In Western culture, dragons are personified as fire-breathing, damsel-snatching monsters who die at the hands of heroes like Hercules and St. George. Dating back into the mists of prehistory, dragons are most likely a development of the despised snake; indeed the word "dragon"derives from from an ancient Greek word meaning "serpent."Slaying a dragon is therefore tantamount to killing the snake that tempted Eve and led to humanity being cast out from the Garden of Eden. In Western art, the Virgin Mary is often portrayed trampling a snake.
First appearing at least 8,000 years ago, the Chinese dragon is also of great antiquity. Being benign, however, it is very different. It later gained such positive connotations in Chinese culture that for 2,000 years it was used by the emperor as his personal emblem. From the Ming dynasty onward, unofficial depiction was outlawed. Histories also record that "the mother of Liu Bang [the first Han emperor] dreamt she met a god, felt the dragon and became pregnant.?This is one of the reasons that the Chinese people sometimes refer to themselves as the "descendants of the dragon."
The origins of the Chinese dragon are even less clear than those of its occidental relative. There are four main theories concerning its origins: (i) Dragons really do exist. (ii) They were derived, like the Western dragon seems to be, from some animal that now exists or once did. (iii) They represent a combination of various animals. (iv) Dragons are derived from altogether non-biological sources.
Real dragons
In a culture where Taoism and Buddhism allow the reality of gods, spirits and ghosts, belief in dragons and other strange creatures with magical powers is quite straightforward.
Dragons are so well established in Chinese mythology, literature and even mentality that until recently, people took their existence for granted. Physical evidence, such as the Shang dynasty oracle-bone texts ?the earliest examples of Chinese writing ?were thought to be "dragon bones"and were ground up for use in traditional medicines.
The fact that all the other animals named in the divination inscriptions were real meant that many people believed that dragons too existed four millennia ago.
Strange animals.
There are a number of candidates for an animal that might have inspired ancient peoples to tales of dragons. Examining the word as it was originally written on oracle bones, experts have suggested it so strongly resembles the word for snake with an altered head that some species of snake, perhaps a cobra, might underlie the word's etymology.
The promotion of the snake to dragon would be natural for an ancestral people that worshipped the snake as a totem. Other contenders include crocodiles, sea horses and ammonites. Early depictions of dragons were often executed in jade or other semiprecious stone.
Some species of dinosaur is suggested by the Chinese name konglong, "fearsome dragon."Or perhaps the opposite is true. Lobsters are called "dragon shrimp"and the name for the "longan"fruit derives from the Chinese for "dragon eye."
Early depictions of short-legged, crawling dragons point towards some kind of giant lizard. Stronger archaeological and ethnological evidence supports a large, migratory fish which, swimming up rivers in the spring, gave rise to the superstition that the coming of the "dragons"marked the time for sowing. Dragons are still believed to live in seas and rivers, and to ascend into the clouds and cause rain. They were therefore regarded as symbols of fertility.
Animal totems
Early Chinese history suggests that what is now considered the homogeneous Han race, resulted from the fusion of a number of Neolithic groups, each with its own culture and religious practices. One aspect was the worship of different animal totems, sometimes related to creation or virgin birth legends. The ancestor of the Shang became pregnant after eating a blackbird's egg and the Chou progenitor after treading in a bear's footprint.
Dragons were possibly another such totem or more likely a composite animal created during the gradual unification of these various peoples. Dragons have long been described as having deer antlers, snake bodies, fish scales, eagle claws, ox ears and a wispy goatee beard. That they did not inherit wings leaves great room for speculation. Perhaps the eagle worshippers joined the "federation"at a late date when myths surrounding water-dwelling dragons were too deeply embedded.
In contrast to the rest of East Asia where dragons are depicted as positive forces, some of the minority races to the south of China who were left out of this supra-ethnic tribe have myths and legends containing evil dragons.
Physical phenomena
Alternatively, dragons may originate in physical phenomena such as cyclones. The Chinese word for these violent winds means "dragon rolling wind."Imagined shapes seen during flashes of lightning and accompanied by the "roar"of thunder are suggested as another possible origin, just as earthquakes were thought of as underground oxen turning over. The tradition of dragons hiding in deep water through the winter and reappearing in spring suggests a connection with the lightning storms of spring and autumn, and confirms their role as symbols of fertility.
Recently the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its Mini-Me partner in the legislature, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), have been arguing that construction of chip fabs in the US by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is little more than stripping Taiwan of its assets. For example, KMT Legislative Caucus First Deputy Secretary-General Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) in January said that “This is not ‘reciprocal cooperation’ ... but a substantial hollowing out of our country.” Similarly, former TPP Chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) contended it constitutes “selling Taiwan out to the United States.” The two pro-China parties are proposing a bill that
It starts out as a heartwarming clip. A young girl, clearly delighted to be in Tokyo, beams as she makes a peace sign to the camera. Seconds later, she is shoved to the ground from behind by a woman wearing a surgical mask. The assailant doesn’t skip a beat, striding out of shot of the clip filmed by the girl’s mother. This was no accidental clash of shoulders in a crowded place, but one of the most visible examples of a spate of butsukari otoko — “bumping man” — shoving incidents in Japan that experts attribute to a combination of gender
March 9 to March 15 “This land produced no horses,” Qing Dynasty envoy Yu Yung-ho (郁永河) observed when he visited Taiwan in 1697. He didn’t mean that there were no horses at all; it was just difficult to transport them across the sea and raise them in the hot and humid climate. “Although 10,000 soldiers were stationed here, the camps had fewer than 1,000 horses,” Yu added. Starting from the Dutch in the 1600s, each foreign regime brought horses to Taiwan. But they remained rare animals, typically only owned by the government or
Last month, media outlets including the BBC World Service and Bloomberg reported that China’s greenhouse gas emissions are currently flat or falling, and that the economic giant appears to be on course to comfortably meet Beijing’s stated goal that total emissions will peak no later than 2030. China is by far and away the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, generating more carbon dioxide than the US and the EU combined. As the BBC pointed out in their Feb. 12 report, “what happens in China literally could change the world’s weather.” Any drop in total emissions is good news, of course. By
RSS