After the 80s, how can we have no "Journey to the West" in childhood. A group of four Tang monks and disciples went to the Western Heavens to learn the scriptures, and along the way they descended demons and exorcised demons, experiencing 9981 difficulties, and finally obtained the True Scriptures. Cow Demon King, White Bone Essence, Spider Spirit, Six-eared Macaque... These vivid images of demons and ghosts have long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
In the "Water Margin", the 108 good men of Liangshan Po, headed by Song Jiang, are regarded as the "suppressed" youkai group of His Highness Voldemort--the banned Thirty-six Heavenly Stars and seventy-two Earth Stars. "Shan Hai Jing", "Search for God", "Liaozhai Zhiyi", "Xuan Wei Lu" ... The legend of yokai has lasted for thousands of years from ancient times to the present, and the yokai culture has long been deeply rooted in the souls of Chinese children.
Japan is known as the kingdom of eight million gods, and the number of yokai is innumerable, in fact, many Japanese yokai originate from China, such as birds, gluttons, tengu, tamamoe, and kappa are actually "native" yokai in China. Shigeru Mizuki, a famous Japanese yokai researcher, said: "If you draw Japanese yokai and compare and classify them on the same plane, you will find that about 70% of Japanese yokai originated in China. "But Chinese books depicting specific images of monsters are rare.
Zhang Yun, a young writer after the 80s, self-proclaimed owner of the Search God Museum, has been obsessed with monster stories since childhood, spent nearly a decade consulting nearly 300 ancient books and documents of the past, sorted out 1080 kinds of monsters and their stories, and achieved the book "Chinese Monster Stories", which can be called "Youkai Dictionary", and was rated as one of the top ten popular books of Sohu Culture in 2020, ranking first in the history category. The book divides the yokai into five categories: leader, goblin, goblin, ghost, and monster, and briefly introduces the relevant stories of yokai, allowing us to travel in the magical world of yokai and regain the forgotten yokai culture.
<h1>01 What is a monster? </h1>
As early as 1,800 years ago, the term "yokai" existed, and due to the limitations of the cognitive conditions at that time, the ancients rationalized the strange and abnormal things and phenomena that could not be explained by yokai. In the "Left Biography", "The heavens are against the times, and the earth is against the earth." "That is, to reduce all the anomalies that appear on land to demons."
In Wang Chong's "On Balance" of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "The old man of all things, his mastery can pretend to be a human form, in order to dazzle people's eyes, and often test people." That is, all abnormal things on the earth can be called "yokai", which is a "yokai" in the broad sense; and those who have become refined and can transform into human form and deceive people are "yokai" in the narrow sense.
Zhang Yun qualified the monster in "The Story of Chinese Monsters": immortals, inhumans, and visions are not monsters. Further, the yokai are divided into four categories: goblins, goblins, ghosts, and monsters.
Demon: Usually by the animal through cultivation and illusion into a human form, has mana, can be active during the day and night, usually has a certain harm to people, such as the fox demon daiji we know, the snake demon Bai Suzhen, if this demon is devoted to cultivation, single-mindedly good, it is possible to become a god.
Essence: Plants or non-living bodies are formed after cultivation, usually the mana is relatively small, and the harm to people is not great. For example, ginseng essence, grape essence, tree essence and so on.
Ghost: Mainly the soul of the person after death, commonly known as the ghost, usually only in the underworld activities, the strength is also very weak, only the mundane things have not been done, the kindness has not been repaid will return to the yang. Once caught by the hades in charge of hades, they will be severely punished and even destroyed. For example, the King of Yan who is in charge of the prefecture, the black and white impermanence of the civil servants of the Yin Cao prefecture, the bull head horse noodles, and the Zhong Kui.
Strange: Most of them look strange, even to the point of scariness, and can be active during the day and night, which is harmful to people. For example, the yellow-robed monster, the tengu, the snake and so on.
<h1>02 The development and change of yokai culture</h1>
Yokai culture in Japan
The cultural export of the Tang Dynasty brought to Japan a long-standing Legend of Zhiwei in China, which was widely accepted by the Japanese and integrated with traditional Japanese culture to form Japan's yokai culture, which can be said to be rooted in Chinese yokai culture. Nowadays, whether it is in the field of literature, or in the fields of art, decoration, drama, daily necessities, manga, animation and other fields, there is a monster culture, and the strange yokai culture has become a highlight that japan cannot miss.
