The History of China - Special - Mid-Autumn: Fly Me to the Moon

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

A brief history of Mid-Autumn Festival, and the tale of Hou Yi the Archer & the Ten Suns, and Chang'e & the Moon In other words, please be true In other words, I love you. Sources: Barlett, Scarlett. The Mythology Bible: The Definitive Guide to Legendary Tales. Masaka, Mori. “Restoring the ‘Epic of Hou Yi’” in Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 52, no. 5. Yang, Lihui, Demin An, and Jessica Anderson Turner. Handbook of Chinese Mythology. Republication, original Episode Sept. 22, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast. Hello, and welcome to the History of China.

Holiday Special for Mid-Autumn Fly Me to the Moon Happy September 10th, 2022, a special day this year because it marks one of the major Chinese and East Asian holidays, Mid-Autumn Festival, known as Zhongxiaojie in Chinese, Chuseok in Korea, Tsukimi in Japan, Tachungtu in Vietnam, and by many other names all over the world. It is a lunar holiday, celebrating the 8th full moon of the Chinese lunar solar calendar, which means that it is variably held between mid-September, as in this year, and as late as early October. What is the purpose of this holiday? Why, the same as the point of just about any autumnal holiday, of course, harvest time!

From Halloween to Thanksgiving to other such holidays around the world, autumn is a time to get those crops cut and out of the field, and then prepared for the long cold winter to follow. It also means a time of family gathering, giving thanks for the good fortune of the previous year, and prayers and looking forward to the good things yet to come in the spring to follow. And of course, eating. Lots and lots of eating. You gotta pack on enough calories to make it through the winter, after all. As far as traditional Chinese holidays go, a mid-autumn festival is a truly ancient one, dating back at least as far as the Shang Dynasty, more than 3,000 years ago, and likely deriving

from even further back than that. Nevertheless, for a significant period thereafter, it remained something of an obscure ritual, one observed by the imperial family and dedicated to the goddess Taiyin Xinjun, the deified iteration of Queen Jiang of Shang, who had stood in opposition, ultimately at the cost of her own life, to the evil of the fox spirit Da Ji at the end of the Shang dynasty, and for which she was ascended to heaven as a deity. But outside of that ritual observance, few others celebrated the day, until that is the early Tang dynasty in the 7th century. It then received some amount of wider popularity when Tang Emperor Xuanzong started holding formal celebrations in the palace. It increased popularity even more so

during the Northern Song period, where it moved beyond the palace-bound ceremonies and into popular folk custom, as well as cementing its date on the Chinese calendar as the date of the full moon, that is the 15th day of the 8th month of the year. From there, the rise of Mid-Autumn Festival was pretty much assured, and by the Ming and Qing periods, it had risen to become one of the preeminent holidays of the year for just about everyone. As with any holiday of note, there are a variety of traditions, foods, practices, and of course, stories, that seek to explain the meaning and importance of Mid-Autumn Festival and its traditions. So today, what I've decided to do is go through one of these main legends of the holiday, and hopefully parse through some of the meanings and importance more fully.

More than anything, though, today is about having fun with some old stories, so try not to take it too seriously. Think of it as the story of Santa Claus and Rudolph, or the Easter Bunny, or Leprechauns. As all legends do, these shift and change with time, place, and even from telling to telling. So the version that I relate today will probably differ from what maybe your grandma told you under the full autumn moon years ago. And that's okay, since there's no single version of any of these stories. Thus, today, we present the story of Hou Yi and the Ten Suns and Chang'e and the Moon. Long, long ago, back in the mists of time and when the world was still young, there lived in the jade halls of heaven that sat

above the earth many immortal spirits and gods. Among them was the married couple Houyi and his lady wife Chang'e. Houyi was without a doubt the best archer that had ever lived, and so was known across heaven and earth as the Lord Archer, where his arrows would fly true and strike their intended targets no matter what. Such was his skill with the bow. In fact, all across the land, whenever Hoi drew near, the people flooded out to greet him and to hold aloft in their own hands targets for him to shoot with his bow. So confident were they that he would never miss. At some point in this idyllic Halcyon age of the newness of creation, disaster struck. The Ten Suns rose. Now, some tales have it that

there had always been Ten Suns in the sky, and that they each took their turns in orderly procession to rise one at a time, as was intended. Yet other tellings say that these ten burning bodies simply appeared all at once, mysteriously and without explanation, to trouble the lands below. In any event, one morning all ten of these fiery glowing orbs decided to rise altogether. At once the earth below began to smolder and burn. Crops withered and caught fire, animals collapsed and died to cook in their own juices. In short order, these ten suns, whether by intent or mere ignorance, threatened to turn the whole of creation into nothing more than a desiccated, lifeless wasteland of bone and ash.

What was more, into this era of chaos and suffering came terrible creatures to cause further strife. Among them were the powerful monsters Ya Yu, Zao Shi, Jiu Ying, Da Feng, Feng Xi, and Xiu Shi, all of whom delighted in causing the people great misery. And so arose mighty Hou Yi, charged by the Emperor of Heaven, as besieged by King Yao on Earth, to spare the world its horrible fate under these ten suns and these terrible beasts. In the charge of this quest, he was gifted by the Heavenly Emperor a bow of the finest vermilion wood and a quiver of arrows with white wings. Accompanying him as well was his lady wife, Chang'e. Once Houyi arrived on Earth, he quickly set to work. One after another, he ruthlessly hunted down and slayed each of the monstrous beasts that

plagued the people. Once this first task was complete, he knocked his bow, took careful aim, and fired his arrows into the sky. And true to his prowess, without fail, each shaft found its mark. The suns began to dim, and one after the next fell darkened out of the sky like stones dropping from a great distance. When they hit the ground, it turned out that they were, in fact, golden crows, though each was now quite dead, its flame extinguished. Ho-I, every inch a peerless hunter and warrior, was soon lost in the immediacy of his craft, and did not think much ahead.

