Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Question for Ziyal

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Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

Hey, Tora....was hopin' you (or anyone else who knows anything on the subject who might read this) can help me with something.

I applied & was accepted to an email RPG run by "The One" & one of my 2 characters is � Chinese. Because of that, I had part of her background be that her maternal grandmother who immigrated from China after WW2 taught her some of the "traditional ways" from the mainland, including cooking, mythology, & tales.

I can get the cooking from an infinite number of books & wwwebsites, but the mythologies & tales & whatnot are less than readily available. I was wondering if you (or anyone else) might have any insight or whatever into the areas.

I can be reached by email or AIM at [email protected] if y'wanna discuss this in private. Thanks...

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"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much."

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Chinese mythology.

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"Yeah...apparently Sizer is very hard to say, so they replace it with 'Is Mr. Caeser home?'
Sometimes I'll say that no, he has, in fact, passed away.
'My apologies.'
'Oh, that's ok, I'm over it. Brutus is still a wreck though.'
Then I hang up."
-Simon Sizer on telemarketers, 1-Nov-2000

Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

Yeah, I live over at Mythica....& I've scoured OccultSearch & AvatarSearch...but nothing has anything about the folktales as well, & the mythology is somewhat "homogenized"...

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"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much."

Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :

Er...I remember some folktales, but not really in detail and certainly not the names in English spelling. There's the myth about a destructive beast whose name is Nian or "Year", and people celebrate new year's because he passed (or was that because they killed him?). Real detailed, I know. The most famous tale I remember is the "Journey to the West" or something like that, where a monk, a human-monkey who rides on a cloud and owns a staff that shrinks to fit in his ear (that's who Goku is based on), a pig-headed(literally) fat guy with a trident, and a couple of others. I think there's a bunch of stories about their exploits, some of which are about the monkey-man making mischief in the celestial palace or the underwater palace of the sea king/god.

Here's a web page I found with two stories and a list of suggested readings. http://www.interlog.com/~fccs/culture.htm

I've heard both the tales, though for the second one the old man DID move the mountains in the versions I read. I can recognize these folktales if I see them, but I can't really come up with many.

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"The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
--Albert Eistein

Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

Bitchin'....thanks, babe!

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"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much."

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Try your local library for folktales:

"Lon Po Po" - Won the Caldecott award, and is a Chinese version of Red Riding Hood
"The Seven Chinese Brothers" and "The Five Chinese Brothers" (two similar versions of a story)
"Beautiful Warrior: The Secret of the Nun's Kung Fu"
and "Ming Lo Moves the Mountain"

Those should get you started.. and any decent librray ought to have at least a couple books on Chinese mythology.

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"Ed Gruberman, you fail to grasp Ty Kwan Leap. Approach me, that you might see." -- The Master

Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :

Alternatively you could catch a few repeats of "The Water Margin" or "Monkey."

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"I do prefer the arse, but you can't dismiss the leg. They're joined at the hip, so to speak."

- Liam Kavanagh

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Monkey!

Isn't Dragon Ball based on the Chinese "Monkey" folk-tale?

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"If every vampire who said he was at the Crucifixion was actually there it would've been like Woodstock. I was at Woodstock. I fed off a flower person and I spent six hours watching my hand move." - Spike, BtVS

Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :

There's a monkey character in it, but the folktale isn't called "Monkey." Not in Chinese, anyway.

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"The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
--Albert Eistein