Chinese Fairy Tales and Myths
By shirly on 2016-04-22

You may all be familiar with fairy tales written by the Brothers Grimm and Anderson and Greek and Roman Myth. The little Mermaid, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood are all well-known to almost every children in the world and people may all know about the Sword of Damocles, Hera’s Apple and Oedipus’ Complex. But few know about Chinese fairy tales or Chinese myths. Actually, they are all as meaningful and interesting as European ones. In ancient China, during people’s cultivation and hardworking, they created some stories and tales as spiritual sustenance. And different from western myths and fairy tales, Chinese ones endow characters with Chinese feature and tradition, making them different from images in western culture.

Speaking of fairy tales, everyone will remember the poor girl called Cinderella under the oppression of her step mother. She finally became a princess with the help of the small bird on the trees. Actually in China, there is also such a story in which the character becomes a girl called Ye Xian. Her mother died when she was young and her father married to another woman. This woman, just like Cinderella’s stepe mother, treated Ye Xian badly. After Ye’s father dies, Ye was assigned to do heavy chores and given little food. Her life was miserable. However, she found a fish that she was very fond of. She slinkingly fed it and it grew bigger and bigger. Finally the step mother found it. She didn’t want to let Ye to be happy, so she stole the fish and ate it up. When Ye found her fish gone, she cried. So sorrowfully did she cry that an immortal appeared and told her the truth, infroming her to keep the fishbone and ask for anything from it. Ye did so. The fishbone brought her anything she wanted. Then a grand festival came, and every young people were invited to join the feast. The step mother also took her own daughter to the feast, but forbade Ye to go there. Ye was so sad that she cried to the fishbone. This fishbone, full of magic power, immediately gave her the most beautiful clothes and shoes, decorating her into a beautiful girl just like a fairy. The girl attended the feast, and became the most outstanding one on it. However, to not be found by her step mother, Ye left before the feast ended and went back home. But she was in such a hurry that her lost one of her shoes made of gold. Some business man got the shoe and sold it to a King. The King was amazed at this luxious shoe, and he ordered his fellowers to find the owner of the shoe. However, no girl in the world could wear it except Ye Xian. And finally the King found the girl and married to her. He got both the beautiful girl and tremendous treasure brought by the fishboen. However, not like Cinderella who finally led a happy life with the prince at the end, Ye Xian was abandoned as her fishbone could not bring any treasure to the King any more, coding the story with culture token that women were only attachments to men.

As for myths, the first thing comes to people’s mind is Zeus and Hera, the gods of Olympus. This myth system, consists of twelve gods is rather familiar to westerners. However, few of them knows about China’s myths while they are also very interesting and splendid as western ones. Different from what is focused on western myths, the Chinese ones tend to portray the god and goddess as animals. The most famous goddess is Nvwa, who had woman’s upper body and snake’s lower part of the body. She was regarded as the creator of human beings. She used earth to make human beings. And in the myths, it was said that when Gong Gong, the god of water, angrily collided against the Buzhou Mountain, the sky was broken, causing flood and disaster to human beings. Nvwa, the creator of them, was mercy and benevolent. She could not bear the fact that her people was suffering. So she decided to refine a stone to fill the empty part of the sky. This story set the base for the unshakeable status of Nvwa in Chinese people’s mind. Except from this kind of myth of ages of teras, there are also myths of ancient time. The most significant one is Chang E and Hou Yi, the tragic couple. Hou Yi was regarded as the hero who saved people out of extreme misery. At that time, there were ten suns on the sky doing evils, making the ground out of water and people suffering from droughts. If this kind of situation lasted, all the people would die. Hou Yi, who was full of braveness and strength, could not stand by. He used his bow and arrows to shoot the nine suns and left one for lights. Later, he got elixir from the Queen of the West. But as someone wanted to steal the elixir, his wife, Chang E, hurriedly ate all the elixir up. And she flew to the moon and could never get back to Hou Yi’s side.

As a country of 5000 years’ history, China boasts rich cultural heritage. Chinese fairy tales and myths, weathering a long history, are all essence of traditional Chinese culture. As the world integrates more closely, this kind of cultural heritage should be shared and inherited all over the world.