Chinese Dragons

The Chinese Dragon

    The Chinese Dragon (龍 long) is a very large part of chinese mythology. Chinese dragons are believed to control the waters. They used to be considered so powerful and wealthy that only the imperial family could use their image. They are benevolent, wise, powerful, and just creatures, so if you would like to learn more about them, read on!

    There are many different opinions on what the Chinese Dragon looks like, but most include these features: No wings, a deer’s antlers, a cow’s ears, a demon’s eyes, and a tiger’s feet. During the Qing Dynasty the dragons were considered yellow or gold, in the Ming Dynasty they were thought to be red. The Chinese Dragon is long and snake-like, usually with four feet and a large mouth with big teeth. Even though they have no wings, they can fly because of the lumps on their heads.

    The dragons are believed to control the waters. They control when the rain starts,  when it stops and they protect the rivers and oceans. If a dragon is made angry, they will make a rainstorm, flood, or some other water disaster. After a storm or flood the people give sacrifices as apologies to make the dragons forgive them.

The dragons are a symbol of power and wealth. They are believed to be able to disguise as a silkworm, become the size of the entire universe, form clouds, turn into water, change color, glow in the dark, and many other things to. Long ago their image could only be used by members of the imperial family. If someone not powerful enough wore a dragon it would overpower them. The Chinese said they evolved from dragons. Wealthy people are referred to as dragons and poor or less important people are referred to as worms or other small creatures. The imperial family is said to be closely related to a dragon named Long. Emperors were believed to be born with dragon shaped birthmarks.

    Chinese Dragons are often shown in drawing chasing after or holding flaming spheres, these are Dragon’s Pearls. They are thought to be worth an emperor’s entire fortune. The pearls represent wisdom, prosperity, spiritual energy, power, immortality, thunder, or the moon.

    The dragon king looks like a human with a dragon’s head wearing a king’s headdress. The dragon king’s birthday is the thirteenth night of the sixth moon, in the fifth and sixth moons people make sacrifices to him for his birthday. There are four dragon gods, each ruling over one body of water. The Azure Dragon rules over the East China Sea, the red dragon rules over the South China Sea, the white dragon rules over Qinghai Lake, and the black dragon rules over Lake Baikal. People living near the water bodies that the dragon gods rule over have temples to worship them.

Chinese dragons are very diverse and an important part of Chinese history. They are extremely interesting and there are many really good stories about them. I hope you learned something from this about chinese dragons!

SOURCES:

"Dragon King." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web.

"Chinese Dragon." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web.

Lin, Grace. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Book Club in a Bag. New York: Little, Brown, 2011. Print.

Friends, Part 2: Brenna

Friends

Part 2: Brenna

Mira was cold. It was seven thirty on a crisp October morning. As she walked down Morton road Mira thought about her school. It was a good school, but the commute was so long. It was two buses and about half an hour of walking to get from her house to her school.

Mira stopped at the bus stop and leaned against the edge of the shelter. She never sat down in the shelters because they were so dirty.

A few minutes later the bus to Clifford Park came and she got on. Mira sat at the back of the bus and leaned against the window. The bus rattled her head and she closed her eyes. She had grown to enjoy the rattling of the bus. She wasn't tired, she just wanted to think.

Over Mira's time at Braddlestrum she had made many friends and gotten to know most of the people in the school. Everyone there was totally unique in their own amazing ways.

There was a boy named Oliver who she sometimes hung out with. He loved to draw and also he played Minecraft a lot.

There was also Maya, she liked to read and also did a lot of acting. She played the cello really well, too.

Another person Mira did a lot with was Rosa. She loved baseball and she was very athletic. She also listened to a lot of music.

This year Mira had also been hanging out with Brenna a lot. Brenna loved to write and read and just seemed like such an interesting person. She was seeing Brenna that afternoon and staying for dinner.

Today at school Mira was going to work on her story she was writing with Brenna. They were writing a story together about two girls who go on an adventure together to rescue their dog that escaped. It was pretty good so far.

"Next stop, 31st Street," announced the speakers on the roof of the bus. Mira opened her eyes as the bus rattled by the gym. She was almost there, only a couple more stops. They passed some short trees, a coffee shop, a grocery store, and a lot of other buildings before she got close to her stop and pulled the yellow chord that signaled that she wanted to get off.

