Enchanted soul. Chinese giant - internal problems The most painful internal problems

Five rare photographs depicting Chinese people of the late Qing Dynasty. The photographs were taken in an era when malnutrition was often a cause of short stature and when China was just beginning to open up to the West, but these men are more than two meters tall, writes TheEpochTimes.com.

Zhang Shicai, who was born in 1841, was perhaps the most famous Chinese giant. According to a report by the Chinese-Australian Historical Society, he was born in eastern China's Fujian province. His height was 2.44 m, making him one of the tallest people in the world. In 1865, Zhang moved to London and performed in a circus under the name "Chinese Giant Chan". He received a Western education and knew ten languages.

After his wife's death in 1871, Zhang married an English woman he met in Australia, and they had two children. He spent the last years of his life in Great Britain, where he opened a tea shop and a store selling Chinese goods. Zhang lived to be 50 years old.

All that is known about this man is that Western travelers invited him to perform in performances abroad. In the photo he is shown in a stage costume next to the organizer of the performances.

Another giant, Chang Yanming, from the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan, was 2.41 m tall. He served as an assistant in the local imperial establishment. It was captured in a photograph by Australian traveler Ernest Morrison.

Morrison worked as a correspondent for The Times newspaper and was a political adviser to Chinese military leader Yuan Shikai. Below is another photograph of the giant, which he took in a Chinese village.

Gigantism is a rare phenomenon associated with excess growth hormones. The tallest man in the world, Robert Wadlow, was 2.72 m tall and weighed about 204 kg. At the time of his death at the age of 22, he was still growing.

We are still amazed by the height of some people, but what is even more amazing is that people could live.

March 4th, 2018

"... gentle giant, giant of giants,
great stature, but with the kindest nature,
and a heart like truth, and tenderness in every beat"
William J. Day
In the second half of the 19th century, Zhang Shichai (詹世釵) was born in Jiangxi Province (according to other sources, in Fujian Province), Wuyuan County, Hong Guan Village, on December 20, 1841. The man became known as the "Giant of China" and was called "Chang Woo Gow" by the pro-Southern English. Legend has it that just a month after birth he weighed as much as a six-year-old child, and at the age of two he was of such impressive height that his mother had to justify herself to unwitting witnesses as to why this big baby was suddenly asking for the breast...

With my first wife.

European citizens, eager for show, found it in 1865 at an ink factory somewhere near Shanghai, and decided to take it around the world as a curiosity. By that time, his height was already 2.48 cm. During these trips, Zhang learned ten foreign languages, cut his long braid, put on a frock coat, and even got himself a British wife, Catherine Santley from Liverpool, who bore him three children.

After leaving the scene around 1878, Mr. Shichai opened a Chinese tea shop, Oriental Bazaar, in Bournemouth (UK), selling antiques, Chinese bronzes and silks along the way. He died in 1893, outliving his wife by four months. In the title of the obituary they wrote: “death of a famous giant.”

Some sources indicate that Zhang's height was 319 cm, but this is not true. The reason for the discrepancies lies in the difference in the translation of Chinese and English measures.

As contemporaries assured, Zhang’s abnormal growth was not a consequence of illness. According to the giant Han's fellow countrymen, both his father and his brothers were also over two meters tall. Their family’s house was called “the house of the giants” (长人之家) or “the house of the long people.”

But there were other giants in 19th century China...

The Chinese write that in this photo from 1876 we see an unnamed Qing giant and an unnamed Englishman. But in fact it is “Chinese giant Chonkwicsee and companions”.

Photographer - A.U. Burman.

1894, Yunnan Province, giant Zhang Yanming (常严明), 2.41 m tall.

1900, Jiangsu Province. Giant Lika Erdun with photographer James.

The photographer is Australian J.E. Morrison.

The photographer is Australian J.E. Morrison.

Comparison of Zhang Shichai with famous Chinese basketball players Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian.

There were female giantesses in China too.

Basketball player Zheng Haixia (郑海霞), height 206 cm (according to other sources, 203 cm).

Just a sweet lady Yao Defeng (姚德芬), height 236 cm.

Unfortunately, she is no longer there - she died in 2012, at the age of 41.

Another cute girl is Cen Jinglian (曾金莲), height 247 cm (world record for women). Her growth was the result of a tumor in the pituitary gland. She died in 1982, at the age of 18.

Some man-made structures are amazing. So, what are the dams worth? Today we’ll tell you about the largest of them.

