Chinese Etiquette
When someone refills your tea, you tap two bent fingers on the table to do this
What is: say thank you?
This general wrote The Art of War
Who is Sun Tzu
This Taiwanese chain is famous for soup dumplings with exactly 18 folds.
What is Din Tai Fung?
On a Chinese abacus (算盘), each bead above the bar is worth this much.
What is 5?
This Korean liquor comes in a green bottle and is usually the reason the group chat goes quiet the next morning.
What is soju?
At a banquet, the guest of honor usually gets the seat in this position relative to the door.
What is facing the door?
China’s first emperor, buried with an army of terracotta soldiers.
Who is Qin Shi Huang?
Boba pearls are made from the starch of this root.
What is cassava (tapioca)
2024 was the Year of the Dragon. When is the next one?
What is 2036?
Her company, Sanrio, says Hello Kitty isn’t a cat. She’s actually this.
What is a little girl?
Never give this as a gift, because 送钟 (sòng zhōng) sounds like “attending a funeral.”
What is a clock?
Name the four places usually grouped together as “Greater China.”
What are Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan?
Despite the name, a “thousand-year egg” is actually cured for about this long.
What is a few weeks to a few months?
Grandma gives each of her 5 grandkids a red envelope with $88. Add up the total, then tell us why she’d be upset about it.
What is $440, which is full of unlucky 4s
Until South Korea changed the law in 2023, babies were counted as this old on the day they were born.
What is 1
You never stand your chopsticks straight up in a bowl of rice because it looks like this
What are incense sticks for the dead
This 1882 U.S. law was the first to ban immigration by a specific nationality.
What is the Chinese Exclusion Act?
The numbing “ma” (麻) in mala comes from this spice.
What is Sichuan peppercorn?
A building in China skips every floor number that contains a 4. If the top floor is labeled 50, how many numbers are skipped?
What is 14? (4, 14, 24, 34, and 40 through 49)
In Japan, you never pass food from chopsticks to chopsticks, because it looks like this funeral ritual.
What is passing the cremated bones?
You should never cut this fruit in half to share with a friend or partner, because it sounds like “to separate.”
What is a pear?
In 1946 he won a seat in the Arizona House, becoming the first Chinese American elected to a state legislature on the U.S. mainland.
Who is Wing F. Ong?
At the famous Quanjude restaurant, a Peking duck is traditionally carved into this many slices.
What is 108?
This puzzle comes from the ancient Sunzi Suanjing. Find the smallest number that leaves a remainder of 2 when divided by 3, 3 when divided by 5, and 2 when divided by 7.
What is 23?
BTS stands for 방탄소년단 (Bangtan Sonyeondan). Translate it into English.
What is “Bulletproof Boy Scouts”?