Fun Facts About China

China is the fourth largest country of the world and its capital city is Beijing

. It is one of the prominent countries of the continent of Asia and also has the honor of being home to one of the most ancient civilizations of the world.

The Chinese culture is deeply entrenched in ancient customs and traditions many of which date back to the beginning of civilization. As a result, there are many fun facts about China which have their roots in the ancient past and are interesting to the extent of capturing the attention of any knowledge seeker who wishes to enhance his scope of knowledge about this country. Some of the fun facts about China are listed as follows:

The Great Wall of China is one of the Seven Wonders of the World and is indeed great because it can be discerned by the human eye even from outer space. This wall measures more than 1500 miles in length and is also referred to as the Ten Thousand Li Wall with each Li being equivalent to 500 meters.

The Chinese civilization is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world which has been present for the last 4,000 years.

China holds the honor of being the largest producer of cotton and silk in the world and this accreditation has belonged to China for thousands of years. In fact, silk was first discovered by the Chinese and its method of manufacture was a closely guarded secret during the ancient monarchies to the extent that if an individual was suspected of having divulged the secret then he could even be killed.

The people in China follow a lunar calendar which is based on the cycles of the moon and each cycle takes 60 years to complete. This calendar dates back to 2600 B.C. and happens to be one of the oldest calendars in the history of mankind with the twelve months being represented by the twelve animals which form the Chinese Zodiac.

According to the ancient legend, before Lord Buddha departed from the earth, he was visited by twelve different animals and he decided to name the year after the animal who had visited him during that year. The twelve animals are the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the sheep, the monkey, the rooster, the dog, the pig, the rat and the ox and in China people believe that a person born in a particular year will have some of the characteristics of the animal after whom the year has been named.

In China, ice cream was invented as early as 2000 B.C. and consisted of soft milk and rice mixture packed in snow.

Red is considered to be a lucky color in China and due to this reason the wedding dresses, New Years banners, clothing and money envelopes are often red.

During the rule of the dynasties, whenever a rebellion was planned against the foreign conquerors the patriots in China announced the exact time of the uprising by hiding messages in the moon cakes.

In China the imagery of two animals which are a replica of each other is considered to be a symbol of harmony. While dragons, phoenixes and white cranes are accepted symbols of benevolence, a pair of lions guarding a gate or a palace in China is supposed to be auspicious as it drives away the evil.

The credit of the inventions of compass, paper, gun powder and printing goes to China as it was here that these techniques originated before they were adopted by the rest of the world.

by: JohnOttawa

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