Hello and welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
This is Bei Bei.
Things have been going in the right direction for the ancient Chinese.
According to our last few episodes, there were houses with indoor heating, by which I mean fire.
They had roasted meat and wild fruit.
People had never eaten so well before.
So what happens? when people have enough to eat and not too much to worry about.
Well, they have more babies.
So it didn't take that long for supply and demand for food to be out of balance again.
People then suffered from hunger and also illnesses.
Same question, what to do?
Someone extraordinary always comes along.
This time, let's welcome Mr Curious the botanist, someone with the inquisitive mind of a scientist and the heart and courage of a divine savior.
Mr. Curious, the botanist loved to study plants.
He went into the mountains every day to pick all kinds of plants.
He studied them closely, tasted them carefully, and selected the ones that were edible.
He introduced these safe plants to the others as new sources of food.
One day, Mr. Curious the botanist went up the mountains again.
As he was enjoying the charming view, he heard some chirping sound.
He followed the sound and found a few birds busy pecking on the ground.
He wanted to see what they were doing, but the birds fluttered away as he approached.
But they left something behind.
Little strands of grass with tiny seeds on them.
That's right, birds have been eating all kinds of seeds way before we discovered them.
Mr Curious, the botanist, popped some of the seeds into his own mouth and found that they tasted quite good.
He gathered more of those seeds and brought them home.
Maybe they would taste even better when cooked.
He added some water in the pot and threw the seeds in.
The water came to a boil and slowly, as the seeds soaked up water, a very pleasant fragrance drifted from the pot.
When the seeds were all swelled up and became soft, Mr. Curious tasted them again.
Wow, they were sweet and chewy.
How wonderful!
Mr. Curious, the botanist, was a man who loved to share.
He was so excited about his new discovery that he asked all his fellow villagers to come and taste some.
Everyone loved it.
What is it?
Well, no one could argue that Mr. Curious had the right to name it, and he called it 果 or grains.
One small pot was certainly not enough.
His villagers were eager to have more.
Let's go get more and cook them all.
But Mr. Curious shook his head.
He explained, if we cook all of them, there would only be enough for one meal.
But if we plant them, a lot more seeds will grow from each single one.
We keep doing that and we will not run out of grains.
That sounded very reasonable.
So people followed Mr Curious into the mountains and collected more of those seeds and planted them.
But the soil was all hard and filled with rocks.
It was nearly impossible to break the ground loose with bare hands.
Mr. Curious was more than just the botanist.
He suddenly had the image of wild boars rooting the ground with their snouts.
Can we make something like that to turn over the soil?
He found a few pieces of wood and made something similar to a shovel that we have today.
After many modifications, he also made other forms of farm tools.
Just like that, Mr. Curious, the botanist, started farming.
They tilled the land and planted the seeds they have found.
Ever since then, people have had much more reliable sources of food.
Life was getting much more stable.
Because of his incredible discoveries, Mr Curious the Botanist was nominated as the tribe leader and people honored him with the title Shen Nong, the Divine Farmer, or God of Agriculture.
Shen Nong's tribe had a bull as its symbol.
As the techniques of farming spread, More and more people got to know Shen Nong, and slowly he came to be known as a figure with a human body but a bull's head.
Some even thought that he was sent from heaven to teach people how to farm so they would not starve.
You probably agree with me that the invention of farming is already a big deal.
But this is not what Shen Nong is best known for.
Well, what other feat could trump the invention of farming?
What about medicine?
What follows is the story of the discovery of Chinese herbal medicine.
Humans have always been plagued by all kinds of diseases and also poisonings.
Back in the ancient times, there was no hospital and people didn't know what medicine meant.
Someone got sick?
Too bad.
Not much that anyone could do to help.
That is, until Mr. Curious, the botanist, came along.
He was always thinking about how to make people's lives better.
Every day, he roamed the mountains, studying all kinds of plants.
And slowly he discovered that some plants made people feel sick and others could make sick people feel better.
With this discovery, Shen Nong decided to taste all the plants that he could find to get to know their properties.
He wanted to find out which ones made people sick and which ones could make people feel better again.
In fact, legend has it that Shen Nong had a magical red whip.
He only needed to strike the plants to find out their properties.
Yeah, if only.
When Chinese people think of the name Shen Nong, the thought always comes with three other characters attached.
Chang Bai Cao, which means tasting hundreds of different kinds of plants.
And that's why he's also known as the god of Chinese herbal medicine.
Every day, he risked his life trying different plants that were unknown to man.
One can imagine how often he was poisoned.
In fact, according to legends, Shen Nong died from tasting a plant so toxic that he died before he could cure himself.
And that plant came to be known as the heartbreak grass, a very potent poison that people have learned to stay away from.
What Shen Nong learned from his herb-tasting expeditions were passed down the generations and eventually became the oldest book of Chinese traditional medicine, known as Shen Nong Bai Cao Jing, or the classic of herbal medicine.
And besides all these farming and Chinese medicine, Shen Nong is also known for inventing pottery and other cooking utensils.
I would really like to talk more about this important historical figure, but maybe another time.
Before I wrap up though, Did I mention that it was Shen Nong who discovered tea, which is so important to Chinese people?
And he said it's good for you.
Alright, bellies filled and sicknesses cured.
What other improvements did the ancient Chinese need?
We'll find out in our next episode.
So hope to see you then.
Bye for now.
If you've got any questions or feedback, please feel free to contact us via email at podcast at cricomcn or find us on Twitter China Plus Pods.
