Hard beds and their cultural implications?

听说东北人也给新生儿硬的枕头。不是瓷器做。他们把小米放在个布袋里，然后做小坑。这样有两个好处：不但睡觉的时候，小宝宝的头不会乱动，而且会改善宝宝的头型，变成方方平平的！ 哈哈

那就是炕呗，呵呵。你女朋友家是哪里的啊？

我上个星期去过我的女朋友的家乡。我们住在她父母的家。在她父母的家那个床是砖和水泥做的。四天以后我的后背疼。我真不知道怎么睡好。

欧阳骏

Not to worry!  I've been living and working in China for about 3 years now...the beds actually become quite comfortable and you don't even notice them.  They seem to help with back pain too!

哎哟，昨天夜再睡觉只大概四个小时。这个中文播客让我太上瘾，呵呵。这年我决定我真的应该多睡觉。

Sabrina,
sleeping - yes, of course. The problem is getting up the next morning (;

I guess you can sleep anywhere if you are tired.

Kimiik,

That photo looks like the missing piece of the stork story that's been puzzling me for years.

I was told the right thing after all.

Hi Sebire,
I'm used to the brasilian hammocks
(吊床 diàochuáng - hanging bed) which are huge and confortable.
Like with a big bag, it's easy to get in but it could be difficult to get out. 

I'm impressed you don't fall out of a hammock, kimiik!

With a "soft mattress", it's possible to sleep on your stomach, in a foetal position (on your side with your knees bent) or on your back.

But with a "hard mattress" (traditional chinese bed or japanese Futon), it's impossible to sleep on your stomach and the foetal position needs a long training. Thus the easiest and most confortable position is on the back.

The first nights, it goes without saying that on this "hard mattress" you tend to quickly limit your physical activities. Incidentally, in a hammock that's quite the opposite.  ;o)

@henning

We just spent about 1000 RMB on bedding in the holiday 'sales' - a funny experience because the discounting was so complicated. Some summer doonas were just 送你 。。 (they did not even appear on the invoice) ‘就给你两个。。’      

But my impression is that the Chinese science of sleeping is quite advanced (compared to our own in Australia) - we hope to take our purchases back to Australia if we can find room. We got great 'seed'  pillows - not porcelain - they are heavy enough :-)..

PS  There is one brand that is promoting (in English) 'Australian' materials in their doonas - but the Chinese wording does not mention Australia. We asked the 服务员 and they said .. it is definitely not Australian!    

user26513,

sure. And if you are really hungry, it doesn't matter how bland the food tastes.

OK, if you eat the wrong stuff your stomach might start aching later (just as your bones do after a night on the bed).

Yep,let's be serious guys,it doesn't matter how hard,...but don't drown in your soup when sleep overcomes you [best to order 醉虾 to prevent this..few nips on the beek should do the trick ...but be sure to remove the prawn or others may come for it,..don't bite your own nose off in the process though] and for goodness sake watch where those chopsticks end up.

..and as you nod off ,sometimes it pays to lean to the your left a little.

Let's be serious, it doesnot matter how hard or soft a sleeping surface is. When you need to sleep, you fall a asleep. As for whatever else, there is no doubt that it's possible!

RJ,

No,very common to hear either [dead or fell asleep] here.

kimiik,

Yeah,in English paraesthesia is the correct technical term,but very few men in the street refer to it that way.But thanks for sharing the proper term. :)

We usually say my arm fell asleep. Is this expression just an American thing?

I'll say “我的胳膊麻了” Wǒ de gēbo má le.

kimik

就是 麻木。

I'd just say  如果睡在地上的话，我的胳膊会发麻。

Interesting question! It seems that there's any specific word for paresthesia in chinese.

我的胳膊感觉异常。

or

我的胳膊异常感觉。

sebire,

I don't know,but I suspect you could use 麻烦 的 麻 。

比如说；我的胳膊感觉发麻。

。。I dunno,but I thought it'd be fun giving it a shot.What do others think?

Ｓleeping on the floor gives me dead arms. Now that is a word I can't find in the dictionary...

Don't try pretending that you've never done floor frolicking pete! I did go through a phase of sleeping on the floor as a young student, I had a girlfriend at the time who'd lived in an ashram and briefly converted me to 'healthy living'. It became tiresome after a while having to tidy up the tangle of sheets and blankets every day, (as I tried to massage the knots out of my back,) and in the end I was as glad to say goodbye to the practise as I was to clear my kitchen of her innumerable varieties of lentil, (of course she was also a full-on vegetarian and frowned on my occasional enjoyment of a bacon sandwich.)

