#dragon bamboo

[cricketcat9]

Dragon Bamboo

Photo credit: Francesco Verone (Man climbing Giant Bamboo in Sri Lanka)

[awidevastdominion]

[daily-dragon-drawing]

Bamboo dragon

#76 - 竹子 (zhúzi / bamboo) - They camouflage nicely into a bamboo forest 🎋🌿🌱

[acquired-stardust]

Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure Gamboy Advance 2004

[cloud-ya]

he's scared of strong wind

[b4kuch1n]

one string is all that I need

[mcraftdoodles]

What if I took the thumbnail sketches of TCG S2 concept art and finished some of them...

[ningadudexx]

Shes the best ever shes the best ever shes the best ever

[chocolatechipkraken]

Happy belated Lunar New Year!

White bg version under the cut:

[showamagicalgirls]

The series that has been occupying my mind lately is Sing! Great Dragon Palace (うたう!大龍宮城) .

This is a late stage iteration of the Toei Mysterious Comedy Series (東映不思議コメディーシリーズ), a programming block that is best remembered by Magical Girl fans for for La Belle Fille Masquée Poitrine (美少女仮面ポワトリン).

It ran for most of 1992, which puts it slightly over the line into the early Heisei (平成) period of Japanese period, just slightly off the core topic of this blog.

But there are two things that make it interesting to me. The first is that it's a live-action musical, which is genuinely pretty unique.

The second is the way it connects back to Japanese literary history. It's heavily patterened after the Urashima Taro (浦島太郎) story, which goes all the way back to the Nihon Shoki (日本書紀), the second oldest book of Japanese history.

I have generally considered three Japanese folktales to be the most important predecessors for Magical Girls -- the story of Amaterasu (天照大御神), The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (竹取物語), and Urashima Taro (浦島 太郎).

[buffetlicious]

The Dragon Boat Festival or Duan Wu Jie (端午节), is also known as Duan Yang Jie (端阳节), which means “Upright Sun” or “Double Fifth” (重午/重五). Falling on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month around the summer solstice which happened to be 10th June 2024 this year. The festival is also commonly referred to as the Fifth Month Festival amongst the Chinese. Its origins can be traced to southern China, and festivities include boat races and eating rice dumplings. The festival had evolved from the practice of revering the river dragon, to the commemoration of Qu Yuan (屈原), a third-century poet and political figure of the state of Chu in ancient China.

Legends and Myths - River Dragon (蛟龙)

The dragon was initially viewed as the benevolent spirit of the waters. It exemplified the masculine principle or yang in the Chinese ideology of harmony. Among common folk, it was believed that the River Dragon (蛟龙) controlled the rain and was thus worshipped during the summer solstice. Requests would be made for a balanced rainfall – sufficient to ensure a good harvest, without over-abundance that would cause destructive flooding.

Legends and Myths - Qu Yuan (屈原)

Primitive worship of the river dragon was often practised during the summer solstice. The Dragon Boat Festival was associated with Qu Yuan’s story only in the second century. Qu Yuan (屈原) was a poet and a statesman for the Chu kingdom (楚国) during the Warring States Period (战国时代). He served in high office and he advocated a policy of aligning with other kingdoms against the dominant Qin. However, political intrigue led Lord Huai to banish Qu Yuan instead. The ministry was left in the hands of corrupt statesmen and Qu Yuan helplessly watched his motherland decline. Depressed, he penned beautiful, patriotic poetry such as Li Sao (离骚) which means Encountering Sorrow, an allegorical poem stating his political aspirations and Jiu Ge (九歌) or Nine Songs, which gained Qu Yuan great renown.

With his top adviser gone, the king fell for the trickery of the Qin and his kingdom was eventually conquered. Upon hearing that his kingdom’s capital had been overtaken by the Qin, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Mi Luo River (汨罗江). As he was adored by people everywhere, the local people did everything in their power to try to either save Qu Yuan, or at the very least, to protect him in the afterlife.

Hereupon the legend varies. Some suggest that fishermen at the scene attempted to save their minister. Having failed, they sought to appease his spirit by throwing rice stuffed in bamboo stems into the river to prevent the fish from eating Qu Yuan’s body. Others say that the rice offerings were snatched by a river dragon and the rice had to be bundled in chinaberry leaves instead and tied with five different coloured silk threads in order to be effective. The triangular Rice Dumplings (粽子) thus became entwined with the festivities. Another version tells of farmers rowing out in dragon boats in their attempt to save Qu Yuan. Hence, Dragon Boat Racing (赛龙舟) has been held annually on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, in honour of the memory of Qu Yuan.

Or if reading through a wall of texts is not your cup of tea, here is a pictorial guide to summarize on the history of Qu Yuan (屈原) and how we ended up celebrating Dragon Boat Festival (端午节) with dragon boat racing and rice dumplings on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.

All images are from the internet. Selected text info from here.

[skulkingwriter]

Apropos of nothing other than I'm procrastinating from writing book 10, have the first four Bamboo Kingdom covers in their full wraparound glory. All credit and praise to artist Johanna Tarkela who is a genius with a well organised website

[yamarts]

𝘈 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘢𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘵

𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘵

𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘦

[blackrayser-fr]

The lovely Fae, Paspalum. Trade with Fiain on FR 🐲🎨

[gummi-stims]

A stimboard for Drago from Animal Crossing!

🐉-🍀-🐉

🍀- x -🍀

🐉-🍀-🐉

[thedestinysunknown]

Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon - Bamboo Terrace:

Well, this is one stunning place. Such beautiful and vibrant colors. This is a pretty nice level. Good platforming sections, funny enemies and I even like the minigames.”

PS: the gameplay used for this gifset is not mine. The original video belongs to the user: Thabeast721, on Youtube.