Friday, October 2, 2009
Back in the old days, they used to come in just paper boxes or tins. I remember my first ever collectible was a Garfield tin from Gloria Jeans!
I don’t really fancy eating mooncakes, they are too sweet for me, but I buy them for the boxes.. Here are what I’ve got for this year…
After so many years of just eating mooncakes, I decided to peek a little into the legend.
Wikipedia says:
Version 1: Once upon a time, the earth had ten suns. They burned the crops and people suffered infertility. Houyi sympathized with humans, so he decided to shoot down nine suns and leave one for the benefit of the people. After he shot down the suns, he was treated as a hero.
He had a beautiful wife named Chang'e, and they lived happily together. Houyi had a many apprentices; they followed him to learn hunting. One day, on Houyi’s way back home, the emperor of the immortals gave Houyi two pills, each of which granted eternal life as a reward for shooting down the suns, one was for Houyi, and the other for his wife.
He warned Houyi, “Make no haste to swallow the pill.” Houyi was to wait until New Years Day, on which he and Chang'e were supposed to eat the pills together. Chang’e put the pill in her jewelry box for safekeeping.
But Peng, one of Houyi’s apprentices, discovered their secret and decided to steal the pill. One day, when Houyi and other apprentices went to the mountain, Peng pretended to be sick so that he could stay home. After everyone had gone to the mountain, Peng sneaked into Chang’e’s room and forced her to give him the pill. Chang’e knew she couldn't fight Peng, so she ate the pill herself. However, after eating it alone, she began to float.
Unable to come back to earth, she took flight and flew far, far away. She did not want to leave her husband, so she stopped at the moon, which is the body closest to Earth. After Houyi found out what happened, he was very angry and heartbroken. He looked up into the night and called Chang’e’s name. He discovered that inside the moon there was a lady’s shadow that look like Chang’e, so he ran and ran and tried to reach the moon. He failed due to the wind.
Version 2: Houyi was an immortal, while Chang'e was a beautiful young girl, working in the Jade Emperor's Palace as the attendant to the Queen Mother of the West (wife of the Jade Emperor), just before her marriage. One day, Houyi aroused the jealousy of the other immortals, who then slandered him before the Jade Emperor. Houyi and his wife, Chang'e, were subsequently banished from heaven, and forced to live by hunting on earth. He became a famous archer.
Now at this time, there were 10 suns, in the form of Three-legged birds, residing in a mulberry tree in the eastern sea; each day one of the sun birds would have to travel around the world on a carriage, driven by Xihe, the 'mother' of the suns. One day, all 10 of the suns circled together, causing the earth to burn. Emperor Yao, the Emperor of China, commanded Houyi to shoot down all but one of the suns. Upon the completion of his task, the Emperor rewarded Houyi with a pill that granted eternal life, and advised him: "Make no haste to swallow this pill; first prepare yourself with prayer and fasting for a year".[4] Houyi took the pill home and hid it under a rafter, while he began healing his spirit.
While Houyi was healing his spirit, Houyi was summoned again by the emperor. Chang'e, noticing a white beam of light beckoning from the rafters, discovered the pill, which she swallowed. Immediately, she found that she could fly. At that moment, Houyi returned home, and, realizing what had happened, began to reprimand her. Chang'e flew out the window into the sky.
With a bow in hand, Houyi sped after her, and the pursuit continued halfway across the heavens. Finally, Houyi had to return to the Earth because of the force of the wind. Chang'e reached the moon, and breathless, she coughed. Part of the pill fell out from her mouth.
Now, the hare was already on the moon, and Chang'e commanded the animal to make another pill from it, so that she could return to earth to her husband.
As of today, the hare is still pounding herbs, trying to make the pill. As for Houyi, he built himself a palace in the sun as "Yang" (the male principle), with Chang'e as "Yin" (the female principle). Once a year, on the 15th day of the full moon, Houyi visits his wife. That is why, that night, the moon is full and beautiful.
