Author Archives: TRC

Chinese historical legend: Xiang Yu wang

“At the end of the Qin Dynasty, there were a lot of uprisings because people got tired of having to leave home to work on the emperor’s construction projects, and Liu Bang and Xiang Yu were two rebel leaders. So after the Qin Dynasty got overthrown, they have to fight each other to see who would rule China. And there were a lot of battles, but finally Xiang Yu got defeated. Liu Bang knew Xiang Yu would pass by this boulder by this river, so he wrote Xiang Yu wang, death to Xiang Yu, on the boulder in honey. And because there was honey, ants swarmed over the words, so it looked like the ants were forming the words. And when Xiang Yu saw it, he thought it was a message from the gods that he should die, so he committed suicide and Liu Bang became emperor and founded the Han Dynasty.“

My informant thinks he learned this story from his father, who is interested in ancient Chinese history.

This legend is built around real historical events. Xiang Yu did commit suicide after his defeat, although the truth value of the part with the ants and the honey is uncertain. The legend shows that Xiang Yu was honorable and faithful to the gods’ will, which is partly why Xiang Yu is now commonly viewed as a tragic historical figure. The legend also portrays Liu Bang as being an adept manipulator—he won by using his understanding of his opponent’s motivations—and the Chinese value cleverness over physical force.

Riddle: If a rooster…

Q: If a rooster lays an egg on a roof, does the egg roll down the left or the right side?

A: Roosters don’t lay eggs.

My informant learned this riddle in elementary school from a classmate, and it became her favorite riddle when she told it to her parents and they couldn’t answer it correctly.

The structure of the riddle is a familiar one that leads the audience to focus on the question (which way does the egg roll?) rather than the subject (the rooster laying the egg), because they have been conditioned by past experience with riddles to expect either a play on words or for the answer to be in the question. The answer subverts both expectations. This could be considered a catch riddle, since both a “left” and “right” answer would show that the audience had missed the point of the riddle.

The reason my informant liked the riddle so much as a child supports the theory that much of children’s folklore exists to empower children or to undermine the control of authority figures. That roosters can’t lay eggs is common knowledge, even for children, and children are delighted when people who are supposedly more knowledgeable than them fail to notice the obvious impossibility of the riddle.

Chinese tale: Cowherd and Weaving Girl

牛郎织女

Nui Lang Zhi Nu

Cowherd and Weaving Girl

“There were seven goddesses in the Sky Temple, maybe the know Chang E. And they’re the daughters of the mother queen of the Sky Temple, so the king of the Sky Temple is their brother. And these seven, they’re bored so they fly to earth and take baths on earth. I don’t know why, I guess they can’t take baths in the Sky Temple. So every month, they go to earth to take baths in a pool. And normally, no one’s there, they put their clothes by the side of the pool, and they swim and play in the pool. And one day, a lucky guy, Niu Lang, a cowherd, he comes across the seven naked women, and he, he’s a pervert I guess, he takes a set of clothes, and the clothes turn out to be the oldest sister’s. And when the sisters are done with the bath, they go back to the Sky Temple. Because they have to go back, or their mother will find out they escaped from the Sky Temple. So six of the sisters fly back, but the seventh one, Zhi Nu, can’t, because the clothes have some sort of magic power that let you fly. Wait, they should be able to fly by themselves because they’re gods. So maybe the oldest sister just doesn’t want to fly naked? Or maybe she just wants her clothes back. Anyways, six of them go back, and she stays. And this cowherd, Nui Lang, comes out, and he says, Hey woman, I have your clothes. You have to say with me and I’ll give these clothes back to you. And, I don’t know what happened, I don’t want to say, but she falls in love with this guy. I don’t know why, maybe she’d never seen any men before, but they fall in love. And you know, time passes differently on earth than in the sky temple, one day in the Sky Temple is a year on earth. So after a few days the queen of the Sky Temple, she finds out that her oldest daughter is lost. She uses her magic and found that her daughter is married to this human being and they have children. She commands the daughter to come back. The daughter refuses. The daughter had her clothes back, but she just didn’t want to go back.

The daughter had become a mother and a good wife and didn’t want to be separated from her family. The queen was very angry and sent an army to get the daughter back. But Niu Lang and the daughter beg the mother, and they say, kids shouldn’t grow up without a mother, and the queen thinks, yeah, I guess the children need a mother and she shows some mercy and allows the couple to meet once a year. But you know, according to the time rules, I guess that means she has to go every day, and Niu Lang only sees her once a year, so I don’t know how that works.

The queen mother uses the Milky Way to separate the couple. And every year on Qi Xi, Chinese Valentine’s Day, the queen sends some birds to form a bridge and Niu Lang brings their kids, and meets his wife Zhi Nu on the bridge one time a year. “

My informant can’t remember where he learned this story, but he thinks that the appeal of it is in the forbidden love. He said that until recently, and even still in some parts of China, people weren’t allowed to marry freely. He compared the story to Romeo and Juliet, two lovers who defied rules and their parents to be together. The fact that this tale is associated with the Qi Xi Festival, sometimes referred to as Chinese Valentine’s Day, supports this theory.

Annotation: The main character in the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid attends the Qi Xi Festival and sees a shadow play of this story.

Thai folk belief: Butterflies carry souls

My informant had a personal experience with this folk belief while attending her grandmother’s funeral in Thailand. She and the other funeral-goers were kneeling in prayer in front of the Buddhist temple where the funeral was being held, when she noticed a black butterfly fly over her grandmother’s coffin as the monks chanted a sutra to help the soul pass on.

When my informant mentioned the butterfly to an aunt afterwards, the aunt told her that butterflies are containers for souls, and that they carry souls away. The timing of the butterfly’s flight, as well as the fact that she’d never seen a butterfly in Thailand before, convinced my informant of the validity of this folk belief.

My informant suggested that it may be comforting to someone mourning a death to equate their loved one, and maybe death itself, with a butterfly, which is almost universally considered to be beautiful and graceful.

The main religion in Thailand is Buddhism, which rejects the idea of an unchanging self or soul, and so the soul’s flight in the butterfly could be considered the luminal stage between death in one body and reincarnation in the next. Also, while human/alive, we can’t fly—it could be exciting to think that in death, we are able to rise beyond the limitations of our past human bodies.

Thai folk belief: Mole on foot

Shortly before starting her freshman year at college, my informant noticed a mole on the back of her left foot which she was sure hadn’t been there before. She mentioned the mole to her mother, and it was then that her mother told of her the Thai belief that when you get a mole on your foot, it means you’ll travel far. (My informant’s mother is from the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand.)

My informant strongly believes that this belief is accurate, because she moved away from home and into a college dorm a few weeks after noticing the mole. She told me that the belief was bo-lan, a historical saying, or ancient/common knowledge, and that you have to respect bo-lan. Though she didn’t move far (her home is about a half hour drive from her college), she believes that this is because her mole is fairly small, and the size of the mole either determines or predicts (she’s not sure which) how far you’ll be traveling.

The location of the mole on the foot is probably significant. The feet are associated with walking, and therefore travel. This belief reminds me of another bit of folk speech: the “travel itch,” the desire to travel. Moles can itch, prompting the desire to walk, which could be a metaphor for travel.