The Great Wall God
Johnathan Chan, Group 2: Fiction, The International School of Macao
here are many legends in China, but I know a special legen that I never told anyone about. Well, only
one person and that’s you!
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Long ago in ancient China, the Great Emperor decided to build a strong wall that would keep
ies away from his land. When the builders were half way through, the emperor’s rival attacked
stopped them from completing the wall. They set fire to the wall and left. The emperor was very
ry and had a heart attack. Sadly, soon after, he died. The Great Emperor became a god and his
mission was to look after the unfinished wall.
T
Two hundred years later, in a small village close to the wall, there lived a kind-hearted girl named MeiYi.
Her family was much poorer than the other families. They made a living selling dumplings. Every day, MeiYi
would wake up early in the morning, take a basket of dumplings, and travel to neighboring villages to sell them
so she could earn money for her family. On her way, she would dance and sing with the birds. Whenever she
arrived to a new village, she would start calling, “Dumplings for sale, tasty and hot, 10 cents a piece!”
Everybody loved her because her songs made flowers bloom and grass grow, so they always bought all her
dumplings.
One morning, her mother woke her up and got her dressed in beautiful traditional clothes. The young girl
looked out the window and realized it was the Golden Festival, which commemorated the Great Emperor’s
death. Everyone thought the Great Emperor’s death was because he had had a heart attack, but it was a lie.
Father had told MeiYi the truth about what had happened to the emperor.
When the Festival started, everyone began to sing and dance around the fire. Then suddenly, the sound of a
drum burst to life. The emperor’s sacred animal, the golden dragon, began to circle around the dancing villagers
to the beats of the frantic rhythm, but most of all he hovered around MeiYi. At the end, everyone sang a sad
song and went back home to prepare for the Golden Feast during which every family had to bring one type of
food and share it with the other families.
The Golden Feast started, and as the food was being passed around, MeiYi anxiously awaited the last
activity of the Golden Festival. Soon, the feast was over and everyone brought out their paper lanterns, lit them
up and released them to float high in the sky. Unexpectedly, MieYi’s family’s lantern caught on fire! They all
shuddered at the thought of what that omen could mean.
The morning after the Golden Feast, as MeiYi was on her way to sell her dumplings, she came to a strange
place that she had never seen before. She knew every path to every village around, but this was completely
unfamiliar to her. She thought it was probably a new village, so she kept going on. She came to the foot of a
mountain, and you’ll never believe this! MeiYi saw the unfinished wall! At that moment, she noticed a familiar
village on the other side of the mountain. Then she realized that earlier that day, she must have taken a wrong
turn in the road. The only way to get back to the city now was to cross the unfinished wall, so she set on her way.
She was going down the mountain when she came across a fat man wearing a priceless yellow silk robe.
The man roared in a thunderous voice, “How dare you look at me and not kneel by the Great Wall?”
MeiYi stared and insisted, “Oh, Gods of Heaven! You’re the Dead Emperor!”
The Dead Emperor shouted, “I am! Now kneel down!!!”
MeiYi did as she was told. “Now,” said the Dead Emperor, “What are you here for? To knock down my
precious wall again?!”
“
No, no, no,” said MeiYi, “I just wanted to cross to the other side and go back to my home and my family!”
The Dead Emperor said, “Fine, but first you must tell me the story of the Great Wall!”
So MeiYi began from the very beginning, “Long, long ago, there was an Emperor. The first Emperor was
annoyed with his enemies attacking his castle, so he called the best builders in his empire and ordered them to
build a wall that would defend China. So the builders set off to build the Great Wall.
“
At first they built it with dry grass. Over it, they put layers of dry mud and it became strong. However, the
emperor destroyed many natural resources and the Goddess of Nature (Mother Earth) taught them a lesson by
destroying the wall and killing the emperor.”
Then the emperor knew that the people from that century did not pass on the rest of the story. The Goddess
had asked a dragon to watch over the wall and make sure nobody attempted to work on it again. But the emperor
knew that the only way to rebuild the wall was to make a villager who passed by sing the dragon’s favorite spell,
“
ZHI MA KAI MEN”. So it happened that those were the words of a popular song that little MeiYi was singing
that day. What the girl never knew was that the dragon was going to take her deep into the wall to keep him
company forever because he was very lonely. She was the price that had to be paid for the wall to be completed.