Hello and welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
My name is Beibei and I'm delighted to have the opportunity to take you through the tales that I grew up listening to.
If you ask a friend from China to tell you a Chinese story, it's very likely that you might hear one of these names.
The giant Pangu who created the whole world.
The goddess Nuwa, who made humans from mud.
And the moon fairy, who lives on the lonely planet with no one except her bunny.
And the great Yu, who was able to calm floods.
Who are these characters?
And what did they do that made them so important for the Chinese people?
Well, that's what this podcast is all about.
Now, as Maria says in Sound of Music, let's start from the very beginning.
Today, I'm going to answer the question of how was the world created the Chinese way?
I know you know the Big Bang Theory, but that's not how ancient Chinese saw it.
To say that our precious world started with a huge explosion sounds a bit too ominous for the taste of the Chinese people.
Our bountiful earth and the beautiful moon cannot be the spit-outs from a natural catastrophe.
There's got to be a more benign explanation.
From what I know about Chinese psychology, There's got to be a hero and he's got to be huge, powerful and benevolent.
And guess what?
I'm about right.
So in Chinese mythology, the world in the beginning was a big dark ball, just like an egg.
Well, actually more like the infamous, but very tasty thousand year egg.
Everything was all muddled together, sky and earth and all that in between.
This huge glob of darkness was called Hongmeng, or the vast mist, primeval chaos.
A quick fast forward to the present world.
Hongmeng is also the name of Huawei's first self-developed operating system.
Okay, back to the ancient times.
A huge and powerful giant slept inside this egg of darkness.
His name was Pangu.
Pangu slept on and on for 18,000 years.
Not one more, not one less.
18,000 years was quite a nap.
Finally, Pangu woke up.
He opened his eyes and was blinded by the darkness everywhere.
He couldn't see or hear a thing.
That was unbearable.
He fumbled around and felt something like an axe.
How convenient!
He swung the axe overhead and crack!
The egg was split open.
After tens of thousands years of stillness, it was finally action time.
This glob of darkness started separating.
Lighter materials like gas drifted upward and formed the sky.
Darker and heavier materials started sinking and formed the earth.
The world was forming on its own quite nicely.
But this was all so new, and Pangu was worried.
What if the sky fell?
What if the earth decided to fly up and merge with the sky again?
It would be darkness all over again.
Thousand-year egg forever.
Pangu had no other tool other than the axe.
But he was a giant.
Tall and strong, he's got muscles.
He stretched his arms up to hold the sky in place and planted his feet firmly on the newly formed earth.
On a side note, how significant is it to hold up the sky in Chinese culture?
There is a saying in China that women hold up half the sky to emphasize the power and responsibilities of women in Chinese society.
Back at the beginning.
It was the giant Pangu who held up the entire sky, and he held it for 18000 years.
Every day, the sky drifted higher and the earth thickened.
More space was created in between. giving more room for Pangu to grow.
And grow he did.
He was like a mountain that stood between the sky and the earth.
Pangu was very, very patient.
It was only after another 18000 years that he was confident that the sky and the earth would stay in their respective places.
Finally, he felt relieved and thought, It's been a while now, and I'm a bit tired.
Time for another nap.
Pangu let go of the sky and lied down on the earth just to rest a bit.
18,000 years could be a start.
He slept on and on for so long that he merged with the earth bit by bit.
The air he breathed became the wind.
His left eye became the sun and his right eye became the moon.
His arms and legs became the tallest mountains and his bloodstreams became rivers.
His hair and beard became forests.
His bones became rocks and his teeth became gems.
So in the Chinese version of the Big Bang theory, it was the giant Pangu who created the world with a bang.
And that was the beginning of nature and everything else.
So told you there would be a nice giant.
Was this then the first myth in Chinese history?
Not necessarily so.
When people in the ancient times tried to explain the formation of our natural world, they normally started with smaller things, such as the origin of a mountain of rivers, thunder and rain.
There came stories about mountain deities and gods of rain and thunder.
When people thought more about natural laws and patterns, they started wondering how the whole world was formed.
Some myths were so popular that they were passed down through the generations.
The story of Pangu was one of them.
So now we have the world.
How did people come about?
Did they come from a couple who stole something from a garden?
And a something forbidden?
Now that doesn't sound Chinese at all.
But let's wait till the next episode.
Bye for now.
This is a China Plus podcast.
Special thanks go out to Sanlian Zhongdu for their help in creating the content for this show.
If you like the podcast, please give us a rating and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen.
If you've got any questions or feedback, please feel free to contact us via email at podcast at cricomcn or find us on Twitter China Plus Pods.
