Special ingridients of Chinese cooking

There are hundreds if not thousands of China specific cooking ingredients. For the sake of general knowledge I would like to mention just some of them.

Chinese name	Pinyin	English description
花生油	hua1 sheng1 you2	Peanut oil, generally used for frying
香油	xiang1 you2	Sesame oil, very aromatic ingredient that makes a yummy combination with soya sauce, garlic. Only a few teaspoons are generally enough.
猪油	zhu1 you2	Pork lard。People all over the world relied on pork lard for centuries. It is still extremely popular in China.
酱油	jiang4 you2	Soya sauce. I guess with globalization it is widely available all over the world. Nevertheless there are different types of soya sauce used in Chinese cooking – some are quite spicy, others added in stronger or weaker versions.
黄酱	huang2 jiang4	Soya paste。Another soya derivative product, used to thicken dishes.
醋	cu4	Vinegars are frequently added to dishes. The typical one will be rice vinegar, but in reality there a lot of other types used.
黄酒	huang2 jiu3	Yellow liquor。You might well know it as Shaoxing wine (绍兴酒). In cooking it absorbs unwanted aromas. In westernized recipes for Chinese cooking it frequently replaced with Cherry Liquor. Shaoxing Wine reminds you of the taste of dry sherry.
姜	jiang1	Ginger with it’s unique aroma and taste is widely used in cooking thought China.
淀粉	dian4 fen3	Starch. Have you ever wondered why Chinese dishes, especially vegetables have these thick texture added to them – yes this was just flour mixed with water and added at the end of cooking (ok, this is a generalization – as mentioned before soya paste for instance can be added to the steamed veggies)
味精	wei4 jing1	Monosodium glutamate， (MSG). I guess there are plenty of blogs around on this subject. I did not do any research on % of restaurants in China using MSG, but a lot of cooking books do list it as one of the ingredients.