Oh yes, sorry I digress. Yes tvan, during the "winter" months, January and February anyway, it can be a little chilly even in Guangdong. All the bamboo sleeping equipment goes in the cupboard for a short time then.

Hi tvan,

Good point. They have the 炕 kang4, a heated brick bed.

As a side note, if not for frolicking, I would just get rid of the bed and sleep on the floor. I always sleep best on the floor. And as orangina notes, you save space that way.

I take it that all this talk about bamboo beds and uncovered frolicking is in reference to Southern China.  In the North, and even Shanghai, it seems that covered snuggling is in order, at least during January.

Here in the states I have an unusually tiny apartment... 9x18ft including the bathroom... and don't want a bed to take up my entire living space. So I use a self inflating camping pad and roll it up and put it away everyday (well, some days I just walk on it.) It is 2in thick at most.  The first few days I thought I was way too old for these kind of shinanigans. But after I got used to it I love it! My back doesn't ache anymore. But then that could be cause I got rid of the desk job. Don't know if I am ready for a porcelain pillow yet... bamboo maybe...

@henning

I think it takes a good 3 or 4 weeks to acclimatise to a Chinese bed.  Then it is very good for sleeping.  However, it is not possible to anything but sleep.  Anything.  ;-)

Gotcha! Well... at least in the US you should be able to sleep without all the bamboo. Good luck!

My wife is Chinese.  I don't think I will have any choice.  Haha.

So you'll take all those lovely bamboo mats and pillowslips back to the US then? As well as lots of other souvenirs? You'll have some heavy suitcases! :)

tal

My experience is exactly the same regarding the various bamboo sleeping products.  I thought maybe I was the only guy around here who uses such methods.  (A naive ussumption I suppose.)  Someday when I move back to America, I will have visitors and they will say, "What is all this stuff?" "Oh that, I picked this up in China, it is used for... blah.... and that... blah...."

Sebire said it first dude, but yeah, as an ancient, I am probably a little out of touch! ;)

Hi tal,

Frolicking? Is that what the youngsters are calling it these days?

Hi changye,

经典。

Hi sebire

Looks like I need to wear a helmet when sleeping with a porcelain pillow.

I recall when I was much younger and still living in my cool and temperate homeland, I heard that it was common in the Orient to use wooden or 'stone' pillows. I think I was appalled and could not understand how anyone could do that.

Now that I do actually live in the sweltering humidity of southern China, I understand perfectly. In the days before air-conditioning, it's quite possible that having a nice cool porcelain wedge under your head would be the only chance of getting a wink of sleep Sebire!

When I first came one of the hardest things to learn was how to arrange one's bed so that pillows, sheets, coverlets etc, would not be soaked in sweat after only 2 or 3 hours rest. (Being from England, and never having used air-conditioning in my entire life before, I found it very difficult to sleep if it was switched on. And after 2 to 3 hours the room would then be too cold, and you'd have to get up anyway to switch it off!)

It took me a while to see why it was important to use a large bamboo mat to cover the mattress, similar things to cover conventional, western style pillows, (you can buy pillows which are made almost entirely of bamboo with a grass filling, some even just made of strips of springy wood held together by a wire frame for maximum ventilation, but I absolutely cannot get used to those,) and to learn to fall asleep with no coverlet over the body, (still not used to this. On my last visit home I actually purchased a single bedsheet for this purpose and brought it back with me. Don't ask me why but your average, single layer bedsheet is generally just unavailable here.)

As for frolicking... *cough*... well suffice it to say that living in such a climate also gives one a deeper understanding of why the Chinese are not (perhaps) so touchy-feely and uninhibited in that department as other races.

Hahaha, maybe they frolicked in fields instead?

At least you didn't have to use a porcelain pillow - apparently my great-grandmother used one every day of her life. The hole keeps the head cool, I hear:

She apparently didn't use a mattress and slept on the floor, and use to discipline any sleeping child that had an arm or a leg out of place with a good sharp smack with a cane.

Changye,

you are a wise man. :-)

Hard beds don't let you easily fall asleep, which I think is one of the reasons why China boasts a population of 1.3 billion today.