Famous Chinese Women Trivia Quiz

Answer: Emperor

Wu Zhao was born in 624 AD and was considered very beautiful and extremely intelligent. She was selected as a concubine to Emperor Taizong, where she learned the inner workings of the government. After his death, she entered a convent for a brief time before going back to court as 'second-rate concubine' to Emperor Gaozong. This did not satisfy her and she began a ruthless quest to marry him. This included killing her rivals and even, reportedly, her own daughter.

After her successful marriage and rise to Empress, she began to promote her sons to power and to set up an intricate system of spies and informers. When her husband died, she ruled behind the scenes as each son was a 'puppet emperor'. In 690 AD, she conferred upon herself the title "Holy and Divine Emperor," the only woman in China to do so. She ruled for 15 years until a coup shortly before her death in 705 AD.

Even though her reign was marked by ruthlessness and power, she also made some lasting marks on the country. She introduced a better system of recruiting political officials, she expanded the geographic territory, she elevated the economic prosperity of the country, and she helped promote religion and art.

Answer: Poetry

Li Qingzhao was born in 1084 AD and received an extensive education, which was unusual for that time in China. Her mother was a poet and Li gravitated to that field. In 1101 AD, she married Zhao Mingcheng, a man who shared her love of art and poetry. During that period in her life, she wrote poems that were filled with themes of love, hope, and nature. She was a master of the 'ci' form of poetry, which is derived from musical tunes of the past.

However, in 1127 AD there was an invasion that led to the fall of the city of Kaifeng, where she and her husband lived in eastern China. This forced them to flee south and they lost almost all of their extensive collection of ancient art, books, and their own poetry. When her husband died two years later, Li was left in exile and solitude for the rest of her life. During this time, her poems reflected grief, bitterness, and homesickness.

The surviving fragments of her work continue to be highly regarded and she is considered a great poet of China.

Answer: Physics

Later known as the "First Lady of Physics", Chien-Shiung Wu was born in 1912 AD in an eastern province of China. She did very well in school and went to Nanjing University where she majored first in mathematics but later transferred to physics. After graduation, she became a researcher at the Institute of Physics where she was encouraged by her peers to continue her education in the United States. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1940 where she specialized in nuclear physics.

In 1944, Wu joined the top-secret Manhattan Project at Columbia University, where she was one of the few women and possibly the only person of Chinese descent working on the project. She contributed in multiple ways including experiments with uranium and xenon. Her most famous work was the "Wu Experiment" in 1956-1957. Her outcome proved that a weak nuclear force violates the conservation of parity. This discovery was a monumental shock to the physics community and led to a revolution in particle physics. There was much controversy later when she did not win the Nobel Prize for this work.

Wu continued to garner honors and awards for the rest of her life. She also pushed for the education of children, especially in the sciences, regardless of gender. She died in 1997 and her ashes were buried back in China.

Answer: Ming

Qin Liangyu was born in 1574 AD in Zhongzhou, China, where her father was a distinguished scholar with a passion for military tactics. He taught her, along with her brothers, martial arts, military strategy, horseback riding, and archery. After marriage, Qin and her husband trained troops together and their soldiers were known as the "White Pole Army" and were renowned for their skills. After her husband's death, she became the sole commander.

In 1620, the Manchu-led Jin state invaded northeastern China. Qin personally led 3,000 elite soldiers to reinforce the area's defense after her brother was killed in battle. Her troop held the famed Shanhai Pass, the gateway to the Ming empire on the Great Wall. Over the years, she continued to defend the Ming dynasty and a quote from that time, "Why must a general be a man?", remains popular to this day.

Qin died in 1648, aged 75, and was buried in Shizhu. The story of her life, along with her weapons and armor, is showcased in a museum there.

Answer: Flute

Cai Yan was born around 178 AD during the Han dynasty. She was the daughter of a famous scholar and grew up in a very enlightened household. She developed exceptional skills in poetry, music, and calligraphy. Unfortunately, after Cai's first husband died young, Xiongnu nomads invaded the land and took her prisoner and marched her north in a grueling trip. Upon arrival she was given as a bride to a leader and bore him two sons.

Around 207 AD, the powerful warlord Cao Cao, an admirer of her late father, paid a heavy ransom to secure her release. She returned home but had to leave her sons behind. All of this trauma in her life soon poured into her artistic endeavors. She wrote poems and songs. "Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute", for example, is a collection of eighteen songs written for the transverse (side-blown) flute. Cai also famously dictated from memory 400 volumes of ancient books from her father's vast collection, which had been destroyed in the wars.

