A collection of mini fun facts : I'll explain them base on the sequence of the geography (MAP)
The CAPITALs : (orange circles)
Last time I talked about how palace in the anime take reference of Forbidden Palace, 🏛️ which is located in ☆Beijing, the capital city of Ming and Qing Dynasty.
However Xi'an🏛️ (aka ★ChangAn) is the capital city of TANG Dynasty,
which is the clothing style of the characters. (ChangAn is the ancient name of Xi'an)
FASHION :
During TANG, ★ChangAn, was a cosmopolitan and multicultural city since it is the starting destination of 🐫 Silk Road.
Ah Dou is wearing a riding suit, know as Hufu 👕. It was a fashion among the noble ladies to wear Hufu for horse ride🐴 . Hufu is male clothing of the *Western region (part of 🐫 Silk Road). [ *West is Central Asia, not Europe]
LOULAN : (red on map)
Maomao was curious of 💐Concubine Loulan who has Northen facial feature while wearing Southern outfit. In history, LouLan was the name of an ancient 👑kingdom at *Western region. It's location is modern Xinjiang near the now dried salt lake Lop Nur (MAP). The carved wooden beam above is an artifact of Loulan Kingdom.👑
NAIL POLISH :
Just as the anime, Balsam is a major ingredient for 💅nail polish (also for blush and lip color).
Balsam flowers are usually found in Central, East and South of Asia. When my grandma was a girl, she grounded the flower patels and apply them on nails then wait for a while , letting the juice to stain the nails before getting rid of the residue.
In ancient time, 💅 nail polish are made of juice of the grounded petals of balsam mixing with potassium alum. This chemical is used in drugs and silk painting / writing. 📚
WRITING :
Silk is more often used for painting than writing since it is expensive. Potassium alum is applied on silk as preparation for painting and writing.
Other than silk, bamboo and wooden slips were being used for writing, before paper is commonly used.
OX BEZOARS :
🐃 Ox bezoars (the drugs that turns Maomao into "upper moon demon" ) is used for de-toxing. 牛黃 is Chinese and kanji character of ox bezoars. Nowadays, it's made into tablet form know as 牛黃「解毒」片. In this context 「解毒」is meaning de-toxing. But some people mistaken 「解毒」means de - posion and think 牛黃「解毒」片 (Ox bezoars) can get rid of poison intaken by individuals, since Maomao mentioned to JinShin to use poison if she is ever facing death penalty.
