Five Ancient Chinese Myths and Science Proves One Was Real

June 10, 2020

Myth: 1) a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events

2) a widely held but false belief or idea.

Yin and Yang

“A popular creation myth from Daoism states that before the beginning of the world there were two opposite forces. Yin was the female element, representing softness, darkness and the earth; Yang was the male element, representing hardness, light and the heavens. Though the two forces were opposites, they were still dependent on each other to maintain the harmony of the universe.” ­– Study.com

Xi-Wang-Mu, the Queen of the West

The Ancient History Encyclopedia says, “She was the queen of the immortal gods and spirits, especially female spirits who lived in the mystical land of Xihua (“West Flower”), and goddess of immortality. She is also known as Xiwangmu or Xi-Wang-Mu and lived in a castle of gold in the Kunlun Mountains, surrounded by a moat which was so sensitive that even a hair dropped on the waters would sink. This moat served as protection for her Imperial Peach Orchard where the juices of the fruit of the trees gave immortality. She rewarded her followers with eternal life but punished those who angered her. During the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) the government built shrines for her popular cult.”


MULAN – Full Movie (not the latest Disney version; with no English subtitles)

The Myth of Mulan is based on a poem that “tells the story of a young girl who dresses as a man for a dozen years to wage war in her father’s stead. Though many people believe it was based on a true story, there is little evidence that the powerful young woman existed. And there are longstanding debates over where the story was to have taken place and about the family name of Mulan.” – Hartford Courant.com

The Yellow Emperor has a tomb, but he is still a myth

The Myth of Huang Di or the Yellow Emperor is about “a legendary Chinese sovereign and cultural hero presented in Chinese mythology. He is said to be the ancestor of all Huaxia Chinese. According to many sources he was one of the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Tradition holds that he reigned from 2697–2597 BCE or 2696–2598 BCE. He is regarded as the founder of Chinese culture & civilization. His enlightenments include fundamental shifts in civilization: writing (on tortoise shells), politically formed government, the compass and silk woven clothes via the Empress, Lei Zhu (嫘祖).”

The Great Flood

“One of the Chinese legends explains that the flood was caused by an argument between a crab and a bird. Fuhi, his wife, three sons, and three daughters escaped a great flood and were the only people alive on earth. After the great flood, they repopulated the world.” – Ark Encounter

What’s interesting about China’s Great Flood Myth is that it has been verified by science. Culture Trip.com reports, “A dramatic 4,000-year-old Chinese myth known as the ‘Great Flood of Gun-Yu’ has underpinned Chinese culture for millennia. Historians have long debated the veracity of the story, but a startling new study published in Science says there’s archaeological evidence that the flood was real.” … “Using evidence from the sediments along the Yellow River, a team of geologists and archaeologists have verified that a devastating flood did indeed occur around 1900 BCE, approximately the date that the Xia dynasty is supposed to have begun. The catastrophe ranks as one of the largest freshwater floods in the past 10,000 years.”

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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If we knew who the real Shakespeare was, we should call him the UK’s Du FU

June 3, 2020

The BBC reported, The Story of China – China’s Shakespeare – Du Fu “Du Fu (712-770 AD) is regarded by many Chinese as their greatest poet. He was well known in his day, and made friends with other poets such as Li Bai, another famous poet in the Tang dynasty. As a member of the elite in society he lived in the capital at Chang’an, now known as Xi’an. Later he was dubbed the ‘Poet Historian’, for writing down what he saw with his own eyes during the An Lu Shan rebellion. Du Fu saw the terrible time that war-torn China suffered, especially the pain and suffering amongst the ordinary people, and the court running away from the capital.”

Why did the BBC say Du Fu was China’s Shakespeare when he was born 851 years before Shakespeare’s birth in April 1564?

In fact, Shakespeare is often called England national poet and the “Bard of Avon.”  Has anyone ever called him the poet historian of the UK?

History.com even asks, “Did Shakespeare really write his own plays?”

