Tag Archives: sun

Taiwanese story: Hou Yi and the 10 Suns

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 76
Occupation: Retired, former teacher
Residence: Taipei, Taiwan
Performance Date: 24 March 2024
Language: Taiwanese/Mandarin

Tags: hou yi, taiwan, suns, origin, tradition, archer

Text:

Once upon a time, there were 10 suns in the sky. One day, they decided to all come out at the same time. The land was scorching and the people were on the brink of death from the heat, so they asked a legendary warrior, Hou Yi, to go and do something about the suns. Hou Yi was a great warrior and archer, but even he saw the difficulty of shooting down 10 celestial entities. He pondered upon how to deal with the suns for some time, and one day, Hou Yi looked down and saw a puddle of water reflecting the 10 suns. Hou Yi then shot arrows at the reflections of 9 suns inside the puddle, causing the real 9 suns in the sky to disappear, leaving only 1 sun so that humanity wouldn’t have an endless night. Thus, that is how and why there is 1 sun in the sky today.

Context:

C. is a born and raised Taiwanese citizen, and has told her fair share of stories to her children and grandchildren alike. This story is one of the most famous and commonly known stories in Taiwan and most other East Asian countries, and C. was even surprised when I asked her to tell it again for this class since she knew I had heard it multiple times.

Analysis:

Being one of the oldest stories in Chinese (and thus Asian) folklore, there are a myriad of different details and versions of the story that contest the sequence of events. Some versions include the Jade Emperor being the one to appoint Hou Yi, others include the rooster as the reason the last sun comes back up, and a plethora of other changes/additions. Overall, this is a good example of a common story with various differences being made by various different storytellers over time.

Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival Myth

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Barista/Student
Residence: Mercer Island, WA

Text

A very long time ago, there were 10 suns in the sky. Crops and people were dying because of the excess heat from too many suns. One day, a really good archer named Houyi decided he’d solve the problem by shooting down the suns. He succeeded, shooting down nine out of ten of them. The people were happy, and afterwards, Houyi married a girl name Chang’e. He was rewarded for his feat with a special medicine ball, but told only to eat it when he was about to die. Later, Houyi went hunting, leaving his wife at home. Thieves broke into their house and demanded that Chang’e give them the medicine ball. Chang’e refused, but when the thieves insisted, she ate it rather than risk it falling into their hands. As a result, she floated all the way up to the moon. Houyi was extremely sad. Chang’e is said to still be there today. There are other versions of this story where Chang’e chooses to eat the ball without the intervention of thieves or where Houyi grows evil and Chang’e eats the ball to prevent Houyi from using it.

Context

AZ was between 4 and 5 when she first heard this legend. She can’t remember where she first first it, but recalls that it’s generally told during the Mid-Autumn Festival or in school. This celebration is all about the moon at its brightest and roundest, and the legend is shared to honor Chang’e for eating the ball to protect it from being used for bad things. AZ says this story is the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The story is very nostalgic for her. AZ told me that she prefers the version she told over the alternate versions. She doesn’t know what the story might mean or represent.

Analysis

There’s a lot to this myth, which seems to have many variations and hold lots of value in Chinese culture. I designate this as a myth because it is not only a creation story, but also appears to be sacred. It’s the origin of a large, annual celebration, denoting its importance in China. I think that this myth expresses the importance of the Sun and moon in Chinese culture, as well as their intrinsic connection to human beings. This is because both bodies have major importance in the story: Houyi is reason there’s only one sun, and his shooting down of the other nine leads to his to his ownership of the ball; and Chang’e’s choice to eat the ball takes her to the moon, where she remains to this day. Chang’e’s and Houyi’s decisions to take action in order to protect the world around them highlights the importance of strength, virtue, and courage in Chinese culture. This is further emphasized by alternate versions of the tale mentioned by AZ. In the one in which Houyi turns evil, Chang’e’s choice to eat the ball is still courageous, strong, and virtuous. In the one in which Chang’e chooses to eat the ball, being stranded on the moon is her punishment, warning others to choose virtue over desire. Since this myth still shapes an important celebration in China and continues to be told, I believe that these values are still important to the culture in the modern day.

Maui Harnessing the Sun

Nationality: Cuban American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student (Fashion)
Residence: London, United Kingdom
Performance Date: April 30th, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant Context:

James has lived in many locations internationally, including Cosa Rica, Mexico, and Nepal. His family is located in Hawaii, where he will often visit during his breaks from school. He is a student in London, United Kingdom, studying fashion. 

Transcript:

JAMES: Obviously I am not native Hawaiian, but having spent some time there—especially now that my family lives there—um, there’s obviously a pretty rich cultural… culture of storytelling, and obviously they had their own kind of mythology and stuff. And one that always stuck with me was that on oddly enough, in the hotel that we used to say at often when we would go to Maui, there was a huge massive like—oh gosh, it must have been, it was probably like 30 feet tall, 20 feet tall and like 40 feet wide—is a massive wood carving of Maui harnessing the sun. Which comes from… obviously, Hawaiian legend and myth—of how in the early days of creation, the sun raced—was obviously a personified person, and they would drive rapidly around the earth, basically, racing around the earth and… days were so short,  that people couldn’t do anything, they couldn’t get anything done. And so, they—the people, you know, cried out to Maui their demigod savior, and said, “Can you do something—[laughs]

INTERVIEWER: [joins] 

JAMES: —about this?”, as people tend to do of their deities and stories, and even in modern days, but that’s a lit—that’s a different issue [laughs]. Um… and yeah, so as far as I’ve been told the story, it’s—Maui climbed up to Haleakalā, which is the, uh… largest—larger of the two volcanoes on Maui, and cast out his fishing net—which is one of those ones that you like… yo—I don’t know like, the term for it, but you like, swing it out, and it like, spreads out. And he managed to catch the sun, and brought him down to earth, and was basically like “Hey!”… basically threatened him, which I feel like you shouldn’t do to like, the *sun*, but… he… basically threatened him—

INTERVIEWER: [laughs] You’re nice to the sun?

