Comparison between Chinese and Greek mythIntroductionMyth is defined as “story about superhuman beings of an earlier age taken by preliterate society to be a true account, usually of how natural phenomena, social customs, etc., came into existence”1 born in childhood of human being. It is a cultural phenomenon in civilized society. The main contents of myth are the stories about gods or ancient heroes of deification which are an innocent explanation and beautiful imagination about natural and social livelihood in ancient times. China and Greece are birthplaces of Orient and Western civilizations, just as Prime Minister Constantine Caramanlis of Greece point out: “The civilization of China brought light to the Far East and the whole of Asia, as Greece tho ught, the cornerstone of European civilization, brought light the West.”2. And myth plays an important role in the culture of the two countries as a carrier of culture. Today, we can find many tracks of myth in literature works, movies, lyrics, idioms, etc. For example, Kuafuzhir i(夸父追日)Jingweitianhai (精卫填海)and Yugongyishan(愚公移山) have the meaning of dogged determination; Yegonghaolong(叶公好龙) refers to professed love for something; Canghiasangtian(沧海桑田) contains the meaning that time brings great change to the world. And as a Chinese people one would feel confused about some proverbs about Greek myth, too. Like “an apple of discord”means the cause of calamity; “the heel of Achilles” refers to the one’s deadly weakness; “Penelope’ web” refers to endless job or to give somebody a runaround. One cannot even understand the words without an overall knowledge of the myth. Meanwhile, it is a meaningful and valid way to study and comprise the cultures of China and Greek through analysis the myth. It is the many differences in the development of culture such as different geographical areas, produced in different times anddeveloped in different ways that makes Chinese myth and Greek myth posses their own unique national spirits and conceptions of moral principles.Nowadays, with the development of globalization, Chinese and the western people exchange more and more frequently and deeply. Based on the comparison of the Chinese myth and Creek myth, this paper analyzes the similarities and differences between them and the reasons that lead to these similarities and differences. Through the analysis and study, it can help us obtain the ability to communicate in a complex of cross-cultural world. It is also helpful for people to absorb the outstanding foreign cultures by exploring the cutural differences, so as to protect and promote the essence of culture value.Chapter oneReasons of similarityBoth Chinese Myth and Greek Myth originate from the cognizance of human beings about nature，and are used to explain the world when they could not understand it. When human beings first appears on the planet, they knew nothing about nature, nor themselves, and they have to imagine about it ,which can be seen obviously in the creation myth.A creation myth is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. Generally speaking, the creation myth contains three parts: creation from chaos, world parent and emergence myth in all of which there are a lot of commons between Chinese myth and Greek myth. First, both in Chinese and Greek myth the original world have been described as chaos and are separated by an ancestor god into sky and earth; second, human beings are created by a god with mud both in Chinese myth and Greek myth; third, myth about flood and fire are mentioned. Why there are so many commons? Is that coincident or not?All the creation myth is created because people in ancient times attempted to figure out how the world was formed and where humanity came from. All the sources in the creation myth can be assumed as “nature”: the shape of the world, sky and earth, flood and lightening, even human beings were made of mud. In fact, they have no philosophy of any kind. The myths came from the imaginations of the ancient people and traveled vocally from generation to generation. There is no scientific explanation about the natural phenomenon which may be dreadful or deadly, so people give an acceptable imagined oneto satisfy their curiosity and eliminate their fears.Of course, there is no doubt that the past generations believed many things which we today recognize are wrong. Ellis concludes that: “If one is acquainted with the nature of myth (even on an elementary level), one is aware that even the ancient peoples who constructed them did not subscribe to a "literal" interpretation of them. The truth content of myth was considered to be higher, in a moral or religious sense, than merely a description of physical reality. For anyone in the twentieth century to ascribe "literal reality to these ancient myths is almost too comical in itself to need further ridicule.”3All the myth especially the creation myth is created based on the understandings or misunderstandings about nature..Chapter twoReasons of culture difference§2.1 Difference of the Time When Myth ProducedThe ancestors of Chinese nation appeared on earth about one million and seven hundred thousand years ago and gradually created civilization after long uncivilized time. The old myth in the chaotic times have been passed orally and according to some archaeological materials, single myth, which has the meaning of totem, had appeared in the Late Paleolithic Age. At that time, people worship all the powerful animals thus imagining heroes and deities with features of animals.On the contrary, the Greek myth is shorter than Chinese myth. It was produced in about 11th century BC, and it was far from the age of totem worship. That was the Age of Heroes. Greece was in the process of coming into civilized society. People have already far from the time which admired animals. As a result, their heroes were the combination of god and human. Human wisdom was more important than totem worship which was tended to disappear at that time. People regard human being most beautiful in the world.2.1.1 Difference of aestheticsBecause of time difference, Chinese myth is more worship totem while the Greek myth holds that human being is most beautiful in the world, which causes the most obvious difference between Chinese and Greek myth--- the difference of deities’ images. From this difference, we can find the difference of