Problem: Xi Jinping (; Chinese: Xi Jin Ping ; pinyin: Xi Jinping; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician currently serving as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, President of the People's Republic of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission. As Xi holds the top offices of the party, the state, and the military, he is sometimes referred to as China's "paramount leader"; in 2016, the party officially gave him the title of "core" leader.

Xi Jinping was born in Beijing on 15 June 1953. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 by Mao Zedong, Xi's father held a series of posts, including propaganda chief, vice-premier, and vice-chairman of the National People's Congress. Xi's father is from Fuping County, Shaanxi, and Xi could further trace his patrilineal descent from Xiying in Dengzhou, Henan. He is the second son of Xi Zhongxun and his wife Qi Xin.  In 1963, when Xi was age 10, his father was purged from the Party and sent to work in a factory in Luoyang, Henan. In May 1966, Xi's secondary education was cut short by the Cultural Revolution, when all secondary classes were halted for students to criticise and fight their teachers. The Xi family home was ransacked by student militants and one of Xi's sisters, Xi Heping, was killed. Later, his own mother was forced to publicly denounce him as Xi was paraded before a crowd as an enemy of the revolution. Xi was aged 15 when his father was imprisoned in 1968 during the Cultural Revolution; Xi would not see his father again until 1972. Without the protection of his father, Xi was sent to work in Liangjiahe Village, Wen'anyi Town, Yanchuan County, Yan'an, Shaanxi, in 1969 in Mao Zedong's Down to the Countryside Movement. After a few months, unable to stand rural life, he ran away to Beijing. He was arrested during a crackdown on deserters from the countryside and sent to a work camp to dig ditches. He later became the Party branch secretary of the production team, leaving that post in 1975. When asked about this experience later by Chinese state television, Xi recalled, "It was emotional. It was a mood. And when the ideals of the Cultural Revolution could not be realised, it proved an illusion."  From 1975 to 1979, Xi studied chemical engineering at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University as a "Worker-Peasant-Soldier student", where engineering majors spent about one-fifth of their time studying Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong thought, doing farm work and "learning from the People's Liberation Army".  From 1979 to 1982, Xi served as secretary for his father's former subordinate Geng Biao, the then vice premier and secretary-general of the Central Military Commission. This gained Xi some military background. In 1985, as part of a Chinese delegation to study U.S. agriculture, he stayed in the home of an American family in the town of Muscatine, Iowa. This trip, and his two-week stay with a U.S. family, is said to have had a lasting impression upon him and his views on the United States.  From 1998 to 2002, he studied Marxist philosophy and ideological education in an "on-the-job" postgraduate programme at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, again at Tsinghua University, and obtained a Doctor of Law (LLD) degree, which was a degree covering fields of law, politics, management, and revolutionary history, though commentators have questioned this qualification.

Was Xi involved in the Cultural Revolution?

Answer with quotes: Xi was aged 15 when his father was imprisoned in 1968 during the Cultural Revolution; Xi would not see his father again until 1972.


Problem: The Dubliners were an Irish folk band founded in Dublin in 1962. The band started off as The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group, named in honour of its founding member; they subsequently renamed themselves as The Dubliners. The group line-up saw many changes over their fifty-year career. However, the group's success was centered on lead singers Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew.

Drew spent some time in Spain in his younger years where he learned to play Flamenco guitar, and he accompanied his songs on a Spanish guitar. Drew left the band in 1974 to spend more time with his family, and was replaced by Jim McCann. He returned to The Dubliners five years later, but left the group again in 1995. Ronnie Drew died at St Vincent's Private Hospital in Dublin on 16 August 2008 after a long illness. Paddy Reilly took Drew's place in 1995. Some of Drew's most significant contributions to the band are the hit single "Seven Drunken Nights", his rendition of "Finnegan's Wake", and "McAlpine's Fusiliers".  Luke Kelly was more of a balladeer than Drew, and he played chords on the five-string banjo. Kelly sang many defining versions of traditional songs like "The Black Velvet Band", "Whiskey in the Jar", "Home Boys Home"; but also Phil Coulter's "The Town I Loved So Well", Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town", "The Wild Rover", and "Raglan Road", written by the famous Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh. In 1980, Luke Kelly was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Occasionally Kelly was too ill to sing though he was sometimes able to join the band for a few songs. While on tour in Germany he collapsed on stage. When Kelly was too ill to play, he was replaced by Sean Cannon. He continued to tour with the band until two months before his death. Kelly died on 30 January 1984. One of the last concerts in which he took part was recorded and released: Live in Carre, recorded in Amsterdam, Netherlands, released in 1983. In November 2004, the Dublin city council voted unanimously to erect a bronze statue of Luke Kelly. Kelly is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.  Ciaran Bourke was a singer, but he also played the guitar, tin whistle and harmonica. He sang many songs in Irish ("Peggy Lettermore", "Preab san Ol"). In 1974 he collapsed on stage after suffering a brain haemorrhage. A second haemorrhage left him paralysed on his left side. Bourke died in 1988. The band did not officially replace him until his death.  John Sheahan and Bobby Lynch joined the band in 1964. They had been playing during the interval at concerts, and usually stayed on for the second half of the show. When Luke Kelly moved to England in 1964, Lynch was taken on as his temporary replacement. When Kelly returned in 1965, Lynch left the band and Sheahan stayed. According to Sheahan, he was never (and still has not been) ever officially asked to join the band. Sheahan is the only member to have had a musical education. Lynch committed suicide in Dublin in 1982.

Who else was in the original band?

Answer with quotes:
Luke Kelly