In fact, “nothing has been found documenting the composition of the 37 plays and 154 sonnets attributed to him, collectively considered the greatest body of work in the history of the English language.” … “Since the 19th century, a roster of famous people–Henry James, Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Charlie Chaplin and many others—have voiced their doubts about the man from Stratford. Thousands of books and articles have been devoted to the subject, many of which propose their own candidates for the true author of the Shakespeare canon.”

Is there any doubt that Du Fu wrote his poems? No, because anyone that wants to fact-check will discover that he was born in 712 in Henan province China and died in 770 AD on a riverboat, and many literary critics consider him the great poet of all time. – Britannica

How can anyone compare Du Fu, who we know wrote his poems, to Shakespeare when the world doesn’t know who he really was and if he even wrote the work that bears his name?

The Atlantic even ran a piece that asked, “Was Shakespeare a Woman?”… “Theories that others wrote the corpus of work attributed to William Shakespeare (who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and died in 1616) emerged in the mid-19th century. Assorted comments by his contemporaries have been interpreted by some as suggesting that the London actor claimed credit for writing that wasn’t his.” … “Who was this woman writing ‘immortal work’ in the same year that Shakespeare’s name first appeared in print, on the poem ‘Venus and Adonis,’ a scandalous parody of masculine seduction tales (in which the woman forces herself on the man)?”

Comparing the work of Shakespeare to Du Fu is also interesting. Absolute Shakespeare.com says, “For now at least, it is still safe to say Shakespeare did indeed write the 37 plays and 154 sonnets credited to him.”

Total History.com reveals, “His (Du Fu) best poetic works were written during his stay in Kuizhou. He was a wonderful writer and wrote almost 400 poems. The poems written in Kuizhou are amongst his greatest works. Most of his poems are based on nature. The famous poet’s work failed to be recognized in his time. It could have been because his poems were not given much exposure. Like most famous poets, Du Fu’s poems became popular and were appreciated only after his demise. Today Du Fu’s work is much appreciated and has been translated into many languages. The world regards Du Fu as a great poet. His contributions to the literature world have been immense.”

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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Magic

March 27, 2019

Magic is not exclusive to any culture or race, but in China, “the art of magic has (more than) a two-thousand-year-old history,” gbtimes.com says. “Traditional Chinese magic was developed by peasants in the northern part of the country where harsh conditions and the need to survive influenced the development of skills like street acrobatics and magic tricks in order to bring in extra money.”

In addition, China Underground.com reports, “In Chinese folklore, especially in the South, … Gu magic was used to manipulate the will of others, partners, to make people ill and not least cause death. According to Chinese folklore, a Gu spirit was able to transform into different animals: snakes, worms, earthworms, frogs, dogs or pigs. … The name Gu has ancient origins dating back to the oracle inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty (fourteenth century BC).”


In “The Sorcerer and the White Snake” Jet Li stars as a sorcerer monk in an epic special effects fantasy film based on a Chinese legend. This complete film runs more than an hour and a half.

Encylopedia.com tells us, “Magic and mantic arts are endemic in Chinese life and prominent in the religions of China, both in popular religion and in Buddhism and Daoism.”

Practicing magic in China was also risky. Ancient Origins.net says, “The rules of the time (during the Han Dynasty) declared the use of magic as a capital offense. It was especially unforgivable amongst the nobility, including the royal family.” … “Black magic was well known in Ancient China, but research related to this topic is still full of gaps. It is known, however, that one of the most famous methods for practicing magic was ‘magic mirrors’”. As M. V. Berry explained.

It seems that black magic also cast its spell over Chinese movie audiences in 1975, starting a few months before Mao died in 1976. “Between the late 70s and early 80s,” Den of Geek.com says, “Chinese black magic movies were pumped out en masse, feeding audiences their fill of evil sorcery and twisted moralizing. The formula usually featured some poor schmuck enlisting a dark wizard to help them achieve something (more often than not, something sexual)”

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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Crazy Rich Asians – a Review

August 28, 2018

I saw “Crazy Rich Asians” on Wednesday, August 15, the day the film was released, near where I live, a few days before the film earned the #1 rank at the box office for its first weekend. The following Sunday I went to see another film and there was a long line waiting to see “Crazy Rich Asians”.

