As I drew the lion statues in this page, I was reminded of a little mystery that I’ve been puzzled by for many years. Namely, what’s the deal with all these lion statues in front of Chinese houses? I mean, lions are not even native to China, who decided it’d be a good idea to put them all over the place? There were plenty of tigers back in the day, but you almost never see tiger statues. They’re always lions. Weird.
That is because they knew that Siberian tigers where slaughtered by
vulgar dogs used by Mongol then later Russian fur traders.
If Polar Bears three time as big as tigers have trouble will dog packs,
imagine the poor tiger.
Tigers are arctic creatures very unhappy in the hot jungles they escaped to,
but there, they’re top predators and very safe until firearms where introduced.(They spend their time in the water, thing lions never do.)
Lion males have enormous canines that slaughter hyena pack leaders,
but the hunting is always done by females, who are the same size as tigers.
When some lionesses are surrounded with their kill by hyenas,
it is hilarious to watch them count the hyenas.
When the hyenas number more than ten per lioness,
the girls decamp in a hurry, lest they be eaten along with their kill.
I remember watching some animal show on TV where they said the same thing – male lions just laze around all day and wait for the females to bring them food. At which point my wife said – so lions are just like people.
i remember watching, i think, Planet Earth… there was a clip in there where they documented a pride of lionesses taking down a full grown elephant in a night hunt… that was where i learned that in the lion society, the males basically just waits for food and contribute genetically… i believe my wife had the same response as your wife when she learned about the role of the male lion… i dutifully did the dishes that night
Remember that there are Asiatic Lions, now restricted to parts of India, but which once ranged across much of Central and Southwest Asia. Chinese guardian lions are supposed to be based on those. The Chinese word for “lion” is 狮 (Pinyin: shī ), very possibly sharing a common root with the Persian word shiar for the same animal.
Our three heros marching, three abreast, up to the enemy stronghold… It’s a classic image.
I knew about Asiatic lions, but didn’t think any of them lived in China. Of course now I have to look it up, apparently traders used to bring lion pelts through the Silk Road, and “live tribute was introduced into China from the ancient states of Central Asia…”, so I guess that’s how they found out about lions. Thank goodness for Wikipedia.
Isn’t it in Japanese etiquette, that the Yari, najinata or pole arm-halbert is carried pointing down, toward the left as a sign of respect?
I have no idea. Although I’m pretty sure you’d only see the martial arts etiquette stuff at sporting events. In war these niceties tend to go down the toilet.
generally the etiquette (and this is, as far as i can tell, cross cultural) for showing respect and not threat is to point the business end of your weapon down and/or behind yourself… and i think this can be broadly seen even today…
Except if you have one of these, then the business end is probably gonna be pointing at somebody no matter how you hold it
The Japanese page on halberts and etiquette say that many Yankee
traders where abruptly executed for breaches of “etiquette”
on deportment when armed in then still medieval Japan.
I checked because I thought it was an odd way of holding the thing…
The halbert is useless against heavily armored knights but
do bloody butchery on lightly protected common soldiers.
Guan Yu is often depicted holding his halbert blade-side down. I always thought it was an artistic choice, but now that you mentioned it, it probably has to do with etiquette as well.