I read "Liu Yuan's Custom Comics of the Republic of China - Three Hundred and Sixty Lines of Nanjing"

The three hundred and sixty lines mentioned in this book are actually mainly individual industrial and commercial households and small traders. They do not include farmers, workers, soldiers, teachers, government personnel, etc., and the number is less than three One hundred and sixty. It can only be said that "three hundred and sixty" is an imaginary number, and the industry is dominated by small traders and people who work as entertainers.

"Toothpicking" is unheard of for me, both as a word and as a profession (let's call it a profession). If there are bugs that are visible to the naked eye in your mouth or teeth, you can catch them out with tools, which is really scary. The book says this is a quackery, and the basis for the existence of deception is stupidity. Stupidity is a resource for smart people, and resources are meat and leeks.

If these three pictures were drawn at similar times and the prices in the pictures truthfully reflect the prices at that time. From the perspective of satiety, a bowl of porridge costs RMB 20,000, and a pound of meat costs RMB 32,000. A bowl of porridge is definitely not enough to eat. However, if you spend 20,000 yuan to buy half a catty of meat, for the average person, half a catty of meat will make you feel full. It is better than a bowl of porridge, and you can put in more effort to earn more money. It is cost-effective. Of course, this is apart from personal preference for food. There is also a processing issue here. The porridge has been cooked, but the meat is raw. To process the meat to make it edible, fuel, seasonings, etc. are needed. These things may be expensive. Taken together, the price is much higher than the price of a bowl of porridge. This also costs time. For small traders to eat a bowl of porridge on the roadside, it is convenient and fast and does not affect business. Meat is a completely different story.

Wouldn’t it be even more outrageous to pay 100,000 peanuts, but it’s not. This is determined by the nature of peanuts, which are mostly served as side dishes for drinking. Compared with porridge and meat, peanuts are not necessities of life and can be purchased or not. Therefore, peanuts are not comparable to porridge and meat, and their prices cannot be analyzed. Logically speaking, peanuts should be about the same price as porridge. Another possibility is that inflation is serious and prices change every day.

After reading this book, I was reminded of a profession that is not in the book - horseshoeing. In the small town where I used to live, there was a horseshoer opposite the rice mill. Farmers grind rice and hammer horseshoes at the same time. When I was a child, I knew that horses could kick people, but I never got close enough to observe how nails are nailed. Horses, donkeys and mules are used to nail nails, but it seems that I have never seen cow nails nailed. By around 1999, when I graduated from junior high school, the horseshoe had disappeared.

There are only very few popcorn flowers now, and you can still see them occasionally. When I was a kid, I couldn't sit still when I heard the "bang" sound when the pot was being cooked. If there is cornstarch, use cornstarch; if there is no cornstarch, use rice, and some saccharin. He took a big basin and went out. Sometimes the queue lasts for more than an hour. After the collapse, I went home in a puddle and could eat it for several days. It was the main snack when I was a child.

With the development of society and technology, more and more industries have disappeared and only exist in memory.