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This was an idea I had a couple months ago, and Bill thoughtfully made into a photoshop picture. Cause just what would Marx think of Dilbert?
This was an idea I had a couple months ago, and Bill thoughtfully made into a photoshop picture. Cause just what would Marx think of Dilbert?
I recently finished reading two quite different books on Chinese mythology. Though I have to say I enjoyed both immensely. Of course that's probably like saying I enjoyed coffee this morning, or something equally obvious. But I digress. The first book was recommended from the Chinese History group here, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
zhongguoagogo , and ordered from China Sprout. (which seems to be a perfectly wonderful company who has the misfortune of using ups). The book was called The origin of Chinese Deities by Cheng Manchao. It's published by Foreign Language Press Beijing, and is therefore full of lots of superfluous uses of the word "feudal". Which can be endearing or annoying depending on how you look at it. But once you get past that it's a nice book, it takes almost 30 deities, in no particular order that I could discern, and goes over their history individually, when the first written accounts of them were, when they were popular, where they fit in with other deities, and some nice stories about them. Several deities had some nice pictures. There were some that I hadn't heard of before, like Zhong Kui, the Ghost tamer, who is one of my new favorites and a lot of familiar ones too. The book was definitely partial to the deities that used to be real people, and liked to talk about the actual deeds done, and in some cases how they were useful and helpful. It was an interesting, though slightly shallow, look at how people became Gods in ancient China. Though having just written Ancient China many of the gods written about were not deified until the Song dynasty (roughly 900-1200 BC) . The book used archaeological evidence, ancient texts, and whenever possible seemed to decry any belief in anything super natural, almost gleefully pointing out inconsistencies in stories and locations, rather than looking at what could be learned from those differences. But it is a very useful book to have, especially as the many deities can sometimes be confusing, though it did seem to be more of a historical look at the mythology rather than a book of tales about it. (For that I"d recommend Werner's Myths and Legends of China)
The second book I read was bigger, "coffee table" sized with lots of glorious pictures on almost every page, which was very pretty but it also had a decent content, which can be sometimes be rare in those type of books. It was simply called, "Chinese Mythology" by Anthony Christie, part of the Library of the world myths and legends series. Christie was (is?) a senior lecturer at SOAS in art and archeology, SOAS is where I hope to do my post graduate studies so I may have been a bit biased towards him. But it was very interesting. He took an archaeologists approach to the mythology that I found very compelling. He started with each early period of civilization and looked at where their beliefs were at that time, and what the evidence shows they thought. He looked at burials, written records and art. He then goes through different sets of myths and looks at the Chinese versions of them and how they applied. It's interesting to add here that there are really no records of a Chinese creation story until almost the 3rd century AD. This is rather late in Chinese history, Christie supposes that this was influenced by Buddhism which was becoming popular in China at that time. Other chapters include looking at the different representations of Earth, Water and Air. The useful arts, how ancient arts such as writing and flood control, were attributed to ancient Emperor's and deified. He also includes peasant myths, many stories about how things came to be. (Including the creation of Opium, so we're looking at a large time frame for these stories). A chapter on the Heavenly bureaucracy, rulers judges of the dead, the role of demons, different gods and how they go to be gods. And lastly a chapter on the relationship between animals and humans in myths. A very comprehensive look, though with so much to cover, certain areas did feel a bit thin, and certain stories did get a bit ignored. But it was still a well written and beautifully illustrated account of a incredibly large subject, as it included more of later religions as well as earlier myths.
It seems to me that unlike in the west where mythology was set by ancients and then left as new religions gained in popularity, mythology seemed to be an ever growing and changing prospect in Imperial China. Of course part of that is the idea the difference between what is considered mythology by some people and what is considered religion. If you believe in certain Gods you are much more likely to term their stories religion and gods whose stories you don't believe in are termed mythology or superstition. Most western mythology is simply stories about Gods no one worships anymore. Many stories about saints and miracles from European middle ages could be seen as similar to the stories offered from later mythology in China.
