Every Child Should Know That a Hole to China Theoretically Starts in Argentina
Do kids even dig any more
When I was a kid, I was always digging holes. In the summer, I created very detailed miniature villages where all my stick people lived in leaf and twig huts. I dug them tiny wells and filled them with water. I dug rivers and ponds and filled them with water too. My parents told me that if I kept digging holes that one day I was going to dig my way to China.
Although I had no idea what they were talking about, I believed that such a thing was possible. After all, parents wouldn’t tell a fib, would they?
I look back over those days now and can’t help but grin. The saying that was so popular probably gave a lot of kids plenty of ideas and plans for their adventurous dig to China.
But where did the concept come from?
The first prominent mention of the phrase comes in the middle of the 19th century. In 1854 Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, “As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow in town who undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles rattle; but I think that I shall not go out of my way to admire the hole which he made.” ~ Source
