50 Facts about China
1. All pandas in the world are on loan from China, and when a baby Panda is born, by agreement, it is sent back to China to help expand the gene pool. The baby pandas are shipped back by FedEx.
2. Tickling was a form of torture used in ancient China on nobility because it left no mark and recovery was quick.
3. During WWII, Japan bombed China with fleas infected with bubonic plague.
4. Despite spanning five time zones, all of China runs on Beijing time. Sunrise in the city of Kashgar/Zhongquo (in Western China) officially occurs as late as 10:17 AM.
5. Rich people in China hire body doubles to serve their prison sentence
6. Brad Pitt was banned from ever entering China because of his role in Seven Years in Tibet.
7. In 2006, China slaughtered 50,000 dogs after three people died of rabies. Dogs being walked were seized from their owners and beaten to death on the spot. Owners were offered 63 cents per animal to kill their own dogs before the beating teams were sent in.
8. Chinese smoke around 2.2 trillion cigarettes a year, of which 400 billion are fake, made mostly in illegal cigarette factories in caves below a city in China, often containing 80 percent more nicotine, 130 percent more carbon monoxide and occasionally insect eggs and human feces.
9. During the 2008 Olympics, China employed 30 airplanes, 4,000 rocket launchers, and 7,000 anti-aircraft guns to stop rain by shooting various chemicals into any threatening clouds to shrink rain drops before they reached the stadium.
10. After Mao grabbed power in China, there were so many suicides in Shanghai that people were afraid to walk near skyscrapers for the fear that anyone might land on them.
11. The oldest tree in the world is China's gingko, which first appeared during the Jurassic Age some 160 million years ago.
12. 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
13. 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
14. 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
15. 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.
16. The Chinese invented kites about 3,000 years ago. They were used to frighten the enemies 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
17. Cricket fighting is a popular amusement in China. Many Chinese children keep crickets as pets
18. Toilet paper was invented in China in the late 1300s. It was for emperors only
19. The number one hobby in China is stamp collecting.
20. Giant Pandas (“bear cat”) date back two to three million years. The early Chinese emperors kept pandas to ward off evil spirits and natural disasters. Pandas also were considered symbols of might and bravery.
21. White, rather than black, is the Chinese color for mourning and funerals.
22. The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing were the most expensive games in history. While the 2004 Athens Games were estimated to cost around $15 billion, the Beijing Games were estimated to cost a whopping $40 billion.
23. China has the world’s oldest calendar. This lunar calendar originated in 2600 B.C. and has 12 zodiac signs. It takes 60 years to complete.
24. China’s national flag was adopted in September 1949 and first flown in Tiananmen Square (the world’s largest public gathering place) on October 1, 1949, the day the People’s Republic of China was formed. The red in the flag symbolizes revolution. The large star