What was a guarded secret in china

She will be posting them here on the Plank over the next few weeks:. Details of the Olympics' Opening Ceremony are a closely guarded state secret, which naturally has fueled massive speculation here in Beijing. Many observers, newspapers, art critics, taxi drivers, melon sellers, and mahjong players have all cast guesses as to what the dominant theme will be: China's ascent onto the world stage? A version of China's creation myth Athens drew upon Greek mythology?

Anyway, today a Chinese friend called me over to his computer to watch a video. Apparently, a few outtakes from a recent dress rehearsal had been leaked to a South Korean television station, which in turn linked its broadcast online.

The grainy video showed scenes with a great blue and green globe; a projection of whales on the roof of the theater; and rows of tai chi performers in white silk robes. The technique and process of sericulture were guarded secrets and closely controlled by Chinese authorities. Anyone who revealed the secrets or smuggled the silkworm eggs or cocoons outside of China would be punished by death.

It was permitted only to the emperor, his close relations and the very highest of his dignitaries. Within the palace, the emperor is believed to have worn a robe of white silk; outside, he, his principal wife, and the heir to the throne wore yellow, the color of the earth. Gradually the various classes of society began wearing tunics of silk, and silk came into more general use. As well as being used for clothing and decoration, silk was quite quickly put to industrial use by the Chinese.

This was something which happened in the West only in modern times. Silk, indeed, rapidly became one of the principal elements of the Chinese economy. Silk was used for musical instruments, fishing-lines, bowstrings, bonds of all kinds, and even rag paper, the word's first luxury paper. Eventually even the common people were able to wear garments of silk. During the Han Dynasty, silk ceased to be a mere industrial material and became an absolute value in itself.

Farmers paid their taxes in grain and silk. Silk began to be used for paying civil servants and rewarding subjects for outstanding services. Values were calculated in lengths of silk as they had been calculated in pounds of gold.

Before long it was to become a currency used in trade with foreign countries. This use of silk continued during the Tang as well. It is possible that this added importance was the result of a major increase in production. It found its way so thoroughly into the Chinese language that of the 5, most common characters of the mandarin "alphabet" have silk as their "key".

Sericulture reached Korea around BC, when waves of Chinese immigrants arrived there. Silk reached the West through a number of different channels. Shortly after AD , sericulture traveled westward and the cultivation of the silkworm was established in India.

It is also said that in AD , a prince of Khotan today's Hetian --a kingdom on the rim of Taklamakan desert -- courted and won a Chinese princess. The princess smuggled out silkworm eggs by hiding them in her voluminous hairpiece. This was scant solace to the silk-hungry people of the West, for Khotan kept the secret too.

Why share it with the westerners and kill a good market? Then around AD , two Nestorian monks appeared at the Byzantine Emperor Justinian's court with silkworm eggs hid in their hollow bamboo staves. Under their supervision the eggs hatched into worms, and the worms spun cocoons.

Byzantium was in the silk business at last. The Byzantine church and state created imperial workshops, monopolizing production and keeping the secret to themselves. This allowed a silk industry to be established in the Middle East, undercutting the market for ordinary-grade Chinese silk. However high-quality silk textiles, woven in China especially for the Middle Eastern market, continued to bring high prices in the West, and trade along the Silk Road therefore continued as before. By the sixth century the Persians, too, had mastered the art of silk weaving, developing their own rich patterns and techniques.

Eventually silk production became widespread in Europe. An Egyptian female mummy with silk has been discovered in the village of Deir el Medina near Thebes and the Valley of the Kings, dated BC, which is probably the earliest evidence of the silk trade. During the second century BC, the Chinese emperor, Han Wu Di's ambassadors traveled as far west as Persia and Mesopotamia, bearing gifts including silks.

Some time around , Buddhist monks, possibly alarmed by the threat of invasion by a Tibetan people, the Tanguts, sealed more than ten thousand manuscripts and silk paintings, silk banners, and textiles into a room at the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas near Dunhuang, a station on the Silk Road in north-west Gansu.

Some historians believe the first Romans to set eyes upon the fabulous fabric were the legions of Marcus Licinius Crassus, Governor of Syria. At the fateful battle of Carrhae near the Euphrates River in 53 BC, the soldiers were so startled by the bright silken banners of the Parthian troops that they fled in panic. Within decades Chinese silks became widely worn by the rich and noble families of Rome.