My entry to the Moon Contest by
This coming Mid-autumn Festival has brought me back some sweet memories of childhood: legends, taboos, and poetry. Let me talk about legends first. The most famous is Chang-e to the Moon. I’ve known this story since I was a child. Once upon a time, there was a compassionate queen named Chang-e. The king, named Hou-yi, on the contrary, was extremely cruel. He wanted to live forever. So he collected a lot of elixirs. Chang-e was worried because if the king took the elixirs and lived forever, the people would suffer endlessly. So she took them instead. Strange things happened. She became lighter and lighter and flew to the moon!
Source: https://goo.gl/images/HHg4pH
Secondly, I’ll talk about taboos. When I was a small child, my mother often told me not to point to the moon, warning that if I did, my ears would be cut. Strange, isn’t it? Well, the moon, in its first or last quarter, the crescent, looks somewhat like our ear. But why cutting? I learned later that this taboo was to teach children not to form a habit of pointing to others, which was considered impolite.
Source: https://goo.gl/images/8vYix3
Finally, poetry. The first Chinese poem I learned by heart was related to the moon, written by the best-known poet, Li Po, translated as follows:
The bright moonlight in front of the bed,
Taken as frost on the ground.
My head raised, l looked at the bright moon,
My head lowered, I missed my hometown.
The poet Li Po, 701-762
Source: https://goo.gl/images/KfXmAe
One day years ago, my child’s nanny told me she heard my 2-year-old daughter reciting the above poem when she was waiting at the door for me to take her home. It was after dusk with the moon in the sky. How amazing! The poem moves the heart, young and old.
The American astronaut, Armstrong, landed on the moon on July 20,1969.
Source: https://goo.gl/images/sqo5CQ
The Chang-e to the Moon legend has long been de-mythicized and the ear-cutting taboo broken. But the splendor of poetry remains. It has lasted thousands of years. Tomorrow will be the Mid-autumn Festival. Best wishes to you all and hope when the moon is full, you can be reunited with your beloved ones. Even if you are thousands of miles apart, you can still look at the same full moon, as the poet Su Dong-po said a thousand years ago.
The poet Su Dong-po, 1037 - 1101
Source: https://goo.gl/images/U3EQDN
中秋節給我許多兒時回憶：傳說、禁忌、詩詞。先談傳説。最有名的是嫦娥奔月。小時候就讀到這個悽美的故事。原來嫦娥是暴君后𦐒的皇后。暴君不想死，叫人去找到許多長生不老的藥。慈悲的皇后，怕如果他真的不死，會一直虐待老百姓，他們就太可憐了。所以她就把所有的長生不老藥全部吃下去了。一吃下去，沒想到她卻變得很輕盈，向上飛，飛到月亮上去了。
再談禁忌。小時候家母常禁止我們用手指指著月亮，説那樣做，我們的耳朵會被割傷。奇怪？上弦月、下弦月確實有點像耳朵。原來是要教導我們不要隨便用手指指人，那是不禮貌的！
最後說詩詞。我第一首會背的詩就是李白的這首五言絶句：「床前明光月，疑是地上霜，舉頭望明月，低頭思故鄉。」多年前有一天，孩子的媬姆告訴我，我兩歲的孩子，站在門邊等我去接她回家時，那時天色已晚，月亮已高掛在天上。她竟然朗誦出這首詩。多麽令人驚訝！真是一首老少咸宜的詩。
阿姆斯壯早在1969.7.20就登陸月球，美麗的嫦娥奔月傳說丶指月割耳的禁忌，不攻自破。唯獨詩詞仍然引發共嗚，千年不變。明天就是中秋節，祝福有緣人千里共嬋娟，如蘇東坡所言，月圓，人團圓！