Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (34) Chang E flies to the moon - 嫦娥奔月

There is a famous fairy tale "Chang E flies to the moon" for hundreds if not thousands years in China. Chang E' husband Hou Yi was the strongest archer on earth in that time.

There are many visions of the tale. One says that Hou Yi had been a god in sky, but made mistake, being demoted down to earth. But others say that he grew up on earth.

It is said that by some unknown reason, there were ten suns on the sky, the earth became very very hot, all plants and animals were dying. Hou Yi decided to shoot the suns down. He went to the mountain, and shot the suns one by one, total nine of them. So the earth was back to normal. He became to a hero.



Because his contribution, the Western Goddess gave him elixir, which could let him be alive forever. He kept the elixir in Chang E hand but Chang E took the elixir without Hou Yi's consent. After she took the elixir, she became lighter and lighter, floated up, and flied to the moon, never came back.



People believe that Chang E is sill on cold moon, very lonely.

Ok, we now know the story. Let's use the characters to show the picture.

The small seal script for character Chang is


on the left is character Woman, or Lady

on the right part

means a fashionable skirt. It looks like a lady wearing a skirt.

The two parts together means "a lady wearing beautiful skirt".

The small seal script for character E is


Again, the left part is character Woman, or Lady,

the right part means "Wow!". The two parts together means that a lady is so beautiful that every man say "Wow!" when see her.

The big seal script for character Rush is


the top is a man moving his arms, and the bottom are three feet. Why three? Because, you would only see blurry feet moving very fast in running.

Here the Rush is same as Fly. Why use Rush not Fly in Chinese? Because Rush is in a hurry mode, but slowly in moving in comparison with Fly. Chang E stole the elixir, so she was nerves. Actually she didn't expect that she could fly after taking the elixir. She was just floated into sky, and flied slowly to moon by the wind, like walking in the air.

The shell bone script for Moon is


We can put all the characters together to form an artwork: Chang E flies to the moon.



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