There’s a fruit tea brand in China called Linli (林里) that gives a free rubber duckie with each drink ordered…and boy do they get creative.
You can trade in smaller duckies to get larger duckies:
So yesterday, after finding out about this, I ordered two drinks and got these two 😁
My friend said you can “make a wish/许愿” in the delivery comments what kind of duckie you want, and sometimes your wish will be granted. So today I ordered another drink and wished for an ugly duckie, and got this 🤣🤣
Not gonna lie, great marketing because now I want to order from them just to get duckies 🦆
My cousin’s doggo named Duo Duo/多多, a chihuahua mix, she’s over 10 years old now
My cousin’s yueji/月季 (China rose) and hydrangea:
Grandpa’s flowers, the one that’s blooming is a striped Barbados lily. It’s called “柱顶红” in Chinese, meaning “red atop a pillar”; it’s also called “一炮四响” or “a canonball that explodes four times”, referring to how each flower stalk can grow 4 flowers at once
Two tiny strawberries grown by my cousin, they were pretty sweet
More of grandpa’s plants (welp I don’t think I inherited his green thumb, but I know who did……)
Grandma’s books, she was a music professor that taught kids and other teachers
A simple hot pot right after the trip to Beijing. The restaurant had freshly made bayberry (yangmei/杨梅) and mulberry (sangshen/桑葚) purees, which were great
April 20, Beijing, China, National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Part 7 – Ancient Chinese Food Culture exhibition/中国古代饮食文化展):
Happy Chinese New Year and Lunar New Year to everyone in advance! Wishing everyone success in the Year of the Snake! 祝大家蛇年吉祥，万事如意！
CNY and LNY traditions vary by region, but the one thing that is definitely shared by everyone is that there’s bound to be a family feast on the Eve (which for this year will be the 28th of January), so today’s post will be quite fitting. Let us begin with alcohol-related artifacts:
The Alcohol (酒/jiǔ)*:
Liao dynasty (916 - 1125) gold wine vessel, where this type of vessel is named zhihu/执壶. Typically when you see similarly shaped vessels in Chinese period dramas, wuxia or xianxia shows, or animated shows, regardless of the material, it’s always a wine vessel. The detailed low relief motifs of bird and flowers was crafted using repoussé and chasing techniques, together called zanke/錾刻 in Chinese:
*Note: although in this post I will be alternating between using “wine” and “alcohol” as the translation for jiu/酒, jiu can refer to all types of alcoholic drinks, and usually a descriptor will be added before jiu to create a new word for a specific type of alcoholic beverage. For example, wine would be called putaojiu/葡萄酒 in Chinese (lit. “grape alcohol”), and cocktails would be called jiweijiu/鸡尾酒 in Chinese (lit. “cocktail alcohol”). The names of traditional Chinese alcohols are descriptive in other ways, for example baijiu/白酒 (lit. “white alcohol”; actually it’s colorless) and huangjiu/黄酒 (lit. “yellow alcohol”). Beer is called pijiu/啤酒 (lit. “beer alcohol”) in Chinese, where pi/啤 is a homophonic translation of the English word beer.
Liao dynasty gold wine cups decorated with gold filigree, depicting clouds and birds:
Liao dynasty gold wine jug with a short spout in the shape of a beast head. The overall shape with flat ridges arranged vertically all around the vessel is called gualeng/瓜棱 (lit. “melon ridges”), so named because it resembles the shape of a ribbed melon.
China has a long history of making and drinking alcohol, which started at around 7000 BC. In the very beginning, alcohol was only produced in small amounts, so its use was reserved for ceremonies and celebrations. From roughly Han dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) to Northern Song dynasty (960 - 1127) was the time period during which traditional Chinese alcohol making had matured. The famous Tang-era (618 - 907 AD) drunk poet Li Bai/李白 lived during this period of time.
Warring States period (476 - 221 BC) bronze wine jug inlaid with gold and silver:
Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911) enamel wine cups:
Beishan Jiujing/《北山酒经》 or “The Classic of Wine” by Zhu Yizhong/朱翼中 of Northern Song dynasty. This book covered the history of alcohol in China, and described alcohol making methods of the time, specifically the methods used to produce alcohol on a large scale.
8 Types of bronze wine vessels from Shang (·1600 - 1046 BC) and Zhou dynasties (1046 - 256 BC):
The Tea (茶/chá):
China also has a long history of growing and drinking tea, being the country where the beverage originated from. Specifically, tea drinking first started in what is now Yunnan province, developed into a culture in Sichuan, then spread to all of China and beyond.
Qing dynasty duck-shaped tin teapot:
Qing dynasty Qianlong era (1736 - 1796) lacquered teacup, decorated with a poem by the Qianlong Emperor, the same poem as the jade gaiwan/盖碗 from the jade exhibition. The technique of decorating here is called diaoqi/雕漆, where different colored lacquer were layered onto the object, and then patterns would be carved into the thick lacquer, revealing the layers of colors.
