Black Dragon Cafe

230-year-old tortoise dies
(From ChinaDaily.com: ) Updated: 2006-12-26 09:44

A rare 230-year-old tortoise died at Shanghai Zoo recently, where it lived for 35 years, leaving only four of the species left in the world.

The zookeeper said the tortoise was found in Gejiu, Yunnan Province, in 1971. The rare species has only been found in two regions in China the Taihu Lake in Jiangsu Province and the Honghe River in Yunnan Province. The zoo was saddened by the loss as it considered the tortoise to be in good condition. But a post-mortem examination showed its liver was damaged.

(Shanghai Morning Post )

Actually a turtle, Rafetus swinhoei , commonly known as the Shanghai soft-shell turtle or Yangtze giant soft-shell turtle, it had a shell one and half meters long when it died. More information in English at the asiaturtlenetwork.org and Wikipedia. Of the four left, only two are together (in the Western Temple, Suzhou), of venerable age and sex unknown, so the chance of them getting their Darwinian freak on are depressingly slim.

I found these in an online book about Chinese superstitions. My favourite:

It is taboo for a pregnant woman to put an onion in her armpit : If this taboo is broken, the child will be born with bad body odour. (From Zhengzhou, Henan province).

Why a pregnant woman would wander around with onions under her arms is not clear. Some of the superstitions were not all bad, such as the mother should be given whatever she wants to eat, the reason given that her craving is actually the baby’s craving, fulfilling the baby’s needs. However, the result of denying her that food was that the deprived child would be born with “red eyes” (红眼病), this means literally bloodshot eyes, but also the Chinese belief that red eyes is synonymous with jealousy / covetousness (corresponding to green eyes, green-eyed monster in the West).

Other pregnancy taboos about foods that are forbidden for the expectant mother to eat include:

Fish: (Also from Henan) If the pregnant mother eats fish, her child will be born with scales. In ancient times, it was believed that pregnant mothers who ate dried carp would give birth to a child suffering from bad skin.

Dog: Dog meat is believed to be a good food for warming the body, so is eaten in winter and is especially popular in northern China. However, in Heilongjiang, it is taboo for pregnant women to eat dog meat in case their children are born wanting to bite people, which will cause the mother trouble when feeding the baby (ow). Henan also has this taboo – in Yucheng county in the east of the province it is black dog meat (the finest dog flesh) should be avoided, as it can cause birth defects and miscarriage. In times past, Han Chinese also held the same taboo believing it would lead to a difficult labour.

Crab: (Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Taiwan) Eating crab will cause a difficult labour in which the baby is born sideways, a belief said to have been recorded as far back as the Song Dynasty (食螃蟹，令子横生). It is also said that the child will drool, with bubbles coming out of its mouth just like a crab. In Taiwan they say the child will claw at peoples hands and feet (an ankle biter?)

Soft-shelled Turtle: An old superstition that says the child will be born short necked (短项), connected with the way the turtle withdraws its head back into its shell.

Plum and pear: Another ancient superstition, that eating these fruit will make the child blind . The pear is already a “cold” (寒) foodstuff according to traditional Chinese medicine, so the expecting mother shouldn’t eat it anyway.

Rabbit: The child will be born with a cleft lip (looking like a rabbit’s mouth).

Donkey: The child will be stubborn and misbehave, not listening to his parents (just like a donkey).

Cockerel: The baby will cry at night.

Ginger: To prevent the child having six fingers.

(Chinese) Soft-shelled turtle 鳖 bie1 Other official names: 甲鱼, 团鱼, in English it also known by its Japanese name, Suppon. Their most distinguishing feature is the long pointed snout that allows them to snorkel with just their nostrils above the water surface. Their soft shells are actually soft, being made up mostly of thickened skin. For more see www.answers.com/topic/chinese-softshell-turtle and a very detailed description www.anapsid.org The soft-shelled turtle is used in Chinese traditional medicine, and apart from being good for lowering fever, night sweats and “steaming bones”*, it is also valued for increasing male potency (壮阳 ). I’m guessing the phallic connection is why the colloquial name for the turtle – 王八 wang2 ba1 – is also a term of abuse, as 王八 or 王八蛋 (literally “turtle egg”) equivalent to bastard or son-of-a-bitch.

Here is a Soft-shelled Turtle with Cream Sauce, from the Suzhou Government Website	And a Common Soft-shelled Turtle from Blue Ridge Biological
And an (American) Eastern Spiny Soft-Shell from Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre

Image source: Prunus salicina fruit, flower
Prunus mume fruit, flower

A Nakhi friend of ours, Okui, turned up today with his family and friends. They’d come to Dali to carry out tshethar – the Buddhist practise of releasing animals back into the wild. In fact, it was more his friend Yongshun who was the devout religious one; for Okui and the others it was more just a good day out for the kids, all of whom were clutching black plastic bags filled with turtles, crabs and eels they’d picked up at the market.

Unfortunately, after the ten of us had all squeezed into the van one of the bags broke spraying eels across the floor. I missed most of the scenery on the way to the lake, scrabbling around trying to collect the little buggers and wondering what that meant for my karma.

On the boat, the children decided that the turtles were the most entertaining of the animals, and played with them like toy cars. The excitement was briefly broken by Yongshun saying Tibetan prayers over them, blessing them with peace, health and long life, before the kids gave the turtles their baptism into freedom by lobbing them hand-grenade style across the water.

The black plastic carrier bags of eels were then unceremoniously dumped from the side of the boat, but it turned out that the crabs (huge things, their shells bigger than my outstretched hand) were, not for freedom but for dinner. This, along with the prayer beads made of ivory, didn’t really fit into my understanding of the karmic balance.

There was a twist to the tale as during the drive to a lakeside restaurant the van suddenly swerved left to right in zigzags down the road before rolling to a slow stop on the verge. Yongshun stumbled out from the drivers seat holding a massive crab, which had managed to escape and run down the length of the van, then insert itself under the brake pedal, so that we were effectively without brakes (unless he braked very hard).

We arrived at the restaurant without further incident, and Yongshun told me (over steamed crab) that nowadays among the Nakhi people there are very few who believe in the old Dongba shamanistic tradition. Though increasing freedom has meant that interest in religion has grown, the majority tend to believe in the pick and mix faith: a bit of Tibetan Buddhism, a bit of Han Chinese Buddhism, a bit of local superstition, a bit of Daoism. Most people go along with whatever local practices have sprung up: it can’t hurt to throw your coin in the wishing well, just on the off-chance.

Tibetan Buddhism has become increasingly popular among a wide section of Yunnanese, especially for the 30-somethings. For many Chinese, Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism have the same grip on the imagination that they do in the West, a certain mysterious cachet that has grown over the last few years, partly because so many blatant abuses have been observed in monks of the Han Chinese Buddhism (not observing their own rules, taking a lot of money, in Kunming they’re even seen hailing taxis to go to the KTV). Then there is increased tourism and accessibility of Tibet, and its portrayal in popular culture such as through singer Han Hong [韩红] (whose popularity is a mystery in itself) and the best-selling novel Zang Ao [藏獒 "Tibetan Mastiff"].