Version 3: The earth once had ten suns circling over it, each taking turn to illuminate the earth. One day, however, all ten suns appeared together, scorching the earth with their heat. Houyi, a strong and tyrannical archer, saved the earth by shooting down nine of the suns. He eventually became King, but grew to become a despot.
One day, Houyi stole the elixir of life from a goddess. However, his beautiful wife, Chang'e, drank it in order to save the people from her husband’s tyrannical rule. After drinking it, she found herself floating, and flew to the moon. Houyi loved his divinely beautiful wife so much, he did not shoot down the moon.
Version 4: Another version, however, had it that Chang'e and Houyi were immortals living in heaven. One day, the ten sons of the Jade Emperor transformed into ten suns, causing the earth to get scorched. Having failed to order his sons to stop ruining the earth, the Jade Emperor summoned Houyi for help. Houyi, using his legendary archery skills, shot down nine of the sons, but spared one son to be the sun. The Jade Emperor was obviously displeased with Houyi’s solution to save the earth. As punishment, he banished Houyi and Chang'e to live as mere mortals on earth.
Seeing that Chang'e felt extremely miserable over her loss of immortality, Houyi decided to journey on a long, perilous quest to find the pill of immortality so that the couple could be immortals again. At the end of his quest, he met the Queen Mother of the West, who agreed to give him the pill, but warned him that each person would only need half a pill to regain immortality.
Houyi brought the pill home and stored it in a case. He warned Chang'e not to open the case, and then left home for a while. Like Pandora in Greek mythology, Chang'e became curious. She opened up the case and found the pill, just as Houyi was returning home. Nervous that Houyi would catch her, discovering the contents of the case, she accidentally swallowed the entire pill, and started to float into the sky because of the overdose.
Although Houyi wanted to shoot her in order to prevent her from floating further, he could not bear to aim the arrow at her. Chang'e kept on floating until she landed on the moon.
While she became lonely on the moon without her husband, she did have company. A jade rabbit, who manufactured elixirs, also lived on the moon.
Version 5: In a popular school version, Houyi was a lazy boy who did nothing but to practice his archery. He practiced day and night until he became the greatest archer in the world. One day, the ten suns all assembled around the earth. Their presence destroyed all vegetation, and hundreds of thousands were perishing.
The King, who was desperate, offered his crown to anyone who could shoot down the suns. Houyi answered his call. He shot down nine of the suns, and as he pulled his bow to shoot the last one, the King stopped him. Saying the earth must have one sun. Houyi then became the next King. He was pampered to the extent that he wanted to be King forever. He called his advisors to look for a way to make him immortal. His advisors found a way.
They found a recipe for the Pill of Immortality. It required 100 adolescent boys to be ground into a biscuit like a pill. Every night he was supposed to grind one boy. On the hundredth night, his wife Chang'e could not bear to watch her husband become the tyrannical dictator for eternity. She prayed to Xi Wang Mu for help.
She stole the pill, with Houyi shooting arrows at her, and flew to the moon grabbing a rabbit to keep her company. So the Chinese say that if you look up at the moon to this day you can sometimes see a rabbit making moon cakes
I didn’t notice that there is always a rabbit.. until I read this article.
It’s the Jade Rabbit!
The Hare - Jade Rabbit
According to tradition, the Jade Rabbit pounds medicine, together with the lady, Chang'er, for the gods. Others say that the Jade Rabbit is a shape, assumed by Chang'e herself. You may find that the dark areas to the top of the full moon may be construed as the figure of a rabbit. The animal's ears point to the upper right, while at the left are two large circular areas, representing its head and body.
In this legend, three fairy sages transformed themselves into pitiful old men, and begged for food from a fox, a monkey, and a hare. The fox and the monkey both had food to give to the old men, but the hare, empty-handed, jumped into a blazing fire to offer his own flesh instead. The sages were so touched by the hare's sacrifice and act of kindness that they let him live in the Moon Palace, where he became the "Jade Rabbit".
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**Pics are taken from these sites:
-http://afterwork.myfinejob.com/happy-midautumn-festival
-http://blog.chinesehour.com
-http://www.chinahighlights.com
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Just gimme one free day to myself.
