Hopping Vampires

My friend who teaches at writing camp with me is from Vietnam.  She told me about growing up watching Chinese vampire movies and that the vampire hopped.  She said as a kid, it was very scary and it was not the hands curling around the coffin that was a scary vampire interest, it was when the toes popped up from the coffin.

Well, I couldn't pass this up, so I You Tubed it.  Here you go - four minutes of hopping evilness:



A jiang shi is the proper name for the hopping vampire.  It sleeps the day away (much like a teenager) in a coffin or dark cave.  When it kills you, it sucks your life essence. There are a couple of ways to ward of a hopping vampire.  A few are sticky rice, the blood of a black dog, and a spell written on rice paper.  My friend said that when she was little, she copied those spells off the TV and kept them handy - just in case.

Thanks, Hoa!

Swallowing Eyeballs For Your Parents or Frankenstein Mythology Part V

What does swallowing eyeballs have to do with Frankenstein?  Well, to figure this out, we need to take a look at Quan Yin, Queen of Heaven.

In an Indian legend, Quan Yin started life named Miao Shan.  She was beautiful, but not vain.  In fact, she led a life of self sacrifice and followed Buddha.  Eventually she attained Buddha-hood and took the cool name of Quan Yin.  Ever the self sacrificer, she denied herself heaven and decided to stay on earth to help where she could.  She wanted to help her father (a noble task, I say) and since he was blind, she wanted to fix it for him.  She took a different form so that he would not recognize her (the whole be kind to strangers for they may be a god theme).  She looked at him and said, "If you were to swallow one eyeball from one of your children, you would regain your sight."  Now, I don't know about you, but I think I would rather stay blind than to take the eyeball of one of my kids.  Maybe you feel differently, I don't know.  Anyway, her father asks each of his children (minus Miao Shan since she is dead) for one of their eyeballs.  Hey, they have one to spare, right?

I know that each of you out there would quickly gouge out an eye to help out your father.  Believe it or not, none of his stingy, worthless, suck-egg-mule kids would do this simple little task to help out dear old dad.  I know I'm shocked.  Quan Yin is disappointed that times had gotten so bad that children would not do anything for their parents.  She created an eyeball and gave it to her father, who swallowed it and could see once more. 

In Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, there is a Chinese restaurant that Victor Helios goes to to get exotic food.  It seems that when you live for hundreds of years, even Taco Bell gets a little old, so he seeks out the oddest delicacies possible.  The dish he is given doesn't have a name in the book.  I have since found the name for it as Three Screams.  It was live hairless newborn rats served fondue style.  I know what you are saying, how does this relate to swallowing eyeballs?  The name of the restaurant - Quan Yin.


~

Robin Hood (New and Improved Entry!)

I recently saw Robin Hood and it was O.K.  The legend of Robin Hood, though, inspires me from time to time.  I have an old book by Pyle that has a pretty good compilation of the Robin Hood stories.  This, however, is not a post about Robin Hood per say.  Instead it is merely inspired by Robin Hood as wee look at mythical archers.  Who in mythology can match the famous Prince of Thieves?

Apollo -  Greek - obviously we start with the most famous god of archery - Apollo.  I've always thought of Apollo as being a bit of a goody goody and not much fun to read about, but his archery skills are supposedly second to none.  Once he was shooting at two of Poseidon's sons (who were giants).  The giants threw their javalins back at the first thing that they saw moving, which wasn't Apollo, but a doe (obviously they weren't the smartest things in the world, but hey, it is easy for me to say since I don't have the god of archery shooting at me at the time).  They missed the doe and hit each other instead.  Giants lose, Apollo wins! (Please see comments for additional notes on this loser.)
 
Orion - Greek - maybe a bit of a closer match, since Orion is not a deity.  He is one heck of an archer.  However, his archery story deals with someone else's shooting ability.  Orion is a hunter and he fell in love with Artemis, who actually fell in love with him as well (not Artemis's usual behavior).  Apollo didn't like it and tricked Artemis by challenging her to a shooting match.  Artemis, quite possibly Apollo's equal, agreed to shut her brother's mouth up a bit.  Apollo kept finding things for Artemis to demonstrate her skills on until he cleverly led her to shoot at this thing swimming in the ocean way, way off shore.  Apollo knew it was Orion, but Artemis did not and she shot him.  Because of her grief, he has been placed in the heavens by Zeus, with his bow and hunting dog.

Arjuna - Hindu - This guy is also named The Undefeatable.  He has description after description of his mighty archer exploits. I he deserves more than this blurb, but I'm not going to give it to him. 

Karna - Hindu -This guy is Arjuna's rival and is so cool he used a snake arrow (like James Earl Jones in the Conan movie). 'Nuff said!

Odysseus - Greek - His bow was so tight, only he could string it.  Not only that, he was able to kill several guys hitting on his wife after several years of being out of practice with it.

Cupid - Roman - I can't leave this little guy out.  He of course shoots people and makes them fall in love.  Not as cool as the snake arrow, though.

Ull - Norse - He is a god of archery among other things (much like Apollo).  He spends his winters hunting and his summers he likes to kick back in Hel for a while.  God Checker said he invented skis as well.  I thought they were joking, but it appears that he did. 

Atlaua - Aztec - the patron of archers.  That's about it for him.  I looked and couldn't find any great archer stories.  I'm only including him on this list because I looked for him and didn't want to waste my time.

Hercules - Greek - threatened to shoot the sun because it was too hot.  Maybe this would be good enough for my list, but he didn't do it and so I do not count him as a great archer.

