Ming
Daily Life
Food, homes & daily routines
Written by an Empress, Spoken by a Mother, Admitted by a Historian: Three Voices on Ming Women
An empress divided a woman's life into twenty chapters; a mother said a few hundred characters were enough; a historian admitted that exemplary women were chosen. Three texts, three positions — none of them 'Ming women'.
A Stone, Six Dou of Rice: How a Ming Scholar Began
Community schools, prefectural schools, monthly rice and a six-grade examination: where a Ming education began. The Qing compilers of the Ming History recorded the rules, and how they lapsed.
What Colour Could an Ordinary Person Wear? Cloth, Dyes and One Penalty in Ming China
A Ming craft manual gives recipes for thirty-odd colours, from safflower red to indigo black. The Ming code punished some of them. What the two records can, and cannot, say about an ordinary person's clothes.
Two Horns on a Fish: Dress, Badges and Rank in Ming China
In 1537 the emperor spotted a python robe on a second-rank minister and asked why a flying fish had two horns. Ming rules fixed rank by badge, cap ridge, robe colour and belt — and fined the dyer who helped.