A Really Firm Mattress

In the West we have heating blankets to take the nip out of the winter chill. For centuries in northern China, a brick bed platform (a kang) has functioned as a warmer. It is heated from below by burning straw or coal. Traditional homes with kangs are being supplanted by radiators, but an estimated 80-90 percent of farm families in China’s northeast still use kangs, writes Wang Hongyang, a professor at the Resource and Environment Institute of the Northeastern Agricultural University.