Answer: Tibet

Born around 620 AD into a branch of the royal clan of the Tang Dynasty, Princess Wencheng was nurtured in the imperial court and received a good education in Confucian classics, poetry, literature, art, music, and Buddhism. In 634, King Songtsen Gampo of Tibet sent an envoy to the Tang capital after he heard several competing countries were interested in marriage alliances with China. After multiple military clashes and meetings, by 638 an arrangement was made for Princess Wencheng to marry King Gampo and in 641 she left to move to Tibet.

A devout Buddhist, Princess Wencheng brought a precious statue of the Buddha with her to Tibet and she is widely credited with playing a major role in the adoption and spread of Buddhism in Tibet. She is considered an incarnation of the White Tara, a female bodhisattva, or enlightened being. Princess Wencheng and her entourage introduced advanced farming techniques as well as Chinese arts, crafts, and architecture. Her alliance also helped to ensure a long period of peace and friendly relations for China and Tibet.

Answer: Eclipse

Wang Zhenyi was born in China in 1768 AD during the Qing dynasty. She grew up with her father and grandparents who taught her a variety of subjects including medicine, geography, poetry, and the stars. When she was eighteen, she began to teach herself many subjects within astronomy. She accurately described and explained lunar and solar eclipses. In a famous demonstration, she used a spherical lamp (sun), a round table (Earth), and a mirror (moon) to simulate how a lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes into the Earth's shadow.

She also wrote many papers and articles. In one, entitled "Theory of the Earth's Roundness", she argued against the belief most people had that the earth was flat. In addition to the scientific work, Wang also wrote 13 volumes of poetry. She died of unknown causes at the young age of 29 leaving behind her findings and the idea of gender equality in the science community.

Answer: False

The intact tomb of Lady Fu Hao was discovered in 1976 AD at Yinxu (modern-day Anyang), the site of the Shang capital. Amazingly, it had never been looted and a great deal was learned about Fu Hau and her time.

Lady Fu Hau, who lived around 1200 BC, was originally one of the King of Shang's 64 wives. She then rose through the ranks to become a consort of his. She held an extraordinarily high status for a woman in China at that time. According to writings on bone found in her tomb, she was also a high priestess. In addition, the variety of weapons in her tomb show that Fu Hao was a general in charge of several military campaigns for the Shang dynasty.

After her death Fu Hao was buried in a tomb on land across the river from her home. Her solitary tomb remained undiscovered for centuries. More than 200 ritual bronze vessels were unearthed along with 755 jade objects, 564 bone objects, 5 ivory objects, and nearly 7,000 cowry shells (used as currency). In accordance with Shang custom, she was buried with 16 human sacrifices and 6 dogs to serve her in the afterlife.

Answer: Cixi

Cixi was born into a Manchu noble family in 1835 AD and become a concubine to the Emperor in 1852. She bore him his only son, which raised her status. When the Emperor died in 1861, their young son took the throne. However, Cixi soon became the real power behind the decisions. During the first few years, she supported restoration and the Self-Strengthening Movement. These efforts suppressed rebellions and initiated the adoption of Western technology, including arsenals, shipyards, and modern customs services.

The next twenty years was a time of internal power struggles and various wars and conflicts like The Boxer Rebellion (which, with her support, led to an unfortunate defeat of China). Toward the end of her reign, she did sweeping reforms such as creating Western-style education systems, banning foot-binding for women, moderenizing the military, and reforming the legal code.

She died in 1908 and her long legacy continues to be debated amongst scholars as either the cause of a dynasty downfall or a means to build the foundation of modern China.

Answer: Women

Wang Xingjuan was born in 1931 in China and became a reporter in her 20s for the "Xihua Daily". Later she worked for years at a publishing company. Upon retirement, she could have gone into the field of writing but she was concerned that the process of reform was creating new problems for women, and she wanted to do something for them. So she founded the Red Maple Women's Consultation and Service Center.

Red Maple opened the first hotline for women in China in September 1992. In January 1998 a new hotline was opened for elderly women, and in March 2004 a hotline for victims of domestic violence. The hotlines were tremendously successful and handled hundreds and hundreds of calls per month. The center not only runs the hotlines but provides counseling services for women and gender-sensitivity training workshops for police, judges, doctors, and local officials.