South Sea Butterfly (aka Hundred Illusions Butterfly) Physical Description: A huge butterfly that still weighs about 80g after its massive wingspans are cut off Lore: It is said that sailors of South Sea had once encountered something as massive as a sail that fluttered by and hit the sails on their ship. They hit thisContinue reading “Chinese Lore- A Selection of Mythical Fauna (1)”
Category Archives: Inspiration
Chinese Lore- A selection of Mythical Flora (3)
Li Tree Physical Description: A tree with square leaves and yellow flowers that sprouts tiny floss on their petals. Special Properties: The fruits it bears are fist-sized. Consuming them will greatly improve one’s memory, might even make someone attain photographic memory. Zhi Chu Physical Description: A plant that looks like okra except that it hasContinue reading “Chinese Lore- A selection of Mythical Flora (3)”
Remarkable Women in Ancient China (7)- Fu Shan Xiang
Who is she: The first and only female Zhuang yuan (the one with the highest score who sat the examination for scholars to become government officials) in ancient China Notable Life Events: Born in 1833 in Nanjing to a scholarly family, which quickly fell into poverty after both of her parents died when she wasContinue reading “Remarkable Women in Ancient China (7)- Fu Shan Xiang”
Ancient Chinese naming practice
Today I want to discuss ancient Chinese naming practice since I have a personal fascination with names both in terms of their meaning and how they sound to the ears. This tends to apply to a lesser degree to English than my native language of Chinese but I still tend to grope for the rightContinue reading “Ancient Chinese naming practice”
Remarkable Women in Ancient China (6)- Liu Ru Shi
Who is she: One of the Eight Beauties of Qin Huai, essentially eight prominent prostitutes of the late Ming era (Qin Huai is the name of a river in Nanjing, it was a red light district back then with brothels operating on boats) famed for poetry, painting and beauty A highly patriotic woman Notable LifeContinue reading “Remarkable Women in Ancient China (6)- Liu Ru Shi”
Tales of Inspiration (3)
Today I’m going to talk about the inspiration underlying my current WIP. I’ve alluded to this before: for many years, I was an active member at a website where you can submit what I call articles in prose on world meta: all the different aspects that make up a world. It was there that IContinue reading “Tales of Inspiration (3)”
Chinese Superstition- Physical Oddities and Polycoria
Following on the last post about Chinese number superstition, I decided to do another on a related topic. So ancient Chinese had various fortune telling methods, one of which was looking at people’s facial features. For example, long ears or a long gap between the nose and the upper lip were considered a sign ofContinue reading “Chinese Superstition- Physical Oddities and Polycoria”
Beliefs about Numbers in Ancient China
I decided to write a post about a Chinese fun fact today and having no ideas, I Goggled it. What caught my eyes was number superstition. So today I am going to trace back the beliefs about numbers (or rather single digits since I want to limit the scope of this post) in ancient China:Continue reading “Beliefs about Numbers in Ancient China”
Remarkable Women in Ancient China (5)- Fu Hao
Who is she: A woman whose surname or first name was Hao (Fu is some kind of prestigious title) who was one of the sixty-odd wives to Wu Ding, the Emperor of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) The first known female military commander in Chinese history, also a politician and overseer of rites/fortune telling ceremoniesContinue reading “Remarkable Women in Ancient China (5)- Fu Hao”
Chinese Punctuation
In general, I think of myself as pretty familiar with Chinese culture. But it was not until I read a Chinese online novel in the last few years that I learnt the following (you never know what you would learn randomly with novels!): in ancient days, there was no such thing as punctuation in Chinese!Continue reading “Chinese Punctuation”
Moonlake's Fiction Space 