Everyone has some imagination to what they
cannot understand. In the ancient time, when the science and technology was not
as developed as nowadays, people would use their imagination to think about
questions such as, how the world formed, where are we from, who controls the world.
There is a lot of interest to read those stories of myths and tales, and
different culture, obviously, do have different myths and tales.
As a Chinese, I have read a lot about Chinese
myth since I was very young. The system of Chinese myth has lots of versions,
and different versions do have some differences. The first god was formed in
the very ancient time, called Pangu. Pangu is the one who creates the world
which we are living in. The world is chaotic before, the sky and the ground
were mingled with each other, and energy was filled in. Pangu was formed in the
chaos, and he was so strong, that he used a big axe to split on the space, and
the sky and the ground separate a little. Pangu then held the sky, and stood
up, to made enough space between the sky and ground. After Pangu died, his two
eyes turn into the sun and the moon, his body turns into the mountain and the
ground, his blood turns into the rivers and lakes, and his muscles turn into
the farmland, and the world formed. After that, Pangu’s energy turns into two
dragons and people (god people), and they created five tribes. One interesting
thing is that all the gods that related to Pangu all had dragons’ head and
snakes’ body. The two dragons got part of Pangu’s ability, one can control the
change of day and night, the other can control the weather of the world. Then
here comes lots of different versions, but all the versions have the same
theme, it is a long time of war. The five tribes had three empires, and they
turned into five empires. The empire of the west has two sons, Huang and Yan.
They had a very big fight with an enemy called Chiyou, and they won at last.
After that, we still have a lot of myths,
but I am not quite familiar with them as they were too long, and had too many
versions. The time of gods ends at an empire called Xiao, and he did exist in
the real history, he is the first empire of the Xia dynastic. But the real
history is quite different from that of the myths. There are too many versions
and too many things I cannot make sure right now, so I need more information to
know this.
The reason why I have interests of studying
the differences between Chinese and western countries’ myths is because of a
novel I read before. The novel is a fantasy story, and the background is mostly
based on Norse mythology. I didn’t know a lot about it before, all I know is
just some famous words, such as “Ragnarok”, so this novel taught me a lot about
it. From this book, I knew that the world of Norse mythology is based on Yggdrasil,
and there were four kinds of lives, Giants, Gods, Elves, and Dwarves. The Gods
were the offspring of Giants, but they were the enemy of them, and had several
fights. The Giants lost, and they escaped to Jothuheim. Elves and Dwarves were
half gods, and they worked for gods. The leaders of the god were called Odin
and Njord, and Odin was the one who created the world and humans.
I don’t know a lot of details of the Norse
mythology, as it is just the background of that novel, but I still get a lot of
information from it, and find a lot of difference between Chinese mythology and
Norse mythology. One important thing is the different concept of gods. In the Chinese
mythology, all the gods were so powerful and perfect. They can do anything they
want, and get anything they want. But this is quite different in the Norse
mythology. In the Norse mythology, the gods are not perfect, and they seem like
humans in some ways. For examples, when Odin wanted to have the great wisdom
from the giants, he paid the cost of one of his eyes. And was tormented for
nine days in order to get the Gungnir. This shows that gods still have lot of
problems, and they were not invincible, they also need to cost something when
they want something.
Another famous part of Norse mythology is
the Ragnarok, which is the end of the world, and gods would die. This is
because of the conflicts between gods and giants, and they all knew they would
have a fight. Although the gods knew that they were destined to lost, they
still accepted this ending calmly, and they believed that the gods left will
rebuild the world after the end of the world. This is an important difference
from Chinese myths. In Chinese myths, the world never ends, it just has some
differences of good or bad. But in the Norse mythology, the world was doomed to
end, and was rebuilt later. So gods in Norse mythology is different from that
in the Chinese mythology, they would loss, they would be destroyed, they need
to pay when they want something, and they are not afraid of lost and death. But
in Chinese culture, the god is the god, they never have faults. They are all
modest, clever, brave, responsible, they have all the good characters. So Chinese
gods are very positive, which people need to learn from them.
I think mythology is a very important part
of culture, because it reflects how people from this culture think, how do they
perceive the world, how do they treat others, what kinds of people do they
respect. I think myths of this culture can answer these questions in some ways.
Also, the mythology will have influence to the literature and politics. I won’t
stop learning this topic, and I think I will have more discovery if I search
for some more information about mythology later.
