Untitled Essay, Research Paper

James walker Mr.JohnsonThe Chinese culture

This report is about the myths and beliefs of the Chinese culture. It’s about

the stories the Chinese created to explain the world around them, and generally

how they perceived their surrounding environment. This report deals with

ancient myths and the people who believed them, and what the current believes

of these people are.The Southwest Creation StoryThe Southwest creation story is a myth which explains why people are different.

The myth begins by saying that there were people on earth who were all alike,

meaning there weren’t people who were black, white, oriental, etc..

It states that the humans on earth all generally were the same. There were

also gods who lived above the clouds in the heavens. And there was a huge

heavenly ladder which started on a mountain and reached all the way up to

heaven’s door. It goes on to tell a story of a man who had two children.

One was a girl and the other was a boy.

They lived in a house which had a huge very thick roof. The man had built

the roof so thick because it rained almost every day. He hated the rain.

He knew it had its benefits but too much of it ruined his crops, destroyed

his livestock and every time it rained the roof of the house was destroyed.

And every time the man rebuilt it, he made it thicker and thicker. He blamed

all his misfortune on the Duke of Thunder. The Duke of Thunder was one of

the gods who lived in the heavens. He was the god of rain and thunder. The

man dispised the Duke very much and had a pure hatred of him.

Every time it rained the Duke would descend from the heavens and stand on

a hilltop. There he would watch with pure delight as the rains and thunder

came down harder and harder. Finally the man had had enough. One day he took

his axe and waited on the hilltop for the Duke to arrive. When the rains

came so did the Duke, and the man slashed him in the back.

The Duke was hurt but not

killed because he was a god. The man caged him and brought him home. He put

him in a corner and warned the kids not to go near him. And to especially

not give him water. The next morning was a beautiful sunny one, but the Duke

looked horrible almost as if he was dehydrating. The man told the children

he had to go to the market and said again not to go near the Duke no matter

what he does and don’t give him water. After the man left the Duke started

moaning. He begged the children to give him some water but they refused following

their father’s orders. The Duke pretended he was dead with his mouth

hung open and he had his lips very dry.

The girl was worried, she thought he was dying so she gave him one drop of

water. The Duke instantly jumped back up and tore apart the cage. The children

were terrified. He came over to them and promised them that they will be

rewarded for their deed. He gave them a small egg and told them to plant

it in the ground and then he left. When the man came back he was shocked

by what had happened. He knew the Duke would be very angry and would punish

him. So he didn’t waste any time and started to build a ship. After

a month’s time the ship was finished. It was built out of the strongest

material known to him.

Meanwhile the egg the children planted had grown to a size of about two small

people. Then one day what the man had anticipated came. Huge torrential downpours

of rain started and there were tremendous floods. The man jumped into the

ship he built, in his panic he had forgotten about the children. They had

ran into the egg which had become soft. The floods were so great that the

man in his ship reached all the way to the door of the heavens. He banged

the doors and yelled let me in! The gods didn’t want mortals in the

heavens, so the Duke was ordered to recede the floods. He took the floods

back so fast that the man fell back to the earth and was crushed by his ship.

The children in the soft egg bounced back to the ground safely. When they

came out, they saw everything was destroyed. They were the only ones left.

They lived happily for a while and after some time they had a child. Because

they were brother and sister the child was deformed and died a short time

later. The two kids chopped up the baby into tiny pieces and put him in a

bag, and they started climbing up the heavenly ladder.

The bag ripped before they could reach to the top and all the pieces fell

back to earth. They fell all over the continents, and from them the new people

developed. They were different in appearance from each other depending on

where they lived. This myth explains why there are people who look so much

different from each other. This myth suggests that man was more responsible

for the creation of the new humans than the gods. Because of the actions

of the man the people were created.The Heritage of a KingThis is a myth about fate. In this myth a man named Zoa chi who is a king

tries to find out his fate. Zoa was a survivor. When he was little his parents

were assassinated. An attempt at his life was also made but his older brother

protected him. The murderer was his uncle who betrayed his father and overthrew

his power. He stayed in exile with his brother until he was older. Over the

years his hatred of his uncle had made Zoa a very stern man. He had wowed

to get his revenge. He became a great fighter and started a group of followers

who also were against the king.

Then finally the day he had been waiting for had arrived. With his small

army he overpowered the kings army. Growing up on the streets had made Zoa

a great strategy leader, so he was able to defeat the huge overconfident

king’s army. He killed the king and took over the throne. Years went

by and he himself became overconfident and selfish. He created a fantasy

image of himself as a great man. He thought that nothing on this planet could

defeat him. As time went by he became just like his uncle. Absolute power

had corrupted him.

Then one day he declared to all his subjects that he was a god and expected

to be worshipped. This was too much for the people, they rebelled but Zoa

crushed all their resistance. One of his advisors told Zoa that he knew a

magician who could greatly help him in keeping down further rebellions. He

said that this man could see the future and help him stop protesters before

they could organise and challenged him. The king immediately called the man

to his castle. The man’s name was Hou. He told the king that there will

be a man who will kill him soon. And that man would be a close relative of

his.

The king knew exactly whom Hou was talking about. Zoa’s son Zhuan was

almost the age where he could become king if something happened to his father.

Immediately Zoa ordered Zhuan to be imprisoned. He said this was another

example of how clever he was, he said he saw the future and beat fate’s

destiny. He even said that he was better than any other god the people believed

in. When he went to see Zhuan his older brother went with him. Zhuan pleaded

with Zoa and said he would never even think of killing his own father. But

Zoa didn’t believe him.

He sentenced Zhuan to death. But before Zhuan could be killed older Zoa’s

brother beheaded him when he facing his son. Zoa was killed by his own brother

who was ashamed of what his younger sibling had become. What the magician

didn’t tell Zoa was which close relative would kill him. Zoa who had

become overconfident wasn’t as great as he thought he was. And he was

too arrogant to not know that the gods should not be challenged. This myth

tells that becoming overconfident will eventually hurt you and that no one

could beat their destiny. The Chinese in this story believed in the gods,

they were very religious people and this myth tells that the gods should

not be challenged.

Both of these myths were written a long time ago and I don’t think that

the people today still believe in these myths as strongly as the people who

wrote them did. I think it’s like Halloween in our culture. We still practice

the custom as the ancient people did but we don’t have as much as a

strong believe in ghosts and goblins as our ancestors did.Bibliography

Birch, Cyril. Chinese Myths And Fantasies. Great Britain: London, 1992.

Fei, Charles. Strange Creatures. New York, 1990

Ke, Yuan. Dragons And Dynasties. China: Beijing, 1993

*Chinese Myths.* Grolier Encyclopaedia, 12th ed. 1996.