WHAT'S THE WHOLE FUSS ABOUT ASIA?

July 25, 2021

Asia is one of the seven continents; North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Antarctica and Australia (I literally just sang that song relating to this continent stuff to remember it 😂my life outside🙆)..

Some people have grouped Asia with Europe to form a single continent called Eurasia which sounds weird 😒but it hasn’t eliminated Asia and Europe from being separate continents. I recently just found out that Asia consists of more than one country not like recently but like three years ago (lol, nobody should come for me abeg, I did not know, I did not know). I always thought they were all Chinese people (our “Chin Chun” brothers)😁 before I realized Asia had over twenty countries under it, the popular ones we know are China, Korea, Japan, Thailand. We also have India, Indonesia, Israel, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Hongkong, Taiwan and many more under Asia. Sometimes I feel a lot of people have “beef” against the Asians probably because they invent half all the things we use worldwide, but it’s not something that is made up, it’s a fact that Asia is one continent that is filled with very intelligent people, and they are over civilized sef. I am not saying that other countries are filled with dumb people, we have our different strengths, but we must give it to them when it comes to intelligence and civilization, little wonder they are one of the world's power.

History gives credit to Asia for the popular Silk Road, the silk road was and is a network of trade routes connecting the east and west and was central to the economic, cultural, political and religious interactions between these regions between 2^nd century BCE to the 18^th century. The silk road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length, beginning in the Han dynasty in China (207 BCE-220 BCE). The famous silk that we all see and use today was first developed in China (Ndi “beefers” Asia is not your mate ooo).

The earliest evidence for silk is the presence of the silk protein fibroin in soil samples from two tombs at the Neolithic site Jiahu in Henan which date back 8500 years. The earliest surviving sample of silk fabric dates from about 3630 BC and was used as the wrapping for the body of a child at a Yang Shao culture site in Qingtaicun near Xing yang, Henan (all this “yang yang” things will be sounding like tongue twisters, so don’t bother trying to pronounce).

Legend gives credit for the development to a Chinese empress, Leizu, she was the wife of the yellow emperor and according to tradition she developed sericulture and the silk loom in the 27^th century BC. According to legend, Leizu discovered silkworms while having an afternoon tea and a cocoon fell into her tea, it slowly unraveled and she was enchanted by it (I would have thrown the tea away😂), she noticed that the heat was what made it to open, and she discovered the silk. She discovered that she could unwind this soft and lovely thread around her finger so she persuaded her husband to give her a groove of mulberry trees where she could domesticate the worms that made these cocoons, she is attributed with developing the silk reel which joins fine filaments into a thread strong enough for weaving. Leizu spread her knowledge with others, and it became widespread in China, China tried to monopolize this knowledge, but it still spread out to the rest of Asia and became one of the most lucrative and sought-after luxury item traded across other continents. A lot of great inventions emerged from Asia just like written language in Mesopotamia, invention of paper in China, invention of gunpowder in China and many more but we can’t talk about all that, this is not history class Biko😂Love and Light💗

What’s one invention from Asia that you wish never was? Let’s talk