EVERYDAY LIFE · SHANG TO QING
Stories
Small questions open a window onto a different world.
Spade, Knife, Ring: What Money Looked Like in the Warring States
Warring States coins were cast in the shapes of tools; a Qin statute adds the rules — cloth of legal size, eleven coins to the bolt, no refusing bad coin, a thousand coins sealed in a basket.
How a Spring and Autumn State Counted Its People
In 590 BCE Lu levied armour by the 'qiu'; in 589 Chu counted households before marching; at An, Jin asked for eight hundred chariots. How the counting was done is not recorded.
Water on Four Sides: The Warehouse Business of Song Lin'an
Inside Lin'an's north water gate, palace and wealthy households built dozens of warehouses with thousands of rooms, let by the month to shops and travelling merchants — water on all sides for fire and thieves.
Dressed for the Job: Reading Occupation from Clothes in Song Cities
In Song Kaifeng, Meng Yuanlao wrote, you could tell a man's trade from his clothes. The statutes read differently: commoners in white, traders only in black or white, no purple.
The Song Summer: Ice-Cold Rice Balls and a List of Cold Drinks
Kaifeng's summer night market sold iced rice balls, liquorice ice water and lychee paste in red lacquered boxes; only two shops outside the old gate sold ice itself, in silver vessels.
Baskets, Small Fish and 'Cat Correction': The Cat Trade of Song Cities
Lin'an's register of small trades lists cat baskets, cat fish, cat selling and a mysterious 'cat-and-dog correction'; Kaifeng delivered cat food and small fish daily.
Sweet Water on the Buddha: The Business of the Buddha's Birthday
On the Buddha's birthday, Kaifeng's monasteries shared fragrant sweet water; in Lin'an monks walked the great houses ladling it over bronze images 'to seek alms', while West Lake held a release-of-life market.
Ox Marrow, Clove and Safflower: Face Cream in Sixth-Century China
A sixth-century farming manual ends its chapter on safflower with a cosmetic workshop: marrow and clove for face cream, safflower and sour pomegranate for rouge. One ingredient, lead white, was toxic.
Washed with Yellow Mud: Making White Sugar in Ming China
Packed into a clay cone and washed with yellow mud water, Ming dark sugar came out as white frost, in five grades. Rock sugar was a separate process, not a finer grade of the same thing.