Chiinese Moon Rabbits

LoopyByteloose

Hi all,
It looks as though China is about to put its rabbit lander on the moon. You may be wondering why a rabbit is so important.

Actually, in Chinese mythology there is a rabbit, a tree of immortality, and the estranged wife of Ho Yi on the moon. Ho Yi achieved fame by shooting down nine suns and leaving one remaining in an earlier period of global warming. It seems back in the about 1250BC, the Sung Dynasty had the Chinese week based on 10 days, not seven. And they thought that each day of the 10, a different sun arose. Go figure.

Ho Yi got in trouble by stealing the exlir of immortality after becoming a hero for shooting down the 9 suns. His wife, stole the exlir and fled to moon (not quite sure how) and I have no idea how the rabbit got there. But this should give you some idea of why the lunar lander is named a rabbit.

http://www.phxchinatown.com/moon_festival.htm

http://www.edhelper.com/ReadingComprehension_Geography_23_1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit

Jessica Uelmen

Very interesting, thanks for sharing Loopy! Previously I was only familiar with one rabbit of the moon...

It seems a fitting name for a lunar lander. The connection between past folklore and future technologies is always fascinating to me. There's something magical about searching for legends with technologies that couldn't even be fathomed when the myths were created.

Or perhaps I'm just a dreamer at heart. ^^;;

jazzed

Perhaps before our solar-system was formed, there were 9 very hot suns in our area that went super-nova and caused the formation of our solar-system which contains the 10th sun and the residue of the explosions left in the rocky inner planets (iron, gold, uranium, etc...).

LoopyByteloose

Well, I do manage to pick up more Chinese trivia than most of you. So I will add a few key points to the Lunar Rabbit.

You may have noted that the lunar rabbit actually is the source of the herbal pills of immortality. He makes these by chewing on leaves from the Tree of Immortality.

Nobody has managed to explain where this tree came from or how it grow on the moon without atmosphere or water.

---

On the other point,
The 10 Suns actually have Chinese names and are listed as the 10 Celestial Stems. If you read Chinese legal documents, or even a list of instructions... they may not use 1, 2, 3... to sequence. They would list Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, and so on. One might call these characters some of the Chinese 'alphabet' as they are used in more complex characters, along with the 12 Earthly Branches (a whole separate sequence). And together this stuff goes back over 4000 years in Chinese culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_stem

Of course, if you take the 10 Celestial Stems, the 12 Earthly Branches, the 5 Elements, and the Yin/Yang binary--- you pretty much have the basis for the I Ching (a very old oracle) and the Chinese calendar system.

I am still surprised by the 10 day week with a 3 week month. But it does get 360 days in a year. Obviously the great division in the ancient world was between the Chaldeans and there astronomic time frame and the Ancient Chinese with a whole separate astronomical time frame.
And then the Aztecs were sitting over in Central America with yet another system.

LoopyByteloose

jazzed wrote: »

Perhaps before our solar-system was formed, there were 9 very hot suns in our area that went super-nova and caused the formation of our solar-system which contains the 10th sun and the residue of the explosions left in the rocky inner planets (iron, gold, uranium, etc...).

Perhaps, perhaps.... But the Chinese definitely did believe at one time that ten different suns arose in a 10 day cycle. The celestial mechanics seem all wrong.. impossible to actually occur. One might as well have a god in a chariot ride across the sky on a daily basis pulled by a winged horse.

LoopyByteloose

The Jade Rabbit has landed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25356603

This may actually be really good for motivating Chinese youth to explore robotics and microcontrollers. After all, NASA captured the attention of youth in America for many decades to come. Or maybe, they will bring back some immorality pills for everyone.

mindrobots

Are those trees of IMMORALITY or immoraTality...either could explain the space race but I was just curious for the record how important a 'T' could be!

LoopyByteloose

@mindrobots
i can't quite sort out if you are challenging my typing skills or my spelling skills. For a long time now, I have tried very hard to spell correctly, but it seems that what comes off the keyboard goes awry. I am not 100% sure it is entirely me. It may be the latency in using an editor program in the USA from Taiwan.

I even proof read and use a spelling checker. Parallax's spell checker sometimes is active, at other times seems not present. And yesterday I picked up a new pair of eyeglasses to try to improve my text.

It still seems like something always slips by. And that might be immoral to you.

In any event, the three biggest annual holidays in the Chinese calendar are Chinese New Years, the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, and the spring Dragon Boat Festival.