JAMES: [voice broken by laughter] You know? Like, you kind of… be polite, [or(?)], diplomatic, but—

INTERVIEWER: [laughs]

JAMES: Anyways, I guess you can do whatever you want if you’re a demigod. And uh, yeah. But he harnessed the sun, brought him down, and basically [showed him(?)] like, “Hey! You—we need like, more… we need longer periods of light. Because otherwise, the food isn’t gonna grow, and if… we can’t just keep working at night, because you know, electricity isn’t a thing. And so, please go slower.” And then he released him, and that is where they believe the day comes from. The… uh, as far as… in its longevity, um… and its consistency, I suppose, being where they are at—near the equator. Um… but yeah! That one always stuck with me, mostly because we would just see this massive woodcarving over, um… in the foyer of this restaurant. [unintelligible] is always… like, like right in the middle of the hotel. Um… but I always… I always loved the Hawaiian myths, I suppose. I think they’re very…  mythology in general, I mean, is just fascinating…

Informant Commentary:

James has a general interest in religious folklore, especially the folklore of those places he has personally visited. He expressed a positive view of folklore in Hawaii, citing institutional efforts of preservation and respect, such as laws surrounding burial grounds and other sacred land, as well as the consistent invocation of traditional Hawaiian symbolism around government buildings and tourist areas (e.g., the statue mentioned in the transcript). When countered on this idea, James acknowledged that many of these efforts are, in his words, “performative”. 

Analysis:

This story is best categorized as a myth, as it is a creation story and an explanation of a natural phenomenon: the length of the days. Based solely on the narrative of the story, the myth of Maui harnessing the sun seems to reference a fundamental trust in deities to intervene on behalf of man, even capturing one of the (if not the single most) powerful natural force.

Mexican myth

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 54
Occupation: Restaurant worker
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/29/2020
Primary Language: Spanish

Main piece: 

The following is transcribed from a conversation between the informant and interviewer.

Informant: A ritual that you have to do, no matter if you are Mexican, German, Chinese, American… it doesn’t matter what nationality you are. Everyone does this when they go up the first time. 

Interviewer: Wait what? Where?

Informant: Oh umm at the pyramids of Teotihuacan, the ones we’ve gone to in Mexico. 

Interviewer: Oh ok. I know what you’re talking about. 

Informant: When you go up the sun pyramid, you count the steps, all 365 of them and once you’re at the summit. At the top of the pyramid there is a circle etched in the center and a hole where your finger fits. When you’re there, you have to raise your hands towards the sky so that Quetzalcoatl, the sun god, fills you with energy, purifies you, gives you wisdom and fortifies you that year. 

Interviewer: And everyone does it? 

Informant: Ahhh! Don’t you remember when we went, we have pictures of us raising our hands. And the people around us were raising their hands towards the sky. All the people, doesn’t matter what nationality, sex, or religion… Everyone does this when going up the sun pyramid for the first time. 

Background: My informant was my dad. He was born in Mexico City as well. He knows pretty much every touristic area in Mexico because he traveled a lot in his 20s and 30s when he was a marathon runner. He’s taken me to the pyramids before, and after collecting the performance, he helped my mom find pictures of us raising our hands when we reached the summit of the sun pyramid. 

Context: I just asked my dad if there were any cool stories or myths he knew about for a project I’m working on. He asked “what do you mean” and I responded with “anything, a story or a myth” and he proceeded with the myth about the sun pyramid. The setting was in our backyard as we were taking a break from yard work. 

Thoughts: I was a kid when we went to the pyramids of teotihuacan and I remember going up a bunch of steps. The pictures helped me fill in some gaps but I never knew the hand-raising to receive energy was a thing. I thought we did it just as a pose or something, but after hearing the myth, I was impressed with it. It’s something that traces back to the Aztecs and something that tourists from all over the world do, so I found that pretty enticing.

A Cat Giving Birth

Nationality: Persian American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2/12/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Farsi

Description

“They say that when the sun is out and it’s raining, a cat is giving birth. My mother would say it all the time, but I remember one time we were in the car and we were driving, I was a toddler. It’s raining and it’s sunny, and she would say, ‘Oh look, a cat is giving birth right now.’ I asked her, ‘How do you know, mom?’ and she was just, ‘It’s just true.’”

Context

This conversation came when I was discussing the rain back where I am from, and this informant as well as another discussed their beliefs surrounding rain while the sun shines. The informant heard it first from their mother, when they were in the car and driving, as outlined in the description.

Analysis

I found it interesting that I had two different people from two different cultures reflecting on this belief that there had to be something happening because it was raining and sunny at the same time. The closest thing I remember believing is that after a rain, or if there was a rainbow while it was still raining, there was a little leprechaun and a pot of gold at the end of it. My friends would make jokes about God peeing onto Earth, of course, but that was the most of it. I love that different cultures have different explanations, but I cannot begin to think what witches and rain and sun have to do with each other.