2012 is China's year of the Dragon. supposed to be a powerful year and children born in it are particularly gifted. Both Chinese and Japanese cultures revere the Great Dragons.

Artisitically you can tell the nationality of the dragon by counting claws. Japanese dragons have 3. Chinese dragons have 5 and both claim the dragon originated in their country.

The Japanese idea is that the young dragon rose up with the sun and flew west, growing more claws as it progressed and matured.

The Chinese claim the Dragons came from the west and claws fell off as it flew east towards Japan- all I can say it that seems like a pretty decrepit dragon do come out of China if bits are dropping off!

Leprosy.

I mean the Japanese logic of a young dragon starting in the east and growing makes more sense than the Chinese dragons that seem...frail by comparison. I can't remember anyone writing about this with the various Great Eastern Dragons but I think the writers might have been westerners who are missing this point and it might be a significant part of their fued, which is older.

zombie dragons.

Where did you get that? I have not heard that one before.

<note: I'm not an expert in the slightest here, but I do live in China>

I don't think it's so simple, the number of claws and all.

In China, only emperors were associated with 5-clawed dragons. If there was a depiction of a dragon with 4 claws, it was used for other nobility / important people. 3-clawed Chinese dragons were the province of the "common people".

"One day, I hope to become four-clawed."

Puuuuh, if this are our only problems. ^^

Growing up we were told that was the Chinese explanation for why our dragons had fewer claws.

Sounds Complicated. Why can't they just be different species of Dragons?

Because of the Chinese/Japanese cultural competition.

Heh... Yeah, Okay.

The fact people are asking why this is important shows that I was right to bring it up. I was born in NY but to traditional parents. This can easily provide plot hooks that most...caucasians (sorry couldn't think of a more polite term) wouldn't understand, but it is a rivalry between China and Japan that goes back centuries but clearly it hits on some levels a lot of people do not get.

Anyone that has taken a world history course should get it... Its about as common of a theme as Europe and Middle Eastern disputes.

But some people here still asked her. If you can't tell, DLN is Japanese and she will, if pressed ,state with perfect confidence that Dragons started in Japan,the land of the rising sun, and sites the logic that they grow more limbs as they travel.

Now I work with a very nice woman of Chinese heritage and I once asked her about dragons and without missing a beat she firmly declared "They're Chinese." When I asked about the Japanese theory that they grow limbs as they travel west which seemed more logical than chinese dragons losing limbs as they go east. She just firmly looked at me and said in tones that made it clear there was no point in further discussion - "Dragons are Chinese." That as far as she was concerned , was all that needed to be said.

I have never heard from my elders that chinese dragons lose claws as they go east. What I have heard is that chinese dragons lose their claws the further away from china they are.

Which makes some sense if you subscribe to the belief that the source of the chinese dragons' powers originate from china and so they lose power(claws) when they are further away.

Puuuh, so at least we don´t have to be scared to meet asian dragons in europe or the USA, because if they lose fingers at a distance between china and japan, what would fall off if they travel even farther.

Mommy? Look, a female dragon^^

So its the toes of the dragon that hold their power? Forget rabbits feet, I'll take some dragon toes.

Good luck with that.

And cutlure being what it is they would only turn to Korea and Japan to the east and Indo-China to the south, They wouldn't turn west towards non-asian populations.

They still seem more frail than Japanese dragons if parts fall off. So if you want to get mouthy with a 3 clawed dragon check to see if it is a Chinese dragon that is falling apart, or a Japanese dragon that is going to have you for lunch.

For those playing the home game, there are some complexities in the relationships between the Koreas, Japan, China, and the 'little tigers' of SE Asia. (Laos, Vietnam, etc) ... these complexities are often quite ... heated.

Nah, y'don't say... *nominates Wak's post as Best Understatement Of The Year To Date*

Do as you wish. Such things aren't quite consistent within Chinese mythology either.

Such anecdotal and potentially erroneous stories are a legacy of the chinese diaspora. Note that chinese immigrants and children of chinese immigrants were rarely professors of chinese mythology and compound that with the asian trait of being unwilling to admit ignorance, well, you get a lot of weird made-up traditions.

I know how to make cherries jubilee. I think I'm covered.
(Brownie points for reference)

Chinese diaspora? What you say?

