Posts by Anthill

塞翁失马 sàiwēngshīmǎ – A blessing in disguise

We've done myths and Cantonese. Now this month we're running a series of interesting 成语 (chéngyǔ), the four-character Chinese idioms that often have stories behind them. Whip them out in conversation to look crazy cultured.

塞翁失马 (sàiwēngshīmǎ) could literally be translated as “this old man lost this horse”. 塞 is a particle for “here”, which in this case refers to a border region. 翁 is “old man”, often also connoting wisdom. 失 is “lose”, 马 is “horse”. It’s often followed by 焉知非福 (yānzhīfēifú) – “how is one to know if it’s misfortune or fortune?” Here’s the story behind it, from Chinese-Chengyu.com:

Edited and with additions from Fuck Yeah Chinese Myths!

Chinese Valentine’s Day (七夕节, qīxījié) falls on the seventh day of the seventh month in the old Chinese lunar calendar, and has been celebrated since the Han dynasty. This year it was on Saturday 2nd August, so date night. Here’s the really awesome story behind it.

Once, there was a cowherd, Niulang (牛郎 Niúláng) who married a beautiful fairy girl, Zhinü (织女 Zhīnǚ, literally “weaver girl”). Zhinü was the seventh daughter of the Goddess of Heaven, but she got bored, came down to earth and fell in love with Niulang. In another version, Niulang’s cow talked to him one day, and told him to go to the lake where fairies were bathing, and take the red set of clothes as it belongs to the prettiest one.

Edited, with additions, from Fuck Yeah Chinese Myths!

If you’re not from Asia, you’ll be familiar with dragon slaying tales. In Western culture, dragons are evil, but in Chinese culture, they’re benevolent and kind, and made of awesome. Here’s why.

The story goes that in the earliest time in China, people formed clans. Each had an animal to represent their clan, like a pig or a snake, to show how badass they were.

Over time, one clan led by the legendary Yellow Emperor (黃帝 Huángdì) adopted the fearsome traits of animals from the clans they defeated, joining the claws of an eagle, the body of a serpent, the face of a lion, etc. – forming, you guessed it, the dragon.

Yes, yes, I know it's Wednesday/Thursday, but I've been out in the boondocks and just got back online. Then again, Chinese Tuesdays has always been more than a day of the week, it's a state of mind.

Anyway, here is the continuation of our early Chinese myths season, courtesy of Fuck Yeah Chinese Myths!:

We talked about Nüwa last time, so now we’re going to talk about her husband. Fu Xi (伏羲 Fúxī) was the first of the Three Sovereigns, Five Emperors (三皇五帝 sānhuáng wǔdì) who ruled during the mythical dynasty before the Xia Dynasty, on the banks of the Yellow River.

Last week we talked about Pan Gu and how he awesomely created the world by holding up the sky for 18,000 years, and when he died his body parts became the hills and valleys.

After that came Nüwa, who is a badass female creation goddess (half human half serpent in some images) who came to earth from the heavens, and made all the animals. She did this for six days: as the legend goes, on the first day she made chickens, on the second, dogs, then sheep, pigs, cows and horses. Then on the seventh day she still felt lonely, so she created people.