designed to entice, impale and eviscerate unsuspecting kitties.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead once remarked that "it is the struggles of every civilization, no matter how misguided and downright freaky they might seem in retrospect, that shape them and fashion their unique contributions to our world as a whole." If that's true, it is perhaps also true that, without the Siamese cat, our world would not have the sparkly firecrackers, the tasty Pu-Pu Platters, nor the crispy and compelling fortune cookies that we enjoy today; all products of the cat-fearing land of Confucius; Ancient China.

Page created by Dr. Ralston Purina, Provost, Asian Studies Department, Her Majesty's University of Calgary.
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