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Stories
Small questions open a window onto a different world.
The Donkey in the Well: Temple Illusions in Northern Wei Luoyang
At a Luoyang nunnery an entertainer skinned a donkey into a well and made dates and melons edible in a moment; the audience was spellbound — and after the wars, the record says, the show simply vanished.
Six Mu and Nine Islands: Raising Carp in Northern Wei
A Northern Wei farming manual copies an old fish-pond recipe: six mu of water with nine islands, twenty carp in February, turtles to keep the fish, and a promise of a million and a quarter cash.
A Thousand Buddhas on the Avenue: Luoyang's Image Procession
On the fourth month's seventh day the capital's images assembled at Jingming Monastery; an office counted over a thousand; on the eighth they entered the palace gate for the emperor's flowers.
A Table a Zhang Wide, and a Dish of Chives: Money and Power in Luoyang's Monasteries
Prince Yuan Yong kept six thousand servants and five hundred singers and capped a meal at tens of thousands of coins; Li Chong, rich beyond measure, ate chives, and the joke about his 'eighteen dishes' was a pun.
Preserving Meat Without a Fridge: Rice, Wine Lees and Mud
One pig killed in the twelfth month and three ways to keep it: pork packed in cooked rice until it sours, meat buried in salted wine lees, and cuts sealed in mud on the north wall.
Four Hostels and a Fish Market: Foreigners in Southern Luoyang
Northern Wei Luoyang sorted arrivals by origin into four hostels and four wards south of the Luo, granted a house after three years, and sold river fish dearer than beef.
Slave to the Milk: Wang Su, Tea and a Northern Court's Taste
A southern defector reached Luoyang in 494 refusing mutton and milk and drinking tea by the measure. Years later he ate milk gruel at the emperor's table and called tea the slave of milk.
The Tower That Rang: Yongning Monastery's Pagoda
A nine-storey timber tower ninety zhang high, a ten-zhang golden spire, 130 bells and 5,400 more on its doors: built in 516, burned in 534, alight for three months.
A Northern Wei Meal: Noodles, Roast Suckling Pig and Milk Curd
A sixth-century northern meal built without a wok: dough cut one foot or two inches at a time, a suckling pig turned over a low fire and brushed with wine, milk set with a spoon of starter and beaten into butter.