Chang-e Flying to the Moon 嫦娥奔月

On 9/15 Thursday, it will be Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, the 2nd largest beside Chinese New Year. Actually it is celebrated in most east Asian countries. There are 3 popular legends: Chang-e 嫦娥 Flying to the Moon; Jade Rabbit 玉兔 Pounding Medicine; Wu (Woo) Gang 吳剛 Chopping Laurel Tree. The stories are so old that nowadays some researchers think "Queen Mother of the West" in the story is Egyptian Queen. Ha... Below watch Chang-e flying in sky:

Interestingly the lady and the rabbit were mentioned in a conversation between Houston and the Apollo 11 just before the moon landing.
Houston: Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, is one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-O has been living there for 4,000 years. It seems she was banished to the Moon because she stole the pill of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is always standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not reported.
Michael Collins: Okay. We'll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.

Below the 1st picture showing the moon from our deck. The rest are passion fruits which are flowering now! I saw one bee came.


The 1st type is Frederick passion fruit: Lots of yummy tasting fruit for salads, sherbets or eating right out of hand & intricate, whimsical, 3.5” flowers will delight you from early summer thru fall. Evergreen & quick growing, ‘Frederick’ can easily reach 15’ high & wide but can be made smaller by cutting back to 1’ in winter. It's is one of the hardiest of the Passifloras, surviving winter wet & brief frosts (to 20 degrees F) with bravo, going semi-deciduous! Takes heat well, too!

The 2nd type is called banana passion fruit: Passiflora mollissima is ideal for areas with cool summers & mild winters. Quickly growing over 20’, it produces elongated yellow fruit almost year-round while attracting butterflies & hummingbirds galore! This evergreen Passiflora is gorgeous and tasty - with pendulous, pink blooms that glow seductively against dark foliage. An excellent choice for eating fresh or juicing!

Monkey King and the Ox

We went to see "Kung Fu Panda 3" and realized that Kai is the antagonist. Interestingly, in "Journey to the West", Monkey King and Ox were used to be sworn brothers before the Ox became Bull Demon King. Below are the pictures of Kai, Bull Demon King's statue near Flaming Mountains (火焰山) near Turpan (we passed the mountains during our silk road trip), and a classical decorated painting in the Summer Palace in Beijing.

西遊記(Journey to the West) is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century. It is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. Monkey King (Sun Wukong) is the main character in the novel who, after rebelling against heaven and being imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha, accompanies a monk on a journey to retrieve Buddhist sutras from Central Asia and India. He is a skilled fighter capable of fighting all goblins, demons and monsters away on the road (read lyrics below). Below is an interesting video mix: "The year of Monkey from White House."

To watch longer video (11:45 min), Please click here.
Above, the first song 通天大道寬又闊(Avenue of Babel, wide and broad) is an opening music from Chinese classic television series “journey to the west” sequel (2000). Click to see the Opening Theme of original TV series (I used some clips in my New Year video shown below). Below is the beginning lyrics with translation of the song.

Captured a few goblins

Subdued a few demons

Why there are so many monsters

Mind my cudgel

You monsters are scared out of your wits

Deities tremble, ghosts quiver

All kinds of evil spirits run for their lives

Captured a few goblins

Subdued a few demons

Why there are so many monsters

Mind my cudgel

You monsters are scared out of your wits

Deities tremble, ghosts quiver

All kinds of evil spirits run for their lives

The Year of Monkey 2016 猴年快樂!

The year of monkey is almost here (Feb. 8). I made a greeting video which includes animated and real monkeys and Sun Wukong. It is uploaded in Vimeo because it is blocked in Youtube.


Why Cat is not in the zodiac
An ancient story tells that Cat and Rat were the worst swimmers in animal kingdom. They had to cross a river to reach the other shore. The years on the calendar would be named for each animal in the order they arrived. Cat and Rat decided that the best and fastest way to cross the river was to hop on the back of Ox. Midway across the river, Rat pushed Cat into the water. Then as Ox neared the other side, Rat jumped ahead and reached the shore first. So he claimed first place in the competition and the zodiac. Ox was named the 2nd animal in the zodiac. From that day on, Cat hates Rat and chases it all the time.

Kung Fu Panda 3 3D movie was released on Jan. 29. When Po's long-lost panda father suddenly reappears, the reunited duo travels to a secret panda paradise to meet scores of hilarious new panda characters. But when the supernatural villain Kai begins to sweep across China defeating all the kung fu masters, Po must do the impossible—learn to train a village full of his fun-loving, clumsy brethren to become the ultimate band of Kung Fu Pandas!

China from above 鳥瞰中國

Below is a playlist with 16 videos. To watch them on Youtube window with sidebar, click here.


Full-length videos are blocked in Youtube. So I uploaded them in Vimeo.
(1) China From Above-The Living Past:



(2) China From Above-The Future is Now:
I only uploaded Shanghai and Chinawood from this video.

Learn Chinese the easy way

The year of monkey is almost here (Feb. 8). I have presented some ancient Chinese characters for friends. I thought one can actually learn Chinese very easy by looking at how they were originated. I picked 5 simple characters and our last names: Woo and Hsia.

There are reports recently about rock pictograms by American Indians being 3300 year old writings of Shang people. I consider it's a mistake. The reason is that in ancient scripts the king and ordinary person stretch their arms out differently (see below).

Big - front view of a person
Sky - a person under a top
Stand - a person on floor
King - a person with arms stretched out straight
Woo - a tilted head person, later a mouth was added
Hsia - a monkey (false); a graceful or dancing person
Person - side view of a person


Notes:
Shell-bone scripts - more than 3000 years old, unearthed ~100 years ago
Bronze scripts - less than 3000 year old, mostly recently unearthed
Cantonese: one of oldest Chinese; Mandarin: newest Chinese

* Woo without mouth is thought to be a variant of 吳 by more and more scholars.
If true, the name King Woo (王吳) appeared 3300 years ago written on shell-bone.
Wu nation: ~1100(?)-473BC (called Woo King like now);  Wu (of 3 kingdoms): 229-280AC.
Simplified Woo is 吴, confused with ancient Sky (see above, empty rectangle is not a mouth).

** Hsia's shell-bone script as a monkey was implied in China's 1st dictionary (~1900 year ago).
I consider it's a mistake. This is a big deal because Hsia means Chinese people (Hua Hsia 華夏).
Hua and Hsia were interchangeable in ancient scripts. Hua is part of the name of China today.