They pulled up to Arrow Street and Mira stepped off the rattling bus onto the busy city street. There were people all over and cars honking: her parents and brother found the city overwhelming, but Mira enjoyed it.

She walked quickly across the road and stood at the bus stop for the Fern 26 bus. The bus drew up a few minutes later. Mira stepped on and scanned her card. She then found a seat at the back of the bus and closed her eyes.

***

After school that day Mira was sitting at Brenna's desk. Brenna was beside her with a pencil in her hand. "It needs to include a pink turtle," declared Brenna. She loved turtles and pink.

"But how could we fit that into the story? It has nothing to do with turtles!" Mira answered

"We can always find a way to fit it in,"

"I think we shouldn't put weird stuff in,"

"Why not?"

"It will make it seem like a little kid wrote it. I want this story to be good,"

"Mira, we can make it good with a turtle. Maybe it's a magic turtle that shows them where the dog is!"

"I still don't really want to do that,"

"That's OK, it was just an idea. Let's do something else for a while,"

"OK,". Mira got up and looked around Brenna's room, it was so clean. Brenna got up and pulled her laptop out from under the bed. The two girls lay on Brenna's bed and waited while the laptop slowly turned on. Brenna typed her password, which happened to be 1234, and they turned on a movie.

***

Neither of the girls mentioned their story again for a week. After they had been not writing the story for a week, Mira decided they should work on it more. She walked up to Brenna at school the next day and asked "Do you want to come to my house so we can work on the story more today?"

"I guess," replied Brenna. But when Brenna arrived at Mira's house that afternoon she simply said "I forgot the story, sorry,".

The next day Mira asked again, but she asked to go to Brenna's house. Brenna keeps the story at her house and so she couldn't forget it if they were there. But when Mira tried to work on the story with Brenna, Brenna kind of stood back. She didn't give any input and just watched Mira doing it.

Mira didn't know what to do, she wanted to finish the story, but not by herself, and she wanted Brenna to do it with her, but Brenna didn't want to.

The next day Mira was thinking about Brenna's pink turtle idea. It wasn't that bad, and it was really funny. She suddenly decided how she would get Brenna back into the story, she would suggest they use the pink turtle idea, and apologize. Apologizing was hard for Mira, it always had been. She drew together all her courage and started walking around the building to find Brenna. She found her in the little room full of couches by herself. "Brenna?" Brenna looked up at Mira. "I was wondering if you still wanted to put pink turtles in the story, it wasn't a bad idea and I'm sorry I said no,"

"Really? You want pink turtles? Of course I want to put them in the story! Come back to my house and we can work on it today," she replied enthusiastically

"OK!" Replied Mira. Her story was fixed!

As Brave as Annie

As Brave as Annie

Eleven year old Annabelle loved acting. It made her feel like she was soaring over vast oceans and towering mountains. Soaring carelessly. Her only issue was fear. Annabelle was terrified during her performances. She would often just stand back stage shivering. Tonight was Annabelle’s opening night performance of Annie, and Annabelle was playing the part of Annie. She was terrified. She had so many singing solos (Which she was even more terrified of than the acting) and she was in almost every scene.

She sat on the floor of the dressing room an hour before the production was to start, silently staring at the floor. Brielle sat beside her. Brielle was sixteen and was playing the part of Miss Hannigan. Brielle seemed to never be really worried and Annabelle thought she was amazing.

Annabelle was suddenly startled by Brielle’s gentle voice asking “Ready for the show?”

Annabelle looked up and saw Brielle smiling at her. She couldn’t smile back, “No,”

Brielle took Annabelle’s hand “You’re going to be so good. I’ve heard you up there, I can’t act like that!”

Annabelle nodded, then she added quietly “Thank you,”. Brielle started to talk with the other older kids and Annabelle left to go play with some of the younger kids in order to get her mind off the play.