Opening Weekend: $26,510.140
(#1 rank, 3,384 theaters, $7,834 average)
Box Office Mojo

Crazy Rich Asians” is the 2nd film I’ve seen that I think reveals what goes on inside an overseas Chinese family. I haven’t read the books (a trilogy) the film was based on, but I plan to. The first book in the trilogy came out in 2013.

The first book and film was Amy Tan’s “Joy Luck Club”.

Both books and films reveal the inner workings of overseas Chinese families.

Chinese American New Yorker Rachel Chu flies to Singapore with her boyfriend, Nick Young, to attend his best friend’s wedding in Singapore where she runs into his Singapore Chinese family that’s split over accepting or rejecting Rachel. The elder and ruling members of the family do not approve of Nick’s girlfriend while some of the younger members of the family accept her without reservation as long as the elders don’t know they support Rachel.

In Amy Tan’s “Joy Luck Club” (Hardcover 1989) we are introduced to a tiger mother, who grew up and immigrated to the U.S. from China, and her rebellious American Chinese daughter. In 2009, I married into a Chinese family with an immigrant mother and American Chinese daughter.  I married the mother who is Anchee Min. The marriage survived for sixteen years and we are still friends. I think that qualifies me as a reliable witness to the inner working of an oversees Chinese family.

Although the film for “Crazy Rich Asians” focuses on the fact that Nick Young’s super wealthy and powerful Shanghai Chinese family thinks of themselves as “Chinese”, the fact is they are also overseas Chinese just like Rachel is, because most if not all Chinese in China think of everyone that is Chinese living outside of China as overseas Chinese.  Maybe Singapore Chinese are considered less overseas since they live closer to China than Rachel from New York.

Now, before you jump to conclusions, do not stereotype Chinese. Not all Chinese think and act the same as the family in “Joy Luck Club” or “Crazy Rich Asians”.  Not all Chinese are rich or are tiger parents. Another book I recommend is the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. But again, Chua is overseas Chinese born in the United States to immigrant parents. “Amy Chua argues that Western parenting tries to respect and nurture children’s individuality, while Chinese parents typically believe that arming children with skills, strong work habits, and inner confidence prepares them best for the future.”

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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The Ming Dynasty’s Star-Crossed Lovers

June 5, 2018

China’s Romeo and Juliet, “The Peony Pavilion”, was a play written by Tang Xianzu and was first performed in 1598, forty-six years before the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Someone might assume that Xianzu borrowed from Shakespeare’s play, but that would be a wrong assumption because in the 16th century there was no internet, no television, no radio, no telephones, no TV, and it took months to sail from England to China. Communication and the sharing of ideas happened at a snail’s pace.

It was clearly a coincidence that Tang Xianzu came up with the idea of China’s Romeo and Juliet a few months after Shakespeare wrote his first version.

In fact, the Encyclopedia Britannica reports that “Romeo and Juliet” had a bumpy start.  “Romeo and Juliet, the play by William Shakespeare, was written about 1594–96 and first published in an unauthorized quarto in 1597. An authorized quarto appeared in 1599.” Two years after “The Peony Pavilion” (first) appeared on stage in China.

In addition, the star-crossed lovers that appear in the “The Peony Pavilion” also tragically die for love, but their plight is described in a much more mournful tone than Shakespeare’s version.

You might also be surprised to learn that Shakespeare is popular in China since his work is taught in most Chinese universities both in English and in Chinese.

Enid Tsui writes, “It’s had its ups and downs but, 400 years after William Shakespeare’s death, China’s affinity with The Bard is as strong as ever.”

However, The People’s Republic of Shakespeare, Adventures in Chinese Research says that many of the Romeo and Juliets performed in China are either parodies or rewrites where one of the lovers survives in the end because too many Chinese have experienced too much sadness in their lives thanks to Japan’s brutal invasion of China during World War II and China’s long bloody Civil War followed by the suffering caused by Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

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