13th Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research

Presentation Abstracts

KOK, Hu Jin

The Maiden in the Moon and Other Tales as Remembered and Used by Nineteenth-century Chinese Miners in Australia

The deep shadow of flickering candlelight can be seen through the marble screen
The milky way gradually descends as the light of dawn hastens the setting stars
Chang E, the maiden in the Moon, should feel remorse for stealing the herb of youth
Night after night in a sea of jade - the clear sky - carrying a heavy heart *

In my paper I will examine aspects of a number of myths and legends well known to nineteenth-century Chinese, and how they were utilised by Chinese miners in Australia. Particular stories I will discuss concern Chang E, the ‘maiden in the moon’, who stole the herb or elixir of immortality, and the frustrated lovers, Weaver Maiden and the Cowherd, who meet only once a year with the assistance of a love-bird bridge across the Milky Way. I will show how these stories could not only entertain and uplift the miners by the emotions and values they express, but also how they were embedded in the miners' daily practices and rituals. I will demonstrate that these stories can be segmented to highlight their symbolic meanings and inter-relationship with Wu-wei precepts and, in particular, how they provide clear evidence that the miners were loyal members of the Hung League, or Onn Pang, devoted to mutual support and the restoration of the Ming dynasty in China.

The links with the stories are evident from artefacts such as lanterns, burial headstones and remnants of temples including tablets and couplets. Analysis of the stories requires use of a mixture of tools, including their ordering according to the five cardinal points of direction, references to celestial bodies in accordance to the Chinese Almanac, complex calligraphy and yin/ yang principles of light and shade.

* Li Shang Yin, Chang E, in Three Hundred Tang Poems, p. 306.