He was born with magical and extraordinary talents. He was renowned for defying fate and formidable foes. He, whose name is Ne Zha, began as an ancient myth and has now become a modern hero.
Ne Zha’s Beginning
A well-known Chinese novel called The Investiture of Gods (封神演义), from the 16th Century, that was based on ancient tales, is where Ne Zha’s story originates. In the mythology text, they stated that Ne Zha was actually born to military commander Li Jing (李靖) following an extraordinarily lengthy three-year pregnancy. In modern versions, rather than being born normally, Ne Zha was born from a lotus blossom and was already very powerful.
An image of Ne Zha in Fengshen Yangyi
Ne Zha had a reputation for being a mischievous and defiant child. He opposed the Gods, engaged in many battles, and disobeyed authority. In the original tale, despite these traits, Ne Zha ultimately sacrifices himself to protect his family and people.
Ne Zha’s Powers & Cultural Symbolism
Ne Zha wielded the powers of fire and fought with many weapons. He rides on his flaming wheels, carries a cosmic ring and a fire-tipped spear.
Rebellion/Defiance: Ne Zha often defied the gods, dragons, and fate itself. This symbolizes the struggle between societal standards versus personal opinions. Oftentimes, Ne Zha symbolizes challenging injustice.
Filial Piety/Courage: Ne Zha sacrifices himself to save his family and people after an incident with the Dragon King. This symbolizes the culture of loyalty and moral duty to protect loved ones.
Transformation/Rebirth: Ne Zha is reborn again from a lotus after his self-sacrifice. This symbolizes the idea that even after tragic events, one can return stronger and wiser.
Ne Zha’s story has a blend of Taoism and Buddhism. Some Taoist elements contain the Lotus flower, and he had a Taoist mentor in the original story. Some Buddhist elements contain the ideology of karma, rebirth, and filial piety.
Modern Adaptation: Ne Zha (2019 Animated Film)
The 2019 animated film of Ne Zha is a modern retelling of this ancient myth. In contrast to conventional depictions, the movie portrays Ne Zha as a youngster who was born with the demon spirit, leading to chaos within the world. Similarly, Ne Zha defies social norms, embraces his own path rather than giving up to his destiny.
Ne Zha 2019 Animated Film Cover Photo
New Meanings
The 2019 animated film directed by Jiaozi reimagines Ne Zha’s character, emphasizing themes of self-determination, resilience, and identity. Unlike how in the traditional narrative, Ne Zha was born to be a heroic figure. This reinterpretation of Ne Zha was able to captivate and resonate with audiences worldwide due to its universal themes and storyline. At the time, it became the highest-grossing animated film in China, surpassing Zootopia by Disney and Coco. Now they’ve released Ne Zha 2, which has surpassed $2 billion in worldwide revenue.
2019 Film Ne Zha’s Themes
Challenging Fate & Authority: Ne Zha struggles against the “curse” of being born with the demon spirit, which everyone deems will be his destiny. However, this film encourages asserting your own path and critiques prejudice and societal expectations.
Individuality versus Social Pressure: Ne Zha faces prejudice from villagers and elders because he has a demonic origin. This mirrors the original story’s tension between filial piety, societal duty, and personal will but reframed as a modern struggle for identity and acceptance from society.
Moral Lessons & Redemption: Ne ZHa’s journey focuses a lot on resilience and self-determination. Similar to the original storyline, in the 2019 film, Ne Zha dies and is given a chance to receive new physical bodies through the lotus. The ties into the Buddhist idea of purification, karma, and personal enlightenment.
Symbolic Authority Figures: Ne Zha’s battles, though, are physical; they also symbolize standing up against injustice and societal pressures, redefining how the original myths critique of rules that misuse power.
Conclusion
With its contemporary retelling of an old Chinese tale, the 2019 animated feature Ne Zha emphasizes themes of resilience, identity, and self-determination. The film offers a new take on classic stories by recreating Nezha’s persona and journey, making them applicable to modern audiences. Its widespread popularity demonstrates how universally appealing tales are that delve into identity and societal pressures.
Everyone has that one friend who falls for someone that everyone told them they shouldn’t be with. Someone that is going to cheat on them, mistreat them, or otherwise is just flat out wrong for them, but the friend always has a way of shrugging it off. If you have a friend like that then they might resonate with the legend of the White Snake. It’s one of China’s oldest and most famous love stories. It features love, betrayal, morality, and spiritual insight.
Over the centuries this tale has morphed almost as much as the stories protagonist. It has taken on new meanings and messages to reflect the anxieties and culture of the times. At first the tale encapsulated a few paragraphs of essentially a warning about the dangers of women on high ranking officials and the distraction they can play from their more important duties, no where near a complex love story with intricate and nuanced details. However this was a real anxiety of the time with stories like Yáng Yùhuán’s where a beautiful woman essentially put an empire into turmoil because of a distracted emperor. But, as the times changed so did the tale. In modern renditions the tale is a lot more nuanced and complicated, but it essentially takes on the following plot.
The modern versions of the tale have a much more complex, intricate, and meaningful story than the original. They includes love, betrayal, heart break, and more. They reflect a lot of the anxieties we have today about if we are with the right person, the fear of “others” and acceptance of the marginalized, social norms and the fear of crossing them, and many more.
Above are 2 depictions of the White Snake legend. On the left an illustration from Stories to Caution the World (1624). On the right a modern Hubei Han opera.
The Movie
The 2019 animated film White Snake, by Light Chaser Animation re-imagines this classic legend with a Pixar like animation style. It has elements of fantasy, romantic drama, and traditional Chinese culture. On its surface the movie is a cheesy, predictable kids’ movie with talking dogs and a PG rating but its much richer than that. It explores identity, memory, and much more.
Analysis
Instead of focusing on the tragic romance of the White Snake and Xu Xian, it instead focuses on a mission to retrieve the White Snake’s lost memories, and understand her true identity while facing outside threats who want to exploit her. In a lot of ways this refocusing on finding the White Snakes true identity encapsulates the identity crisis many Chinese people face today.
