A long-standing and widely-circulated rumour that the Forbidden City in Beijing uses 600,000 tonnes of pig’s blood each year to dispel evil has been debunked. The liquid is actually used as a form of adhesive which is painted on the famous palace’s signature red walls and pillars, according to a recently published book. The book Sitting under the Roof of the Forbidden City: Answering 50 Questions about the Forbidden City is wrote by Zhou Qian, a researcher at the palace for 20 years who is also...
From The Hindu’s archives, a look at some of major fire accidents across the country since Independence
War correspondent, jazz bandleader and impresario, KC Sen shaped Kolkata’s music scene.
“War is hell,” as the saying goes, and it is often those most intimately acquainted with conflict who are the most eager to leave it behind. This yearning for peace was underscored by a newly uncovered archaeological site from the Western Zhou dynasty (1046–771 BC) in Shaanxi province, northwest China, revealed in 2022. Researchers announced their discoveries in mid-March. Among the findings was a gravesite featuring the remains of individuals interred with broken weapons, a custom rooted in an...
Long before social media and camera lenses, ancient China had its own “paparazzi” who wielded ink, paper and a sharp tongue to unsettle the lives of the powerful. In those days, gossip was more than idle chatter; it formed an informal information network linking teahouses, stage stations, street tabloids and officialdom. During the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220), the imperial court established the Censorate, a body charged with monitoring official conduct. Its censors watched for misconduct that...
Scholar and author Sheng-Wei Wang discusses how studying an ancient Chinese world map led her to conclude China explored and mapped the world before the European Age of Discovery and how the legacy of colonialism and a Eurocentric record of global history continue to affect power dynamics today. SCMP Plus readers get early access to articles in the Open Questions series. What first made you suspect that it was Chinese explorers and not Europeans who launched the true Age of Discovery? The...
The Masters has a complicated segregated past, which include the PGA’s “Caucasian-only clause”
For most ordinary people in ancient China, using the toilet was a routine necessity. In the imperial court, however, even the most private act became a carefully staged display of status and ritual. Papermaking, one of China’s Four Great Inventions, had emerged by the Han dynasty (206 BC–220), yet paper remained too precious for daily use. Instead of toilet paper, commoners relied on leaves, pebbles, or tiles for personal cleaning, while the elite used silk or cloth. They also employed slender...
Director Annemarie Jacir on how Palestine 36 traces today’s crisis back to British colonial rule.
A new study revisits the parliamentary debates in the 1960s over linking maternity benefits to population control in India