That is to say, he had every intention of shooting all ten of his arrows at all ten of the suns in the sky, heedless of the eternal freezing night that would surely follow. Fortunately, King Yao thought ahead and knew that he and the entire earth would need at least one sun remaining in the sky if any one of them were to survive, and so he secretly stole one of Houyi's arrows before it could be drawn. As such, when Houyi had knocked and fired his final arrow, lo, there was still one sun in the sky to shine on. Triumphant, Houyi was hailed as the savior of the earth and its people from the Ten Suns. As such, he was proclaimed their lord and king. Yet, as is so often the case, prowess in hunting and fighting does not always equate to wisdom or justice and rule. Ho-I, ever vain and proud, soon became tyrannical and selfish in his power. He would spend his days hunting game rather than attending to the welfare and needs of his people, and listened to those

who flattered and complimented him rather than those who offered sage advice for the good of the realm. Yet life on earth was not like that in heaven, and in time, Houyi became aware that mortality existed in this realm, whereas in heaven, death was unknown, and Houyi feared it greatly. One day, he was told that there was a means of defying death on earth and to reign forever. By making an arduous trek into the wilds of the far west, to a holy mountain known as Kunlun, he could find a magic elixir pill that would grant him immortality like that which he had known in heaven. Thus, Houyi left his kingdom in the hands of his favorite advisor, Peng Meng, and set out for the ends of the earth to find this elixir of immortality.

Long and far he traveled, through lands unknown and facing perils and foes unimaginable, until at long last he came to the slopes of holy Mount Kunlun, at the very precipice of the world. The mountain was vast beyond reckoning, with eight gates of ascent, each guarded by a terrible beast. At its peak there sat one hundred immortals, all meditating in repose, and at their center sat on her throne Xi Wangmu, the Queen Mother of the West. Heedless of the dangers, Hou Yi boldly made his ascent,

defeating the guardians and gaining the summit of Mount Kunlun. There, as reward for his bravery, as well as for his victory over the Ten Suns and the monsters that covered the earth, the Queen Mother duly gave one of the elixirs of immortality, a mark of his courage and proof against death itself. Victorious, Hou Yi returned home to his kingdom and his queen, Chang'e. His return, however, would not prove to be a happy one. In his absence, his minister, Peng Meng, had usurped many of his powers as king. Worse yet, his wife, Chang'e, seeing the sort of feckless tyrant his rule had turned him into, resolved that, husband or not, Houyi must not be allowed to rule forever as an immortal on earth. Thus, one day, while he was off hunting, Chang'e secreted herself into Houyi's chambers and found his prized immortality elixir, which the Lord Archer had not yet taken into himself.

Before she could decide what to do, however, Minister Pengmeng burst into the room, intent on taking the elixir for himself and thus gaining its powers over death. With little else she could do, Chang'e quickly consumed the elixir herself. As the energies coursed through her, Chang'e found that she was no longer bound to the earth and began floating up and away from the clutches of Peng Meng and his minions. As she continued to ascend, Houyi spied her as he hunted in the woods. Realizing what had happened, and unwilling to lose his precious gift of immortality, he knocked one of his magical winged arrows and took aim at his wife with his heavenly vermilion bow. Yet even as he prepared to fire, such was his love for Chang'e that for the first and only time in his life, when he let his arrow fly, it did not strike its intended target, but sailed harmlessly past, for he could not bear to do her harm.

Lady Chang'e continued to ascend, and though she missed her husband greatly, knew that she could not return to Earth or let Houyi have access to the immortality he so coveted. As such, she decided to make her new home on the closest body to the earth, the moon. There, she expected to live in solitude. But to her surprise, she found there on the lunar surface an unlikely companion. A rabbit of the purest jade also made its home there. Wishing to help Lady Chang'e return to the earthly home she so missed, each night the jade rabbit would attempt to prepare for her an elixir to return her from her lunar exile.

And though it never got the recipe quite right, it would never cease in its quest to help its friend. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Houyi likewise dearly missed his wife, and had come to regret that his single-minded quest for immortality had cost him his true love. As such, he asked a sage how he might be able to see his lady wife again. Though he was informed that she would never return to Earth, Houyi could nevertheless see Chang'e once a year, during the autumnal full moon. To do so, he would need to prepare her favorite meal, fresh fruits, as well as round cakes filled with lotus paste in the shape of the full moon, and set them out at night facing the northwest, then call out his wife's name. If he did this, he would be transported to her lunar palace, and for that night only,

they could be together again. In time, Hou Yi would meet his earthly end. Some tales say that he was slain by his treacherous ministers, others in battle, and still others by nothing more sinister than time itself. Yet regardless of the means, the Archer Lord died the mortal death that his wife never would. Yet such was the love between Hou Yi and Chang'e that the Emperor of Heaven once again took pity on the pair. Rather than consigning the hero's spirit to the underworld, as all mortals must, Hou Yi was instead lifted into the heavens as Zhong Bu, the god of protection

against disasters. There to live among the stars just as Chang'e continues to live on the moon. So ends the tale, or at least this version of it, of Houyi the Archer, Chang'e the Moon Goddess, and of course, the Jade Rabbit. So if you can, go outside tonight and look up at that big, round, glowing moon cake in the sky, and see if you can see the beautiful Chang'e gazing back at you, or the little green bunny hard at work tirelessly preparing more elixirs. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, and thanks for listening. To be continued... of Queen Nefertiti. If you have, you'll probably like the History of Egypt podcast. Every week,

we explore tales of this ancient culture. The History of Egypt is available wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of Ancient Egypt.