In China there is a identity crisis between tradition and modernity. Preserving ancient values vs embracing a new world. Reconciling your past with your present situation, and understanding who you are. In the movie, Blanca has to reconcile her memories of her self with the new version of herself that wants to connect with humans. These two versions of herself come to a conflict when her sister the Green Snake tells her that Blanca can’t live safely with humans. Rather than rejecting a single version of herself, Blanca integrates the two identities of herself into one and embraces her dual nature. She uses her powers to protect humans and her sister. This gives guidance to Chinese people that your true identity is not one of modern China or historic China, but of both. You are a product of your past and present and these don’t have to conflict, they can both influence you and develop you into a more intricate and complex person.
The film chooses a Pixar like aesthetic with beautiful CGI, and more global visual signage of good vs evil with light colors on heros and dark auras around villans. This allows the story to transcend language barriers with a wider audience. This is the goal in it being a global retelling but it has some trade-offs. In the original telling of the story there is more moral complexity with a central conflict being of the morality of spirits and humans intermingling, represented by Fahai. However in this movie the materialistic general provides a much less nuanced moral dilemma, the audience does not feel conflicted on if he is doing the right thing.
Dark Menacing energy of the GeneralThe light aura of Blanca
Conclusion
The legend of the White Snake has stayed popular for so long because it evolves along with time, just like its protagonist. What began as a simple moral warning about temptation has transformed into a deeply emotional story about identity, love, and the struggle between worlds. The 2019 White Snake film captures this transformation beautifully, translating ancient anxieties about order and transgression into modern questions of identity and belonging. In adopting a global visual language, it opens the story to a broader audience while still preserving its emotional and cultural roots.
Ultimately, whether read as a myth, a romance, or a reflection of modern China, White Snake remains a story about the courage to embrace one’s full self, even when that self defies the rules of the world around you.
Watched "White Snake" (2019), a Chinese animated film, and it was really beautiful. The main male MC was so corny 💀 But certain moments had me sad af 😭 The twist at the end was pretty neat I can't lie on that. pic.twitter.com/aU11tBGBfE
In a dusty factory town in southern China, a man has spent the last ten years of his life waking up to the same alarm. He’s worked various hard factory jobs, and other odd jobs along the coast. His whole life he’s lived by the idea that hard work can change everything, that he should save each coin he earns, that through a 996 schedule (9am to 9pm 6 days a week) he can make his way to the top. But one day he decides to quit, and he rides his bicycle across China for months, living off of little money, but realizing he doesn’t need much, just enough eat and breathe and think freely.
This man returns home one day and decides to write a post online about it. He wants to stop measuring his worth by how much he can produce, and he refuses to be consumed by the endless competition in life.
A picture from Luo’s post
“I can sleep in my room, I can eat simple food, I can do nothing. Lying flat is my wise man’s movement.”
The post was quickly deleted. You’d have a very difficult time trying to find a screenshot of it if you tried. Yet the man, Luo Huazhong, had helped spark a new way of thinking. It wasn’t a crazy public act or demonstration, just a quiet post from an unknown netizen.
It’s very much engrained in Chinese culture the idea that hard work creates success, and in particular in modern times, that hard work with academics will lead to success. You can see similar philosophies across the world and Asia, but the economic/political environment in China is unique and creates some friction with this.
In many ways, China’s economy is changing; social mobility is on the decline, income inequality is higher than ever, and the cost of living is going up. For younger people, pursuing college degrees and office jobs, the amount of available opportunities is far out-numbered by the vast number of people who have all been taught that this is the path to success. People who have spent years earning their degrees are being forced to return to their small hometowns without work, or to take on a manual labor job with a wasted degree.
These are just official statistics from the government, whose known to obfuscate numbers. The political climate is also the reason why you probably won’t find any public posts mentioning the term “躺平” (tǎng píng), as they are frequently scrubbed. But the economic reality for many Chinese people has meant that despite that, the term and way of thinking has become wildly popular. These days, excessive internet censorship from the government can often backfire, and people come up with new terms, or code references to ideas through images (high-tech example depicted to left).
Just cats 🙂
To “躺平”, or “lie flat”, doesn’t mean to just give up. It’s about finding peace/value in small things. It’s about choosing your own path. It’s about not letting the system define your worth. It’s different from various other related phrases, like “摆烂” (let it rot), which is a more jaded and extreme attitude. “躺平” is a versatile term; it’s used in the context of workplace burnout, academic overload, job-searching frustration, and even against pressure from family/society to get married. For many, it’s a call to resist the status quo, and to seek our own forms of peace. For others it’s just a lighthearted word to use when things go wrong: “I think I’ve tried enough, might as well go lie flat.” It can even refer to relaxing or taking it easy in general; this cat bed advertisement tries to capitalize on positive associations with “lying flat”.
Translation: “Let’s Lie Flat Together”
Effortlessly aligning with nature – Wú wéi
The core idea behind the term isn’t new though, in fact it might feel quite familiar from our class. An idea from Daoism, “无为” (wú wéi), closely mirrors the concept of “躺平”. Just like how Luo Huazhong said lying flat is wise, Laozi said it is wise to “Practice not-doing”. Wú wéi is about not forcing things, letting go of focused effort; the biggest difference between the two terms is just the more memeable and casual feel of “lie flat”. Similar circumstances in their respective time periods led them to come to similar conclusions. Perhaps Luo Huazhong was acquainted with Daoist ideas when he chose to quit his job, but that isn’t the case for every person practicing “躺平” today. It reminds me of dynastic cycles, with modern China and Laozi’s China undergoing similar transformations, and how an excess of one thing (achievement culture) creates a push in the opposite direction.
Yin-Yang, but in a business setting
This balance of ideals is also seen in Yin vs Yang. Daoism as a whole is about finding balance, and Yin, representing yielding, passivity, letting things go, among other things, is required to balance out Yang. Lying flat in China today could be said to be balancing out the often monolithic culture of achievement that’s rooted in Confucian ideals. Yet the phrase is more than just a desire for a lifestyle; it’s a political message of young people rejecting their government’s attempts to shape their way of thinking. Maybe the Mandate of Heaven will run its course.
The Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 was a devastating time for China and a painful stain on its rich, beautiful history. Millions of innocents suffered surveillance, interrogation, torture, and death for the sake of Chairman Mao Zedong’s lofty views for China’s future; by the time of his death, however, Mao had accomplished nothing but tearing his own nation apart. And, only upon Mao’s death did many survivors of the Cultural Revolution realize the futility of these years of suffering and the extent of the brainwashing they had endured. One common vein ran throughout the many pains China’s people suffered throughout this terrible time: shame. Here, we will explore the powerful role shame played in the Cultural Revolution through the stories of three survivors: a child, Jiang Ji-li; an expelled university student, Kang Zhengguo; and a professor, Dr. Ji Xianlin.