Just leave me at one mall.
Just leave me with one of my credit cards.
And I'll show you how much damage I can do..
Sigh, and I wasn't even anywhere near the big brands..
Lord, what is happening.. Pls gimme a raise this year end!
;)
I'm so close to smashing my laptop (though it is not its fault at all)because of the Blogger! I spent like over 30 mins trying to post up an entry and each time it gave me some idiotic BXXXX error, fields cannot be blank, or all my entries appear "WUW^#!_)JSS" WTH!
And the solution?
After almost finishing half a can of Pringles Potato Chips (I love Sour Cream btw), all I need to do is clear the cache! Duhh... I'm still fuming @ Blogger! Grrrr...
Now I need my barley drink to cool down and pray those chips don't gimme zits!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Over the weekend, while out on our shopping trip, I came across this shop selling really cute home deco - all cloth based. Curtains, chair pads, place mats, tissue boxes, you name it. Also, items were on sale! We got a set of chair pads for Mom's new sofa set.. very sweet and pleasant shade of maroon. Forgot to snap some pics though.. >_<
Then, The Boyfriend got me this cute apron. Hinting me to cook more often for him.
I don't usually wear aprons when I cook, but heck this is cute and he insisted... so... lol.
I actually wanted another one with a giraffe, but they don't have new ones, and the item on display had a lil tear. So I came home with this cutie...
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
... a day of: skip work, have - breakfast, morning break, lunch and tea break; burn of those fats, stuff more goodies for dinner, and then shop some really good deals, and close it off with a parcel waiting for ya sounds?
Lemme tell ya... ABSOLUTELY DIVINE! *grins*
I'm off to a two days offsite training. That means sleep in longer. Just listen to lectures, join in some discussions, and voila! The day is gone... and they feed me well.. *yummm century eggs*
Having mild cramps yesterday, I decided to go for my favourite yoga class. Feeling all good having a good sweat burning all those sinful yummies I stomached earlier. Its true what they say... Exercise does not further tires you.. instead, it energizes you ;)
Tuna Sub of The Day is still yummy as ever. Even The Boyfriend loves it now!
We decided to take a peek into Guardian after that.. and I'm still asking myself if that was a good move! Because I ended up buying some more things.. sigh. But I'm happy at the same time?
*oxymoron*
I'm too sleepy to post up pics now, will *try* to do so tomorrow. I'm eager to try out those goodies - oh they came with freebies (Merdeka Sales).
Back home, another surprise! I got my parcel from Eyeko! Yay!
The parcel was thrown deep into my apt entrance I was for a moment worried about breakage (silently cursing the delivery man - he did not call!) But amitabha... everything is perfectly fine :)
It came with 4 free cleansing wipes and a postcard hehe.
*My dog is demanding attention now, I'd better go..
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Damn.. where was I all this while?
Last night, after a zillion years of procratinating, I finally decided to work on my blogs. I kept telling myself that I need to start recording down stuffs instead of relying on my aging brain.
What happens if this absent minded woman forgot what happened to her last week? Or what is her favourite brand of hand cream? How much was it? Or, what were the precious tips given to her by her "ancestors"? Where did she meet The Boyfriend?
And then, Google Books "found" me.
You mean, I can actually read Yoga Journal (one of my favourite reads) dated back in the 1970s? WTF?? I didn't even know they exists back then! Well, I wasn't born yet though, hehe.
But still?!
And I can read books just about any topics that I go gaga with. For FREE. And I don't have to even think of not having enough space to store them in my apartment!
Lesson learnt - DO NOT FREAKING PROCRASTINATE! EVER!
(yeah right, ever lol)
OK, I finally stop procrastinating and work on my blogs.
>_< Have no idea there are so many blog related tools. Widgets, templates, layouts... ahhh *faint*
Anyway, got a few done for my blogs, some buttons still don't work; and I've given back all the HTML knowledge back to my lecturer.. hehe. Will take more time to figure it out. Or, I could get Boyfriend to work it for me *winks*
