Recent Stories
Who is Changer-Legend about the Mid-Autumn Festival
Author: caren_zuo Date: 2006-11-07 04:03
A beautiful goddess and a rabbit always decorate the gift boxes for moon cakes.
It is said that archer General Hou Yi saved the earth by shooting down nine of the ten suns which once circled the planet. These suns each took turns illuminating the earth, but one day all ten suns appeared together, burning the surface of the planet and threatening to kill everything. The General killed all but one sun and the Queen Mother, wife of the ruler in the heaven, awarded him with an elixir of life. However, General Hou Yi didn’t want to fly to the heaven and leave his wife alone on earth, so he gave the elixir to his spouse, Chang Er and told her to take good care of it.
Unfortunately, a man called Feng Meng forced Chang Er to hand over the elixir while General Hou Yi was away one day. Chang Er had no choice but to swallow the elixir, finding herself floating up to the sky, where she became the goddess of heaven-the goddess shown on moon cake gift boxes. When Chang Er reached the moon, she found a friendly hare underneath a tree-the rabbit on today’s boxes.
On the nigh of the Mid-Autumn festival, when the bright moonlight fills the earth, it is said one can see a faint figure dancing gracefully against the moon. It is Chang Er, who spends the festival with us mortals even to this day.
Sep 2004, That’s China
Tags:
Chinese_festivals
Display Tagged Entries
Gather for Spring Festival Dinner (2006-11-13 02:51)
The Dragon Boat Festival I (2006-11-08 02:27)
The Dragon Boat Festival II (2006-11-08 02:25)
How Do Chinese Celebrate the Moon Festival (2006-11-07 04:04)
Celebrating Double-Seventh Festival (2006-11-07 03:38)


Subscribe
Previous
Back
Next
Categories
Recent Comments
QA Center