Today, the record holder among all dams is the Jinping-1 hydroelectric dam in China. Its height is 305 meters. For comparison, the Eiffel Tower is about the same height - just over 300 meters. The length of the dam is 569 meters, and its construction took 4.7 million cubic meters of concrete.

Jinping-1 is listed in the Guinness Book of Records. It is located in the Chinese province of Sichuan, near the mouth of the Yalongjiang River. The dam and hydroelectric power station got its name from the bend of this river, which is called Jinping. The Yalongjiang flows into the gorge, and if we talk about the future, they plan to build a whole cascade of more than twenty hydroelectric power stations on the river.

The main reservoir of the dam is designed to hold 7.4 million cubic meters of water.

The construction of the dam together with the hydroelectric power station began in 2005, and was put into operation 7 years later. In fact, the project for this hydroelectric power station appeared back in 1960, but its implementation began almost forty years later. For construction, about 7.5 thousand residents were relocated to other areas.

According to the project, the hydroelectric station should have six power units that will annually generate up to 16.6 billion kWh of electricity.

The dam was made so high for several reasons. First, of course, is the need for electricity. In addition, the dam protects the lower reaches of the Yalongjiang River from flooding and also prevents soil erosion. Since earthquakes sometimes occur in this area of ​​China, Jinping-1 is earthquake-resistant.

However, Jinping-1 will not remain the tallest dam in the world for long. Another record holder is now being built in China. The Shuangjiangkou hydroelectric power station will have a 312-meter-high rockfill dam. It is planned to be put into operation in 2018. This giant will cost approximately $5.8 billion.

"...a gentle giant, a giant of giants,
great of nature, but with the kindest nature
and a heart as true and tender as ever beat."
William J. Day

So, the second half of the 19th century, Jiangxi province ( according to other sources - Fujian province), Wuyuan County, Hong Guan Village, where Zhang Shichai ( 詹世釵; the pro-Southern British called him Chang Woo Gow), a man known as the "Giant of China". Legend has it that just a month after birth he weighed as much as a six-year-old child, and at the age of two he was of such impressive height that his mother had to justify herself to unwitting witnesses as to why this big baby was suddenly asking for the breast...

With my first wife.

European citizens, eager for a show, found it in 1865 at an ink factory somewhere near Shanghai and decided to take it around the world like a curiosity ( his height by that time was 2.48 cm). They got to the point that Zhang learned ten (!) foreign languages, cut his braid, put on a frock coat and even got himself a British wife - Catherine Santley from Liverpool, who bore him three children.

After leaving, ahem, the stage, around 1878, Mr. Shichai opened a Chinese tea shop, the Oriental Bazaar, in Bournemouth, selling antiques, Chinese bronzes and silks along the way. He died in 1893, outliving his wife by four months. In the title of the obituary they wrote: death of a famous giant.

Some sources indicate that Zhang's height was 319 cm, but this is not true; the reason for the discrepancies lies in the difference in the translation of measures - Chinese and English.

As contemporaries assured, Zhang’s abnormal growth was not a consequence of illness. According to the giant Han's fellow countrymen, both his father and his brothers were all over two meters tall. Their family’s house was called “the house of the giants”, 长人之家 ( It’s interesting that from Chinese into Russian the word长 translated both “high” and “long”; "house of the long people" J).

But there were other giants in China in the 19th century...

The Chinese write that in this photo from 1876 we see a nameless Qing giant and a nameless Englishman, but in fact it is the Chinese giant Chonkwicsee and companions. Photographer - A. U. Burman.

1894, Yunnan Province, giant Zhang Yanming 常严明, 2.41 m tall. Photographer - Australian J. E. Morrison.

1900, Jiangsu Province. Giant Lika Erdun with photographer James.

Bonus: comparison of Zhang Shichai with famous Chinese basketball players - Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian.

The PRC not only has a lot of problems of an externally strategic nature - dependence on the supply of natural resources and food, a hostile environment on its western, eastern and southern borders, the vulnerability of sea routes through which the bulk of resources flow, a number of unstable neighboring states, territorial disputes with neighbors, but also internal problems. Some of them are so painful that they can, if economic growth stops, lead to a social explosion and the collapse of the state.

In 2010, China conducted a Census of Major Social Issues. It caused a heated debate in Chinese society, which revealed the main internal problems of China.

The most painful internal problems

According to Chinese demographers, In the PRC, parents annually “hide” about 3 million newborns from the authorities. The fine for an “illegal” child in Beijing and Shanghai is 90 thousand yuan (that’s approximately 14 thousand dollars), with an average annual salary in these cities of 30 thousand yuan. For peasants, the fine is less - about 40 thousand yuan, but considering that their annual income is approximately 5-8 thousand yuan, this is a huge amount.

