Kang Bed-stove - Culture

Culture

Traditional Chinese Dwellings (Zhongguo chuantong minju) (a bilingual text) has a few line drawings of Kangs. It says that the Kang is used to cook meals and heat the room, making full use of the heat-retaining capacity of the loess . The Kang produces radiant heat to heat the interior space indirectly in addition to the bed mass itself. It has been speculated that one of the oldest forms of Chinese housing, heated cave dwellings known as yaodong, widespread throughout northern China would have been uninhabitable without the kang.

The Kang was also an important feature of traditional dwellings in the often frigid northeastern region of Manchuria, where it was known as nahan in the native language of the local Manchus. It plays an important role in Manchu's mourning customs. The deceased is placed beside the Kang instead of the Han Chinese practice which is in the central hall. The height of the board on which the body is placed indicates the family status or age of the deceased.

In this picture of a room in a Chinese inn, reproduced from Wandering in Northern China, by Harry A. Franck (Copyright 1923 by the Century Company of New York and London), one can see a man who may be the author sitting at a short-legged table that has been placed on the Kang. Behind the Kang is a fine window that lets much light into the room. The window appears to be closed by a paper-covered lattice, not a pane of glass.