Hello and welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
This is Bei Bei.
Today I'll talk about the most well-known evil monsters in Chinese mythology the very famous Tao Tie.
Before I get started, just want to share that the characters for Tao Tie are so complicated that they basically look like two blobs of ink in print.
You really have to enlarge the font to see what's going on.
They're not among the common characters that students learn in school.
And years ago, knowing how to pronounce these words or, better yet, how to write them, could really distinguish you as one among the intellectuals.
But in the age of eating shows and fancy takeouts, these two words have become common too, because the word they make up has evolved to mean a big feast.
So how did the name of an ancient monster come to mean a big feast?
Allow me to explain.
Supposedly, the monster Tao Tie has the body of a goat, the face of a human, and teeth of a tiger.
As odd as that sounds, that was not what he was best known of.
His most prominent characteristic was how greedy he was.
He was a glutton, not just for food, but also for wealth of all sorts.
He wanted everything for himself, and he would get things through whatever means.
So he became the symbol of greed, desire, and hunger with no limit.
Nowadays, the word has come to mean good food and plenty of it too.
Layers of dishes heaped on a lazy Susan.
Tao Tie was once a family name too. one of the rare double character ones in China.
And here is a story about how this word became a family name.
About 1,500 years ago, during the northern and southern dynasties, there was a state called Liang.
Its emperor had the last name Xiao.
One of his sons was called Xiao Ji, who was very smart and capable.
The emperor sent him to Chengdu, the city famous for its spicy and tasty hot pots in Sichuan province.
He was doing a really good job there, earning his father's trust.
It was a rather turbulent time in history, and there were conflicts among the sons of the emperor too.
Civil unrest broke out in year 548, and the emperor died.
That's always trouble when there are multiple sons vying for the throne.
Xiao Ji, the son in Chengdu, had a brother who thought he was fit for the throne.
In fact, he enthroned himself as the new emperor.
Now, Xiao Ji in Chengdu wasn't very happy about that.
He was the one that their father trusted.
He should be the new emperor, and so he enthroned himself in Chengdu as well.
And then he led his troops to Hubei in attack on his brother.
They went by boat along the Yangtze River.
His soldiers were very happy living in the hot pot city and didn't want to go anywhere else to encourage, or more precisely entice, his men to fight.
Xiao Ji melted all his gold and silver and made them into coins, one pound each, and there were 10000 of them.
What a lot of money!
Xiao Ji, however, was not going to just hand these out.
He hanged them up all glittering in the sun, probably in the front of the boats, pulling his unwilling soldiers forward.
This worked really well.
His army won quite a few battles, fueled by the soldiers' desire for the reward in gold.
But when it was about time to hand out the gold and silver coins, Xiao Ji felt more attached to his wealth than ever before.
These are my gold and my silver.
I don't want to part with them.
So he didn't.
The rest of the story could be easily predicted.
His soldiers didn't commit to fighting anymore, and the greedy commander-in-chief was killed in a battle.
Basically, he got rid of himself for his brother, who actually erased his name from the family tree.
What's more, none of his offspring could use the last name Xiao anymore.
And guess what last name they were given?
That's right, Tao Tien, which meant greed.
I don't think anybody has that last name in China anymore, but this word is still used.
As I mentioned in the beginning.
Also, a lot of bronze wares from the Shang and Zhou dynasties have a design pattern called Taotie pattern, which is basically the face of a monster with a big mouth wide open.
No body, just the mouth, to signify how greedy it is.
It's actually a quite awe-inspiring and elegant pattern, very masculine.
There are various taotie patterns, and not all of them are associated with the monster taotie.
Nowadays, we call them animal face patterns, and they disappeared with the end of the Zhou Dynasty.
So that's the story of taotie.
And coming up.
In our next episode, I would like to introduce a righteous, magical creature much revered in Chinese culture, with the name of Xie Zhi.
So that's it for today, and see you next time.
Bye-bye!
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Special thanks go out to Sanlian Zhongdu for their help in creating the content for this show.
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