REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

Ancient villain-hitting ritual thrives in Hong Kong

Squatting at a makeshift shrine with joss sticks burning beside her, Granny Leung starts bashing a manlike paper cut-out with a pair of sandals.

An elderly woman performs a ritual beneath a bridge in the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong in July 2011. A number of women in Hong Kong have made a successful business out of an ancient Chinese villain-hitting ritual that customers claim can drive away evil spirits.

"I beat you little people, I'm sending you away!" chants the 76-year-old woman, one of the last practitioners in Hong Kong of the ancient Chinese ritual of "da siu yan", or "beating the petty little people".

Granny Leung performs her mysterious incantations in the bustling shopping district of Causeway Bay. And business is booming.

For as little as HK$50 ($6), Leung claims she can curse her customers' enemies and reverse their bad luck by burning paper offerings and hitting paper figures with shoes.

Believers say the ritual can help to drive away evil spirits in general, or a specific nemesis such as a hated neighbour, a business competitor or a love rival.

Ada Mak, a 50-year-old businesswoman, travels from the outskirts of Hong Kong to see Leung every weekend. She believes the ritual can protect her from negative gossip, lawsuits and financial loss.

"I always feel at ease after I see Granny Leung," says Mak, adding that she usually asks the old woman to curse a general villain rather than a specific target.

Read more at Bangkok Post

Chinese Myths and Fantasies

Ancient Chinese myths were not recorded in a systematic way in any work, and , as a result, only fragments of them are extant today.

Fortunately, many classical works of the pre-Qin period and the Han Dynasties, such as the Zhuangzi, the Liezi, the Huainanzi, the Chronicles by Zuo Qiuming, Conversations from the States, and above all, the Book of Mountains and Seas, contain fragments and excerpts of ancient mythical stories, which make up a beautiful and fascinating part of our classical literature.

Below are some of the myths most known even to children. They are short but vivid. As you will see, most of the main characters in these mythical stories are gods, ghosts foxes and spirits with human qualities and human feelings.

 

ANCIENT

• Pangu Separates the Sky from the Earth
• N?Wa Makes Men
• N?Wa Mends the Sky
• Jingwei Determines to Fill up the Sea
• The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains
• The Cowherd and the Girl Weaver
• Chang'er Flies to the Moon
• Jiang Taigong Meets King Wen
• Li Bing Fights the River Deity

 

Read more at China Virtual Tours