15 Mildly Impressive Facts About China That Will Nonetheless Blow You Away
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
15 Mildly Impressive Facts About China That Will Nonetheless Blow You Away
BUZZ NOTE: As with my previous article posting, although this appears as a click-bait item on the right of the NT page, I wanted to be able to add my own comments from my own experiences in China to the listed items, and besides, I was able to delete the advertising and make navigation of the article simpler. My comments appear after each listed item in green similar to this one.
What’s up, Homechildren! I’m back with a whole new article that is gonna be da bomb! Today we’re going to talk about China, the world’s most populous country and yet one that is still kind of a mystery for much of the world. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to do some really deep research and discover some crazy facts about the country that will blow your socks off. So here goes.
1. China Datang Corporation makes 8 billion socks a year
Located in a district in Beijing known as “Sock City” that’s around 4 pairs of socks for each person on the planet, Dawg.
BUZZ NOTE: Has Trump put a tariff on socks yet? Seems like China produces socks for the world.
2. Every Panda in the world is technically on loan from China
Back in the 1980s, China began supplying the zoos of the world with pandas as a sign of goodwill. Under the agreement, every panda born abroad is to be shipped back to the Panda Motherland in order to diversify the gene pool.
BUZZ NOTE: I knew that years ago when the magnificent Toronto Zoo received a temporary loan of a pair of Pandas.
3. Around 35 million Chinese live in caves
The majority of these cave homes are concentrated in the northwestern Shaanxi province and while the idea of living in a cave might sound super old school in a caveman sort of way, a lot of these cave homes are tricked out. Even cave dwellers gotta live large, know what I’m saying?
BUZZ NOTE: I was not aware of that, but obviously it's not that uncommon here.
4. The Chinese go through 80 billion chopsticks a year
Dayam! That’s 20 million trees that have to be chopped down. The average tree is around 20 years old when it’s cut down, or one year before it could legally drink, Homeslice.
BUZZ NOTE: Wait a sec! Only the cheapest chopsticks used by inexpensive small local restaurants, and poor people use cheap wooden chopsticks. Many are made of plastic, even metals, and I'll bet most of what you see in that photo are not wood.
5. The 20 richest Chinese have more wealth than all of Hungary
Their combined wealth is more than $145 billion while the GDP of Hungary is around $120 billion. Wow.
BUZZ NOTE: China is a lot more capitalistic than most people realize.
6. 30 million men between the ages of 25 and 40 will be forever alone
Due to the decades-old One Child Policy, parents would engage in sex selection in which mothers would abort daughters in order to have sons. Today, this huge surplus of males is a sad legacy of this policy.
BUZZ NOTE: That was one of the real detriments from the "One Child Policy" which is no longer in effect. I assume it would promote prostitution. Maybe they should allow women to have more that one husband until a balance is achieved.
7. Breathing the Beijing air is like smoking 21 cigarettes a day.
If you’ve ever wanted to know why everybody in the city walks around wearing those surgeon masks, there you go. The smog is so bad that you can actually see it from space, obstructing the view of the Great Wall in the process.
BUZZ NOTE: I have not been to Beijing for a few years, but although it wasn't anywhere near as bad as what that photo shows, I still did wear a mask while outdoors.
8. The Chinese finish smoking 100,000 cigarettes a second
Well, if you’re going to live in a country with air dirty enough to mimic the health effects of smoking, you might as well actually smoke while you’re at it, right son?
BUZZ NOTE: Smoking here has some cultural traditions, like it being a friendly thing to offer a person a cigarette when meeting them, but there are more and more restrictions being placed on where people can smoke. They are not aware, I guess, that smoking while eating just numbs the taste buds and makes the food less delicious. My wife's brother, who is quite well off, is in a fairly high position in a cigarette company so for his sake I'll not go on any reformist rampages. I don't allow smoking in our home - smokers have to go out on the balcony. I haven't smoked for over 40 years, and never smoked more than half a pack a day at most anyway.
9. The Chinese annual consumption of instant noodles would be enough to feed everybody in Algeria three meals a day
The Chinese love their noodles. In 2011 they consumed 42.5 billion packs of instant noodles and the population of Algeria is 38.7 million. So if you do some of that math magic, you’ll see where we came up with this piece of trivia, Boss.
BUZZ NOTE: Wheat noodles are more popular in the north because wheat is grown there, whereas rice noodles are more popular in the south because rice is grown there. Dry noodles in small meal-size containers are purchased by many in China because they need only hot water added to make them a meal. Travellers often use them for train travel meals because hot drinking water dispensers are available, and are also available in many other places like airports, or construction sites (for the workers), etc. It's a cheap meal.
10. There’s a stigma associated with eating cheese
Are you familiar with the expression, “Cheese is for barbarians!” Okay, me neither. But in China dairy products have traditionally been perceived as such because at one time only the fearsome, barbaric nomads who lived in the country’s outskirts consumed them.
BUZZ NOTE: So THAT'S why! I could never figure out why the Chinese don't eat cheese. I'm a cheese lover (aged cheddar, Stilton, Parmesan, Brie, Camembert, etc) and I can buy them only in the big METRO imported goods store - the supermarkets here sell only processed "cheese" slices and sometimes cream cheese.
11. China managed to produce more cement over a two-year period than the US did in the entire 20th century
We’re talking about a stretch from 2011 through 2013. Given that China consumes 60% of the world’s cement, this probably isn’t much of a surprise.
BUZZ NOTE: Maybe the US ignores its infrastructure needs, but China is on a tear with construction of public projects, housing, bridges, etc. Everywhere you look, building is going on.
12. Half of the world’s entire pig population lives in China
That’s around 700 million Peppas and Peps or whatever. Hmm. I wonder why they would need so many pigs…
BUZZ NOTE: Certainly it's the most common everyday meat here. Beef would be nowhere near it, and because of the Muslim population spread throughout the land, lamb might be next. I've almost never seen restaurants that serve rabbit or dog, but they do exist. Contrary to foreigners' suspicion, I don't think they eat cats.
13. The Chinese consumed 52 million tons of pork in 2012
Oh, that’s why. That’s the same weight as 5,200 Eiffel Towers, if you care to know.
BUZZ NOTE: As I said above, it's the everyday food. That photo makes me hungry.
14. The Chinese railway tracks would be long enough to encircle the Earth twice.
The length of the railway tracks in China is a combined 57,800 miles while the Earth is a bit less than 25,000 miles in circumference. Fo’ shizzle.
BUZZ NOTE: No surprise - you can go almost anywhere on regular and often on high speed trains - starting and ending up in central locations in Chinese cities.
15. From east to west the length of China is equal to the distance between England and Nigeria
That’s around 3,000 miles. What’s really kind of silly is that the country only observes one time zone (Beijing time, obviously) when, geographically speaking, it ought to have five.
BU ZZ NOTE: I don't think the single time zone has been a concern for anyone here. No big deal. It's never been a concern to me.
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