I was pottering about on the BBC News site and found this little piece.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6276948.stm
Chinese villagers have, for several decades, been digging up and grinding down dinosaur bones, thinking that they were dragon bones....
Those crazy Chinese. Always gettin' it wrong because of the squinty eyes.
Dragons have squinty eyes?
Hey, come on -- you'd squint, too, if you had to see through all the smoke from a fiery breath.
if you ask me....a dinosaur counts as a fucking dragon.
Hmm...yeah. Something that huge that could fly should count as a dragon. If I were around at that time I would scream dragon too. Besides, the names of dinosaurs are too long to scream out loud, and then run. It would be easier to alert your clan but just yelling dragon and peeing your pants. Real time saver.
Here- look at this. Tell me this does not look like some sort of dragon.
http://www.imagesonline.bl.uk/britishlibrary/controller/subjectidsearch?id=11253&&idx=1&startid=32582Though with a big bladder, you still have plenty of time to yell "Parasaurolophus spp.!!"
Could be worse, though... Oligocene South America and all their tonguetwister critters... more or less in the vein of "Megamispronounceittherium simpsonii."
I convinced my grandparents' 8-year-old neighbor that there ARE dragons in China. No joke. Living, wild, dangerous dragons. She bought it hook line and sinker.
I always use this as a counter argument when people say to me "but there are millions of Christians, they can't all be wrong".
Have been for years.
It is not just villagers, it is a common belief in China.
I convinced my grandparents' 8-year-old neighbor that there ARE dragons in China. No joke. Living, wild, dangerous dragons. She bought it hook line and sinker.
Getting 8 year old girls to believe in fantasy creatures is like shooting fish in a barrel.