We thought it'd be funny if the Chang'e 4 Lunar Lander met the Goddess Chang'e on the moon, and made this fun comic strip! Hou Yi discovered his wife was on the moon, and offered up her favorite foods on an altar, signifying the worship of the moon. She then began to float up into the sky, and reached the Moon, where she would spend the rest of her days apart from her beloved husband. Seeing he was armed, and knowing she couldn’t fight him, Chang'e took it out and drank it all right there. One day while Hou Yi was out, Peng Meng, rushed into his home and demanded Chang’e give him the elixir. One of Hou Yi’s disciples, Peng Meng, saw the elixir. Since he didn’t want to part with Chang’e, he asked Chang’e to keep the elixir hidden. She provided him with the elixir of immortality, and told him that drinking the entire elixir will let one ascend to heaven as an immortal. One day, on Hou Yi’s travels, he encountered Empress Wang Mu, the Queen of Heaven. He later married a beautiful woman named Chang’e. Hou Yi, a skilled archer, shot down nine of the suns, and left just one to provide light and warmth to Earth. One version of the legend is that one day, ten suns rose up into the sky and burned the Earth, bringing great hardship to its people. There are several different versions of the legend. 嫦娥 (cháng é) is actually the name of the Chinese Goddess of the Moon.
#Houyi elixir of immortality how to#
Where you wondering where that name came from, or how to even pronounce it? The craft was called Chang'e 4 - 嫦娥四号 (cháng é sì hào). Lauren Marshall’s ‘ Chang’e Flies to the Moon’ for cello and electronics will be performed by London Sinfonietta soloist Tim Gill at Kammer Klang at Cafe Oto on 8 November 2017.You might have seen the news that on January 3rd, 2019, China achieved the first soft landing on the far side of the moon. It’s an ode to this profound and inexplicable woman, who through her actions, likely gave her husband a divine headache.” – Lauren Marshall “The result, for me, ties many threads together: not only a new understanding for myself of Chang’e’s tale, but an internalisation of Chinese musical practises, and Beijing opera aesthetic. It can also be troublesome to relate music too directly to a culture, even if the culture is your own: I focussed as much as possible on Chang’e herself, and the music hopefully sounds as she was: Chinese. “The writing of this piece became a careful balance of emotionally expressing Chang’e without relying too much on the distinctive communication of the narrative to carry the music. To write it, I evoked Nicki Minaj creating Roman’s Revenge: working almost as a method actor, trying to feel as much as Chang’e did. “The intensity of emotion Chang’e must have experienced to commit such an act – of drinking the elixir alone – expressed itself to me almost instinctively in musical sound. And in one last version, Chang’e consumed the elixir as an act of despair and devotion, when Hou Yi was slain in battle. Another suggested a rival archer broke into their home when Hou Yi was out to thieve the elixir, and Chang’e, unable to defend against the intruder, was forced to consume the elixir whole. “One version suggested she was simply tempted, careless, downed it without thought of consequences – a simple solution, though curious. To settle this confusion for myself, I found three explanations of Chang’e’s mishap, in different versions of the tale: She reminded me of Eve in the garden of Eden – it was somehow an astonishing thing, how these women, with the smallest gestures, could cause sublime devastation.
“The more I thought about this tale, the more it mystified me I could not fathom Chang’e’s thinking. “By some circumstance, however, instead of the couple ending up happily in heaven, Chang’e ultimately overdosed on the elixir and surpassed heaven, landing instead on the moon, where she resides to this day, alone but for a rabbit to keep her company. He sought out an elixir of immortality: two portions, for him and for Chang’e. They lived on Earth happily for some time, until Hou Yi began to pine for immortality for them both. “The tale itself is ambiguous, but the greater plot revolves around an expert archer, Hou Yi, who, after saving the world from the wrath of 10 suns, married Chang’e. For even more, the fated tale of the moon goddess, Chang’e, is eternalised in a celebrated Beijing opera, which in China can be seen not only in opera houses, but also on daytime TV.
For me, and many others in China, this tale was passed down through oral tradition. “ ‘Chang’e Flies to the Moon’ is a folk tale so ingrained in China’s ancient and mystic cultural heritage.
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