The dragon we will talk about is a mythical animal whose pattern is seen everywhere in China. As far as I am concern, dragon is the necessary knowledge if you want to study Chinese in China.
But, what exactly is the image of Chinese dragon? Nobody had ever seen because there is no such animal in the real natural world. We can see that dragon is created by human beings according to imagination. This is also a difficult but key point when you learn Chinese in China.
The image of dragon exists not only in China but also many other countries all over the world. For example, foreigners who study Mandarin in China may know that the dragon of western mythical is really interesting, which have some similarity with Chinese dragon in the appearance: enormous body, scutella from head to end; four legs and sharp teeth; horn in the head; riding on the clouds.
The head of western dragon is multi-headed, like three, nine and even twelve, but just one in Chinese dragon. The other thing is that western dragon breath fire while Chinese dragon spit water from mouth. The third thing you should know when you learn Chinese in China is that western ones have a meaning of vicious power while Chinese ones symbol auspicious and good fortune. You shouldn’t mix it with the thought of western culture because it will lead misunderstanding when you communicate with Chinese people.
The dragon of China is miracle and mighty because its body can be changed according to different situation. When you study Chinese in China, you may hear that it can fly into the sky and dive into the ocean. In this way, it made wind and rain for people. For ancient Chinese people, praying the dragon is an important anniversary for begging rain so have a harvest season. So the phenomenon of praying dragon for rain is popular in ancient time of China.
The existence of Chinese dragon has been at least six thousand years. It’s really a long period of time just like its culture. Since dragon culture plays an important role in Chinese culture, foreigners who come to study Mandarin in China should know more about it.
Totem worship is a kind of worship to the animal or natural phenomenon which is revered by common people and people regard them as made by god. So, common people worship such animal and natural phenomenon as amazing totem. The dragon worship belongs to such kind of worship. If you learn Chinese in China, you will have a different view from the western ones.
There are many legends about the origin of Chinese dragon. Some people believe that it originates from crocodile while some others think snake or even pig. But one of the amazing thought is that some people think it was formed when raining and lighting. Those are just some guess and legends without scientific evidence. Nowadays, those who study Chinese in China may know that some experts think the dragon is also a kind of comprehensive totem animal transferred from snake.
When you study Chinese in China, you need to know the reason why we say it is comprehensive is that Chinese dragon owns the hand of snake, the head of pig, the horn of deer, the ear of cattle, the beard of goat, talons of eagle and scale of fish. It shows students who learn Chinese in China an ancient picture that Huaxia people living in the Huang River area, worshiping snake as their totem. After they won the fights, they combined other powerful clans, forming an enormous federation. At the same time, all the totems of different clans were united as one, the dragon totem.
As I said just now, there is no real dragon in the world, but in 1987, a dragon made by clamshell found in an ancient man’s tomb, about 6,000 years from now. This is the earliest dragon we can see, so it was reputed as “the first dragon of China”. When you study Mandarin in China, you will find that China is a very ancient country which is out of our imagination.
Another dragon found at Inner Mongolia is made of jade, owning a very beautiful appearance: long and thin body, curing into the shape of “C” and has a head similar to pig. Form all above, we can see that dragon is a part of Chinese culture that the foreigners should know if the want to know more about China.