Hello and welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
This is Beibei.
Have you had enough of weird beasts of all kinds from the past few episodes?
Well, if yes, that's fine.
We're moving on to plants.
Magical plants from ancient China.
The first one on my list is called Mingjia, which I've never heard of before.
According to legends, this plant grew on the steps leading up to Emperor Yao's palace.
They looked pretty odd and did something odder for a plant.
On the first day of every lunar month, a bean pod would grow on this plant, and then another on the second day, and so on all the way till the mid of the month, on the 15th.
Then, on the 16th, one bean pod would drop, followed by another one the next day, all the way till the end of the month, when all the bean pods would be gone.
Interesting, isn't it?
Basically, it was a plant calendar.
If we had a plant like this, we would know which date of the month it is by counting how many bean pods there are on the plant.
Pretty cool, right?
But as it is with our regular calendar, some months have 30 days, or 31 days, and others 29.
So what did this plan do?
Well, quite simply, by the end of the month, all the bean pods would just either drop or wither, and a new one would grow on the first day of the new month.
So that's the story of Mingjia on the steps of Emperor Yao.
There was another very useful plant during the time of Emperor Yao, and it was called Sha Pu.
Sha Pu didn't grow on steps, but in the kitchen of Emperor Yao's palace.
Was it edible?
Not really.
It's much more interesting than that.
Before the age of electricity, keeping food fresh had always been a problem, especially in the summertime.
Though Yao was an emperor, he was known to be extremely frugal.
He was not someone who wasted anything.
He felt bad when food had to be thrown out.
Maybe there was a god of frugality somewhere who heard about this and dropped the seeds of a magical plant in Emperor Yao's kitchen.
This was not some delicate small plant.
It was big.
Its leaves were as big as that of a fan and they could wave about on their own without wind or electricity.
So yeah, it was a plant fan, or a fan plant.
It would help circulate or cool the air in the kitchen to keep food cool and to chase away flies and other insects.
So the shapu was the ancient kitchen fan.
The plant dies in the winter and will regrow in the summer next year, all on its own.
So these two kinds of plants were both very practical.
You know, I won't mind having them around.
There was another magical plant from ancient China that's worth mentioning, the quyi cao.
It had a power of a different kind.
It could distinguish which person was good and which was bad, just like the magical beast, Xie Zhi, which we talked about a few episodes back.
This was back in the times of the Yellow Emperor, when more and more tribes came together.
There were so many more people to rule over, and it was not an easy job.
Who could be trusted?
One day, some grass grew in front of the Yellow Emperor's palace.
They were the straightest grass one had ever seen, pointing straight up toward the sky.
Unless a wicked, deceiving, immoral minister walked by.
Then the grass would simply collapse in the direction of the corrupt minister, as if to say this one, this is a bad one.
Get rid of him.
And no matter where the minister then chose to hide, the grass would follow and collapse accordingly.
No bad ministers could escape.
Can you imagine how nervous these ministers were passing in front of the palace praying for stilled air?
It was not like the bad minister would be dragged outside to prison right away.
But the yellow emperor would sure order an investigation and find out what the minister had done.
This is the story of Qiu Yicao pointing at the bad guy.
Quite imaginative, right?
So this is episode 38 and we've covered the origin of the world of humans and stories of heroes and much more.
Starting in the next show, we'll share some more legends.
Stories that were passed down from history.
What thrills will they bring?
Well, let's wait and see.
That's it for now and hope to see you next time.
Bye!
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.
