A few years ago I was invited to dinner by some Bengali friends and when we sat down what was my surprise to see that there was a knife but no fork, even though the menu was based on rice and chicken. They used their hands to eat it and, wherever you go, do what […]
China
Rivers and seas made of mercury inside the tomb of China’s first emperor, sealed 2,200 years ago
The famous terracotta warriors are only a part of the gigantic mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of unified China, who reigned between 221 and 210 BC. In fact, the complex, located 30 kilometers east of Xian in the northwest of the country, houses more than 400 tombs covering the impressive area of […]
The spectacular coloured mountains of China and Peru
There are times when Nature seems capricious and turns something that should fall into the category of normal into a visual spectacle that, in the end, serves to draw attention to it and, paradoxically, to protect it. It happens with some of those living beings that we can consider rare and also happens in certain […]
Mellification, the process of dissolving a human body in honey to create a healing confection
Traditional medicine in Asia and the Middle East is truffled in miracle remedies based on products that, in reality, lack the slightest healing property. Cases such as the false aphrodisiac faculty of the rhinoceros horn or the use of tiger bones, in both cases endangering the respective species, are well known, but surely the most […]
The prank that caused the losing of the throne and the end of his dynasty to the Chinese king You
Within the enigmatic and unknown that, in most cases, the history of China is already for us, there are some weird episodes in which it is difficult to establish where reality ends and where the myth begins, just as it also happens with some Roman emperors, whose strange behaviour is now being called into doubt. […]