Source: Jean Vincent / Getty-AFP The Chicago Tribune
The nation was pressured into unquestioning obedience under the watchful eye of Mao Zedong.
Shame. Shame dictated every moment of the Cultural Revolution— and what a great many things there were to be ashamed of: coming from a family of undesirable class status, as Jiang Ji-li and Kang Zhengguo did; being an intellectual rather than a worker, as Kang Zhengguo and Dr. Ji Xianlin were; being opposed to the revolution in any way, as each of them were accused of during this terrifying time in their lives; and much, much more. But, as we will see, shame was far from all these survivors suffered; it was the fuel that fed their tormentors’ flaming hatred, the fickle yet all-powerful justification for years of torment to come. Jiang would suffer bullying, ostracization, and pressure to denounce her beloved family; both Kang and Ji would endure imprisonment under unspeakable living conditions for their purported crimes against China. All lived in fear of da-zi-bao, posters often used for public shame, and the dreaded “struggle session”, a spectacle of public torture and humiliation that crowds would flock to enjoy.
Source: Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
A da-zi-bao criticizing an individual who portrayed Mao Zedong with a scar in a drawing, accusing the artist of counterrevolutionary values.
Source: Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
Another da-zi-bao, also targeting an alleged counterrevolutionary. These posters could destroy one’s reputation, livelihood, and life.
Source: Li Zhensheng/Contact Press Images The New York Review
Victims of “struggle sessions” were often forced to wear heavy boards detailing their purported crimes around their necks.
The ever-present threat and sadistic spectacle of public shame created the ideal conditions for dangerous rumors to flourish. At only twelve years old, Jiang Ji-li suffered under her classmates’ unfounded accusations of having an inappropriate relationship with a teacher, simply because she performed well in school. Because her grandfather had been a landlord, she and her family were also accused of being exploiters of the working class— despite the fact that her grandfather had been deceased for decades. For sending away for a Russian book during his time at university, Kang Zhengguo was falsely accused of colluding with foreign powers against China, and for opposing a popular figure in the Revolution, Nie Yuanzi, Dr. Ji Xianlin was wrongfully labeled a full-blown counterrevolutionary. The consequences of these falsehoods ranged from humiliation to life-shattering devastation: while Jiang was subjected to a da-zi-bao and bullied at school, Ji was imprisoned and tortured, and Kang was sentenced to three years in a nightmarish labor camp. Through their stories, we can begin to see how shame evolves from a method of controlling people to a method of harming them.
Source: Jean Vincent / Getty-AFP The Chicago Tribune
Propaganda advocated violence against anyone accused of opposing the Revolution.
Shame spread during the Cultural Revolution like a deadly disease. People rushed to sever their connections with those who were targeted, lest they be next in line. Childhood friends morphed into schoolyard bullies; frightened families abandoned aging parents and grandparents to the Red Guards’ scant mercy; radicalized students seized the chance to imprison and torture their once-respected professors. Those who remained loyal to their loved ones were punished for it; soon the disease of shame fell upon them, just as it had taken their friends and families. For collecting his salary and paying his party dues on his behalf during his imprisonment, Dr. Ji Xianlin’s elderly aunt suffered humiliation and insults every month; for refusing to denounce her parents and become an “educable child”, Jiang Ji-li endured pressure, interrogations, and public degradations, and for refusing to divorce her unjustly imprisoned husband, Jiang’s mother was forced to write essays criticizing her alleged failure to China. Despite the indignities these survivors suffered, they defied the cruel expectations set upon them to abandon those they loved, and their loyalty triumphed over shame and fear.
With frightening ease, public shame festered into degradation, and degradation into dehumanization; slowly but surely, years of this treatment carved away victims’ sense of self. Dr. Ji Xianlin describes the horrific conditions under which he and his fellow prisoners were kept: they were subjected to mental and physical torture; they were forced into backbreaking labor; they were instructed to keep their eyes on the ground at all times and were too miserable and frightened to speak to one another. The Red Guards labeled them “blackguards” and “cow-devils”. The inmates, Ji writes, were scarcely considered human, and began to view themselves accordingly. In another act of vicious dehumanization, during a portion of his own imprisonment, Kang Zhengguo was forbidden from using his own name— in addition, of course, to similarly abysmal living conditions. Assigned a number to represent his identity, he became known to his guards and cellmates only as “Number Two”. Such humiliations were difficult to recover from— Ji describes how, even after his release, he struggled to return to life as an ordinary person; he could not bring himself to meet his colleagues’ eyes or greet them in passing, as he felt such expressions of casual human companionship were not allowed to one who had fallen into cultural disgrace. The Cultural Revolution left scars that pained its victims for the rest of their lives.
The impact of these scars was nothing short of devastating. Depression was strikingly common among those targeted during the Cultural Revolution, and many beloved lives were lost to suicide. People from all walks of life— from the innocent child Jiang Ji-li to the world-wise professor Dr. Ji Xianlin— contemplated taking their own lives to escape the crushing shame and torment that permeated their every day. “But even now that my paltry successes have surrounded me with a cacophony of flattering voices, I sometimes think,” Ji writes, “I should have committed suicide. That I did not do so is a stain on my character; my very existence is cause for shame; I am living on borrowed time.” Shame— even in his elder years, when writing his memoir decades after the Cultural Revolution ended, he still found himself unable to escape that dreaded word. Tragically, Ji passed away eleven years after publishing his memoir; we can only hope that the last years of his life offered him some relief from the unjust shame that had been forced upon him so long ago, and that had followed him for so long since. As members of the human race, we each carry with us the remedies for shame— kindness, respect, understanding. Let us never forget to bestow these mercies upon ourselves and others. Let us never allow such a national tragedy to happen again.
Works Cited
Ho, Denise. “Exhibiting the Cultural Revolution, Part 1: Reading ‘Big-Character Posters.’” Medium, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University, 21 Aug. 2020, medium.com/fairbank-center/exhibiting-the-cultural-revolution-part-1-reading-big-character-posters-d3edd7bb0104.