Unlike philosophy, mythology and folk lore I find to be very interesting and really do need to study it more. However I find the myths of other cultures so much more interesting than the Greek and Romans and fear it's not possible to study it without coming across them. Even it my history class we keep getting illusions back to Greek mythology. I just have vague recollections of the stories from high school, where I found them uninteresting, and of course Xena, which I liked, but totally doesn't count! Of course I realise it is unfair to dismiss something without really knowing or understanding it. So perhaps I should say rather that the myths of Greeks and Romans just don't have the same initial appeal to me.
zhongguoagogo , and ordered from China Sprout. (which seems to be a perfectly wonderful company who has the misfortune of using ups). The book was called The origin of Chinese Deities by Cheng Manchao. It's published by Foreign Language Press Beijing, and is therefore full of lots of superfluous uses of the word "feudal". Which can be endearing or annoying depending on how you look at it. But once you get past that it's a nice book, it takes almost 30 deities, in no particular order that I could discern, and goes over their history individually, when the first written accounts of them were, when they were popular, where they fit in with other deities, and some nice stories about them. Several deities had some nice pictures. There were some that I hadn't heard of before, like Zhong Kui, the Ghost tamer, who is one of my new favorites and a lot of familiar ones too. The book was definitely partial to the deities that used to be real people, and liked to talk about the actual deeds done, and in some cases how they were useful and helpful. It was an interesting, though slightly shallow, look at how people became Gods in ancient China. Though having just written Ancient China many of the gods written about were not deified until the Song dynasty (roughly 900-1200 BC) . The book used archaeological evidence, ancient texts, and whenever possible seemed to decry any belief in anything super natural, almost gleefully pointing out inconsistencies in stories and locations, rather than looking at what could be learned from those differences. But it is a very useful book to have, especially as the many deities can sometimes be confusing, though it did seem to be more of a historical look at the mythology rather than a book of tales about it. (For that I"d recommend Werner's Myths and Legends of China)The second book I read was bigger, "coffee table" sized with lots of glorious pictures on almost every page, which was very pretty but it also had a decent content, which can be sometimes be rare in those type of books. It was simply called, "Chinese Mythology" by Anthony Christie, part of the Library of the world myths and legends series. Christie was (is?) a senior lecturer at SOAS in art and archeology, SOAS is where I hope to do my post graduate studies so I may have been a bit biased towards him. But it was very interesting. He took an archaeologists approach to the mythology that I found very compelling. He started with each early period of civilization and looked at where their beliefs were at that time, and what the evidence shows they thought. He looked at burials, written records and art. He then goes through different sets of myths and looks at the Chinese versions of them and how they applied. It's interesting to add here that there are really no records of a Chinese creation story until almost the 3rd century AD. This is rather late in Chinese history, Christie supposes that this was influenced by Buddhism which was becoming popular in China at that time. Other chapters include looking at the different representations of Earth, Water and Air. The useful arts, how ancient arts such as writing and flood control, were attributed to ancient Emperor's and deified. He also includes peasant myths, many stories about how things came to be. (Including the creation of Opium, so we're looking at a large time frame for these stories). A chapter on the Heavenly bureaucracy, rulers judges of the dead, the role of demons, different gods and how they go to be gods. And lastly a chapter on the relationship between animals and humans in myths. A very comprehensive look, though with so much to cover, certain areas did feel a bit thin, and certain stories did get a bit ignored. But it was still a well written and beautifully illustrated account of a incredibly large subject, as it included more of later religions as well as earlier myths.
It seems to me that unlike in the west where mythology was set by ancients and then left as new religions gained in popularity, mythology seemed to be an ever growing and changing prospect in Imperial China. Of course part of that is the idea the difference between what is considered mythology by some people and what is considered religion. If you believe in certain Gods you are much more likely to term their stories religion and gods whose stories you don't believe in are termed mythology or superstition. Most western mythology is simply stories about Gods no one worships anymore. Many stories about saints and miracles from European middle ages could be seen as similar to the stories offered from later mythology in China.
Unlike philosophy, mythology and folk lore I find to be very interesting and really do need to study it more. However I find the myths of other cultures so much more interesting than the Greek and Romans and fear it's not possible to study it without coming across them. Even it my history class we keep getting illusions back to Greek mythology. I just have vague recollections of the stories from high school, where I found them uninteresting, and of course Xena, which I liked, but totally doesn't count! Of course I realise it is unfair to dismiss something without really knowing or understanding it. So perhaps I should say rather that the myths of Greeks and Romans just don't have the same initial appeal to me.
.