It’s the end of the day in the eastern Chinese city of Dongyang, and eager parents collect their kids from primary school. But that’s just the start of busy times for dozens of egg vendors across the city, in Zhejiang province, ready to cook up a unique springtime snack favoured by locals.
Basins and buckets of boys’ urine are collected from school toilets. It is the key ingredient in “virgin boy eggs”, a local tradition of soaking and cooking eggs in the urine of young boys, preferably below the age of 10.
There is no explanation for why it has to be boys’ urine, just that it has been so for centuries.
The scent of these eggs, cooking in pots of urine, is unmistakable as people pass the many street vendors who sell it, claiming it has remarkable health properties.
“If you eat this, you will not get heat stroke. These eggs… are fragrant,” says Ge Yaohua, who owns one of the more popular “virgin boy eggs” stall. “Our family has them for every meal… every family likes eating them.”
Ge has been making the snack, popular due to its fresh and salty taste, for more than 20 years. Each egg goes for 1.50 yuan (R1.80), a little more than twice the price of the regular eggs he also sells.
Many Dongyang residents, young and old, believe that the tradition passed on by their ancestors promotes better blood circulation and invigorates the body.
The local government lists the “virgin boy eggs” as an intangible cultural heritage. – Reuters