Did a silkworm fall into a cup of tea more than 7,400 years ago: Part 2 of 2

January 4, 2018

Chinese trade with the Roman Empire started in the 1st century BC. Ships from the Roman Empire first sailed to India and bought silk, which became very popular in Rome. In fact, purple silk was worth its weight in gold.

JSTOR tells us in an article titled Greece & Rome that the Silk Trade between China and the Roman Empire took place between A. D. 90 – 130. The silk trade started earlier than that but, “Precisely how long ago the Chinese began to export their silk westward along the trade routes of Cantal Asia we do not know.”

Eventually the Roman merchants set up trading posts all the way to China and reached Canton; then traded in Chang-Cheou near today’s Shanghai.

Until 73 AD, the sea route was the only one open since the caravan routes along the Silk Road were closed at the time.

Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar (31 BC to 14 AD) earned credit for establishing trade between Rome and China.

In 166 AD, Roman travelers arrived at the Court of the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 219 AD). These Romans met powerful representative of the Han Dynasty.

About the same time, Buddhist missionaries arrived in China by ship from India and introduced Buddhism to China.

Romans spent recklessly [does this sound familiar?]. Gold left Rome and flowed to the East at such a rate that the government had to restrict imports. After a long period of prosperity in Rome, the empire entered a serious economic crisis.

This overspending ended up bankrupting the Roman Empire and the Romans couldn’t maintain the hundreds of thousands of troops needed to protect their empire contributing to the collapse of the empire and ushering in the dark ages.


From the history of silk, we learn how much wealth [today’s billionaires] shapes governance.

Return to or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

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Did a silk worm fall into a cup of tea more than 7,400 years ago: Part 1 of 2

January 3, 2018

I’ve often read about the Silk Road, but I was curious and wanted to know more about the history of silk.


Inside a Chinese silk factory

Silk has a long history in China. In 1984, silk fabric dating back more than five-thousand years was found in Henan Province.


Making cloth from a silkworm

According to legend, Lei Zu, the queen of China’s legendary Yellow Emperor, was drinking a cup of tea beneath a mulberry tree one day when a silkworm cocoon fell into her cup. Further investigation revealed that the unraveling fibers were light and tough, ripe for spinning.

And that is allegedly how China’s silk industry was born.


How silk is made

Then I learned that merchants from the Roman Empire sent ships by sea to China and traded directly with the Han Dynasty for silk. We’ll discover more about this in Part 2.

Continued in Part 2 on January 4, 2018

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

Where to Buy

Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

About iLook China

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Several thousand years ago in China there was Music

January 2, 2018

The first few weeks of 2018 will focus on China’s long history starting with the earliest known musical instrument found in China.

Music in China is traditionally associated with ritual observances and government affairs.

In 1999, Chinese archeologists unearthed what is believed to be the oldest known playable instrument, a seven-holed flute fashioned about 9,000 years ago from the hollow wing bone of a large bird.

To establish the age of the flute, a U.S. chemist at the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory analyzed data from carbon-14 dating done in China on materials taken from the site. “The flutes may be the earliest complete, playable, tightly-dated, multinote musical instruments.”

The 9,000-year-old flutes were “exquisitely-crafted” from the wing bone of a red-crowned crane.

In The Book of Songs, an ancient collection of Chinese poetry from the 11th to the 7th century BC, the three-hole Yue is the most frequently mentioned wind instrument, but by the Tang Dynasty (618 – 906 AD), the Yue had all but vanished.

Discover China’s First Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi,
the man that unified China more than 2,000 years ago.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

Where to Buy

Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

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In China, there is the Gregorian New Year and the Lunar New Year

December 27, 2017

In China, it’s possible to celebrate a new year twice each year in different months – once during the western New Year based on the Gregorian calendar (December 31, 2017), and a second time during the Lunar New Year (February 16, 2018).


December 31, 2016, in Beijing

The earliest recorded festivities to welcome a new year date back some 4,000 years to ancient Babylon. For the Babylonians, the first new moon following the vernal equinox, a day in late March with an equal amount of sunlight and darkness, announced the start of a new year.

If the first recorded New Year’s celebration was in March, why was it moved to January 1st? The answer may be found at History.com where we discover that Emperor Julius Cesar introduced the Julian calendar, which closely resembles the more modern Gregorian calendar that most countries use today, and Cesar made January 1st the first day of the year, partly to honor the month’s namesake, Janus, the Roman god of beginnings.


December 31, 2016, in Hong Kong

The Chinese Lunar New Year gained significance because of several myths and traditions. History.com reports, “The ancient Chinese calendar, on which the Chinese New Year is based, functioned as a religious, dynastic and social guide. Oracle bones inscribed with astronomical records indicate that it existed as early as the 14th century BC, when the Shang Dynasty was in power (1600 – 1046 B.C.).”

Traditionally, the lunar new year festival was a time to honor deities (gods) as well as ancestors, and it is celebrated in countries and territories that have large Chinese populations, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mauritius, and the Philippines.


Lunar New Year Celebration at Shanghai Disneyland in early 2017

For readers who haven’t been to China, this is your chance to experience what it is like to live in a country with more than 1.3 billion people. In China, during major national holidays, there are a lot of people on the move and it becomes so crowded on trains and buses during this time, it’s possible for a passenger to end up standing for a trip that might take hours because the more expensive seats were sold out.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

Where to Buy

Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

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Let there be Dragons

December 26, 2017

I’m guilty. I like dragons. I even have a character in Becoming Merlin, my next novel, and that character can shapeshift and become a Chinese or Western dragon. The choice is up to Merlin what he wants to be.

The Chinese Year of the Dragon was in 2012 and the next time dragons will arrive is 2024.

In Western culture, dragons have wings, spews flames, eats women and young children, and is often killed by knights in shining armor.  Even in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the dragon is a monster that terrorizes, kills and hoards gold.

But, in China, dragons are seldom depicted as evil.  To most Chinese, the dragon may be fearsome and powerful but the creature is often considered fair, benevolent, and the bringer of wealth and good fortune. Dragons also appear in ancient Chinese literature. In fact, Chinese dragons are considered wise too.

Instead of flying, Chinese dragons are seen as water creatures that live in lakes, rivers, and oceans. One-quarter of the night sky is called the Palace of the Green Dragon and the dragon constellation is said to predict rain. The dragon is also the fifth sign of the Chinese zodiac.

When Buddhism arrived in China, dragon symbolism was adopted by that religion, and in Beijing, there is the famous Nine Dragon Screen as seen in the next video.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

Where to Buy

Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese literature, cultural differences | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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