Within about twenty seconds of being in the costume room she had three little kids clinging to her legs; Sydney (A little seven year old girl who always wore pigtails), Miles (An eight year old boy who loves dogs and has long curly hair), and Kayla (A five year old blonde girl with freckles and the cutest little raspy voice ever). Annabelle heard her name called from the opposite corner of the room, it was Rosie-Jewel, the youngest kid in the play (She was just barely five years old and was playing Molly). “I’m coming!” she called out, then Annabelle tried to walk with three kids clinging to her legs, (which isn’t very easy) slowly inching towards Rosie-Jewel. As she continued trying to walk the children clinging to her legs jumped off, then her legs were free and she walked at a normal pace over to Rosie. Rosie ran and jumped onto Annabelle, hugging her like a sloth baby clinging to it’s mother.

“Are you excited for the performance?” asked Annabelle

Rosie shouted her reply, “Yes!”.

Kayla started running in circles around the room saying “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!”over and over. Annabelle laughed and started singing the Sandy song. All the little kids joined in on their parts.  “Sandy, Sandy who’ll always be there!” they all ended together.

Then Miles pushed Annabelle and she made a dramatic fall so she was lying on her back on the costume room floor. Miles, Sydney, Rosie-Jewel, and Kayla all piled on top of her and started shrieking and laughing. “Be quiet, I’m trying to practice my lines!” someone shouted from the corner of the room. The kid’s squeals got a little less loud and Annabelle’s mind went back to the play she was about to perform, and her stomach went back to doing somersaults.

A couple minutes later an announcement sounded saying “Ten minutes to places”. Annabelle decided she would just go sit down behind the curtain to wait because she had nothing to do. She sat for a few minutes and then Avery came down. Avery was fourteen and shy. She was playing Pepper. Avery sat in the corner across from Annabelle and then Brielle came down. “Still worried?” she whispered

“Yes” Annabelle answered faintly

“But you’re going to be so good!” Brielle said for about the sixth time that day. Annabelle looked at the floor, it was hard to believe that she would be good in the play. Brielle sat down right in front Annabelle. “Annabelle,” Brielle continued gently “Nobody cares if you make a mistake, they usually don’t even notice, and if they do notice they never care because mistakes kind of make the play seem more real. Just sing Maybe with all your heart, and all the other songs, too. There’s nothing you need to be afraid of,”. They both stood up and Brielle embraced Annabelle in a warm hug.

Then one of the stage hands told them two minutes until places and Annabelle looked into Brielle’s eyes, Brielle repeated for the seventh time “You are going to be so good,”, Annabelle nodded and headed on to the stage.

On the way Avery patted her back and whispered “Break a leg!”. Annabelle silently sat down on the windowsill that had been placed on the stage. Rosie-Jewel lay down on the bed closest to the window. Sydney, Kayla, Miles, Sadie, and Avery lay down on the other beds and Annabelle’s stomach lurched so hard that she thought she might throw up, but she didn’t. The music for Maybe started to play and the curtains opened. “Maybe far away, or maybe real near by” Annabelle sang. She drifted into the song and she was no longer the worried Annabelle Emily Searfon, now she was the orphan Annie, longing for her parents and living in a orphanage. She sang with all her heart, just as Brienne had told her to. Molly started to whine and call out her name, Pepper got up, they fought with pillows, and she sang with Molly. The scene continued until the end.

When the scene was over she was Annabelle again, leaning against a wall breathing slowly to calm herself. Brielle walked up to her “That was so good!”. Annabelle grinned, she realized she had done well, and she was proud. Now the rest of the play would be easy.

When it got to the scene where she sang Dumb Dog, she came in late on the first line of the song. She couldn’t catch up with the beat. She felt awful, but she continued to the end anyway. After that song she sat backstage and she felt like crying, she had ruined the play. But Brielle told her that it had still sounded good and gave Annabelle another huge hug. The next scene she sang Sandy and got everything right in it.

Annabelle felt that Brielle had congratulated her so much that it was her turn to tell her how amazing she was (She was an amazing actor and singer). So when Miss Hannigan’s song Little Girls was over Annabelle walked up to her to tell her how amazing it had been, but for some reason what came out of her mouth was “Yay, that was awesome!”. Disappointed at her ability to compliment people and embarrassed, Annabelle ran to the other side of the stage and away from Brielle.

Annabelle managed a better compliment after Brielle sang Sign. After the play everyone was hugging everyone else in a huge clump and Annabelle was right in the middle. They had done one night, now for three more!