Jiang, Ji-li. Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution. Harper Collins, 2010.
Kang, Zhengguo. Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China. Translated by Susan Wilf, W.W. Norton, 2008.
Li, Jie. “Exhibiting the Cultural Revolution, Part 3: Dazibao Exhibitionism.” Medium, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University, 21 Aug. 2020, medium.com/fairbank-center/exhibiting-the-cultural-revolution-part-3-dazibao-exhibitionism-3855a62a8bc6.
Robbins, Michael. “Chinese Cultural Revolution Recalled in Memoir ‘The Cowshed.’” Chicago Tribune, 9 May 2019, https://www.chicagotribune.com/2016/01/28/chinese-cultural-revolution-recalled-in-memoir-the-cowshed/.
Xianlin, Ji. The Cowshed: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Translated by Jiang Chenxin, New York Review Books, 2016.
Zha, Jianying. “China: Surviving the Camps.” The New York Review, 6 Jan. 2016, https://www.nybooks.com/online/2016/01/26/china-surviving-camps-cultural-revolution-memoir/.
The epic Journey to The West has been retold and built upon in innumerable ways since its inception in the 16th century. Especially in the modern day, as our values continue to evolve, it becomes imperative to evaluate the modern adaptations that build upon the dense layers of the characters. One, perhaps surprising place from which we can see this is through the children’s TV show Lego Monkie Kid. This TV show envisions the well-known characters in somewhat of a new light allowing for a subversion of the viewer’s expectations. While many aspects change in this adaptation, one of the most interesting changes occurs to Macaque, or Sun Wukong’s doppelganger. Despite being villainous in both works, his arc and motivations differ between the two adaptations.
Popular novel version of Journey to the West
Journey to the West
In the original Journey to the West, the Monkey King (Sun Wukong) is born out of a cosmic stone. As he grows with age and power, the rash and arrogant Sun Wukong becomes obsessed with cheating death. He fears his own mortality so much that he wreaks havoc in the underworld, attempting to remove his name from the register of life and death. He continues to wreak havoc in the heavens until the Jade emperor sends one hundred thousand soldiers after him. Sun Wukong is able to defeat them but eventually his luck runs out. The Buddha traps him the Monkey King under a mountain, imprisoning him for his sins. After five hundred years of imprisonment, the Buddha awakens him to send him on a pilgrimage across China to retrieve holy buddhist scriptures. Along with Tang Xuangzang and Pigsy, he undergoes trials and tribulations including foiling his doppelganger’s (Macaque) mischievous activities. He is forced to kill his doppelganger at the end of chapter fifty-eight with the help of the Buddha. Overcoming this trial allows the journey to finish and becomes a massive symbolic victory for Sun Wukong.
Popular Movie adaptation of fight between doppelganger and Sun Wukong
Lego Monkie King
The TV Show Lego Monkie Kid picks up in the distant future that resembles our civilization in some ways. The fantastical characters like Pigsy still remain but in a new and refreshing way. The protagonist, Monkie Kid (MK), is a noodle delivery boy who accidentally acquires Sun Wukong’s powers by holding his staff. Sun Wukong then chooses him as his successor to fight off evil. The rest of the show involves MK fighting off familiar foes from Journey to the West to protect the city. With each episode dealing with different villains and an overarching season theme, the narrative structure is vastly different from the original source material. This allows for new ways to explore the characters.
Sun Wukong (Right) and Macaque (left) fighting. Macaque is not pictured exactly as a doppelganger in this but rather as a more sinister-looking version. Despite this appearance, he oftentimes helps MK and tries to save others allowing for him to be redeemed.
Symbolism and Comparison of characters
In the modern adaptation, lots of inspiration is taken from the symbolism of Sun Wukong’s journey. The protagonist MK is a very similar character to Sun Wukong. He is arrogant and often naive about the smartest ways to solve problems. However, his moral compass is much more intact than Sun Wukong’s was. Monkie King differs from Sun Wukong in that he does not cause unnecessary havoc and is not motivated by selfish desires such as immortality. He, under the Monkey King’s guidance, protects the city from demons. His character arc throughout the seasons is akin to a modern fighter protagonist as he has to learn new moves to defeat new villains. However, one of the largest departures from the original source material includes the new representation of Macaque, the doppelganger. In the original Journey to the West, Macaque fights with Sun Wukong confusing Tang Xuangzang and Pigsy. However, Sun Wukong, with the help of Buddha, eventually helps him defeat his doppelganger. This fight symbolizes the moral triumph of Monkey over his evil side. Macaque represents the Monkey King’s double-mindedness and his defeat at the hands of the Monkey King. The fight also shows the illusion of identity. Neither Tang Xuangzing nor Pigsy can differentiate between the two monkeys. In order to understand one’s true identity, ultimate enlightenment or realization is required. However, the show picks up later and views the character in a different light. For one, it is revealed early on that Macaque had survived the fight but was badly wounded. This leads him to resent Sun Wukong and MK, by extension. This resentment leads to conflict between MK and Macaque as Macaque fears MK becoming like Sun Wukong and severely injuring him again. This adaptation also gives more depth to Macaque’s character. Despite being an “evil version” of Sun Wukong, he is able to be redeemed as a character, just as Sun Wukong was. In this case, he no longer represents the duality of Sun Wukong, but rather becomes his own character. Even despite knowing the power MK could hold, and the pain he could inflict, Macaque still goes out of his way to protect him because he knows that MK is the only one that can protect them from their existential threats.
Macaque scenes from the show
Conclusion
The TV show Lego Monkie Kid builds upon the original legend of Journey to the West. However, it also puts new spins on characters such as the protagonist, MK and the doppelganger, Macaque. While the source material used Macaque as symbolism for Sun Wukong’s duality, the show uses Macaque as a redeemable character who overcomes his resentment for Sun Wukong to ultimately do the right thing to save the city.
It is said in south-eastern China that male homosexuality was commonplace and was referred to as 男风 (male wind). In Fujian, men who were lovers couldn’t get legally married but would be adopted into each other’s family, usually the younger into the elder’s. This was called 契兄弟 (lit. duty brothers). The younger would help pay for the elder’s legal wedding, as they were expensive affairs, and both men would sometimes continue to be together long after both were married. The literati and some scholars today blame a gender imbalance or the maritime culture of south-eastern China as the cause for increased homosexuality, but others, like Korean scholar Choi Yun-joo, say the Ming and Qing dynasties’ obsession with the south-eastern Chinese provinces being homosexual was to other the peoples from Fujian and blame them for homosexuality existing in China. I lean towards the latter.
