The Chinese do not worship dragon
“Dragon” is the word usually used to translate the Chinese character “long”, but actually they are not the same thing.
I often wonder why the early translators used dragon to translate Chinese Long, and vice versa. Maybe they were too eager to find similarities between China and the West. Now it is time to face the difference. Chinese Long and dragon have almost nothing in common except that they are both fictional and powerful creatures.
First, they carry very different connotations.
In the West, a dragon is usually evil. There are a few good dragons in modern fantastic writings and games, such as Gold Dragon, but in traditional legends and folklores, a typical dragon is evil. And Greedy. It usually guards some treasure. A hero will defeat the dragon and get the treasure, winning the heart of a beauty and becoming a true hero.
On the other hand, in China, Long is very good. It has great power and it protects people. It represents splendor, glory, magnificence, and the like. The word is the best compliment one can ever get. Every mother wish her baby was born in the year of Long. Many people have the character “Long” in their names. Chinese people even call themselves “the descendants of Long”.
So, no wonder when China call itself “country of the Long”, the West takes it to be “country of the dragon” and thinks “wow, what an evil and dangerous country! China is a great potential threat!” What a terrible misunderstanding!
Second, the appearance of Chinese Long and dragon is dramatically different. Look at the pictures below.
This is the image of a “black dragon” taken from Heroes of Might and Magic III, a famous computer game. We can see that a remarkable feature of dragon is that it has wings. Apart from the wings, it is very much similar to a giant lizard.
This is the Chinese Long as portrayed on a porcelain tray made in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1683). It can fly in the clouds but it has no wings. According to old books, a Chinese Long has the head of a horse, antlers of a deer, eyes of a tortoise, ears of a cow, body of a snake, scales of fish, legs of a lizard, paws of a tiger, and claws of an eagle. It is the condensation and thus the leader of all creatures.
However, in recent years there is a tendency to deliberately blur the boundaries between dragon and Chinese Long by drawing pictures that combine the features of the two creatures. For instance, putting the dragon’s wings on Chinese Long’s body. I dislike this kind of pictures, for they will make western people more confused about Chinese Long and reinforce their impression of Chinese Long being evil like dragon.
From the pictures we can also see that a dragon is characterized by its breath of fire. The Chinese Long, on the contrary, is often associated with water (for instance, clouds are formed of streamed water). Chinese people used to believe that Long was in charge of rain, and in years of drought, people would pray to Long for rain. This is unimaginable in the West: you were almost dry to death and you asked a dragon to help you? It would probably just breath out fire and scorch you…
It’s a very interesting and well written post, although there is nothing new in it foe me.
Alex
Alex, thank you for reading and commenting. I guess there is something new there for some people.