EVERYDAY LIFE · SHANG TO QING
Stories
Small questions open a window onto a different world.
Mallows, Beans and a Lamb: What People Ate in the Spring and Autumn
The ode "Seventh Month" lists a year of food — mallows, beans, dates, rice for wine, gourds, bitter herbs — with millets as staples and lamb for the year-end feast. Two meals a day; no menu survives.
One Crossbow, Fifty Paces of Wall: The Working Life of a Warring States Siege
A Qin crossbow trigger like those from the terracotta pits; a Mozi manual that assigns men, stones, water and torches to every fifty paces of wall — instructions for holding a city, not battle reports.
The Goose and the Gourd: Marriage Rules and Real Marriages in the Spring and Autumn
The ritual books set out six stages, a go-between, a gift and a ban on same-surname marriage; the Zuo Zhuan records political unions, accompanying women and one duke who took his son's bride.
How People Went to the Toilet in Warring States China
In 581 BCE a Duke of Jin fell into a privy and died. Two centuries later a Qin palace had an indoor toilet with a bent pipe and servants pouring water — the first flush toilet found in China.