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Ghenghis Khan Descendants Eat For Free

pillageplunder writes "CNN has an article about a London restaurant that is offering diners the chance to see if they are descended from the great Khan (Genghis that is). If you are, then you get a free meal. The article delves a bit into bioarchaeology, with some pretty interesting tidbits of info."

27 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Wise move... by ericspinder · · Score: 3, Insightful
    By appeasing them, these 'sons' of Genghis Khan won't burn down the place and cart off the waitresses when they are done.

    Actually, it's a great gimmick, and with the test costing about $330 dollars, I am certain that they don't lose a dime, in fact they probably make more money per customer, and whichever lab is doing the testing is getting free publicity for the real 'meat' of the DNA testing business; paternity testing.

    --
    The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
  2. At the next table by o1d5ch001 · · Score: 5, Funny

    But what they don't say is that at the next table are the decendants of the Tibetan kingdom and the Chin empire. And they are looking to settle the score!

    --
    Q. What is Calvin's monster snowman called? A. The Torment Of Existence Weighed Against The Horror of Non Being
  3. khan! by Tom7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Khhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaannnnn!!!!!

    1. Re:khan! by TwoPumpChump · · Score: 2, Funny

      Don't you mean, "Khaaan!!!"

  4. Test to prove you are a Genghis Khan descendant: by ianezz · · Score: 4, Funny

    1) Do you have a predilection for little fur hats?

    2) Do you prefer axes to climbing roses on the door of your cottage?

    3) Have you ever suffered of inexplicable but terrbly attractive visions of houses consumed by fire?

    4) Have you ever felt your brain filled with a thousand hairy horsemen shouting at you?

    If the answer is "yes" to all questions, you are a Genghis Khan descendant, unfortunately you are too busy lying in the mud to go to the pub -- pardon, restaurant.

  5. So close! by I_Love_Pocky! · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm a desendent of Shaka Khan!

  6. but all you get is the mongolian beef by kencurry · · Score: 2, Funny

    n/m

    --
    sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
  7. All the way? by Otter · · Score: 4, Funny
    "We've had Mongolian people who've traveled across London to give us their details," said Hugo Malik, bar manager of Shish, which is giving away one DNA test at each of its two London branches every day through Friday.

    All the way across London? Verily, these Mongolians have lost none of the nomadic spirit of their forefathers!

  8. I'll pass... by unperson · · Score: 4, Funny

    Once you get labeled "descendant" of any powerful ruler, I doubt you'll have to wait long until someone shows up at your front door demanding restitution.

  9. Re:Ashworth the Enlightened by msuzio · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ummm...

    It's a true statement, isn't it? That Genghis Khan and his good friends, The Mongol Horde, swept through raping and pillaging? It was pretty much their modus operandi, from all the accounts I've read.

    Oh sure, in all the excitement, I'm sure a few guys got buggered too, but on the whole, it was probably mostly women getting raped or taken captive. How is this fact sexist?

  10. Re:Obligatory nitpick post. by ianezz · · Score: 3, Informative

    First of all, Arthur wasn't the descendant of Khan, the guy overseeing the demolition of his house is.

    In fact, I'm referring to Mr. Prosser, who is convinced by Ford to lie in the mud in place of Arthur to block bulldozers, so Ford and Arthur may go to the pub.

  11. another nefarious conspiracy by nusratt · · Score: 5, Funny

    free British food, hmmmm?
    Obviously, it's a clever plot to *eradicate* the descendants of the Khan.

  12. Parse error by Wylfing · · Score: 2, Funny
    I have to keep rereading the title of the story because it always looks to me like "Ghenghis Khan Eats Descendants For Free."

    --
    Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
  13. They are going to be giving out a lot of meals. by ikkonoishi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    6 billion to be exact.

    Due to the exponential nature of family trees anyone alive more than 600 years ago is everyone's ancestor in one way or another. (Ignoring massive inbreeding or closed cities.)

    1. Re:They are going to be giving out a lot of meals. by Sparr0 · · Score: 3, Informative

      600 years is only 30 generations. Even allowing for 2 children per person (4 per couple) that only gives you one gibi-descendant (:-p) now, roughly 1/6 of the population.

    2. Re:They are going to be giving out a lot of meals. by Ayaress · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Thanks to the Mongol lifestyle of burning cities and raping women, they could have spread their DNA much farther in a shorter period of time - still not enough to account for everybody having Mongol blood, let along the Khan's blood.

      I've seen guestimates that Khan may have gotten his y chromosome into as many as 1/3 of the Asian and Russian males alive today, as well as smaller fractions of the middle-eastern and European populations. I've never seen any hard figures to try to support this, but 30 generations isn't enough for one person to have a bloodline connection with everybody in the world - maybe if we had perfect worldwide random pairing in the gene pool, but some of us are still stuck over here in the shallow end.

  14. Re:Ashworth the Enlightened by Jerf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Took" is a common (albeit older) term for "rape" or "coitus"; it technically isn't equivalent to "rape" since rape denotes a situation where the women is unwilling and "take" connotes a situation where the women's willingness is more-or-less irrelevant.

    Thus, "took their women" is proper, if slightly archaic (which is appropriate in the context of acts thousands of years old), English that in the context of this story is perfectly correct and non-sexist (at least for the speaker). (And yes, I have heard of men being "taken", albeit usually in a homo-sexual context... think PYITA prison here.)

    Since you aren't clear on Englist usage and seem inclined to accuse people of sexism when you don't understand what they are saying correctly, please make sure you can explain the difference between "connotation" and "denotation" before you start (incorrectly) going off about how this message is sexist.

  15. For For 180 pounds (US$330) you can eat free! by the+Luddite · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now if that's not a deal I don't know what is!

