Bunkagame — July 2, 2026

Question 1

At the 1908 Carnival held each year in the capital of the Philippines, two queens were crowned: Pura Villanueva of Iloilo City as Queen of the Orient, and Marjorie Radcliffe Colton from Galesburg, Illinois as Queen of the Occident. In which Southeast Asian capital city, home to the Malacanang Palace, did this Carnival tradition run for decades?

Accepted Answer

The Manila Carnival was first held in February 1908 in Manila, on the old Wallace Field just off today's Luneta Park. The first carnival crowned two queens, including Marjorie Radcliffe Colton of Galesburg, Illinois as Queen of the Occident.

Question 2

Ross Perot was a billionaire businessman who started a computer company called Electronic Data Systems in Dallas in 1962. In the 1992 US presidential race he ran as an independent and won almost 19 percent of the vote. He grew up in Texarkana, a town that straddles the state line between Arkansas and which neighboring state to the west?

Accepted Answer

Ross Perot was born in Texarkana, Texas in 1930 and raised in the same town. His close childhood friend Hayes McClerkin later became Speaker of the Arkansas House of Representatives and a prominent lawyer across the state line in Texarkana, Arkansas.

Question 3

The 2022 K-pop song 'Case 143' by the group Stray Kids charted at number 20 in South Korea and hit number 1 on a Billboard chart in the US that tracks worldwide song downloads. In which small island country in Southeast Asia did it also chart at number 24?

Accepted Answer

Stray Kids' song Case 143 hit number 24 on Singapore's RIAS singles chart in 2022. The same song reached number 20 on South Korea's Circle chart, giving the group hits in both Korea and Singapore the same week.

Question 4

Italy sells more pasta to other countries than anyone else - $2.9 billion worth of dried noodles in 2018 - followed by China with $0.9 billion. In which East African country, where Italian soldiers occupied the land in the 1930s and left pasta behind, is spaghetti often served on top of a flat sourdough bread called injera and eaten by hand?

Accepted Answer

In 2018, Italy was the world's largest exporter of pasta, followed by China with about $0.9 billion in exports. In Ethiopia, pasta was introduced through Italian colonization and is often served over injera flatbread and eaten by hand.

Question 5

Italian pop singer Laura Pausini kicked off her 1997 world tour in Geneva, then played concerts in Italy, Switzerland, France and Spain before flying to Latin America. Her Latin America stops included Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia, Mexico and one more South American country whose capital is Caracas. Which country?

Accepted Answer

On 1 March 1997, Laura Pausini launched her World Wide Tour from Geneva, later playing shows in Brazil and Venezuela along with other Latin American countries. The tour helped her album sell three million copies and earn gold status in Brazil.

Question 6

The stage play of Michael Morpurgo's 'War Horse', with life-sized horse puppets, has toured all over Britain and China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou). In which English city famous for making pottery, home to the Regent Theatre, did the 2019 UK tour stop from late March into early April?

Accepted Answer

The play War Horse toured to Guangzhou from 8 March to 3 May 2016 after opening in Shanghai. A later leg played the Regent Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent from 27 March to 6 April 2019, along with stops in Glasgow, Sunderland, Liverpool, Oxford, and London.

Question 7

After North Korea's Kim Jong-un and South Korea's Moon Jae-in met in September 2018, the two countries announced a joint plan for a Seoul-Pyongyang bid to host the 2032 Summer Olympics. In February 2021, a Montreal newspaper reported a rival bid pairing Montreal with Toronto. Which North American country was behind that bid?

Accepted Answer

In September 2018, North and South Korea said they would team up on a joint Seoul-Pyongyang bid for the 2032 Summer Olympics, following a summit between their leaders. In February 2021, Canada's Olympic Committee said it was exploring its own joint Montreal Toronto bid for the same 2032 Summer Olympics.

Question 8

In 1843, French novelist Honore de Balzac stopped in the western Lithuanian town of Taurage on his way to Saint Petersburg to see his sweetheart, the Polish-Ukrainian countess Ewelina Hanska. On 14 March 1850 the two finally got married at St. Barbara's Church. That church is in which town in central Ukraine, which was a famous banking city back when the Russian Empire ruled the area?

Accepted Answer

Honoré de Balzac stayed in Tauroggen (Tauragė) in 1843 during travels through the Russian Empire. Later, on 14 March 1850, Balzac and Countess Ewelina Hanska married at St. Barbara's Church in Berdychiv, in what was then Russia and is now Ukraine.

Question 9

American opera and theater director Peter Sellars, known for unusual and bold stagings, put on Mozart's opera 'Don Giovanni' in summer 1980 at the Monadnock Music Festival in Manchester, New Hampshire. He set the show inside a 1970s crime-movie world. In the 1983-84 season, he served as artistic director of the Shakespeare Company based in which major New England city?

Accepted Answer

In the summer of 1980, director Peter Sellars staged Don Giovanni at the Monadnock Music Festival in Manchester, New Hampshire, styled like a blaxploitation film. He then served as director of the Boston Shakespeare Company in Boston for the 1983 to 1984 season.

Question 10

The Al-Askari Shrine in Samarra, Iraq, badly damaged by a bombing in 2006, holds the tombs of the tenth and eleventh Shia imams (religious leaders) and is the third-holiest site in Shia Islam after Najaf and Karbala. In which Iranian holy city, home to the Fatima Masumeh Shrine, do many Shia Muslims also travel on pilgrimage?

Accepted Answer

The Al-Askari Shrine in Samarra is one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, holding the tombs of the tenth and eleventh Shia imams. The Fatima Masumeh Shrine in Qom is another important Shia holy site, holding the tomb of Fatimah bint Musa, sister of the eighth Shia imam Ali al-Ridha.