Cultural Lessons 🏮

The Jade Rabbit (玉兔) lives on the moon with Chang'e in Chinese mythology — this is why mooncakes sometimes feature a rabbit stamp.

The greeting '吃了吗？' (Have you eaten?) was born in times of food scarcity — asking about food was the most sincere way to show you cared.

The character 'biáng' — used for a Shaanxi noodle dish — has 57 strokes and is so complex it never made it into standard dictionaries.

China's Four Great Inventions — paper, printing, gunpowder, and the compass — were all invented centuries before their equivalents appeared in Europe.

What English speakers call 'black tea' is called 红茶 (red tea) in Chinese — named for the reddish color of the brew, not the leaves.

A Cantonese speaker and a Mandarin speaker cannot understand each other's speech — yet they can both read the same newspaper.

Chinese dragons are benevolent luck-bringers — the complete opposite of fearsome Western dragons. Emperors were literally called 'Sons of the Dragon.'

China borders 14 countries — more than any other nation on Earth — spanning landscapes from tropical rainforest to Arctic tundra.

China's high-speed rail network at 45,000 km is longer than all other countries' high-speed rail networks combined.