Relationship between Chinese and Western Dragons

Exactly they are not related, Chinese dragons appeared earlier, about 5000 years ago, while western dragons appeared about 1000 years later.

The Chinese dragon is an auspicious beast. The Western dragon is synonymous with evil.

A professor at a university in Shanghai recently made some remarks about "abolishing the dragon as the symbol of China's national image", making the word "dragon" a hot topic overnight. The professor's main argument for "abolishing the dragon" is that in the eyes of Westerners, the dragon is an evil animal. So, as an animal with thousands of years of history and only exists in the legend, why did the Western dragon get such a bad name, and how did the Chinese dragon evolve into an auspicious beast?

Ancient times: Chinese dragons became auspicious beasts, and Western dragons were loyal guards

As early as 4000 years ago, the beast known as "Dragon" appeared in Western mythology, and this monster is the Western "dragon. The monster is the western "dragon". In contrast, the Chinese dragon appeared much earlier, according to archaeological discoveries, more than 7,000 years ago in the Neolithic era, the Chinese people began to the primitive dragon totem worship. In ancient times, "Western dragons" were often described as ugly, vicious, simple-minded python-like or lizard-like monsters, most of them greenish-black in color, with invulnerable scales, wedge-shaped heads and long fangs, and some of them had more than one head. While there is still debate over what animal the Western dragon is based on, many believe it is closely related to the snake. For example, in ancient Norwegian mythology, the dragon was an "earthly python", which was said to be so long that it could circle the world, and the god of thunder, when he was about to destroy it, was killed instantly by its venom. In contemporaneous China, the dragon is basically regarded as a kind of auspicious beast. The dragon in the minds of the Chinese people is often a god, or the mount of a godman, "Li Ji - Rites of Passage", also called the dragon "dragon, Lin, phoenix, tortoise," the first of the four spirits.

In this period of Western myths and legends about dragons, the most famous to be counted in the ancient Greek mythology. In Greek mythology, the earlier mentioned dragons are fighting with Zeus, the god of the gods, these dragon-shaped giants are the earth goddess Gaia and the god of the sky, Uranus, born, they are hideous, messy hair, dragging a scaly tail behind them. In most Greek myths, dragons play this role of rebel, but are repeatedly defeated by the gods and heroes, and even reduced to being made fools of.

In ancient Greek mythology, dragons played another important role - that of loyal guardians. Hercules was a hero of Greek mythology whose father Zeus wanted him to live forever, but Hera, the Queen of Heaven, didn't like him and demanded that Hercules must first complete twelve terrible tests. The tenth of these tests was to steal the golden apples guarded by the dragon Radon. The dragon Ladon has a hundred heads and waits under the golden apple tree day and night to help the daughter of the god of the night to guard the fruit tree, and he never sleeps faithfully. Hercules took great pains to deal with him, and finally asked someone to hypnotize Ladon before he killed him and stole the golden apples. And in another Greek myth of the Golden Fleece, there is also a dragon that guards the treasure. In order to get the Golden Fleece in the sacred grove, the hero Iason asked his lover Medea to pray to Slav, the god of sleep, and invited the goddess of hell to make the ever-vigilant dragon guard drowsy. Then Iason sprinkled magic liquid in the dragon's eyes to make it unconscious, and only then did he get the Fleece. The dragon was luckier not to be killed, though.

Because of the profound influence of ancient Greek civilization on the West, the image of the Greek dragon was inherited and developed throughout Europe, and the figure of the dragon appeared one after another in the myths and legends or folktales of Italy, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, and the United Kingdom.

The Middle Ages: The Chinese dragon became the symbol of the emperor, and the European dragon degenerated into the devil

Around the second century AD, the image of the European dragon has changed considerably, it is poisonous, capable of spitting fire, with a large bat-like wings, a big belly, strange and money-grubbing, cunning, brutal. This appearance was completely different from the image of the Chinese dragon. The same period of the Chinese people usually believe that the dragon is "horns like a deer, head like a camel, eyes like a rabbit, neck like a snake, belly like a mirage, scales like a fish, claws like an eagle, palm like a tiger, ears like a cow," "the mouth side of the whiskers Ran, under the jaw with a pearl, throat under the scales of the gods", good changes can be Xing Yunyu Favorable to all things. Chinese mythological dragons generally reside in the abyss or the sea, do not eat earthly fire, if the environment is not secluded, then the air and go. While the western dragon likes to live in huge caves, craters and lakes or oceans, often feeding on people or animals, like to stay in the storage of gold, silver and treasure, if someone violates it, it will be crazy revenge.