Story of the Rabbit God
兔兒神 (Rabbit God) was a south-eastern Chinese, Fujian and Zhejiang, deity most famously, but not firstly, described in chapter 19 of 子不語 (What the Master Would Not Discuss) by 袁枚 (Yuan Mei) (1716–1797). Yuan Mei tells of a man named 胡天保 (Hu Tianbao) who is entranced by the beauty of a government official sent to his town in Fujian. As the inspector is driven around town by carriage and goes about his day, Hu Tianbao watches him, confusing the inspector, but none of his clerks dare tell him why Hu Tianbao watches him. One day, while the inspector is inspecting a different county, Hu Tianbao, who is still following the inspector, hides in a bathroom in hopes of seeing him naked. The inspector finds him, and after beating him, Hu Tianbao confesses: 「實見大人美貌，心不能忘，明知天上桂，豈為凡鳥所集，然神魂飄蕩，不覺無禮至此。」or “I have indeed seen your beauty and cannot forget it. I know that the laurel tree of heaven is not meant for mortal birds, but my mind wandered and I was so rude that I did not realize it.” The inspector, enraged, lynches Hu Tianbao. Months later, Hu Tianbao appears in a dream saying that he was wrong and deserved to die, but the officials in the underworld laugh at him and do not deem this a serious crime, as it was not done with evil intentions. Hu Tianbao then says that he has been named 兔兒神 (Rabbit God) and that a shrine should be built to him. The villagers, hearing this and already following the custom of 契兄弟 (sworn brothers), build the shrine. The author Yuan Mei then gives the opinion of a man, 程魚門 (Cheng Yumen), who says the inspector would not have lynched Hu Tianbao if he had read 晏子春秋. Cheng Yumen also gives as an example 狄偉人 (Di Weiren), an editor who had entranced a male rickshaw driver who worked for him. When Di Weiren offered payment to the driver, the driver refused. When the driver was on his deathbed, he confessed his love for Di Weiren, who responded, 「癡奴子！果有此心，何不早說矣？」 or “Foolish servant! If you really wanted to do this, why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Cheng Yumen then ordered the rickshaw driver to be buried with generous rites.
There are also records of the very real shrine to the Rabbit God from the Qing dynasty by authors 施鴻保 (Shi Hongbao) (1804–1871) and 丘复 (Qiu Fu) (1874–1950). Shi Hongbao describes that a shrine in Fujian worships the Rabbit God and quotes the very first recorded telling of the story above by 徐𤊹 (Xu Xinggong) (1563–1639) in 竹窗雜錄; this telling shares major plot elements but differs somewhat in specifics and in time, one being set in the Ming and the other in the Qing dynasty. Qiu Fu describes the actual appearance of the shrine as two figures, one pale and one fair, sitting next to each other. Additionally, Qiu Fu describes the rites associated with the shrine as burning incense and sprinkling the ash onto the boy you like, and once you are successful in courting the man, to rub sugar and pig intestine fat onto the lips of the figures. Another text by an unknown author, 重纂福建通志卷 (Re-edited Fujian Chronicles) (Qing dynasty), corroborates this account. According to Qiu Fu and the 重纂福建通志卷, a man 朱珪 (Zu Gui) (1731–1807), while acting governor of Fujian, had a shrine destroyed by splitting the statue described above in two and throwing each man under different bridges.
Use of Rabbit as a pejorative
During the Qing dynasty, rabbit, among many different connotations, also carried the meaning of gay. Specifically, it was used to describe a catamite or 门子 (lit. “door son”), a word originally meant for young, soon-to-be nobles who worked for an older nobleman to deliver things, but which began to gain the connotation of a young male prostitute around the Qing. The phrase 兔崽子 (lit. “son of a rabbit”) could mean that you were a bastard, due to the rabbit’s fecund nature, or that you were a 门子.
天天有喜(Happy Everyday) vs 有兽焉(Fabulous Beasts): Depictions of 兔兒神 and Homosexuality
天天有喜(Happy Everyday)
天天有喜 is a very popular comedy/romance/fantasy drama from 2013 that features 兔兒神 (Rabbit God) as a main character. I was able to watch it on iyf.tv without English subtitles. He helps the main and other couples (not gay) get together and has multi-episode-spanning subplots with a clone of the main female love interest. 兔兒神 is played by actor 陈威翰 (Chen Weihan), who also played 兔兒神 in the Taiwanese series 兔儿神弄姻缘 (Rabbit God’s Marriage), and is dressed as a woman. In episode 52, a character, also played by Chen Weihan, who is the reincarnation/aspect of 兔兒神 transforms into 兔兒神, as seen in the image below.
In another episode, 兔兒神 causes a man to get pregnant and give birth. 兔兒神 is additionally given many scenes where he is naked or bathing, and it is played as humorously embarrassing for the other male characters to look at him. This wouldn’t be strange if he weren’t the only character to whom this happens. While I haven’t seen the entire show, 兔兒神 a gay deity depicted as a crossdresser who “transitions” from a character played masculine into one played feminine, being present in any given episode seems to be the writers’ license to include anything sexually deviant. While the Rabbit God’s depiction in this series has been praised, there is a forum on Baidu called 兔儿神吧 with a lot of media from this show. Ultimately, the Rabbit God’s origin as a gay deity and his queerness are played for laughs in the show.
有兽焉(Fabulous Beasts)
Fabulous Beasts is a Chinese fantasy manhua and donghua by Xue Xia Mao Yao Zi. One of the characters, 兔爷 (Lord Rabbit), is a pretty clear analog of 兔兒神. I haven’t watched past the first season of the show, and I haven’t read any of it, but it was the most positive depiction of an openly gay character I could find in Mainland Chinese media without going into less wholesome sources (the exception being 春光乍洩, which is a very good movie but doesn’t fit my narrative); and there are major critiques of that genre of media. Lord Rabbit is infatuated with one of the male characters. Lord Rabbit is played like any other lovestruck character, both in the series and out, and he is shown to be genuinely caring towards his love interest. Overall, what I appreciated was that the character’s love wasn’t played as a joke. This, I view, is a more positive depiction of both 兔兒神 and homosexuality than the ones seen in other media.
