China
In China's Spring and Autumn period, chef Yi Ya served his own three-year-old son to the duke, who had joked he'd "tasted everything but human flesh." Statesman Guan Zhong warned: "One who kills his own child can abandon his lord." After Guan Zhong died, Yi Ya starved the duke to death.
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The "yang" (羊) in yokan means lamb. Originally a food made with lamb's blood in China, it was reinvented with red bean paste in Japan, where a 1,200-year meat ban made slaughtering sheep impossible. This version persists to this day.
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In Buddhism, Avalokitesvara (觀世音) was shortened to Guanyin (觀音) due to Tang dynasty Emperor Taizong (李世民). Under Chinas name taboo custom, the character 世 from the emperors name could not be used publicly. This practice also renamed government offices, influencing Korea.
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After her husband's death, Zheng Yi Sao of the Qing dynasty commanded a pirate fleet of ~400 ships and 40,000–70,000 crew—dwarfing Blackbeard's 4 ships and ~300 men. She negotiated full amnesty and retired, perhaps the most successful exit in pirate history.
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Emperor Jianwen of China's Eastern Jin dynasty sought an heir on a fortune-teller's advice. The chosen woman was Li Lingrong, a black servant called a "Kunlun Nu." She bore the emperor a son, and when her son ascended the throne, Li Lingrong became Empress Dowager.
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The original Aladdin story begins: "Once upon a time, in a village in China, there lived a boy named Aladdin." Just as Europeans exoticized the Middle East, Arabs had their own Orientalism toward China—the setting is nominally Chinese, but everything in the story is distinctly Arabian.
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The 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident sparked the Second Sino-Japanese War when a Japanese soldier went missing during roll call. He had just gone to the bathroom with diarrhea, returning 20 minutes later. But the military attacked China anyway, starting a war that killed millions.
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Metasequoia was known only from fossils over 150 million years old until living specimens were confirmed in China in 1946. Only about 4,000 trees remained at the time, and every metasequoia in the world today descends from them.
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