Since the Tang Dynasty, Chinese dragons and emperors have had a close relationship, so there is a true dragon son of heaven, dragon flag and dragon robe, dragon court and dragon carriage and so on. And with the rise of Christianity in Europe, the Bible once again changed the image of the dragon in the Western world. In the Bible story, Satan, the devil, transformed into a big red dragon with his tail sweeping over 1/3 of the stars in the sky. He had seven heads, each wearing a crown, and greedily devoured newborn babies. Thus, the Western dragon degenerated from a "miser" to the most evil devil, described as a representative of sin, cunning and cruelty. With the spread of Christianity and the expansion of the Europeans, the notoriety of the dragon as the devil and Satan spread in Europe and even in the world.

And so in the Middle Ages, a great number of dragon slaying myths appeared in Europe. The fight between the knight and the dragon in the story was considered to represent the battle between good and evil, and in Christian legend, there are many saints who fought with the dragon, the most famous of which should be counted as St. George. In this mythological tale, St. George was a Roman general and Christian living in the 4th century A.D. While traveling to a certain area, he heard about a giant dragon in a local lake. This dragon demanded that the locals dedicate a maiden to it every day or else their water supply would be cut off. Just as the dragon was about to eat the last of the local maidens, St. George appeared and stabbed the dragon to death with just one shot. After the dragon died, the blood spilled over the earth and a delicate rose grew. To this day, Catalans living in northeastern Spain still honor St. George with bright red roses.

The story of St. George has had a great impact across Europe, promoting the spirit of protecting the weak, confronting aggressors head on, and defying sacrifice. St. George is also regarded as the patron saint of England, and the English flag, with its red cross on a white background, is known as the "St. George Flag".

Modern times: the Chinese dragon was once printed on the flag, and the Western dragon became a pejorative term

In modern times, with the development of science, people gradually get rid of obscurity, Westerners finally realized that the dragon is only an animal that exists in the imagination, and no longer afraid of it. But the dragon has remained a fixed pejorative in Western culture, as the old dragon has become synonymous with the devil. In Western literature, the dragon has become a vivid word to describe evil. The famous British writer Charles Dickens satirized Mrs. Sparce in his masterpiece Hard Times as a poisonous dragon guarding a bank, and in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, when Juliet hears that her cousin has been killed by Romeo, she says sadly, "Ah, a serpent's heart in a flowery countenance! A heart like a flower! What evil dragon ever inhabited this elegant cave?"

During this period, dragons also made their way into Western political culture, with two opposing camps often referring to each other derogatorily as dragons; in World War II, German propaganda posters often showed scenes of Nazi soldiers armed with lightning bolts, grenades, and swords decapitating the evil dragons-the enemy's troops, the Jews, and so on. Of course, the opponents did not spare Germany, the real dragon, and a famous Polish poster depicted Germany as an ugly dragon, and Poland as the saintly St. George, wrestling with the Nazi dragon.

In the modern history of the East, dragons are still revered in East Asian countries, including China. The Qing government initially used the dragon as a symbol of royalty, and later, when dealing with the West, it made a point of drawing the dragon on its flag as the national flag of China, and since then the dragon has become the national image of China. At first, this dragon flag was triangular in shape, but later on, considering that the national flags of all countries were rectangular, the Qing government changed the dragon flag to be rectangular as well. The dragon flag was followed by a dragon themed national anthem. in 1906, the Ministry of War of the Qing Dynasty composed an army anthem, "Ode to the Dragon Flag", which was used as a substitute national anthem for a time, and it was sung as follows: "In Swannyeon, the great empire of the Yadong! The mountains and mountains are independent, the rivers are civilized; 400 trillion people are the descendants of the gods, and the land is large and rich in products. Raise my Huanglong imperial emblem, sing my imperial song!" And some Westerners also in the Qing government's dealings, and the Chinese contact, gradually understand the Chinese dragon and the Western dragon is actually not the same at all.

Despite the fluttering dragon flag, the weakened empire fell. After the fall of the Qing government, the dragon is no longer the official symbol of the country, but in the minds of the Chinese, the dragon is still the embodiment of the Chinese ancestors, the cultural symbol of the Chinese nation, and the Chinese are proud to be the "descendants of the dragon". Through the history of the evolution of dragons in the East and the West, we can see that, although the Western "Dragon" and the Chinese "dragon" are both products of imagination, but can never be equated, their cultural origins are different, the image is different, the duties of the myths are different, and the symbolic meaning is contrary to each other. Their cultural origins are different, their images are different, their mythological duties are different, and their symbolic meanings are contradictory. I believe that foreigners understand the Chinese cultural traditions, but also will love the Chinese dragon.