Hello and welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
This is Beibei.
We've spent a lot of time sharing folk tales from ancient China.
Today I want to introduce another type of stories that shares a common theme with the folk tales, or more like a common desire.
And that is the desire or quest for immortality.
In some of these stories, the main character had dealings with some immortals, and in others, mere humans were pointed out, the gateway to heaven.
Let's call these tales of immortality.
To distinguish folktales from stories of immortality.
The key is knowing that in folktales or fairy tales, The goal is not to become one of the gods, to become immortal.
But in these stories of immortality, the main characters all share the dream of escaping the ultimate doom in the form of death.
The Han Dynasty, some 2,000 years ago, was a high time for stories about ghosts and gods.
Do you know what was popular then?
Alchemy.
Not for gold, but for pills of immortality.
Many people dreamed that they could mix together a secret set of ingredients probably roots, metals and lizard claws and once they swallow, this glob of creativity.
Their earthly bodies will be preserved, and they will live forever.
There is an interesting idiom in Chinese that goes When one person becomes an immortal, his dogs and chickens become immortal too.
Why is that?
Because that person, who had been cooking pills of immortality, would scatter the dregs in his yard, and his dogs and chickens would then eat some and live forever too, whether or not they wanted to.
The idiom however, had come to mean that relatives and followers of a high official got promotions after him a rise in the mortal world.
But the distinction between folktales and stories of immortality is not that clear, especially when it comes to tales from the ancient times, like the story of the moon lady Chang'e, who was forced, in a way, to take two pills of immortality and rose to the moon, and how the yellow emperor rose to heaven on the back of dragons.
They all had the influence of stories of immortality.
Also during the ancient times, the images of different gods often had elements of nature tail of the serpent, body of a tiger, so on and so forth.
But with the advancement of civilization, having gods with animal body parts didn't look so proper and dignified anymore.
That's why the images of many ancient gods changed over time into more acceptable forms for the human eye.
Among these gods who had this makeover is the Queen, Mother of the West, not the Wicked Witch of the West.
Though she looked rather wicked...
She had a tail of the leopard, teeth of a tiger, and hair like a bird's nest.
Not a lady who cared much about her looks.
In fact, she sounded more like a tribal leader ready for the battlefield.
But transformation took place and she started to look more and more like what she sounded she should look like.
You know, a queen mother, beautiful and benevolent.
Not someone who lived alone in a mountain cave and probably had bats in her hair.
That just won't do anymore.
There's a story about the queen, mother of the West from the Zhou Dynasty, which was 2000 to 3000 years ago.
King Mu of Zhou loved to roam around on his eight-horse carriage.
His fine horses were so fast that his carriage could travel 10,000 miles in a night.
That's like an airplane.
It carried King Mu all over the world, reaching the end of the West, where he supposedly met the Queen, Mother of the West.
By that time, the queen mother had already transformed into an elegant and graceful goddess without the leopard tail and the tiger teeth.
But the place where she lived were still known to have packs of leopards and tigers.
So she probably still got her wild streak just very well hidden.
But her surroundings did undergo some changes too, starting with her servants, which didn't really exist except for three blue birds who delivered food to her cage.
She was as solitary as they got back then.
These were no small, delicate creatures.
They were giant birds with powerful wings.
I have the image in my mind of three flying dinosaurs whatever they're called delivering food for this lady in the cave.
Later, when she became the elegant and graceful Queen Mother of the West, flying dinosaurs didn't look so right anymore.
So she had 10 fairy maids waiting on her instead, and the blue birds were capped as her messengers.
If the queen mother needed to go somewhere, the bluebirds would send a message.
First and later, bluebirds became known as messengers of good news, especially when they come up in classical Chinese poetry.
The queen mother of the West is also known for having pills of immortality.
Remember, she gave two of those to Chang'e's husband, causing his wife to flow up to heaven.
Anyway, in fact though, no one knew what these pills looked like.
So people started to associate immortality with things that actually existed.
For example, there's this particular type of mushroom that has been given mystical powers in Chinese culture.
You don't really see it much, but every Chinese knows about it, and they actually exist.
It's called the Lingzhi mushroom, or mushroom of immortality.
Even its name in Chinese, 灵芝, it's got this supernatural air to it.
I checked it out online and it's also called the shelf mushroom and bracket fungi, which don't sound as spiritual as its name in Chinese.
It does have a lot of health benefits if taken as a supplement, and they're known for its anti-cancer properties.
I'm not making this up.
You can totally go check it out online.
Its popularity is making its way west.
I've even seen it in facial care products of major brands.
Antioxidant and anti-aging, all that.
You see?
Immortality.
Okay, enough about mushrooms.
I'm moving on to fruits.
Another thing that has been given a celestial tinge and is related to immortality is the flat peach, also known as the donut peach, because it looks more like a pink donut than a healthy peach.
You might think it looks rather deformed as far as peaches go, but they're actually really really good.
They're called Pan Tao in Chinese, the Pan Peach.
And everyone knows in China that these are the peaches for the Queen, Mother of the West in heaven, not meant for us mortals on the ground.
We all know about it since we were kids, way before actually seeing them and tasting them.
Most Chinese learned about The Donut Peach from The Journey to the West, one of the four major Chinese classical novels that every Chinese knows about.
If you haven't heard of it, maybe you have heard of The Monkey King.
So he was one of the leading characters in the novel, which was based on the actual 7th century pilgrimage of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang to India in search of sacred texts.
Okay, I could literally go on and on about this, because adults like me in China grew up watching this TV series every year during the summer vacations, every single year in our childhoods.
Back to the peach.
What does it have to do with immortality?
Well, legend has it that these peaches grew in the garden of the Queen, Mother of the West in heaven, not near her mountain cave.
These peaches only bear fruit every 3,000 years.
Fruit of immortality don't come easy.
One time, the naughty monkey king flew up to the sky to find the Queen Mother of the West.
He landed in her palace on the clouds, the bottom half of the TV screen filled with drifting smoke.
But it's not like the Queen Mother of the West would just sit out in the courtyard fanning herself.
The monkeys got to wait.
But monkeys are not really good at just staying there.
So he wandered to the queen mother's garden.
And oh, what did the monkey find?
Tree after tree were dotted with these giant peaches that looked so juicy.
What kind of monkey could resist this kind of temptation, especially one as insolent as the monkey king?
He didn't care about being immortal, but he did care about peaches.
The queen mother would not have been half as mad if he had just focused on finishing one peach before moving on to the next one.
But no.
He had to take precisely one bite from one giant peach, fling it and immediately move to the next one.
The queen mother was not happy with this.
Her fruit of immortality so recklessly wasted.
Well, no mother would be happy with this.
Did the queen mother punish the monkey king?
Of course.
He was trapped under a mountain for 500 years.
Well, not just for stealing the peaches of immortality, but also a slew of other affronts to the gods.
The story can go on forever.
I just wanted to mention the peaches.
Anyway, where was I?
I can't find my way back, but we're near the end of this episode anyway.
To wrap up, I just want to point out that by the time of the Heavenly Peaches, the Queen, Mother of the West, had made the transformation from a half-monster to one graceful lady accessorized with an excessive amount of jewelry, and her name had changed to something like the Heavenly Queen Mother, and she plays a part in an endless list of folktales.
We will get to one in the next episode, and hope to see you then.
Bye for now.
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