-Abortion problem(as is similar to the Russian Federation, this is one of the reasons for our population decline), a figure of 13 million abortions is given annually, and a significant part of them is the result of forceful pressure from officials on women. Abortions are often performed in late stages, which leads to the inability to give birth in the future. Every fourth pregnancy ends in abortion.

In the PRC there is a real power structure - the Ministry of Family Planning (this is not a joke). The number of this, in fact, repressive body is 230 thousand officials, its branches are in all administrative units, down to the volosts. The Ministry of Family Planning owns 42 factories producing contraceptives, providing them free of charge to more than 200 million families. The ministry has clinics and health centers where abortions and sterilizations can be performed free of charge. Every year, more than 20 million men who already have one or two children agree to sterilization (this accounts for almost half of such operations in the world). About 11 million women undergo female sterilization every year.

A big problem - an excess of men over girls and women. At the age of 18-40 years, there are 100 women for every 130 men. In the whole country, the ratio of males to females is 107:100, which is high by world standards. The main reason for this is birth control; the Chinese consider sons to continue the family line and breadwinners of the family, so they often have an abortion if they find out that a girl is born. In wealthy families, it is customary to go to Hong Kong, South Korea or Vietnam for an ultrasound scan - in China itself, determining the sex of a child is prohibited (both the doctor performing the ultrasound and the expectant mother in labor can receive a fine of up to 100 thousand yuan for this). In poor conditions, newborn girls can simply be killed, nothing is reported to the authorities.

This imbalance between men and women has led to another problem: cross-border trafficking in women. According to the Chinese press, “brides” are being discharged from North Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Russia and Ukraine. A “bride” from Vietnam costs 8-9 thousand dollars. This, of course, is only available to wealthy Chinese. In 2009, about 200 thousand marriages with foreign women were registered in Zhejiang province in East China alone.

The lack of women has led to another problem - their theft, steal women mainly from the less developed western regions of the PRC. In 2009, police reported 36,000 kidnapped “brides” from such underdeveloped provinces as Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Hubei.

These problems led the Chinese authorities to the idea that something needs to be done about the “one family – one child” policy. Starting in 2012, an experiment will be conducted in five regions of China: if one of the spouses has no brothers or sisters, then this family will be able to afford two children. Based on a study of the opinions of peasants in Hubei Province (it is clear that these data, with slight variations, are also true for other provinces) of China, it is known that only 5% of families want to have one child, 51% - 2 children, 3 and more – 44%.

The problem with the one-child law. This law was passed in 1978, according to which each married couple living in the city is allowed to have only one child. Peasant families are allowed to have a second child if the first is a girl. It is also allowed to have 2 children, and if both are the first girls, then a third (in the hope of having a boy) for national minorities in China. This law led to another problem - the growth in the number of national minorities. Thus, the 2000 census showed that over 10 years the number of Hans (we call them “Chinese”) grew by 11.2%, and of national minorities by 16.7%. During years of peace this does not threaten the stability of the state, but during a socio-economic crisis it threatens the growth of separatism.

80% of elderly Chinese do not have pensions.

- China is still a poorly educated country, the 2000 census determined that only 3.7% of the population (about 45 million people) had higher education, 429 million people had lower secondary education, 451 million people had primary education. The number of completely illiterate people was 85 million (6.7%) . Beijing, despite the belief that it has a high interest in the education of its citizens, spends only 2.6% of GDP on education, which is 50% below global indicators.

Big problems with medicine (especially for peasants and seasonal workers). Expenditures on medical care in China are 4% of GDP, while in the USA, Germany, England and France it is 15%. According to the international organization WHO, China ranks fourth in terms of fair treatment provision.

There is a huge level of injuries at enterprises, because they skimp on safety precautions. China has the highest number of mining accidents in the world. According to statistics, more than 90% of miners in China suffer from dusty lungs to varying degrees. In total, there are more than a million miners in China who suffer from dusty lungs. Their mortality rate is 3 times higher than the mortality rate from mining accidents.

With the onset of the global crisis, there was an increase in protest sentiments in China, a wave of protests took place, and in a number of cases, police stations and Communist Party buildings were destroyed.

That is, you need to know that the PRC is not a monolith; it has a lot of external and internal problems, the aggravation of which may happen in the near future. China has never yet