Because yokai were originally born out of reverence for nature and animals, the image of early Japanese yokai was often very terrifying, and by the Heian period, due to social unrest and unstable people's hearts, the ruling class attributed all unsolvable problems to ghosts and gods, and also set up a special position of yin and yang division. At this time, the monster has become not just a legend, but a belief.
After the war, Japanese anime developed rapidly, and the image of yokai became more cute and human. The Kitaro series created by Shigeru Mizuki, the first person in The Japanese Ghost Comics, is known as one of the three major animation idols of the Japanese people, and the toys, costumes, and games related to Kitaro have swept the country. In recent years, Miyazaki's animation has propelled the Japanese yokai culture boom to the world.
Monster culture in China
The earliest Chinese record of yokai should be the "Bai Zetu", and in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, two works of great importance to the culture of yokai were born: "Kizuka Trivia" and "Classic of Mountains and Seas". Most of the records in the "Kizuka Trivia" are about divination, divination, and gods and monsters, and its appearance marks the formal separation of the Zhiwei culture from the traditional historical works and becomes an independent Shiwei novel. The Classic of Mountains and Seas contains a large number of legends, which greatly enriches the connotation of yokai culture, and its huge yokai records make its influence beyond the Kizuka Trivia.
In the Wei and Jin Dynasties period, the immortal peak of Chinese Zhiwei culture was born- Gan Bao's "Search for Gods", in which various folk ghost stories and legends of immortal alchemists were born, which had a great influence on the development of youkai literature in later generations of China. In the Tang Dynasty, the image of goblins and ghosts began to be plumped up, especially in the theme of love, and reached an unprecedented blowout trend: "Ancient Mirror Theory", "Liu Yi Biography", "Guangyi Ji", "Xuan Wei Lu" ...
The Song Dynasty's Taiping Guangji and Yi Jianzhi can be said to be landmark achievements in monster culture. In the Ming Dynasty, Luo Guanzhong's "Biography of the Three Sui Ping Demons", Wu Cheng'en's "Journey to the West", Xu Zhonglin's "Fengshen Yanyi", Feng Menglong's "Yu Shi Mingyan", "Warning World Tongyan", "Awakening the World Hengyan", Ling Maochu's "First Moment Shooting Surprise", "Second Moment Shooting Surprise", Pu Songling's "Liaozhai Zhiyi"... Monster culture began to sprout new connotations and forms.
In modern times, due to social turmoil and complex historical reasons, China's yokai culture has fallen into a trough, and yokai culture has been labeled as "feudal superstition" and "decay and backwardness". Although the emergence of yokai culture has its historical and environmental limitations, it is still indispensable for the study of ancient history, philosophy and folk beliefs. For the study of monster culture, we can uphold the principle of distinction, take its essence, remove its dross, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, and let it completely disappear into Chinese culture.
<h1>03 Rediscover the value of yokai culture</h1>
Studying monster culture is not to revive feudal superstitions, but to look at things with a scientific eye. There is actually a wealth of wisdom and truth in those well-known and well-known monster stories. As a small human being in the vast universe, in these monster stories, the world can understand: always be in awe of nature and all things, know compassion, know forgiveness, and know how to cherish.
Monster culture permeates many folk cultures and festivals, such as many young people who know that there are Qingming Festivals and Zhongyuan Festivals, but do not know the customs and taboos in these festivals. The development and innovation of yokai culture can also open the way for the revival of these gradually forgotten festival cultures. In terms of academic research, yokai culture also played a crucial role, from which it can be seen what the world was like in the eyes of the people at that time, thus correcting some deviations in the content of ancient books. In the field of literature and commerce, the cultural potential of yokai is huge, and the rich imagination in stories and images can provide great creative space for creators, and the slight use of these yokai elements can also promote innovation and drive production in the commercial field.
As a half of the ancient culture, youkai culture involves ethnology, culture, history, psychology and other fields, like a treasure house, which is worth studying and exploring for future generations. We should cherish and make use of them, which will help promote the development of traditional Chinese culture.