Special mention 陈情令(The Untamed)
陈情令 (The Untamed) is a hit television series based on a written work whose nature is alluded to in the previous section. However, in the television series, all explicit mentions of the main characters being a romantic couple are removed. Instead, the watcher is flooded with a near-constant stream of homoerotic subtext, including multiple scenes involving them holding rabbits. I have included a video of an edit of such scenes made by user Penthésilée below.
I think the characters being explicitly gay in the original work, and all of the symbolism regarding rabbits previously discussed, should indicate what that scene is trying to say.
兔兒神(Rabbit God) worship in China and Taiwan
Sources for public 兔兒神 worship in Taiwan are easy to find because there is a publicly available and widely known temple to his worship in Taipei. In China, I have seen two dubious sources that claim there is a temple to his worship in the mountains of Fujian and another somewhere in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, where a man operates a temple to 兔兒神 out of his house. The sources for this are included below, separately from the other sources, mostly because they are less academic (ignore that I cite Bai Du or this is a valid reason).
Sometimes I wake up in the morning to get ready for class only to realize that I’ve woken up an hour early and I’m delighted because even if its for a little longer, I can go back to sleep. Sometimes a cold refreshment after a long day out or an intense workout immediately brightens my mood. Although such actions are incredibly inferior compared to larger accomplishments that would bring me more happiness, these little moments of intensely packed dopamine get me through even the toughest days. The Chinese have a slang word for this and it is “小确幸” or “small solid happiness.” I especially resonate with this phrase as it gives meaning to something that I experience daily and thereby has been part of my whole life. As a result, I feel the need to use this post to talk about its origin, usage, and various examples
Origin
Originally, 小确幸 was a Japanese phrase that has become popular among Chinese youth to describe the tiny pleasures that make daily life bearable such as a morning coffee, petting a cat, etc. The term 小确幸 was initially coined by Japanese writer Haruki Murakumi in his 1986 essay collection Afternoon on a Bright Day where he defined it as “small, definite happiness.” In the early 2010s the term had a resurgence as it became popular in the Chinese Youth’s texting culture spreading through platforms like Weibo and other online forums.
Usage
Chinese netizens adopted the term as a form of emotional resistance against the extreme academic pressure and work overload that citizens face which also has a term, namely 内卷 (involution). Especially in a period where students and adults compete for perfect GPAs, promotions, etc., the concept of finding happiness in such trivial things is revolutionary. The posts talking about 小确幸 can be considered a form of 小确幸 in themselves as people using these platforms are looking for a break from their everyday lives. One example of a hyperbolic representation of this small, definite happiness can be encapsulated by one user who stated, “The world can collapse tomorrow, but today I still want to drink my bubble tea in peace.” Nowadays these posts are even more common as Chinese social media platforms like Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and Bilibili grow globally and users tag their everyday examples of small, definite happiness with a 小确幸 hashtag.
Examples
小确幸 or “xiao que xing” for many Chinese youth can be as simple as:
Listening to music while studying late at night
Drinking milk tea after a long day at work
Watching a movie/show with no distractions
Scrolling through social media like WeChat
This is something that is relatively universal as people around the world use such actions to cool down after an excruciating day at work or school. However, this concept also describes a greater shift in cultural values as modern society promotes measuring success by grades, position, status, and other established ideas while 小确幸 reminds us that true success is measured by personal happiness, peace of mind, and internal understanding.
Reflection
Some see 小确幸 as a “comfort pill” or a means of avoiding social issues in China like social inequality and overworking for China’s youth by allowing themselves to retreat and take pride in small joys. Although some argue that it’s a means of coping with such pressures, I believe this phrase could also be seen as a form of silent rebellion where the Chinese youth refuse to allow external pressures determine their happiness. Additionally, the phrase seems to appropriate western self-care aesthetics while also resisting the typical 996 work culture in China, namely the principle of working from 9 am to 9 pm 6 days a week, at the same time.
I also believe that the origin of the phrase 小确幸 is an important point of analysis as it emphasized joys that were small in scale yet guaranteed in happiness in a time of post-war Japan minimization and post-reflection. This philosophy of quiet gratitude was adopted by the Chinese Youth with the advent of social media although repurposed for a different period and more modern issues. Rather than post-war reflection, the Chinese adopted the phrase for issues like urban alienation, exhaustion, and depression from an increasingly competitive and toxic work culture such as the 996 work culture. I believe this transition of the use and semantic of xiao que xing shows how the phrase has adapted multinationally across different time periods to resonate with currently pressing issues.
Conclusion
小确幸 represents the quiet heartbeat of modern Chinese life. During a period where everyone is fighting for external success, the rise of 小确幸 shows the importance of achieving internal happiness and not taking even the smallest moments in life for granted. Additionally, it shows how culture can evolve over time not only through politics and the advent of technology but also through emotion and the way people choose to live and experience their lives every day.
For me, that small but certain happiness will always be the feeling of a cold refreshment after a long day. For someone else, it might be a late-night bowl of noodles or a text from a friend. Either way, the idea reminds us that even in chaos, there is always something small and certain to hold onto.
There are very few characters in world literature that travel as far, and morph as fluidly, as Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. He begins not as a god or a man, but as a miracle of nature: a monkey born from a magical stone upon the Flower-Fruit Mountain. Endowed with great strength, intelligence, an d in explicable thirst for power, Monkey learns under a Taoist immortal, masters seventy-two different transformations, and gains control of the Ruyi Jingu Bang, an iron stave that can shrink to the size of a pin or expand to the size of a spear that can pierce the heavens.
Drunk on his own strength, he wages war on the celestial realm, defeats the heavenly generals, and declares himself “Great Sage Equal to Heaven.” He devours the Peaches of Immortality, empties the Elixir of Life, and laughed a t Ja de Emperor. The gods, powerless to stop him, beg Buddha for help. When Sun Wukong brags to Buddha that he can leap out of Buddha’s own palm, he discovers too late that he has been tricked, based on that hubris, Buddha contains him in a mountain, trapping him there for five hundred years to stew in his own bitterness and rage.
