Tag: chinese mythology

Mystical Mondays: The Mid-Autumn Festival

September 24th, 2018

After what seems like an eternity, I’m back! This week’s segment falls on a very auspicious day: today is the Mid-Autumn Festival! Called Zhongqiu Jie in Mainland China, Jungchau Jit in Hong Kong, Tiong Chiu Jiet in Taiwan, Chuseok in Korea, and Tet Trung Tu in Vietnam, this holiday is probably the most important aside from the lunar new year. On this day, people gather to celebrate the harvest, family, and lunar deities. Break out your mooncakes, and let’s dive into the mythical elements of one of my favorite festivals!

The Mid-Autumn Festival began as early as the Shang Dynasty in China as a celebration of a successful harvest. In The Four Gods, Gen would only have known this holiday as a festival celebrating mountain gods, rain dragons, ancestors, and the autumn equinox. It wasn’t until the Tang Dynasty, over 500 years after the end of the first book of The Four Gods, that the Mid-Autumn Festival became known more as a lunar celebration in relation to ancient myths. The reason for this is due to the goddess Chang’e.

The legend goes that in ancient times, cultural hero Houyi and his wife, Chang’e, lived on earth. At this time, instead of one sun, there were ten, and each sun was a three-legged crow that were the sons of a powerful god. Usually, only one sun rose and set at a time, but one day, all ten of them decided to rise in the sky at once to play together. The heat scorched crops and people died in droves, so the gods sought a solution, since no one could manage to get the suns to cooperate. Houyi was a renowned archer, so Xi-Wangmu asked him to shoot down nine of the suns. As a reward, she would give him an elixir of immortality. Half would be for him and half would be for his wife. Agreeing to save his people and the gods alike, Houyi successfully shot down nine of the suns, and received the elixir from the gods.

However, not all was good. Houyi’s apprentice, Peng Meng, knew of Houyi’s secret elixir. One day while Houyi was out hunting, Peng Meng broke into his master’s house and demanded that Chang’e hand him the elxiri so that he could achieve immortality. Rather than give it over to her husband’s greedy student, Chang’e quickly drank all of it, and the magic of the drink caused her to float skyward, never to touch the ground again. When Houyi returned and discovered what happened, he was overcome with sadness and every year on that day, offered fruits and cakes to his wife, who had to watch her husband from her new home on the moon.

Another version of the myth describes Houyi becoming king of the people, but soon becomes greedy with conceit and power. Not wanting her husband to gain the power of immortality on top of this, Chang’e steals the elixir and drinks it, saving the people from having to be ruled by a tyrannical, immortal king. In both myths, Chang’e is commemorated for her actions of saving the elixir from falling into the wrong hands.

The myth of Chang’e continues. After ascending to the moon, she finds herself isolated and lonely. Today, she is known to be accompanied by a white rabbit called the Jade Rabbit. This bun can be seen in the full moon, grinding down ingredients to make medicine in his mortar and pestle, similar to the Man in the Moon we see in the West. But how did he get on the moon? This short video from Off The Great Wall explains.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a holiday of thanksgiving, family, and moon worship today and is also accompanied by the lighting of lanterns. Across East Asia, gardens full of elaborate lanterns is a favorite outing during the festival. Most families that can, get together and feast under the full moon. Those that cannot be together go moon gazing with friends or alone, knowing that their loved ones see the same moon wherever in the world that they are. An abundance of fruit, wine, and mooncakes flow in the days leading up to and following the day of the festival. Mooncakes are mainly given or made as gifts for family members and friends, as this is a time of gratitude and giving to celebrate the sacrifice Chang’e made.

That’s all for this week! See you next Monday with another addition to Mystical Mondays! 中秋節快樂！
May 21st, 2018

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5xx_aO-MHg)

For this #MysticalMonday, I’m sharing a brief video on the creation of the world from a Chinese perspective. This will give you an idea of why Gen, and the rest of the gods, have the worldview that they do. Enjoy!
Mystical Monday: The Four Gods

May 14th, 2018

Hey, y’all! Last week I promised I’d go over the specific Four Gods and their abilities in relation to the qi and element posts. Let’s get started!

(Note: This post contains an addendum to the post about the trigrams. In that post I said that the east and Longwei’s posting was represented by Wind/Wood, when it is actually represented by Thunder. I mistakenly linked Thunder to the west and Chonglin’s posting, but the proper trigram is Lake, or Dui, as seen in the chart above.)

