For the name of the baby tower, you must be very unfamiliar, but from the name it is related to babies. However, in the late Qing Dynasty, it was such a tower that witnessed the arrival of countless new lives, but it also witnessed the departure of countless newborns. It opened the scars of that era and witnessed the human nature under the shadow of feudalism. evil.
An old photo a hundred years ago reveals a cruel history
This is an old photo taken by a British female photographer in the wilderness of Fuzhou at the end of the 19th century, and the tower is in the picture. It is a baby tower. A series of old photos show that not only in Fuzhou, but also in other parts of the country, there were multiple baby towers.
Baby towers, as the name suggests, are used to store babies. To be more precise, they are towers for discarding babies, and the hole above is the opening for babies.
One or two hundred years ago in China, the tails of feudal remnants were fluttering frantically. Poverty, hunger, plague, natural disasters, feudal bondage, and sex discrimination were everywhere, and the baby tower was a typical example of that era. A miniature of.
The blood and tears behind the little baby tower
The foreign female writer Gordon Corning once described the baby tower as follows:
The fragrance of the rose and the rose cannot conceal the fragrance of the two baby towers The foul smell.
The stinking smell is not only the smell from the baby tower, but also the human nature and evil that have been wiped out in the feudal era.
Today when the awareness of human rights is awakened, even the cat abuse news that I saw not long ago makes people feel hateful, let alone abandoning or child abuse. However, in the past one or two hundred years ago, people who were dazzled by poverty and feudal ideas regarded this crime of ignoring life as an ordinary thing.
Unhealthy children, disabled children, and unwanted girls are all thrown into the baby tower to resign themselves and fend for themselves.In that feudal era, no matter how many children of the royal family were, they could be named princes and princesses, but the children of poor families were different. From the moment they were born, they risked falling into the baby tower.
It is said that there was a period of time in the late Qing Dynasty. Because the baby tower was used too frequently, someone was even dedicated to guard the baby tower and was responsible for burning the baby tower every three days.
Since the baby tower was originally built spontaneously by the people, there is a big gap in historical data in this respect. Some scholars have speculated that the baby tower did not die out until after the founding of New China.
For us living in New China, the term baby tower is very strange and very far away to us, but it is a scar left by the times, reminding us of the sins of human nature in that era, and we are also vigilant. We must cherish life and cherish life.
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