Sun Wukong is freed by the Buddhist monk named Tripitaka, as long as he agrees to join the monk on a pilgrimage to India and recover sacred scriptures. In order to control the unruly Monkey, Tripitaka puts a magical hot tightening headband on him that constricts painfully around his head each time he indulges his rebellious impulses. Thus begins their dangerous journey west, along with Pigsy and Sandy, during which Sun Wukong fights off demons, spirits, and his own violent urges to protect his master. Journey to the West is not simply an adventure story; it is a story of transformation; it is a moral allegory about Sun Wukong’s transformation from rebellion to redemption. However, beneath the willful restraint of the disciplined Wukong, there is uncontrollable, restless, untamable energy. He is still a creature that questions every hierarchy, mocks every kind of law, and overthrows what power represents.
The God of High School, from Korean artist Yongje Park, begins as a high-school martial-arts tournament, but eventually unravels an epic cosmology in which contestants use the powers of gods and mythological figures. The happy-go-lucky but impulsive protagonist, Jin Mori, is more than he seems: he is the legendary Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. The anime adaptation produced by MAPPA Studios, which is streaming and distributed worldwide on Crunchyroll, is teeming with cultural symbols across cultures. It has an embodiment of one Chinese myth told by a Korean author, animated in Japan, and streamed worldwide, it is a narrative of cultural migration in action.
While Mori has retained the same irrepressible spirit as Wukong, his rebellion is now constructed from a multicultural blend: he is grounded in Chinese myth, enriched with is Korean narrative, animated with Japanese anime tropes, and celebrated among a global audience with is pop cultural popularity.
Plotline: From High School Tournament to Mythic Quest
The God of High School starts off with a rather simple setup, a martial arts tournament for high school students across South Korea; but, underneath that apparent surface, the story emulates the classic journey of Sun Wukong and shifts the narrative of divine rebellion into a contemporary globalized format. At first, the protagonist Jin Mori is a somewhat arrogant and irreverent youth, who perplexes his opponents with his extraordinary martial prowess. The chaotic energy that Jin emits an apparent ignorance of consequences, quick improvisation, and never ending wit, all of which mirror the legendary antics of Wukong in the classic, from mocking celestial generals to besting exceptionally powerful giants. As the narrative develops, he succumbs to hints of his actual identity: Jin is are creation of the Monkey King and his mythical powers are purposely hidden to conveniently exist in a mortal world.
Mori meets fighters throughout the tournament who go beyond the typical fighter role into carriers of various mythologies. Some refer to Taoist immortals; some refer to Buddhist legacies; others Japanese folktales. In each fight, Mori’s creativity, stubborn bravery and playful rebellion extends Wukong’s legacy of contentious cooperation, applying a centuries-old motif to a contemporary act. Whereas Wukong fought heaven itself, Mori squares off against contemporary “deities” to confront dishonest organizers, conspiratorial elites, and Bōrei spirits, but the motif remains similar despite cultural changes, figurations of embodied liberty versus distorted hierarchy remain part of the tension in their relationship.
Mori is not only confronted by enemies attempting to divide his divine nature against his humanity, he received support from others like Tripitaka as well, imitating Tripitaka’s purported role in assisting Wukong’s transformation to normative discipline. Just like Wukong’s pilgrimage was a test of his commitment to obedience and concern for others, Mori’s pilgrimage is testing his fidelity to friendship, morality, and self-restraint against excessive powers, even when chaos tempts him. He finds himself contending with several frames of combat which represent a metaphorical pilgrimage: a negotiation between mischievousness and responsibility, harshness and compassion.
This parallel is made emphatically clear at the climax of the film. Mori entirely inhabits the Monkey King role, demonstrating incredible skill with his staff (wielded as a weapon or symbol of magic) while striking a balance with his human relationships. The narrative affirms the perennial lesson of Journey to the West: rebellion only has meaning if it is grounded within some ethical framework. Therefore, Mori extends Sun Wukong’s rebellion to a wider audience as part of his reframing of Sun Wukong’s escape for a global context, to be energetic and playful while also being clearly grounded in a set of values for a multicultural world.
From Stone Ape to Martial Artist: Transformation and Continuity
Aspect
Sun Wukong (Journey to the West)
Jin Mori (The God of High School)
Origin
Born from stone on Flower-Fruit Mountain
Human form concealing divine identity
Mentor
Trained by Taoist immortal
Self-trained fighter learning empathy
Weapon
Ruyi Jingu Bang – magical iron staff
Same staff, reimagined as glowing anime weapon
Personality
Rebellious, witty, chaotic good
Energetic, idealistic, humorously stubborn
Enemies
Celestial bureaucracy, Buddha’s order
Corrupt gods and authoritarian systems
Mori preserves Sun Wukong’s moral ambiguity: part savior, part anarchist. Both characters utilize humor as a weapon, laughing in the face of authority.
However, their confrontations unfold in different contexts. In Journey to the West, Wukong’s rebellion is a spiritual rebellion: challenging divine hierarchy to achieve enlightenment. In The God of High School, rebellion is expressed socially and generationally in contemporary efforts for self-definition.
Visually, both anime embodies Wukong’s mythic energy. Mori’s golden aura and rapid pace function to conjure a Buddhist transcendence motif and the glowing staff paired with urban spaces translates a heavenly chaos to demonstrate a contemporary visual language.
Cultural Evolution – From Classic Text to Digital Myth
The evolution of Sun Wukong from a Novelist’s work in the Ming era to a character in modern date anime shows us how globalization works to rework myth. It is not an export of mythology, but a work of “translation through transformation.” The God of High School takes the Chinese heroic story and reframes it through Korean narrative rhythms and global anime aesthetics. One can see how myths evolve to live again.
Sun Wukong’s journey from a Ming-era novel to an anime expresses how myths travel and develop within and among cultures and even media. In The God of High School, the Monkey King does not just arrive in a new story. The Monkey King’s rebellion and irrepressibility are expressed through the merged narratives of multiple cultures, the foundational cultural story of Chinese myth, the narratives of Korean story, visuals with anime aesthetics that visually express his journey, and pop cultural conventions that allow the story to connect to a global audience.
