I originally tried to post this in September 2013, but Facebook said I had to clean it up a bit before they would allow it to go. So, heres a second try while were neck-deep in the Halloween season.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- While I was out running errands the other day, I saw the Halloween decorations out in full force. Holy cow, the year is blowing by....where did all the time go? Well, to help get everyone into the spirit of things, I thought I would share an excerpt from Chapter 28, Scaring the Crows, from China Diaries. For the record, I reached out to Mrs. Nelson in Massachusetts to thank her for the inspiration I received from her website when researching the story. Let me know what you think! ...One day during late summer when the corn was growing strong, I noticed that a scarecrow fashioned from sticks, rags and plastic bags took up residence in the garden. After three years of living, working, and traveling around China, it was the first scarecrow – dào căo rén (稻草人), or “rice/paddy grass man” to the Chinese – I ever saw in China. I couldn’t help but think back to world renowned sinologist Joseph Needham – the subject of the book The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester– who started his lifelong research on Chinese culture after noticing in the 1940s that traditional Chinese farming techniques were similar to those of Western cultures. Needham then spent his next 30 years asking, “Who invented it first?” and then answered his own question as part of his compendium on China. Now it was my turn to ask my own Needham-esqe question: “Who invented the first scarecrow?” For as common as scarecrows are, a complete and detailed scarecrow history is surprisingly hard to find. So, with that said, I had to turn to a website developed by Mrs. Nelson’s third grade class in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, that reported that the first human-form scarecrow was invented by the Greeks about 2,500 years ago to protect their vineyards from the local bird population. As the mythology goes, Priapus – the incredibly ugly son of Aphrodite and Dionysus – whiled away his days in rural Greece where he spent the better part of his time with farmers who tended to the vineyards. The farmers noticed that when Priapus played among the grapevines, the birds stayed away from the grapes, resulting in some of their best harvests that they turned into some of their best wine. For those of you who haven’t boned up on your Greek mythology lately, Priapus is not nearly as famous for being the first scarecrow as he is for sporting a giant and permanently erect
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 04:55:20 +0000
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