Virgin Eggs

This blog will contain news, views and fun stuff that crosses our path as we begin our adventure in Shanghai. Today we want to share with you an article from the Shanghai Daily News.

Custom of 'virgin eggs' not to everyone's taste

AS spring sets in, a strange smell permeates the air in Dongyang City, Zhejiang Province, as locals begin to eat the seasonal "virgin egg."

"Virgin eggs" are actually eggs boiled in the urine of virgin boys. Most outsiders are appalled at the idea, but the eggs are selling well on every street corner of Dongyang. Costing 1.5 yuan (US$0.22) each, vendors often sell out, Qianjiang Evening News reported.

Although bizarre to some, the custom is part of the city's intangible cultural - Dongyang people say the eggs have the taste of spring.

In recent weeks, schoolboys in Dongyang City were instructed to urinate into plastic barrels placed outside their classrooms, which are then collected by nearby residents. Local teachers accepted the practice and even reminded the boys not to use the barrels if they are sick.

"It's so delicious that I can eat 10 eggs a day," said a woman, surnamed Liu, who moved to Dongyang several years ago and developed a taste for "virgin eggs."

"I had never eaten them before I came here, but now I am addicted," she said

However, not all Dongyang people are interested in them. One local resident, surnamed Li, said he had never tasted "virgin eggs." "I can't stand the smell. It's awful."

In the eyes of many Dongyang people, "virgin eggs" are the perfect tonic for spring. Egg vendors will tell you that they help prevent springtime drowsiness and heatstroke in the summer.

Doctors' opinions on eating the eggs vary a great deal.

Wu Yunhua at Dongyang Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine told the newspaper that urine contains a kind of crystal that can "diminish the internal heat of the human body" and stop bleeding.

But Huang Jian, the chief urology physician of Jinhua Central Hospital, contested that there is nothing good for people's health to be found in the urine. "After all, it is waste from the body," he said.