Lunar Year Day 12

Day 12 - Feb  21

Diarrhea Day !!!
Perhaps a good time to contemplate some Chinese proverbs:

• Wife who put husband in doghouse soon find him in cathouse.
• War doesn't determine who is right, war determines who is left.
• A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.
• He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.

Drinking Water

A recent radio programme reviewed UK government advice on various health issues and considered how effective it was.  In particular the programme researched:
-Fruit and vegetables -5-a-day   (smoothies don't count)
-Physical exercise -150 mins per week  (going to the gym once a week  doesn't work)
- Alcohol consumption -3-4 units/day for men and 2-3 units/day for women (no-one understands what a unit is.)
The conclusions seemed to be that the public are so confused by interpretation and ill-informed advice from other sources that the government has been wasting its time. The government has exacerbated the situation itself by changing its advice in an effort at clarification.
Things are no clearer in the area of drinking water. It seems de rigeur to carry a bottle of water everywhere nowadays. When questioning this I am informed that, according to the government, we must all drink 2.5 litres of water a day. This appears to have originated from  a wartime recommendation which did, in fact, make that point but continued to say that most of this we obtain from food. It is this slipshod attitude to accuracy  that leads to confusion with sometimes tragic results.  The current advice from the NHS is that we need 2.5 litres of water per day. Of this one litre is obtained from food and 0.3 litres from 'recovery'. So we need to drink 1.2 litres of water per se.
The Mayo Clinic in USA has different advice for Americans: men need 3litres and women 2.2 litres.  Apparently in the USA only 20% of this is obtained from food. Perhaps the American diet has a lower incidence of fresh fruit and veg from which to obtain fluid?
So how is this advice dangerous?  Apart from the impact on the wallet by buying bottled water when the tap stuff (in the UK at least) is equally good, I looked at the London Marathon for some indication of how people fared in a situation where water consumption might be considered critical.   Over the thirty years from 1981-2011 ten men and one woman died during the race. Causes of death were as follows: 
Heart problems - 7
Underlying health problems - 2
Drinking too much water - 1
Inappropriate drug use - 1
Too little water - 0

Lunar Year Day 11

Day 11 - Feb20

Rest Day - or Left-overs day  2

Lunar New Year Day 10

Day 10 - Feb 19

Eating Day - or Left-overs day  l

Dowley Gap Open Day

Yesterday we took advantage of the sunshine and went to see an aqueduct  with no water.

Photo: BW

Dowley Gap is on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal between Saltaire and Bingley. The aqueduct carries the canal over the River Aire: there is also a two-step staircase lock close by.  CaRT (previously BW) is carrying out some repairs to the  structures which necessitated draining the canal: in particular, they are replacing the two lower sets of gates and refurbishing the upper set.  We joined over a thousand other visitors to walk through the empty locks and aqueduct: in fact when we arrived round midday i was number 984 so the total visitors for the day could well have been over2000.  I was told that when they held an open day at the Bingley Five-Rise a year or two ago there were 7000 visitors on the Sunday.


After a stroll  along the aqueduct and back we went to investigate the staircase lock which had been drained in order to repair and replace lock gates

On the way we passed the temporary dam constructed to keep the aqueduct (and visitors) dry.

Walking along the bottom of a deep lock like this is quite an experience.

If you were wondering how the last drop of water was drained from the lock.......

Well.....they pulled the plug out

Lunar New Year Day 9

                       Day 9 - Feb 18
The Jade Emporer who rules all 33 heavans celebrates his birthday today and we must join in by preparing three bundles of long noodles, three cups of green tea, five differnt kinds of fruit (so that's whre five-a-day originated!) and six diffeernt dry vegetables. For his guardian, who is not vegetarian, we must prepare five animal sacrifices and some turtle cakes.
Remember not to offend the Jade Emporer by putting this food on his vegetarian table.

New Year Day 8

Lunar  Year 4711

Day 8 - Feb 17

Back to work day for those who did not go back on day five
Traditionally there is a quiz night held in the temple (not the pub)
Time to eat the Laba Zhou which has been stewing all night.
In Chinese, Laba means 'gold eighth' and refers to the traditional start of celebrations for the Chinese New Year - the eighth day of the last lunar month.

This tradition has its roots in the Buddhist faith. It is said when Sakyamuni left home and strove for virtue, he fainted on the way because of hunger and tiredness. A shepherdess passing by saved him and cooked for him some porridge with glutinous rice and nuts. Then Sakyamuni sat under a bodhi tree in meditation and found Buddhism. So later the believers formed the habit of cooking Laba Zhou to commemorate it.

Inevitably there is another story about Laba Zhou but it is boring so we'll skip it.

New Year Day 7

Day 7 - Feb16

 

According to Chinese scriptures, the goddess with the snake body (size zero?) created humans on day seven from yellow mud. On the previous days she had created Chickens (day 1) dogs (2) sheep (3) pigs (4) cows (5) and horses (6).
She also gave humans sex education on that day so that they might procreate.
Celebrate this in your own way

Before you get too engrossed don't forget to get the Laba Zhou onto the stove ready for tomorrow.
Laba Zhou is a special hot porridge which contains glutinous rice, red beans, millet, Chinese sorghum, peas and some other ingredients, such as dried dates, chestnuts, walnuts, almond, peanut, dried lotus seeds etc. If you get it going by midnight it will have an attractive smell by the morning. The flavour varies from place to place, in the North, it is a dessert with sugar added; in the South, salt and seasonal vegetables are put in.

New Year Day 6

Lunar New Year

Day 6 - Feb 15

If you live in Taiwan you will know this as Good Pig Day and will go to see the big pig competition. In 2007 the winner weighed 2000lb and was sold for 1 million Taiwan dollars (£20,000). It is also customary to have the cess pit cleared today. (Not really relevant if you have Elsan)

Perfume of the (Lunar) Year

I was reminded by a regular reader of Gecko's Progress that back in our youth visits to or from ancient aunts were often accompanied by  a particular perfume: an eau de cologne called 4711.  Legend has it that the perfume was created by a Carthusian monk in the eighteenth century.

Apparently it was created as a remedy rather than a perfume and the story of how it ended up in the portfolioo of Proctor and Gamble it rather tortuous.

The story behind the name  seems to stem from a period in the history of Cologne when all the buildings were numbered in one sequence and building 4711 was occupied by the owner of the recipe.

 It is also rumoured that during WWII German submariners were issued with vast amounts of 4711 to mask the body odours which developed in the confined space.

However I have some good news for Jane and anyone who wants to relive the past:

4711 can still be purchased at    Cheap Smells.com