And as for weird, made-up traditions...well, traditions all over the world are weird. I guess leaving a plate of milk and cookies for a fat man in a red suit who sneaks into your house using your chimney seems normal, huh?

Naaah... That fat guy was arrested for breaking and entering when I was 5. Good thing, too. Scared the hell out of me when I was very little.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora

My point is that while the traditions themselves exist, citing "my parents told me thus", or, "I've been taught since young that it's so" is in itself hardly a verifiable source as to the reason those traditions exist in the first place.

To use your example, Christmas itself was a pagan festival that the Christians adapted and overlaid, yet all throughout the world, people say with absolute certainty. "We're celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ because my parents/priest/pastor told me so." Most serious historians are fairly certain that JC himself was born in February however.

I'm not trying to turn this into a religious or cultural argument by the way.

Heh - thanks, I knew what diaspora meant. Just thought it strange seeing a $20 word in the middle of Dumpshock. Anywho...

I agree with your thoughts about the traditions. I just thought there was too much emphasis on the fact they were "Chinese" traditions. Your previous sentence makes just as much sense without naming a culture.

"Note that chinese immigrants and children of chinese immigrants were rarely professors of chinese mythology and compound that with the asian trait of being unwilling to admit ignorance, well, you get a lot of weird made-up traditions."

Find the oldest (written, visual, whichever) representation of a dragon known from China. Repeat for Japan.

Voila, a workable answer if not a perfect one.

Wait, so you're Japanese? I'd never have known: I don't think you've ever mentioned it before. If I were you, why, I'd just start topic after topic as an excuse to let everyone know!

Point taken sir

There's also all the mythology you gotta cram into your head from the children of immigrants' new homeland. I know it's hard to believe in "The Old Country", but we do have those in the Americas.

February is a new one to me. I've heard April and September, though.

Which only goes to show how mutable these things are.

Thanks for being so agreeable.

I've realized I might have come off a tad grouchy - I'm a little "wary" now, seeing so many foreigners come to China and go, "The Chinese, WOW, they're so WEIRD!!!". So sorry if I did.

I'm Chinese, and I think we're weird! Reading back on my post I realize I have my own baggage too. Having researched into my roots, and having to sift through the made-up reasons my own elders presented as fact to avoid admitting ignorance. I've become leery of accepting history lessons passed on by word of mouth.

Anybody who can look at their own culture of origin and NOT think it's a collection of absolute weirdos is simply more weird than anyone they've ever met. All the other cultures are weird too. Just not MORE weird. Weird in a few different ways, is all.

Depends on the culture they left, and the culture their kids grew up in.

Oh the festivities of Saturnalia!

Saying everyone is weird is a misconception of what weird and normal mean. Complex and/or seemingly illogical reasons for culture are not weird, for such is what everyone has therefore it is normal. People saying "my culture is weird" is probably related to everyone thinking his own family and friends are the weird ones; one of those psychological things that causes a person to think of anyone he doesn't know is bland and normal, with only known people as unique.

"1 death is tragic. A million is a statistic."

Has to do with the fact that we, as social animals, are incapable of forming more than about 150 "close" personal connections with people. Any larger and you have to start stereotyping and lumping groups of people together. Otherwise you can't even relate to them (i.e. don't think of them as human).

It's called The Monkeysphere.

There is also a question of the source of the immagrint. Many Chinese and many west coast Japanese who predate 1941 were poor people following the American dream of cheap land. They were often under educated and so would imperfectly remember the myths. Later Japanese are often well educated and bring a better understanding of their heritage.

Both groups have culture schools they inflict on their children so they do not lose touch with that culture. When one of my brothers said he was looking for such a school for his son in the DC area, I and my otherr brother got angry with him because he should KNOW how much we hated that, being different on a Saturday morning.

To extend that to SR it is not difficult to see japan-o-corps doing the same thing and even non-japanese parenats enrrolling their children in the classes to further their careers.

Interesting info., my youngest of 3 kids (my 6 goin to 7 month old girl) was born in the first week of 2012, not falls on the year of the Dragon. According to the Chinese and Gregorian calendars, I was born on a cusp date of the years of the Goat and Monkey. Also Korea happens to be to the west of Japan and the two cultures, since Korea is divided to two countries: the Democratic Republic of (North) and Republic of Korea (the south), have a naming controversy of the sea of Japan a.k.a. sea of Korea. The historic conflict between Japan, China and Korea with the other two have been a huge part of east Asian history.