Houyi - Chinese - this guy, however, didn't just shoot the sun, he killed nine of them.  There used to be ten suns and they acted like brothers act.  Houyi, tired of them scorching people and ruining the land, killed nine of the brothers with his bow. 


In my opinion, Houyi is the Archer Supreme!

In light of recent events, the title of Archer Supreme has been stripped from Houyi.  It is not due to the steroid use rumors that have been circling on the internet (they were only herbal treatments).  It is due to judges review - Artemis!  I know, I know, she wasn't even listed in the running, but read the comments and you'll see why she should have been.  I know that I have seen the error of my ways.  So let's hear it for Arrow-Pouring Artemis!

Goddess of Small Pox

If you are used to classical mythology, then you are used to goddesses or beauty and wisdom, marriage and childbirth, the moon and the hearth.  However, the rest of the world was a bit more creative in their goddesses.  Take for example the many goddesses of smallpox.  That's right, you heard me, smallpox!

Sitala - a Hindu goddess that possesses people.  During her possession, you'd better feed her cooling food and cool liquids or her heat could really do some damage.  When she left you, you would be stronger than before . . . or dead.

T'ou-Shen Niang Niang - a Chinese goddess.  Her whole family got into the act.  each of her boys had a special part of smallpox that they looked after.  She especially liked to give smallpox to young children - beautiful young children, that is.  Some parents went as far to as to have their children wear paper masks at night while sleeping to keep her away from them.







These weren't the only ones.  You have Hoso-No-Kami of Japan, Sakpata of West Africa or Obaluaiye of a different part of West Africa.  It just amazes me that a disease gets its own goddesss.  The male chauvinist part of me also thinks it is funny that all cultures (that I found anyway) thought of woman when they thought of this horrible disease.  All joking aside, it just goes to show you how devastating this disease could be.  Today we pretty much have the thing licked and can worry about something as mundane as swine flu, but back then must have been a nightmare.

Another Tribute to an Unknown God

Today is my 14th anniversary.  I wanted to get my wife a cool gift and consulted the traditional gift list for the 14th anniversary.  This posed a problem since the traditional gift is ivory, which is illegal to trade in.  Apparently elephants can't meet the demand and so now I'm stuck on what to give my wife...

Anyway, I looked up on GodChecker.com "anniversary."  This is what I got:

HE-BO: God of the Yellow River. 

The Yellow River (Huang He) is China's second longest river and probably the muddiest river in the world. Over a billion tonnes of silt and sediment flow through it each year, giving the Huang He its distinctive yellow color and making it a poor choice for washing your socks in. 

Although the Great DA-YU took care of the Great Flood, the Yellow River was still prone to flooding. So an enthusiastic mortal named HE-BO tied heavy rocks to his back and jumped into the water as a supreme sacrifice. 

For his pains he was granted immortality and promoted to God of the Yellow River. 

Following his example, it became the custom to throw a young virgin into the river on the anniversary of his death. This practice appears to have died out. 

Now, that was interesting and all, but it gave a deathly pall to the whole thing and wasn't quite what I was hoping for.  I don't know what I expected.  I was hoping to find some Baltic goddess that goes by the name Anniversia who has some ritual for wedding anniversaries or something.  Alas, it was not to be.

It did remind of the old joke:  Did you read the book Yellow River by I. P. Freely?

Childish, I know.  Did you really expect any different?

I Feel Pretty Crappy About This

I'm all flushed because I forgot to celebrate World Toilet Day, which was November 19th.  I think it only fair that we take some time to look at the mythological implications of this.

To do so, I am going to give you the description of one of the three goddesses of toilets in Chinese mythology.  I found Zi Gu on God Checker, which I highly recommend as a web site for anyone who likes mythology.  

ZI-GU: Goddess of Toilets. 

One of the LAVATORY-LADIES, she started out as the beautiful wife of an actor during the Tang Dynasty. All was good until a high-ranking minister named Li-Jing fell in love with her, killed her husband, and took the unfortunate ZI-GU to be his mistress. 

His wife was insanely jealous. One day, while ZI-GU was taking what can only be described as a delicate pee, Li-Jing's wife leapt out from behind a pile of toilet paper and murdered her in cold blood. 

From that moment, Li-Jing's lavatory was haunted by the ghost of his ex-mistress. Strange spooky noises emanated from the closet at all hours, and even the most stout-hearted visitor would cross his legs and wait till he got home. 

When the news got out, Empress Wu, concerned for the kidneys of her top minister, blessed the ghost of ZI-GU and elevated her to Godly status. The haunting of the lavatory immediately ceased. (We believe this kind of exorcism is known as a Royal Flush.) 

The grateful spirit of ZI-GU ascended to Heaven and the toilet was safe to use once more. Life went back to normal. But Li-Jing's wife was never able to eat roughage again. 

As Goddess of Toilets, ZI-GU appears in the form of a beautiful contemplative woman, her lower body wrapped discreetly in clouds. This soothing image is a far cry from the typical Chinese hole in the ground, but that's mythology for you. 

Perhaps due to the thoughtful navel-gazing which takes place in the bathroom, ZI-GU is also known as the Goddess of Spirit Writing. She inspires mediums with messages from the Astral Plane. That's why mediums never take a newspaper into the bathroom. No need for a crystal ball. 

Incidentally, ZI-GU's favorite color is purple. This would seem to be the ideal choice when it comes to decorating the bathroom. However, as we know from experience, purple lavatory paper is almost impossible to get hold of.