  16. Re:Ashworth the Enlightened by DrSkwid · · Score: 2, Informative

    hmm, yes I grant that could be an interpretation

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  17. Ghenghis Khan's death by BinLadenMyHero · · Score: 3, Funny

    [Mozart] Hello again, and welcome to the show. Tonight we continue to look at some famous deaths. Tonight we start with the wonderful death of Genghis Khan, conqueror of India. Take it away Genghis.

    [Cut to Genghis Khan's tent. Genghis strides about purposefully. Indian-style background music. Suddenly the music cuts out and Genghis Khan with a squawk throws himself in the air and lands on his back. This happens very suddenly. Judges hold up cards with points on, in the manner of ice skating judges.]

    [Voice Over] 9.1, 9.3, 9.7, that's 28.1 for Genghis Khan.

    [Mozart still at piano.]

    [Mozart] Bad luck Genghis. Nice to have you on the show. And now here are the scores.

    [Scoreboard with Eddie Waring figure standing by it. The scoreboard looks a little like this:]

    29.9 St Stephan
    29.3 Richard III
    29.1 Jean D'arc
    29.0 Marat
    28.2 A. Lincoln (U.S of A)
    28.1 G. Khan
    3.1 King Edward VII


    By Monty Python

  18. Ob Bill & Ted's quote... by bopo · · Score: 3, Funny
    Sorry, it was on this weekend:

    Ted: This is a dude who, 700 years ago, totally ravaged China, and who we were told, 2 hours ago, totally ravaged Ashman's Sporting Goods.

    --
    "Understand you're having a little Jimmy Page trouble."
  19. Re:no, hang on a second by Ayaress · · Score: 2, Informative

    He also killed THEIR men, enslaved THEIR boys, stole THEIR livestock, and burned THEIR cities. And even so, the general mindset in most of the world running from, say, 10,000 BC to about 1800 AD (and into the 1900's in many parts of the world) was that women WERE property. When talking about such a society, saying the women were property isn't sexist - it's a fact. Were the black slaves on plantations property? Yes they were. That doesn't mean its right. it doesn't mean I think they SHOULD have been property, or that its in any way right for one person to be the property of another - it's just saying it how it was. They were property.

  20. Re:Ashworth the Enlightened by sudog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ghenghis Khan and his immediate descendants did not savagely rape and pillage. They happened to set up one of the most civilised golden ages in history and invented the movable type press. Oh, you thought Gutenberg was The Man? No--he invented a mechanism for mass-producing books. The Mongols beat him to the basic press by decades and out of simple necessity!

    The Mongols designed a written language which was capable of forming all the syllables of their subjugated nations.

    Genghis was one of the first (and only) conquerors to allow his subjugated peoples to practice their own religions, spared and freed everyone who surrendered immediately, destroyed powerful nations (such as the Caliphate of what is now Iraq) as a result of barbarous behaviour visited upon his diplomats, was one of the only rulers ever to base promotion and reward *purely on merit* and not familial ties nor nobility, invented modern warfare and perfected siege technique, created tremendous surplus and prosperity and justice for all who lived inside the Mongol empire, and visited total destruction on all who refused to submit.

    Genghis Khan and his successors conquered more people, more land, with fewer warriors and in less time than anyone else ever has in recorded history. Alexander the Great was a gnat by comparison. Attila the Hun, a nobody. The Roman Empire, a blemish on the ass-cheeks of one of Genghis' concubines. Hitler killed fewer people and conquered less land--even with those death-camps and all the Schlieffen plans he wanted to dream up. Stalin was a punk-ass backstabber rat.

    Genghis could travel faster and further with 50,000 horse-mounted warriors, could defeat larger armies, and destroy or conquer countries better and with fewer Mongol casualties, than anyone else prior to or since.

    The only nation that Genghis' descendents failed spectacularly in conquering was Japan, and that was only because a nasty storm whipped up and destroyed their invading ships every single time they tried to take the islands.

    One of the more terrible things that came about from Genghis' subjugation of pretty much all of Asia and Europe was the Black Plague, the spread of which was facilitated by the active overland trade routes the Mongols built.

    The Mongols prized engineers, craftsman, and skilled workers above *all* others because of their unique abilities.

    The Mongols also forced advanced education on and provided health care and doctors to, their subjugated nations.

    Say what you will about them, they were the impetus which dredged us inexorably towards modern civilisation, kicking and screaming, and without whom we probably wouldn't be as advanced socially and technologically as we are today.

    Most of those savageries attributed to Genghis are simply lies: propaganda whipped up before the Mongols even arrived by jittery European scribes who bought into the pre-invasion panic the Mongols liked to sow.

  21. KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!! KHAAAAAAANNNN!!! by bluethundr · · Score: 3, Funny

    He tasks me! He tasks me! And I shall have him. I'll chase him round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares malestrom and round perdition's flames if he eats just one more of my french fries!

    Would that be sufficient proof for a free meal?

    --
    Quod scripsi, scripsi.
  22. Re:no, hang on a second by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The mongol hordes took their women.
    The mongol hordes took their mothers and sisters.
    The mongol hordes took their girlfriends.
    The mongol hordes took your girlfriend.

    Am I allowed to say "I have a girlfriend" or "My girlfriend's name is..."? Or would it imply that I own her?

  23. Eat for free!! by vijaya_chandra · · Score: 2, Insightful

    With $330, I can pay for dinners for an entire year here in India, considering I pay $0.67 every night for my food.

    Sorry I am not a descendant of the khan

    LessonOfTheDay : Free food is not always good for your pocket; unless you can sue the restaurant for troubling your stomach

  24. Re:Ashworth the Enlightened by sudog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Since when did GW promote freedom of religion, universal health care, and promotion based solely on merit and not familial ties?