滴血认亲

ok. for those who dun understand chinese or get frightened by chinese, dun worry, i'll translate.

the title: 滴血认亲 refers to the ancient chinese belief that when two people mix their blood together, if it coagulates then the two of them are related. i.e they are close relatives. (so lengthy a phrase to explain just four chinese characters hor? see? chinese is such a wonderful language! elegant and simple.)

Anyway, was watching this chinese period show where the folks inside were trying to determine whether a certain someone is another person's son. then they were using the above mentioned method.

I'm curious... alot of those shows use this method to determine if someone is related to another. but issit accurate anot? Y do pple even use that method? Blood really will coagulate for related pple meh?

Sooo... i set out to find the answer.

Din noe wat the correct phase for that method is in english. cos afterall, it is a chinese thing... i think. so, i search the phase in chinese.

Naturally, i got my answers in chinese.

here is the untranslated version:

怎样进行亲子鉴定？谈起这个有趣的医学问题，中山医科大学法医系物证学教研室主任陆惠玲话语滔滔。

陆主任说，“亲子鉴定”的概念古已有之。由于中国传统伦理对血缘的重视，滴血认亲的事情早在三国时代就出现了，“血相溶者即为亲”的观念盛行一时。宋代的法医名著《洗冤录》记载过将子女血液滴在父母尸骨上，以血液能否渗入骨中来认定亲子关系的案例。

不过，以现代科学分析，上述的古老方法并不可靠。因为人类的A型、B型血是能够溶合在一起的，如果以所谓的“和血法”检验两名分别是A、B血型的人，其血液虽能溶合却没有亲子关系。

[read the full version here]

hehehe. do i see pple cringing away? No fear! although my chinese sux, i'll try to translate that 'offending' piece of chinese into comforting english for the non-chinese and kentangs. =p

Basically, the gist of the article is:

Traditionally, the Chinese places great importance on the idea of blood relations as such, the idea of accepting a person as one's kin if their blood coagulates with his own has its roots during the era of the three kingdoms.

In the Song dynasty, it was documented that if you were to drip the son's or daughter's blood on the bones of their parents, whether the blood actually seeps through the bone and gets absorbed would determine whether the child is really their child.

However, actually this theory is not totally correct. Given two blood types, A and B, they will both coagulate together whether or not they come from people who are related or not.

Thus, this method is not foolproof!!! Yay. did i translate correctly?? correct me if it's wrong. but anyway, i learnt something new. did ya?

can comment anot folks? dunno if my 'teachings' mean anything to u pple lor. neva tell me whether you pple found it interesting/boring/enriching...