This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
1: Who in the world grows old the fastest?
Answer: a bride.
Why: Because today she is a new bride (新娘, “new lady”), and tomorrow she is a wife (老婆, “old woman”).
2: How much is one heart worth?
Answer: 100 million (一亿, yī yì).
Why: Because of “one heart, one mind” (一心一意, yī xīn yī yì)!
3: How much money must you carry to go out in a typhoon?
Answer: forty million (四千万, sì qiānwàn).
Why: Because in typhoon weather, if you have nothing urgent (没事, méi shì) you must by no means (千万, qiānwàn) go out.
4: Exams are coming. What book must you not read?
Answer: an encyclopedia (百科全书, bǎikē quánshū).
Why: (百科全输, bǎikē quán shū: “fail every subject”).
5: Question: What are cloth and paper afraid of?
Answer: cloth fears ten thousand, paper fears one in ten thousand.
Why: “Don’t fear (不, bù, sounds like 布 cloth) the ten thousand, only fear (只, zhǐ, sounds like 纸 paper) the one in ten thousand,” i.e. better safe than sorry.
6: Question: What is a pencil’s surname?
Answer: Xiao (萧).
Why: You sharpen (削, xiāo, sounds like 萧) a pencil.
7: Question: What does a qilin turn into when it gets to the North Pole?
Answer: ice cream.
Why: 冰淇凌 (bīngqílíng, “ice cream”) sounds like 冰麒麟, an “ice qilin.”
8: Question: Of the numbers 1 to 9, which is the most hardworking and which the laziest?
Answer: 1 is the laziest, 2 the most hardworking
Why: 一不做，二不休 (yī bù zuò, èr bù xiū): “either don’t do it at all (1 does nothing), or don’t stop until it’s done (2 never rests).”
9: Question: How do you make sparrows quiet down?