This is true for many immigrants throughout American history , including my wife is of Mexican, Filipina and Italian ancestry...while I'm half-French on my Dad's side and my mother had a few nationality ancestries along with Cherokee/Osage Indian to make me a Native American by proxy. I can see Japanese culture emphasize educational achievements, same goes with the "Tiger Mom" phenomenon in China and Korea, and I don't want to sound like I'm stereotyping: the Asian-American experience was less socioeconomically troubled due to the values most, if not all, parents have installed in their children, even when they faced high discrimination.

The Philippines remains a developing and not completely prosperous country almost like Mexico and most of Latin America, and the fact my wife's paternal Filipino grandfather came when the islands was part of the United States before WW2 broke out and he first arrived in the San Francisco bay area then he went to the St. Louis, Missouri area to look for agricultural work, the main reason Filipinos came to the mainland USA (including Hawaii) at the time; and as Roman Catholics the family began to marry outside their Ilokano ethnic group: Latinos like Mexican-Americans and/or white ethnic groups like Italian-Americans, and that was true in his case.


To avoid double posting, I had to reply twice or thrice in this post. WWII was an example of the aminousity between China and Japan or Korea in part of Japanese imperialist regime's plan for a "Pacific Asia co-prosperity sphere empire" over China and I don't know to go further into discussing difficult history about the topic. Japan like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had ambitions to conquer neighbor nations and impose their governments over them. I don't take offense to the term "Caucasian" other than it also can mean peoples of the Caucasus region between Europe and Asia with the Caspian and Black seas on opposite sides.

Hallo? Do I really need to spell out how Ryumyo lost some fingers, after he went to Japan??

I hate to revive the thread, but it's relevant to what we're discussing. The legend of dragons are found in Europe, and medieval legends abound on their belief in dragons; and from what I read in the Aztecs in Mexico had similar flying reptiles in the form of dragons. How did the legend of dragons reached Europe and the Americas? Ancient tribal memory of Eurasian peoples might have spread the legend west and east, considering Native Americans are descendants of Asiatic migrations in the last ice age when Asia and Americas was connected by a glacial land bridge which is now the Bering Sea.

Dragons are depicted in many ways by varied cultures: they were signs of good luck, or as villainous creatures meant to be destroyed by knights or wizards. Dragons are from this earth (or from another earth), or once existed, except no paleontologist confirmed they even existed and dragons are stuff of legend in a different time. The dispute between China and Japan on the origin of dragons is of interest, which indicates the connection (and difference) of two Asian countries in viewpoints of their mythologies. Chinese influence in ancient Japan is noted...like the similarity in the countries' two character-based alphabets, when Chinese scholars and Buddhist monks whom introduced Buddhism to Japan from China taught the Japanese locals to read or write.

Many legendary creatures are actually based on either dead whales (most european dragon legends are) or fossils interpreted as dead ... recent animals (one famous example is the gryphon, which is the interpretation of a protoceratops dinosaur skeleton, with wings attached because why not, and Sumerians attached wings to EVERYTHING).

Likewise, Asian dragon legends probably originated in fossils (China is riddled with extremely rich fossil fields after all), and legends of large serpents. Of course, in recent memory, there were snakes that grew over 40 ft ... they died out only around 1500 BC, with other megafauna (there were still living whooly mammoths when the pyramids were built). There also were giant eagles (the size of a medium-sized airplane). In New Zealand, of all places. Impressive species going extinct isn't just a recent phenomenon.

The plummed serpent ... I don't really know where that came from, but it's not a dragon as such, it is more a wise/terrible magical animal. Flying snakes are a staple in South American myths, though, not just Mesoamerican.

Oddly enough, some parts of Asia is home to honest-to-ghost flying snakes. Though whether or not they actually played any part in inspiring the mythos is beyond me.

Oh, that's fascinating. Didn't know there were such animals. Thanks!

It's interesting that in asia such creatures arep owerful but not necessarily evil but in Europe a Dragon is invariably the bad guy.

Different mindset perhaps, both on the part of the locals and the dragons involved maybe.