The story also changes morally. Where the original story had the principle of spiritual redemption grounded in obedience to Tripitaka, the anime offers a perspective built on belief (conviction), friendship, and justice, while still preserving Wukong’s cheek and humor. This gives Mori the ability to also express the same spirit of rebellion that the original Monkey King expressed, but in a way that may be understood by a modern audience of youth, who are themselves grappling with complicated social and ethical landscapes.
The combination of these cultural components elevates Sun Wukong into a global archetype: a character whose spirit, wit, and moral ambiguity transcend boundaries of nation or history. Streaming services and webtoon adaptations bring Mori’s adventures to a global audience who may never experience the original text, making the Monkey King a modern symbol of textual and cultural freedom, moral courage, and playful rebellion against social and cultural conventions.
Through this weaving of cultures, The God of High School not only reanimates Wukong for a contemporary generation, but also demonstrates how myths endure: myths endure when they adapt to appeal to the aesthetics, ethics, and narratives of new audiences, and still preserve the frame of the character that has intrigued readers and viewers for centuries.
The Chinese Cultural Revolution was a period of sociopolitical movement started in 1966 and ended in 1976 by the death of Mao Zedong. The stated purpose of the movement was to purge the remaining elements of capitalism and tradition from the Chinese Society. The movement led to a period of chaos and violence, with rebel factions formed by people seizing control. Those who were deemed a part of the five black categories (intellectuals, landlords, rightists etc.) would be “struggled against”, a process of public humiliation that could result in injury, death or suicide. Violence would erupt between different rebel factions in many areas, with over 18.77 million guns distributed among the populace. A death toll of over a million was estimated at the end of the period.
There are thousands of stories and memories about this period, and many are lost in time. But there are still some that remain, and out of these, three form an interesting connection: the stories of a third grader in Beijing, a member of the Educated Youth in Beijing, and a member of the libertarian rebel faction in a rural area of Anhui. Their names are not known, but their pasts are still very real, and show us how a societal movement can change what is right and what is wrong.
“[I] felt a little like, oh, maybe my father should be struggled against.”
Image of the first interview subject, from the CR/10 Project
The first interview subject was a third grade student at the time. She went to one of the elite schools of Beijing. One of her most prominent memories is how one time the third and fourth grade students got into a fight over a sentence she said at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
“[The fourth graders] really beat us, smacked our mouths with shoes, and things like that. The teacher was there, but didn’t dare intervene. At that time, the Cultural Revolution had already started, so institutions were already broken down.”
This highlights how the Cultural Revolution has changed what was acceptable, and what was allowed. The non-action of the teacher to stop violence among children, perhaps hard to imagine in our current society, shows how deep the deinstitutionalization and change in social norms was at the time.
The interview subject also mentions that his father was an intellectual, and he was being struggled against and beaten, and she would help him apply the medicine because her mother wasn’t home. She says at the time kids “didn’t know right and wrong… [Everyone] had to be activist, revolutionary… [I] felt a little like, oh, maybe my father should be struggled against.”
A struggle session in 1968. Image provided by the New Yorker
This is a striking example of how a person’s moral compass changed in the Cultural Revolution. It shows that often, especially for children, the main source of morality is society, and it is powerful enough to lead a daughter to support unjust violence against her own father.
“It was like before the Cultural Revolution, when we’d get into trouble, breaking people’s windows and such“
Image of the second interview subject, from the CR/10 Project
The second subject was a member of the Educated Youth, later sent down to the rural areas from the city to unite the populace and spread the revolution. At the time he was still in the city, he describes that he had a really good teacher that he liked. However, with the influence of the revolution, they have created a “big-character poster”, a poster for public shaming, concerning their teacher. “We were just parroting others-we criticized the teacher for Revisionism, or something like that.” After the poster was discovered by the teacher, he said “We were particularly afraid: such a good teacher, and we wrote so many awful things!” He describes how later the teacher was struggled against in front of the whole school, forced to stand on a stack of bricks.
A Big-Character Poster, taken from Harvard Fairbanks Center for Chinese Studies
This highlights the blur of moral values at the time, although the interview subject knew the teacher was a good person, he didn’t hesitate to humiliate her in the influence of the Cultural Revolution. And he was met with no consequences, in fact, the teacher was struggled against in front of the whole school.
One sentence he uses to describe the guilt he felt after making the poster is particularly interesting: “It was like before the Cultural Revolution, when we’d get into trouble, breaking people’s windows and such–we were really anxious.” This sentence alone highlights how the Cultural Revolution has transformed the society’s morality. During the period, people didn’t feel it was wrong to break people’s windows, publicly shame others or exert violence, those values belonged to the times before.
“The rebel faction’s anger rose up. No one could control it.“
Image of the third interview subject, from the CR/10 Project
The third interview subject was a member and a former leader of a local rebel group in the Liberation faction in a rural area of Anhui. He describes although he had good relationships with the rival Conservative faction, there would be times when violence would erupt between the two factions. He remembers how streets would be closed during night, people were injured, or even times when a faction would carry fake coffins to claim the other side had killed their people to radicalize the conflicts. He describes that during struggle sessions there would be “Cursing, hanging signboards [on them], putting dunce caps”.
Rebel workers at Harbin Forestry Machinery Factory, 1967, taken from Wikiwand
He also says that when “The rebel faction’s anger rose up. No one could control it. A regular person, even one with a sense of justice, wouldn’t argue against them, so [everyone] just let them speak.” This highlights a different view of the change in the moral compass. While in the perspective of the youth, the violence was allowed as it was right and moral, in the perspective of others, it was allowed simply out of fear. Not everyone thought the violence was right, but they nonetheless didn’t speak up due to fear.
These stories highlight how the Cultural Revolution have shaped what was allowed, what was right, and what was wrong. Actions of violence, harm, and humiliation that would be unimaginable before were deemed right and proper, with many joining, and others staying silent. While the Cultural Revolution has ended, it still serves as a reminder of the power of social movements, and how fluid our definitions of right and wrong can be.
-Ege Teksoz
References
East Asian Library, University Library System, University of Pittsburgh. (n.d.). What is CR/10 In China’s Cultural Revolution in Memories: The CR/10 Project. Retrieved 10/8/2025, from http://culturalrevolution.pitt.edu
Song, Y. (2011, August 25). Chronology of Mass Killings during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, Sciences Po. Retrieved 10/8/2025, from https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/chronology-mass-killings-during-chinese-cultural-revolution-1966-1976.htmlSciences Po
