Hello and welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
This is Beibei.
In the next few episodes, I'm going to be talking about the gods and goddesses in Chinese mythology and check out the work that they did.
We're going to start with the Sun God.
Actually, it's the Sun Goddess.
Her name is Xi He.
Legend has it that Xi He had ten sons, as in S-O-N-S.
She's certainly the mother of light and warmth.
So what did Goddess Xi He and her sons do?
Well, let's flip to their daily Instagram or WeChat postings, whatever they used back then.
The ten sons of Xi He were very tight.
They got along really well and all lived together in a place called Yanggu or the Yang Valley.
The valley was at a nice place.
It was near the sea.
So when her ten sons were not working, they loved to go skinny dipping in the ocean.
A huge tree grew in the water with leaves that looked like those of the mulberry trees.
Remember for the silkworms?
This divine tree was called Fusang.
And that's why the place where the sun rises is also called Fusang.
Now this tree was huge, piercing through the clouds, and the ten suns rested under its shade.
And here is their work schedule.
One sun goes to work each day.
So basically, everyone worked one day and took the nine days off.
Wouldn't that be a nice schedule for us too?
The job of the sun goddess, Xi He, their mother, was to pick them up for work every day.
So no weekends for the mom.
Every day was a working day.
Every day, before dawn Xi, He would hitch up her carriage drawn by six dragons and fly across the starry sky and arrive at the Yang Valley.
Whichever son is on duty would have showered and shaved, sprayed on his golden dusts.
But no fancy sports car, though.
It's mommy's buggy or you're out of a job.
Every day, mother and son rode on the dragon carriage and raced across the sky, making regular stops indicating each hour of the day.
Can you envision that a carriage drawn by six dragons, carrying the golden sun, zooming in the distance across the sky, bringing forth light and warmth and life to every living thing?
Quite spectacular.
At the end of their trip, Xi He, the goddess, would stop her carriage and this hour is called Xuan Che, or literally hang up your carriage.
This indicates the end of daylight, the last moment of sunlight in the West.
By the way, 玄车 also means age 70, which was already very old by the standards back then.
And that's the age that Chinese people believe you should go back to your hometown, hang up your carriage and just chill.
So at this hour, Xi He would make a U-turn, and the son on duty that day would get off.
He would then need to walk on his own to a place called Yu Yuan, the same valley where Kuafu was running toward before he collapsed from exhaustion.
At last, the golden rays would melt into the valley, and the sky would turn dark.
Xi He, the goddess, would then drive her carriage back.
Day after day, the routine was repeated, one sun a day.
There is the story of goddess Xi He bathing the sun.
That's right.
She washes her sons sparkly clean so they can shine brighter in the sky.
And people have worshipped the two goddesses, Nuwa and Xi He, since the ancient times.
This is also another reflection of the matriarchal society back in the ancient times.
Later, in fact, another goddess came of the myth of Xi He, and that was the moon goddess, Chang Xi.
The moon goddess had 12 children, and the 12 moons rotated on their job at night too.
Now some people might ask You said earlier that Pangu's left eye became the sun and his right eye became the moon.
So where did these goddesses come from?
Well, all these folktales had different origins.
The story of the giant Pangu originated in southern China and didn't make it into written form until the period of the Three Kingdoms, about 1800 years ago.
Also Xi.
He was a goddess, and when matriarchal societies were gradually replaced with patriarchal societies, the status of female goddesses changed with the times too.
Some even started saying that Xi He was not an independent goddess, but the wife of the Lord of Heaven.
Others said that she was not the mother of the sons, but only their driver instead.
And some simply changed Xi He's gender altogether and turned her into a male god.
But I like to remember her. as the tireless mother who, day after day, drove her sons, well, both S-U-N-S and S-O-N-S, across the sky to light up the world.
That's the story about the sun goddess, Xi He.
In our next episode, we'll talk about the god of water.
And I hope to see you then.
Bye for now.
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.