The Moon Festival which is all about the Jade Rabbit is both about a pill of immortality that Ho Yi wanted to take and his wife Chang-er stealing the pill and fleeing to the moon so that the Chinese people would not suffer the immoral tyranny of Ho Yi for an eternity. That pretty much seems to indicate BOTH are in play.

And just like the founding fathers of the USA, the Chinese people have a very long tradition of celebrating those who are noble enough to sacrifice themselves so that we all can live without tyranny.

Seems there are some universal values in play and all governments should take notice.

We seem to have more than enough immorality pills already available to go around.. provided by our 'ethical drug companies' ... vicodin, dexidrine, valium, etc.

On other fronts, I am still trying to figure out where the myth of 10 suns came from. I am even dusting off a copy of that whack text by Velikovsky, "Worlds in Collision" to see if it dug up a plausible connection. (BTW, he really is bunk, but rather entertaining to read.)

Just maybe, Sailor Moon will save the world for us and we will all live happily ever.. See the picture in #2 that Jessica posted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_in_Collision


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Moon

Heater.

Loopy.

It may be the latency in using an editor program in the USA from Taiwan.

There is no such latency. When you edit your forum post all the work is being done locally in your browser.

Parallax's spell checker sometimes is active, at other times seems not present

Again, I'm fairly sure that the spell checking is nothing to do with Parallax. It all happens in the browser.

But you are right, often I see that spell checking is not happening. What I noticed is that if I click on a different tab that I happen to have open and go back to the Parallax tab all of a sudden spell checking has kicked in and underlined most of my post! Never did figure out what is happening there.

LoopyByteloose

I bit more checking on Velikovsky's time frame... 1500BC. Where as the Chinese had establish myth of 10 suns abou 1250BC. There seems to be a tie in here with Velikovsky's claim that myths in many cultures about 1500BC claimed 'fire in the sky' and other such phenomenon.

Nonetheless, Velikovsky does go overboard with trying to claim the world reversed poles during this period. The Egyptian pyramids are all lined out precisely to north-south, and inside the pyramids there are replications of star maps in the night sky with their same polar position. In the pyramids built before 1500BC, these ceiling murals should be reversed if the world switched poles.

mindrobots

I wasn't challenging anything. I was marveling at the importance of a T and how in the past this slim difference either way could have launched many quests and been the source of much possibly misguided adventure.

No personal thoughts either way to your typing or spelling.

LoopyByteloose

@mindrobots
All in good fun. It may just be Freudian slip, or some sort of Freudian typing slop. I did it consistently and have now corrected most of the wrong spellings for new readers... just left the last one.

When I took typing in junior high school, I got a D in it and only achieved 10 WPM. Now I can go much faster, but stuff does require editing... and more editing. Back then, I though all boys grew up to have beautiful secretaries that would do all the typing. I guess it was all the Rock Hudson movies.

Heater.

Loopy,

Back then, I though all boys grew up to have beautiful secretaries that would do all the typing.

Ha, yeah, what ever happened to that idea?

Actually for a brief moment in the early 1980's I did. The first company I ever worked for had guys writing software, assembler, on preprinted coding sheets by hand. Those coding sheets would then go to the data entry girls who would get it typed into a machine and produce copies on paper or magnetic tape. It kind of made sense, engineers were supposed to engineer not type and besides there were not enough teletypes and such to around.

Of course us new green youngster engineers were designing with micro-processors more and more and thought this old way of working was nuts. That system was soon bypassed so we could get stuff done quickly.

Turns out the lack of beautiful secretaries is entirely our own fault!

localroger

Some time back I plotted a story which had, as one element, a character who decides to move to the Moon, with the help of a very powerful agency that can set him up pretty much anywhere. I have a Rand McNally Moon map poster hanging behind my desk, and after studying it for some time to decide where I would want to settle, for the best views of Earth and nice local landscape of course, I decided on the foothills of the Jura mountain range, which have a beautiful view of the Earth over the Bay of Rainbows. Where there is now a Rabbit lurking :-)

jazzed

Bugs Bunny and Jerry mouse have been on the moon a few times.

On the moon has other meanings too

Congrats to the Chinese in their space program.

LoopyByteloose

Bugs Bunny made it too the moon? That makes three rabbits on the moon. It is just a matter of time before we will have the whole place hopping. Try are chewing leaves from the Tree of Immortality. Not only will they survive and breed, they will all live forever...

PoundSign2

Hopefully this will motivate the U.S to pump more money into NASA and get some science done! Kind of ticked they canceled the 2020 Back to the Moon mission. And the whole "be at Mars by 2030" thing is just looking more and more grim. Maybe this will ignite another space race? Well, here's to hoping.