Crazy facts about the history.
It is well known that from our modern point of view, all ancient States were quite strange. But ancient China is generally some kind of parallel world with its own laws and traditions.
They were cooking eggs in the urine of little boys
What seems to us utter savagery, in the Chinese Zhejiang province considers a delicacy and has the status of a traditional food called Tossidin (literally: “egg boy”). In the European press this recipe was first described in 1891 and, at that time already in China, this tradition had a long history. The essence of the recipe is the following: for cooking, which the local residents considered a “spring delicacy”, eggs boiled in urine collected exclusively by boys who have not reached puberty. For this purpose, the schools of the region even create a special bucket. Once the liquid boils eggs extracted from it and slightly naduvayut the shell to the urine has penetrated inside the egg. Further, the boiling continues, this process usually takes a full day, when boiling add urine. Once the shell cracks, salty taste is considered a delicacy ready to eat.
They bandaged the girls legs, disfiguring their feet
This custom in China was very prevalent since the beginning of X to the beginning of the XX century, especially in aristocratic families. It all began from an early age, when the foot in girls is not yet fully developed. The first bandaging is often started in the fall or winter, so the cold decreased sensitivity to pain and reduced risk of infection. In the formation of the “stop Lotus”, which lasted for several years, girls have had to break the bones of the feet and toes. Naturally, such treatments often resulted in infection and necrosis. However, often the necrosis provoked specifically to the toes simply fell off, it was considered a good sign. In General, this practice is associated with the fact that the prestige of the bride is directly dependent on the size of your feet. As girls with “Lotus feet” were not able to walk properly after all these procedures, they are often transferred servants. Thus, the inability of the independent movement, was evidence of prosperity and security of her family. Well, as usual, undeformed feet associated with peasant labor and low birth.
They are very peculiar understood the term “hygiene”
Unpleasant body odor and Chinese aristocrats and noblemen was considered a sign of barbarism and belonging to lower strata of society. In order to hide or mask the unpleasant smell they were some tricks. Women, for example, tied the bags with the spices to his waist, and men, in the presence of the Emperor had to suck cloves to in any case not to embarrass royals unpleasant smell from your mouth. While simple peasants, especially in the Northern part of China, were washed very rarely. In the winter and even preferred to stay away from the water, fearing that contact with water in the cold season will make them susceptible to disease. Taoists, for example, believed that bathing spreads disease and therefore did not wash at all.
If they are your lice
Another oddity, which directly follows from the previous one. If a large part of the population is alien to the concept of sanitation and hygiene, it is not surprising that the whole country is literally swarming with lice and parasites. Lice in ancient China was so widespread that doctors in those days, even put him diagnoses his patients. For example, if crawling lice evenly throughout the body of the patient, it was a good sign and you could say that he is likely to survive. If lice clambered over the body and fled from him like rats from a ship, a man, in their opinion, was close to death. Lice were so numerous that many people simply caught them out of their heads and ate them. The ancient Chinese even had a special medicine for those who ate too many lice and got food poisoning.
They castrated themselves
To the poor person is not of noble birth, to work in the Palace of the Emperor was the unprecedented success and real winning ticket, which was given a chance to get out of poverty. There was one problem: to work as servants of the Emperor could only eunuchs. It got to the point that many parents have castrated their children at an early age, to increase the chances of their offspring getting this to work. However, if the parents are not attended to this, that men themselves had to castrate yourself. Semicastrate reached its peak during the Ming dynasty. At some point the country had more than 100 thousand eunuchs. That’s just the work received is not one of them. The contest was about 250 people in the place. So many this procedure was done in vain. And instead of working in the Palace, were beggars on the porch.
They invented and widely used pig toilets
Until the industrial revolution the main source of livelihood throughout the world, including in China, remained agriculture and livestock. But at a certain point in China was not enough food even to meet its own needs, not to mention the fattening of domestic animals. And then resourceful the ancient Chinese invented “swine toilet”. This is essentially a conventional toilet, only a pit latrine it is connected to the pigsty by means of a chute or hole. Thus pigs disposed of human feces, eating them. This is one of the oldest Chinese traditions. The earliest pig toilets were found in the graves of Han dynasty — 206 BC — 220 ad Today, Chinese authorities strongly recommend the use of pig toilets, because eating such pork carries a significant risk to human health. However, in some remote Northern provinces, they are still used today.
They tried to fight diseases with the help of active immunity, but very peculiar
As you know, the first working vaccine against smallpox was created by the Englishman Edward Jenner in 1803. But attempts to treat like with like were made before, including in ancient China. So, for example, to develop human immunity to smallpox, they took smallpox scabs from the patient, rubbed them into powder and after storage was injected with silver tubes healthy people in the nose. Children often wore the shirt of the patient and even passed through the skin of a silk thread impregnated with the contents of pustules.
Despite the fact that they invented toilet paper, they considered her use of the disgusting thing
It is the Chinese invented paper. They decided to use it to wipe my ass after using the toilet. But the irony is that when the toilet paper has just appeared, presumably about the year 600, it was considered to be a galoot invention. Centuries passed before it became used everywhere. For example, in 1393, according to historical records, the Imperial court used 720 thousand sheets of toilet paper. All of it is exported and dumped in a pile, which at some point of the camp is so huge that the people received the name of elephant mountain. Nevertheless, in the first years after the invention, to use toilet paper people are not in a hurry. One of the Arabian travellers, after visiting China, wrote about the locals: “Some people here don’t care about his hygiene. Instead use water after they done their business, they just rubbed themselves with paper”.
They loved to come up with the most sophisticated methods of torture
Torture is used in any country of the ancient world, so far without it. But in ancient China there is a huge number of species. Of all of them were particularly cruel. And subjected to torture not only convicted criminals. The code of the Qing dynasty, for example, there are about 4 thousand crimes, deserving of torture. The Chinese should be given credit, not every psychopath you think up such gruesome and cruel torture, which they applied to criminals. Well, for example: there was a special “barrel” inside, studded with sharp needles. Using this barrel for the hair dragged the victim, the needle broke her flesh. Nearby stood a second executioner with a bowl of salt water and slowly spray it on the bloodied body of the victim.
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