Xuanwu (Dark Warrior)– Represented by a Black Snake twisting around a Tortoise, Xuanwu is associated with all things water. In The Four Gods, Gen struggles with mastering his qi, especially because he learns that using too much to manifest his powers leads to exhaustion. The center of his powers rest in his endocrine system, and using too much causes him pain, fatigue, and confusion. Once he gets the hang of things, his powers manifest in the forms of ice and sea plants.

Zhuque (Red Bird)– Represented by a red bird, Zhuque is represented by the passionate element of fire. Fengge is often caught using his powers when he needs them least, such as starting fires for cooking or warmth. Fengge however, has mastered the use of his qi, though becoming too reckless with it causes him heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and weakness, as the center of his powers rest in his circulatory system. Fengge also possesses clairvoyance and minor psychic abilities such as future sight and telekinesis.

Qinglong (Green/Azure Dragon)-Represented by a teal dragon, the element of this god is actually wood, not water as it is often mistaken for. Longwei is an interesting case, in that he is actually a storm dragon, not strictly a water dragon, but his qi manifests mainly in the use of sea plants, vines, and thorns. His center for his powers rest in his digestive system, and he becomes lucky in that overuse only causes pain and fatigue. He shares many of his abilities with Gen, and their qi manifestations are eerily similar, only because Longwei lends many of his powers to Gen as the leader of the Si Ling Organization.

Baihu (White Tiger)- And lastly, we come to the enigmatic god of the four. Chonglin is a Qilin, not a white tiger as shown in most of the astrological charts, mainly because the Qilin is not only a member of the four sacred beasts, but also, it was a more ancient symbol for the western direction before the white tiger became the symbol. Despite this difference, Chonglin’s element of metal is the same, and he also shares the Lake trigram with Baihu. Like Baihu, the center of his powers rest in his lungs, as the lungs provide the tiger’s power when it roars and provides the Qilin power when it blows its fiery breath. Chonglin’s qi manifests as metal shards, gems, and thunder/lightning, as metal is a conductor for electricity. Like Fengge, Chonglin possesses clairvoyance, future sight, and telekinetic abilities, though he has much more mastery over his abilities than Fengge. Overuse of his powers cause shortness of breath, pain, and fatigue.

That’s all for this week! I may post a poll for the topic of next week, so stay tuned!
February 16th, 2018

#FourGodsFriday: An Intro to Chinese New Year

Happy New Year! Today marks the first day of the Lunar New Year in the US, so I’m going to give a little background on the holiday and how our Four Gods would have celebrated the holiday during the late Eastern Han. Most of you probably recognize the red and gold lanterns, decorations, and firecrackers, but everything in the Spring Festival holiday has a specific reason to its use.

First off, firecrackers were used as early as 200 BC in China, but the reason they are paired with red is because of a mythical monster called the Nian, which some say resembles the lion used in Chinese lion dances today. “Nian” (年) is the same word in Chinese for “year” and every New Year like clockwork, the Nian would emerge from its dwelling to eat nearby children and reign terror on the local people. The people soon learned though that the Nian was afraid of loud noises and the color red, so the next year, the villagers would decorate their houses with red talismans and lanterns and would set off fireworks to frighten the Nian away. To this day, fireworks, red decorations, and lion dances are used by Chinese communities everywhere to usher in good luck for the New Year.

In Gen’s time, these celebrations would be celebrated similarly, but also would stretch around fifteen days, with each day being dedicated to a specific deity or purpose. For example, the first day of the New Year was (and still is) dedicated to one’s elders and family, and a person is expected to visit their loved ones and give gifts, much how we Westerners do around Christmastime. But beware, certain gifts should be avoided. White or black items, clocks, scissors, knives, chrysanthemums, hats, and pears should not be given as gifts during this time, as they are either associated with funerals and death or they will cut off your good luck.

