Song
Daily Life
Food, homes & daily routines
A List of Things: What Was Inside a Song House
A Southern Song market list records tables, stools, bamboo beds, summer mats, a bamboo bolster called the 'bamboo wife', washbasins, a chamber pot, a bronze hand-warmer and charcoal cakes.
Double Ninth in Song China: Named Chrysanthemums, Lion Cakes and Palace Lanterns
In Song China the ninth day of the ninth month brought five named chrysanthemums, flour lions on steamed cakes, hilltop feasts and, in the palace, chrysanthemum lanterns lit as at New Year.
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.
Beating the Spring Ox: The First Day of Spring in Song China
The day before spring began, Kaifeng's prefecture sent an ox into the palace to be whipped; outside its own gate, the same morning, townspeople sold toy oxen and paper banners.
A Street of Specialists: Doctors and Drug Shops in Song China
North along Maxing Street in Song Kaifeng the shops were sorted by body part: teeth and throat, children, childbirth. Lin'an added a named drug market and a guild roster that conscripted physicians.
Four Days Before the Fifth: Buying a Song Festival
From the first of the fifth month Kaifeng's stalls sold peach, willow, hollyhock and mugwort. Six goods made the festival list, the fancy dumplings were built into towers, and every door set out a basin, even the poor.
A Basin, a Hairpin and a One-Year-Old's Choice: Welcoming a Baby in Song China
In Song Lin'an a baby's first month ended at a silver basin of scented water, where guests threw in coins; at one year the child picked an object from a spread of seals, books, scales and needles.
Two Cards and a Flowered Sedan Chair: How a Song Wedding Ran
A Song wedding began with two cards listing property, not with a couple meeting. Then came the hairpin, the grain thrown at the gate, the tied hair and the shared cup: a script the two capitals ran differently.