14) Jing Wei tried to fill up the sea

Legend has it that Yan Di (the ruler back then) had a smaller daughter named Nv Wa. She was really smart and pretty, and Yan Di loved her very much.

One day she went out to play, and saw a bigger kid riding on a smaller kid; she got mad and yelled at the bigger kid, saying that bullying the weaker ones are shameful; if he was really powerful he’d go hunt down bears and wolves.

The older kid saw that she was a little girl so he didn’t take her for anything. Turned out that the older kid was the son of the Sea Dragon King, and he was very full of himself. Him and Nv Wa got into a fight, but Nv Wa learnt a lot from her father and is very agile; she managed to win the fight against the son of the Sea Dragon King, and the Sea Dragon King had no choice but to back-off, swearing that he will get her back one day.

Sometimes later, Nv Wa goes into the ocean to swim; the son of the Sea Dragon King comes to her and asks her to apologize to him for what happened on land the other time. Nv Wa refuses, so the son of the Sea Dragon King turned waves against her, and ended up drowning her.

After she died, Nv Wa could not accept her death. Her spirit turned into a bird named “Jing Wei.” Everyday, Jing Wei flies to the west mountain to get pebbles, throws it into the sea, hoping to fill it up. She goes everyday, never ending.

I remember reading about this folklore in grade school and being very unsatisfied about the sad ending. Having my mom remind me of it and perform it to me again, I got to know more details of the folklore that I didn’t know before, yet I still feel very very sad about this story. I wish it wsa a happy ending.