A flowchart of the tea preparing and making process in Song dynasty (960 - 1276), called diancha/点茶, which influenced Japanese tea culture. Because of the complexity of the diancha process, it was abandoned in Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644) in favor of simply steeping tea leaves in water.
A video showing the Song-era diancha tea making process. This exact video also plays in the exhibition:
The Food (食/shí):
A Western Han dynasty (202 BC - 8 AD) small bronze hot pot, called a ranlu/染炉. Contrary to the modern Chinese hot pot where food cooked by boiling would be dipped in a bowl of room temperature condiments before eating, during Han dynasty people liked hot condiments, so this small hot pot was actually specifically for heating the condiments as people ate.
Various lacquered food containers from different dynasties.
Left: Western Han dynasty lacquered food container replica; when the original artifact was unearthed, it contained what seemed to be flatbread.
Middle: Ming dynasty 5-layered stacked lacquered food containers, held together with buttons, and decorated with diaoqi technique.
Right: Qing dynasty begonia-shaped lacquered fruit container, also decorated with diaoqi technique.
Qing dynasty tin tripod hot pot. This is a traditional Manchu hotpot, and its structure is quite similar to the classic Beijing style copper hotpot (I couldn’t find anything that confirms a connection between the two, however). Both have a central chamber in the middle for charcoal (heat source), and the cooking is done in the heated water around the central chamber. The two biggest differences are the presence/absence of the tall “chimney” structure above the central chamber, and the material used. The reason this hotpot is tin may be because copper was mostly used to mint coins during Qing dynasty.
These two books were actually on display over at the Science and Technology exhibition, but I moved them here because that post was getting a bit too long. Since both books are about agriculture, they fit into this post quite well. The book on the left is Qimin Yaoshu/《齐民要术》 by Jia Sixie/贾思勰 in Northern Wei dynasty (386 - 534 AD), translated as either “Essential Techniques for the Welfare of the People” (the more accurate translation imho) or “Essential Techniques for the Peasantry”. It is an encyclopedia on a wide range of agricultural and food processing techniques. The book on the right is Nongzheng Quanshu/《农政全书》 by Xu Guangqi/徐光启 in Ming dynasty, translated as “Complete Treatise on Agricultural Administration”. This book is also an encyclopedia that covers agricultural techniques, but also has long sections covering what to do in response to floods and famines.
Pretty interesting and self-explanatory chart on when some crops, vegetables, and fruits were introduced to China (arranged in chronological order). As one can see here, Chinese cuisine had changed a lot over the past ~3000 years, and much of the changes took place during periods when trading activities increased and new produce were introduced. The best example of this is the introduction of hot chilis in late Ming dynasty, which directly resulted in the famous mala/麻辣 flavor profile of Sichuan cuisine and heavily influenced many other Chinese regional cuisines (Hunan cuisine, Guizhou cuisine, Anhui cuisine, etc).
A diagram explaining the seating arrangement in a palace’s main hall in ancient times (top half), and the seating arrangement around a table in Southern and Northern China (bottom half). In all of these cases, the seat facing south (which also faces the entrance in traditional halls) is always reserved for the person of highest status, kind of like the seat at the head of the table. For the bottom half, the numbering indicates the order of seniority and/or inferiority (1 is the highest status).
Some examples of famous dishes from different dynasties, these are arranged in chronological order if going top to bottom, left to right:
Finally, some bonus pictures to serve as the conclusion to my brief trip to Beijing. This oil painting of the Great Wall was in the lobby of the museum, I thought it was pretty neat.
A peek at the Zhengyangmen/正阳门 gatehouse. Zhengyangmen is the southern gate (front gate) to the inner city in imperial times, today it’s the only gate of the inner city that still stands.
A closeup of the Zhengyangmen gatehouse. I think the caihua/彩画 (the colorful painting on the building; also called caihui/彩绘) here had some restoration work done on it in recent years? It looks a lot more vibrant than the caihua on other historic architecture.
This is the last museum post (long post) of the 2024 China series (PHEW), and the final posts will all be fairly short, most of them about the food I’ve had. See y'all after CNY/LNY!
Tea has been an integral part of Chinese culture for at least three millennias now, and till this day tea is a part of daily life among the majority of the population, kinda like coffee in Europe.
There’s many tea trends that have spread in Chinese social media, such as:
Suzhou green tea (Biluochun) gelato, Yunnan floral/herbal milk tea, Nanjing cheese tea, and fruits iced tea. Just to mention a few. 🍵🌺☁️🍋
Buying Emperor’s Smile (from Mo Dao Zu Shi) in the Gusu district of Suzhou, Jiangsu province. OP bought a jar of both 12% and 38%, and according to others who also bought it, it is a sour fruity wine, and because of the low alcohol content, the flavour of the baijiu is overpowered by the fruit flavour.
The shop is on Pingjiang Road (平江路), a historic district in Gusu. The street also has many other shops selling Emperor’s Smile. Another street with shops selling Emperor’s Smile is Shantang Street (山塘街), also in Gusu.