Ancestors that have passed away are also worshipped and paid their due respects during the holiday season, and home altars are cleaned and decorated to allow those gone before us to join in the festivities. Large dinners are held when everyone is gathered together, and staples of the holiday include golden egg rolls, dumplings, whole fish and/or chicken, and noodles. Gold foods represent wealth and good fortune, and chicken or fish are homophones with positive words in Chinese, sounding similar or the same to words for good luck or bringing in prosperity. Chinese culture has customs based all around homophones, and Chinese New Year is a holiday where you can see this custom in full force. Another homophone tradition is to get or make paper hangings with the character for good luck, called “fu” (福) in Chinese. In my house, I always hang my fu upside down, in Chinese it’s called “fu dao,” literally “luck upside down.” While Westerners may think this is a bad thing, “fu dao” also means “good luck has arrived,” so if you hang your fu upside down, it will bring you good luck. I’ve also heard some people say that they character for fu looks like a jar, and if you hang it upside down, the luck will pour out of it into your home and life.

Today, the Chinese New Year is only a public holiday for about five days, but Gen’s family, and the gods alike, would have celebrated it for the full fifteen day span. The gods are said to celebrate the New Year just like we mortals do, as the gods who reside on Earth report back to the Jade Emperor at this time. A huge party is thrown, and the gods gather together to feast and to report their yearly findings on us wee humans that they observed during the year. The god of wealth, the water gods, and the kitchen god are three important deities respected during this time. Today, on the first day, the water gods are to be respected by conserving water. According to tradition, bathing and doing laundry is bad luck today, as not only are you disrespecting the water gods, but you are also washing away any good luck that may come to you. The kitchen god is one of the focal deities, and if you have a statue of this god, it’s tradition that honey or rice syrup is spread across his mouth. The reason for this is that when he ascends to report on your activities over the last year, if you give him honey to eat, he’ll only be able to tell the Jade Emperor the sweetest things about you and your family. The Jade Emperor is celebrated with a massive feast on the tenth day, and throughout the holiday, mainly on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, mythical beasts such as the lion and dragon are celebrated with elaborate dances. Sometimes in other communities like the Hakka, the Qilin dance is also important to scare away evil spirits and bring about good luck. It’s also extremely good luck if one sees a Fenghuang around this time, as they are omens of prosperity, but this is a rare occurrence.

The last day of the New Year is the Lantern Festival. This day is also the god of good fortune’s birthday, but some legends say that the festival was started because of the Jade Emperor’s temper. Legends state that a mythical crane left Heaven and flew down to earth and alighted in a small village. The crane was the Jade Emperor’s favorite companion, and it angered him that the crane was being kept on Earth. He planned to punish the people by setting their village ablaze, but the people were warned by his daughter of what was to come. The people, desperate for a solution, then lit an abundance of lanterns, bonfires, and fireworks to give off the illusion that their town was already in flames. The Heavenly troops were fooled by this illusion, and to celebrate their village being spared, lanterns and fireworks are lit yearly on this day. During Gen’s time, this Festival was of utmost importance along with the New Year itself, as families would light lanterns and make nighttime visits to their respective temples. This holiday was also a fun time for children to solve riddles posted around their temples, but during Gen’s time, this custom was mainly dedicated to the god of the North Star and to bring in light to beckon the coming of spring. This festival was (and is) also celebrated with gala performances, dances, and treats of sweet rice balls. This year, the Lantern Festival falls on March 2nd.

祝贺大家新年好!
November 3rd, 2017

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wwVlZIk38A)

It’s #FourGodsFriday! This week, I’m deep into NaNoWriMo, so here’s a video about some of the other gods in Chinese mythology that appear in the story among the four main guys.
#FourGodsFriday: The Si Ling（四靈）

September 22nd, 2017

For this Four Gods Friday, I’m going to go in depth on the function of the Si Ling Organization. This concept, as with most in the TFG universe, are taken straight from Chinese mythology, but I have taken some creative liberties with the symbols. Let’s get to it!

In ancient Chinese culture when people were still trying to understand the cosmos, the heavens were divided into four different quadrants: north, south, east, and west. These quadrants were ruled by four sacred beasts: The Black Tortoise for the north, the Vermillion Bird for the south, the Azure Dragon for the east, and the White Tiger for the west. Though this concept existed in Chinese culture for thousands of years, these four beasts were not solidified in these records until the Han Dynasty, which is when TFG begins. Each beast had a number of stars in their quadrants that they ruled over. Historical records speculate that astronomers and astrologers of the times used these four beasts as a guide to make predictions about natural events or signs from Heaven. Others say that these beast themselves ruled over the fate of the Chinese empire. This latter telling is the version I use in TFG. Now, most records say that these four symbols are called Si Xiang (四象) in Chinese, but I use Si Ling in TFG because that signifies that they are the Four Sacred Beasts (which includes the Qilin) rather than simply four astrological symbols, even though that is their main function.

