Like I remember when my mom declared bankruptcy and we were going to school with a fucking slice of cheese between two pieces of bread and a Baggie of powdered milk to add water to for lunch.
I remember my mother crying at the table with bills spread out and a calculator, looking at the numbers and crying.
I remember having this jug we saved all our change in for YEARS, trying to save up for a nice vacation somewhere, and the day all of our hearts broke when we had to empty it out and roll the change up to use for gas money.
I remember being that poor. And I remember my mother taking us to McDonald’s – often.
I remember being that poor, and I remember my mother treating herself to a cup of Tim Hortons on days she just wanted to have something nice. That was my mothers “treat yourself” days. A fucking cup of god damn coffee.
So seriously? Fuck every single person who scoffs at poor people who eat fast food and grab a cup of coffee on the go.
Fuck each and every single one of you who judge the FUCK out of those people. Who the hell are you to judge?????
Anyone who thinks treating the kids to a $1 cheeseburger cuz we ain’t got shit at home is livin it up, you can fuck right off.
Most of our food was from the food pantry and was often stale or went bad in 2/3 days, but it was way better than nothing. We were thrilled when fast food places had cheap specials. We would buy a $7 large pizza and would ration it so it could feed my brother, mom, and I for two nights, and that was the highlight of our month. Sometimes eating out actually helped us save money and was simultaneously a treat for us for hanging in there for so long. People think that because we’re poor we’re not allowed to have anything but a cardboard box and that’s ridiculous.
Let me start by saying I wish I could give you a better answer on this one. I’ve spent the last week trying to find good sources on this, and I really haven’t found many at all. So, I’m afraid that I’m going to end up giving you a very basic answer with lots of caveats – I know quite a bit about Greek and Roman navies in the ancient world, and some about European sailing in the medieval world, but Chinese naval history isn’t something I’ve ever studied.
That said, I was able to find enough information to make some logical assumptions based on my knowledge of other eras and ships in general.
1. Navigation seemed to be incredibly important to Zheng He, particularly on the Treasure Voyages. His astrologers complied a huge number of charts, and they also relied on older sources, such as Arab, Indian, and early Chinese records.
It’s important to remember that ancient navigation was a lot of guesswork. Back in the 1400s, there weren’t reliable maps of most of the world – and accurate charts (the nautical version of a map, which includes navigational aids and depth of water, which is hugely important) were even harder to come by. So, although Zheng He used local pilots* where he could, he probably had to compile most of the information he needed on the fly, since his fleet was sailing far from home and had very few places to get the required information. So, anyone involved in navigation probably was a very valued member of the crew, particularly given the unknown waters they were sailing into.
* Pilots are experienced mariners who know a harbor/channel/river/body of water extremely well. They know the tides, the currents, the depths and what navigational aids to use to get safely into and out of port. We still use them today, because no captain can know every port of call well enough.
2. The ships probably didn’t leave sight of land very often. This map of their route shows the fleet sticking to the coastline, since that was the safest and best way to navigate in days before accurate charts, GPS, and (perhaps most importantly) good ways to store/preserve food. So, they probably made landfall quite often, although your average sailor was probably stuck on board the ship. Officers would sometimes go ashore to buy/requisition provisions, but your average sailor could just stare at the shore and go nowhere. Remember, the ships were probably anchored out, so it wasn’t like you could sneak off without taking a long swim. (Nevermind the consequences of returning).
3. Historical accounts indicate that the treasure ships were huge, way bigger than their later western counterparts. Historians argue about whether the size of the ships is accurate or not, but for the sake of fiction, I’d certainly assume they were. That means the ships were 400-600 feet in length and capable of carrying 500-1000 passengers. Some sources claim that there were up to 2800 people on board each ship. The Wikipedia article on this is actually really good, and has its sources well documented. (This is not my era of expertise, but the sources look academic and professional).
What does this mean for the sailors? It means these ships were cramped. Remember that they didn’t have running water (aside from seawater), and that in those days, sailors slept on hammocks in communal areas. Even if the crew was only 500 people, that’s a lot of people to put on a ship that is also carrying cargo, weaponry, and ambassadors/important people who aren’t about to share their special cabins with lowly sailors. So, sleeping areas were cramped, with men potentially sharing the same sleeping space. We call that “hot racking” nowadays, but it pretty much means that when Person A is on watch, Person B is sleeping in their hammock, and vice versa. Privacy just didn’t happen. Hundreds of crew (all male, because ships were not equal opportunity employers in those days) likely slept in the same area. They probably ate there, as well; only officers rated a nice room to eat in. Sailors might be able to eat on deck sometimes, but that was probably more rare than they liked.
4. Zheng He’s voyages focused on “showing the flag” and exploration. That sounds fun and cool, but for your average sailor, it’s a pain in the ass. When you’re there to show off your country’s might, you have to have a clean and impressive looking ship. So, that means that there was an enormous amount of time spent scrubbing decks, painting anything that didn’t move, re-splicing lines, and generally making the ship look wonderful. Ships in the Age of Sail and earlier didn’t exactly treat their crews well, and sailors wouldn’t have a lot of free time to begin with. But in this case, nearly everything they had would have been poured into making the ship look awesome – because that ship could be a foreign country’s first impression of China, and that first impression had to be a good one.
This ship might look big, but it gets a lot smaller once you’re sharing it with 500 of your closest friends.
5. This is pure supposition from what I know about the Age of Sail and ancient navies, but I would wager that the food was terrible. Granted, a fleet that stays closer to the coast can replenish more often than ships sailing across the ocean, but scraping up food for ~500 from every place you drop in is hard. You’re looking at eating anything that won’t spoil quickly, or perhaps things that have because there’s nothing else. Remember that there’s no refrigeration, and salt is pretty much the only way of preserving anything for longer than a few days.
6. The quality of sailors’ lives greatly depended upon their captain and officers, particularly the latter. Sadly enough, this is still true on pretty much any ship: whilst underway, the captain might as well be god. The captain can determine when/if sailors eat, sleep, and if they can leave the ship at all. There’s already no privacy, nowhere of your “own” to sneak off to, but the captain can make everyone miserable if he’s in the mood to play tyrant. The opposite is also true, of course. A compassionate and charismatic captain can do a lot to make a crew’s life better, even if it’s just by treating people kindly and bringing them together in service of a common goal.
Remember that the further back in history you go, the fewer “rights” there were in human rights. Not all sailors volunteered (look up British impressment, if you want an eye-opener on that front), and once they were on board, they might as well have been in prison. Discipline was harsh, and there was nowhere else to go. That’s particularly true for sailors on long voyages like the Treasure Voyages; they were stopping in foreign nations where they didn’t speak the language and would stand out like sore thumbs. They also probably didn’t get paid until the end of the voyage, either, which meant – even if they did escape – there was no money to get by on. So, desertion is rare, even under very harsh treatment. So, a tyrannical captain could really make everyone miserable with very little effort, while a good one – who held the standard without being cruel, and give his crew what little comforts he could – made all the difference.
I hope this helps! Again, this isn’t my area of expertise by a long shot, and a lot of my extrapolation comes from knowledge of the Royal Navy in the Age of Sail. There don’t seem to be a huge number of primary sources concerning the Treasure Voyages, so maybe that story of a later Emperor burning the ships and the records are true.
ifesbob 