I just ran across this ancient Chinese story which I thought was very interesting in the way that it reflected, or even predicted the way our world is developing... it's about a kid named Ne Zha, where Ne means "where" and Zha, just means Zha... it's like a onematapia kinda thing.

 

The tale starts with a general named Li Jing, a famous house hold name in Chinese folklore. He's often depicted in pictures as this great huge guy in full armour holding a tower...

As the story goes, General Li spent all his cash building a tower.

 

When he was building that tower he was a rich man, and during his time of financial prosperity, his wife became pregnant and gave birth to his first son, so he named him the Jin Zha, which can be very loosely translated as "Gold Hey", where as Jin means Gold and Zha is just kinda like this sound you make when you yell at someone... in English, people say Hey, in Chinese, back in those days, they yelled "Zha"!

 

Apparently he didn't really have a very sound business model when he began to build this tower. Because eventually he exhaughsted his bank account shortly after the tower's completion and instead of being able to afford things made out of gold, he now had to downgrade to stuff made out of wood. Around this time, he's wife became pregnant again and he had his second son. Being the joker that he is, he named him Mu Zha, which means, Wood Hey!

 

One day, General Li and the misses got busy again and the news of another child got around. But such good news eventually became very old news... three years went by and no sign of water breaking. Obvioiusly Generally Li started freaking out. Not even the finest doctor in the land knew what was up.

 

Finally the day came when Mrs. Li gave birth to this big weird looking thing. It wasn't much of a baby as it was a big meat ball. General Li freaked out big time and slices it open with his sword and this baby hopped out.

 

Just then, the house keeper runs in to report that a weird looking old man comes to visit.

 

Old man comes in and introduces himself as Taiyizhenren from some cave on some mountain. Back then in China these are very impressive creditials because it basically means that this dude was a god. The old man Taiyizhenren (we'll call him the T-geezer) congratulated General Li on his new born son and asked him if a name had been given yet.

 

General Li had been way too freaked with all of this and didn't get a chance to think about a name yet and asked if the great T-geezer could be so kind as to help him name his new son. T-geezer mumbled something about 15 being a terrible number and how it represented all sorts of bad luck and was an omen to catastrophy and ended up naming the kid Ne Zha, a name which takes exactly 15 brush strokes to write.

 

The name Ne Zha doesn't really mean much, except the first character means "Where" in common speak and the second character, as we all know, is the Chinese equivalent of "Hey!". General Li wasn't too sure about the name, but since it was given by some old gold from a cave, he decided it was as good as any. After naming the kid, Taiyizhenren headed for the door, but before he left, he told General Li that in 7 years time, this kid will run into some big trouble, and that by then, he will return to pick him up and take him to the mountains to train him to become a Jedi. But General Li had no idea about Light-sabers and the force and such so he was like, whatever.

 

Life ensues, and 7 years goes by without anything too exciting. So let's fast foward to the next action scene. Ne Zha, now aged 10 (7 years after his birth plus 3 years in the womb), is getting bored of his house and requests the permission to go out beyond the confines of his family estate and play around. Mother agrees to let him go but sends one of the house-hold security officers to go with him.

 

Security officer dude thought it was a cool gig to goof around all day with the boss' kid, and did not assume too much responsibility in terms of moral guidance. The two of them came to the ocean and started playing around in the water. Ne Zha decides that it was a good idea to wash his shirt in the water.

 

Deep below the ocean's surface, in the palace of the dragon emporor, a middle aged mutant kung fu turtle comes to report to the dragon that the peace of the ocean was being disturbed by something from above. Apparently Ne Zha's shirt dye contained toxic chemicals and it was polluting the sea.

 

So he sends up one of his patrol officers, a vicious big fish dude, to take care of the situation.

 

Visious Big Fish guy comes up and sees Ne Zha playing around in the water and tells him to stop what he's doing because it was disturbing the peace of the ocean world. Ne Zha didn't give a monkey's armpit and even disrespected the big fish by telling him he smells.

 

Big Fish dude got angry and before you know it, Ne Zha and the Big Fish dude started fighting.  But Ne Zha had home game advantage and no matter how powerful the big fish was, he wasn't used to dealing with stuff on land. One thing let to another and eventually Ne Zha killed the big fish and put him on the Barbeque and had a nice meal with his baby-sitter security officer guy.

 

When this news got back to the water kingdom (as in the mythical realm of the ocean creatures, not the theme park),  the Dragon's third son, a handsome and proud young dragon was furious that one of the officers under his command had been slain by some kid with cheap dyed shirt, came up to seek justice.

 

However, Ne Zha was too smart and too powerful for him, after an intense battle between the boy and the dragon, the dragon got his ass kicked, and further more, Ne Zha skinned the dragon and took it home to show his mother.

 

Realizing that her son had just killed the 3rd son of the Dragon Emporor, Mrs. Li spatzed out and got General Li, who didn't really know what to do until the Dragon Emporor himself came upon his door to visit.

 

Dragon Emporor was like, "Dude! Your kid killed my son! I want Justice!"

 

General Li was like, "Sorry man, he's just a kid, he doesn't know... how about if I donate my house to your cause and make it a Temple to worship the Dragon?"

 

Dragon Emporor "I don't think so man, your kid murdered my son and killed big fish dude, renaming your house doesn't make up for it. I want justice!"

 

General Li. "Alright alright, I'll give you justice. I'll punish my son... come here son, listen, what you did was wrong! Don't you ever do that again! *spank spank* Ok? Ok."

 

Dragon Emporor "What? You must be kidding me! You call that Justice??? I'm gonna report this to the gods in heaven! They'll know what's fair!"

 

Dragon Emporor storms out... literally... because he's the guy in charge of all the floods and the rain and all that stuff. So when he's pissed, he storms out.

 

That's when T-geezer returns and takes Ne Zha away to train with him in the mountains... Kill Bill style. Except most of the training invloved Ne Zha sitting in a circle where he could repent for his wrong doings.

 

To make the long story short, eventually the dragons came back to visit his parents after reporting to the emporor of heaven. Ne Zha came back to assume responsibilities for what he's done so that the dragons would leave his parents alone. He ended up cutting his own arm off and stuck a sword in his own gut and thus destroyed his body.

 

The dragons thought this was as much justice as they could get for the day so they left. As for Ne Zha, having undergone training with T-geezer, the death of his flesh didn't mean end his spiritual life. His spirit flew back to his master in the mountains, and Taiyizhenren took a few pieces of lotus and formed a new body for him, and continued to train him so that eventually he became a powerful god. But under the guidance of the T-geezer, the new Ne Zha only uses his powers for good instead of destruction.

 

That's the story. When I read it I thought that it was very much reflective of humanity's course on earth. We are now in the era where we have mastered Gold and Wood and have begun to invade the peace of the ocean. Without understanding it's awesome powers, we're just treating the sea like our play ground, and not respecting the value of the lives of the creatures that live in it.  Under this type of ignorance we are continuing to destroy life from the ocean and thus off-setting the symbiotic balance of life on earth. The ultimate end to this, if this story is correct, is that we humans, will eventually destroy ourselves to make up for our wrong doings...

 

Having examined this story, I urge everyone to start training in moutains so that when the day comes when we bring ourselves to our own ultimate demise, we can at least attain spiritual freedom and maybe turn into a new race of lotus people...