Hi guys! As many of you know already, yesterday was the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival(中秋节 Zhōng qiū jié)! The Mid-Autumn Festival is a little bit similar to the American Thanksgiving. It is all about family and friends gathering together to give thanks for a successful harvest. This holiday is also sometimes known as the Moon Festival because families usually gather to gaze at the full moon on this night. To celebrate this holiday, I will introduce you guys to a short and interesting story. This is the story of the Jade Rabbit(玉兔yù tù) (or also called the Moon Rabbit(月兔yuè tù).
A long time ago, there was a medicine god called Wú gāng(吳剛) in charge of making the elixir of immortality. This exilir is a pill that all of the gods had to take every 1,000 years in order to sustain their immortaility. However, of course, many mortals on Earth wanted their hands on this. Some mortals would ask Wú gāng for an exilir and Wú gāng would give it to them. Upon hearing this, the Jade Emperor was furious. He couldn’t believe someone was that reckless, so he decided to punish the god by forcing him to cut down a forever growing osmanthus tree.
Now, there was a problem. The Jade Emperor needed to find a replacement that would be in charge of the elixirs of immortality. Learning from experience, he decided to pick an animal to take the place of the medicine god. In order to do this, the Jade Emperor sent three gods down to Earth to find this animal. When they reached Earth, they transformed themselves into poor old men, begging for food. In the end, only a monkey, a fox, and a rabbit were compassionate enough to help find food for them. After a long search, the monkey and the fox came back successfully with fruits and vegetables. Only the rabbit was unable to find food. The rabbit felt so guilty that it decided to jump into a fire the men had built and sacrificed itself for the old men. The old men were so touched by the generosity and the selflessness of the rabbit that they brought the rabbit back to heaven to meet the Jade Emperor. The Jade Emperor was so happy that he had finally found a replacement and sent the rabbit to work right away.
One day as the Jade rabbit was working (the rabbit got its name from its glowing snow white fur it received from the Jade Emperor), the Queen Mother of the West came to visit. She asked the Jade rabbit for an extra pill of immortality, but the rabbit refused. It was a rule that gods and goddesses were only allowed one elixir per 1,000 years. Upon hearing this news, the Queen Mother became very upset, yelling at the Jade Rabbit that was only doing its job. In the end, the Jade Rabbit succumbed to the Queen Mother’s request and gave her the extra pill. Later on, the Jade Rabbit came to find the Jade Emperor. Because the rabbit felt so bad about what he did, the rabbit confessed his mistake and decided to punish itself by going to the moon to accompany Cháng’é (嫦娥) for eternity.
You might be thinking, “What in the world does this rabbit have to do with Cháng’é?” Well, if you guys remember from my post last week on the story of Cháng’é, the Queen Mother of the West gave the extra elixir of immortality to Hòu Yì (后羿), Cháng’é’s husband. In the end, Cháng’é had to spend the rest of her life alone in the moon. As punishment, the Jade Rabbit is now up in the moon with Cháng’é.
You also might be a little confused from my introduction. “How did she go from talking about the Mid-Autumn Festival to talking about a rabbit?” Well, the story of the Jade Rabbit is connected to the story of Cháng’é. As you guys remember from last week, Cháng’é is the goddess of the moon and on the night of Mid-Autumn Day, people set up altars and bring pastries to worship her. And can you guys guess what these pastries are called? Mooncakes, of course! Interesting, right? I find it amazing how every legend to connected in some way and all you have to do is connect the dots and it will all make sense!
That’s it for today! Be sure to come back next week for more exciting stories about the Chinese culture and as always, thank you for visiting our website!
昨天才刚过完中秋节，每当中秋，大家就会想起作者描述的这篇文章，不知昨天的血月是不是也让玉兔和嫦娥也变红了！
Moon Cake, yum 🙂
Wow, nicely written! This was an interesting story. It’s cool to see the background of Chinese holidays in these legends. Amazing job!
The story is attractive. Hope more people like Chinese traditional culture!
Very informative story about why we celebrate the mid autumn festival or moon festival. I felt really sad for the rabbit throughout the story because of when it sacrificed itself because of guilt. What I learned from the story that a never knew before is that the rabbit was competing with a fox and a monkey to bring back food to the gods that were disguised as poor men. I also didn’t know that the mid autumn festival is closely related to an American thanksgiving. I was really surprised about how much selflessness the Jade rabbit had. I hope you write more informative stories like this one in the future. This article really showcases Chinese culture and it’s heritage. Keep up the good work with these types of articles.
This is a fascinating story! Every year in Chinese we learn about the story of Hou Yi and Chang E, but never about Wu Gang and the Jade Rabbit. It’s interesting how all these stories are connected. The rabbit seems to be a very selfless character, so I feel pity for him. but at least he has Chang E! In class yesterday, my classmates and I acted out these stories. I’m glad to be able to read a more in depth retelling of this story.
This story was very intriguing to read about and gives so much info on the moon festival. The Jade rabbit had quite the story with it sacraficing itself in the end of the story. It was quite interesting finding out that the mid autumn festival was similar to thanksgiving. The Jade rabbit in the story was quite selfless and I felt so bad when he sacrificed himself. These types of stories really catch my eye and I would enjoy seeing more of these stories. This was very informative and it gave great detail.
I always loves The Moon Festivals, spending time with my family and eating diner together. But I have never hear the story of the jade Rabbit and how it sacrificed itself to help the moon goddess. This story taught a story of a kind action and the jade Rabbit is portrayed as the one who cares about others and give up itself. And I never knew that thanksgiving is similar to it and I am interested to see more of these stories.