Let’s talk about these creatures themselves, starting with the Tortoise. In Chinese myth, the Tortoise has agency over water and is represented by the color black (the color of water). Its season is winter and the Tortoise, along with the serpent usually coiled around it, is seen as a symbol of longevity and wisdom. The Tortoise, along with the other three gods has seven ‘mansions’ (stars used to determine lunar position) in its arsenal, and reigns over stars in the Sagittarius, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Pegasus constellations. In TFG, I combine this symbol with the myth of the god Xuanwu, who is depicted as a warrior god of the north and is accompanied by a tortoise and a serpent at all times. Some records say they were his cursed intestines and stomach that he ripped out of his own body when he tried to repent for his past sins, others state that they were formed out of his mortality when he ascended and he subdued them and recruited them as his generals.

Next up is the Vermillion Bird or sometimes misnamed as the Phoenix of the south. The Vermillion Bird is often said to be a type of Fenghuang, but the Vermillion Bird is not a Fenghuang, but merely a different type of mythical bird. The character of que (雀) in Zhuque, actually determines that it is a sparrow-like bird, not a chimeric entity like the Fenghuang is. In TFG, Zhuque is merely a position title a Fenghuang can acquire, and is equivalent to a position of a prince/princess or duke/duchess in the Fenghuang rankings. The Vermillion Bird has agency over fire and is represented by the color red. Its season is summer and is a symbol of nobility and respect, as the Bird is said to be selective about what it eats and where it likes to perch (though the same is said for the Fenghuang.) However, unlike the other three gods of the Si Ling, the Vermillion Bird is usually not considered a god or worshipped outside of the four symbol context and is not often used in other imagery, hence the common confusion about whether the creature is a Fenghuang, as their appearances are often similar. The seven mansions of the Vermillion Bird are mainly found in the constellation Hydra.

The Dragon is probably the most signature creature of Chinese mythology, but the Dragon of the Si Ling is a jack of all trades. This Dragon has agency over earth (not water, as is sometimes mistaken because of the dragon’s azure color) and is represented by the color green/blue. The qing (青) in Qinglong describes a rich teal, but can also be used to describe a deep shade of green. Its season is spring and it is also usually considered as the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, due to its sovereignty over the east and its azure color to match. Because it is considered one of the Four Dragon Kings, this guy is considered regal and powerful and is worshipped outside of the four symbols context, especially by seafarers or fisherman who may be trekking out into the Dragon’s waters. This Dragon was also the one to appear on the royal flag of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The seven mansions of the Azure Dragon are located mainly in the constellation of Scorpio, but it also has mansions in Virgo and Sagittarius.

And finally, we arrive at the White Tiger. Now, some of you who have beta read or have been following these segments are probably wondering where the Qilin comes in. The Qilin was the original creature associated with the west, however, the Tiger later replaced it due to it representing the quadrant better in astronomical records. The Qilin/Tiger in this context have agency over metal (I interpret these abilities as weaponry and magical abilities including lightning) and are represented by the color white. Their season is autumn and both symbols were heavily revered by the ruling class. The Qilin and Tiger overlap in the sense that they are both obsessed with virtue and justice, and they are both associated with the king. The Qilin appears when a virtuous king is born or dies (see more about Qilin and Chonglin here) and the Tiger is seen as a mythical being due to its white color (which symbolizes longevity in this case) and because it has the character for “king” (王) written on its forehead in its stripes. The Tiger, unlike the somewhat pacifistic Qilin, is seen as a god of war and militaristic values, however, both beasts offer protection from evil spirits. The seven mansions ruled over by the Qilin/Tiger are stars positioned mainly in the constellations of Orion and Taurus, but also includes stars in Aries and Andromeda.

That’s all for this week! I hope you enjoyed it and as always, I’ll be open for questions and comments. Until next time!

Tag: chinese mythology

Mystical Mondays: The Mid-Autumn Festival

Mystical Monday: The Four Gods

#FourGodsFriday: An Intro to Chinese New Year

#FourGodsFriday: The Si Ling（四靈）