pursuit of beauty between Chinese and Greekmyth.Most of deities in Chinese myth half is a human and the other half is an animal because of worship of totem. As the mental belief of primitive tribe, totem is the holiest and the most beautiful symbol in primitive tribes’ mind. It is ancient prototype of aesthetic conception. It has been counted up in Shan Haijing(山海经) (Book of Mountains and Seas) that there are more about four hundred and fifty deities and the deities who are not human image are about four times as many as deities who are human image. NvWa(女娲), one of the greatest goddess and who creates human beings has a human head but a snake body; Yandi（炎帝）, the Holy Farmer, is a god who has a human body, an ox head and horse legs. These are all the results of worship totem. The so called Totemism is characterized most evidently by viewing some kind of animals, plants or inanimate objects as people's relatives or ancestors with the belief that the two sides have consanguinity.On the contrary, in Greek myth, the gods all possess the capabilities of superman. The Greek gods have different pursuit of beauty from Chinese gods--many of them are elegant, graceful, and beautiful, whoever Zeus, Hera, Athena, or Apollo, Aphrodite. Even the blasting fuse of the famous Trojan War is that Greek myth pursues beauty of appearance and eulogizes beauty of body: Juno, Venus, and Minerva each claimed the apple for the fairest and promised power and riches, glory and reputation, the fairest of women respectively to Paris who chose to judge. He chose Venus and gets Helen, Menelaus’s wife, home, which made Menelaus called upon the chieftains of Greece to aid him in recovering his wife and caused the Trojan War. The story proved that both god and human beings in Greek myth value beauty, which is beyond the imagination of Chinese people.2.1.2 Difference about goddessAs mentioned before, Chinese myth history is much longer than Greek.In ancient China, women and men share different social status since primitive societyended. The matriarchy formed in Paleolithic Age about a million years ago and at that time women plays a leading role. Then with the development of productivity, men managed the leading position and mastered social wealth then it went in patriarchal society and lasted for a long time. Even in the feudal society and early modern society, men enjoyed a higher social status than women. While Greece has a much shorter history than China and during its history, men and women live in an equal position. As this circumstance, the statue of the goddess changed through time. In the creation myth, NvWa (女娲)is the creator, and gain respect all over the history, but she is also the only respectable goddess in myth; while In Greek myth, there are a lot of goddess who share the power with god and play very important role like Athena the goddess of wisdom, war, the arts, industry, justice and skill, Venus the goddess of love and beauty, etc. Comparing with Greek myth, whether the number of goddess or the status of goddess is showing that in China women are in a lower position than in Greece in ancient times.§2.2 Difference of geographyThe most basic reason of cultural differences is the difference of environment, which helps form two civilizations: Chinese continental civilization and Greek marine civilization.China lies in an isolated pocket in East Asia with endless Pacific Ocean on the east, the harsh Mongolian Plateau on the north; some largest deserts northeast, the impassable valleys and jungles impede communication with outside world southwest, which create a continental culture. People in this geographical isolation emerged an ancient civilization almost completely cut off from the other major civilizations. Besides, most of Chinese myths are produced along Yellow River and the Yangtze River Valley which are in subtropical and temperate zones where the volume of rain is abundant, so the soil there isfertile and the resources are rich, both areas are suitable for agriculture. And because of this natural condition, ancestors of Chinese nations mastered agriculture techniques very early and more advanced. They would like to live a peaceful life in the interior division rather to face the unpredictable and dangerous ocean. Just the ancient Chinese who lived in this continent created this unique myth, ancient Chinese myth.Different from Chinese, Greece is a poor, barren and dry country, and it does not seem to be a proper soil for an ancient civilization. Three quarters of the land is occupied by high mountains. Its rivers are too small to be navigable, and they dry up in the blazing heat of the mostly rainless summers. This natural condition limited Greek people and they have to look outward the ocean for life. And different from China which is the only continent in the ocean where the sailor would be drown easily, a sailor in Greek can spot islands in all directions on clear days .With these stepping-stones, he can reach any part of the Mediterranean to trade, to stay, to conquer and to colonize, which means the ocean is more safer in Greek than in China. They like to learn advanced technique and cultures from other countries. And ancient Greek is a dominate country. Marine civilization created the great Greek myth.The difference of geographic environment can explain why in Greek myth the original world is underwater while in China is not: myth always reflects the ancient living surroundings, conditions and cultural development as we mentioned before. Chinese cultural derived from The Yellow River basin, so it could be said that Chinese myth was based on the closed inland cultural; Greek myth derived from Crete’s Minoans Civilization, so the Greek believe that the world was originally entirely underwater, which is connected with the living condition of surrounded by water.Chinese myth is based on the continent and conservative while Greek describes more stories about the ocean and more open. The ocean is more important for the Greeks thanChinese. In the Greek myth, the god is separated into three parts: the sky, the ocean and the hell controlled by Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. As to the hell is a dark place, the ocean is in the same important place and Poseidon shares separated power with Zeus. But in Chinese myth, the sea is only a part of the sky and the Dragon King is a normal god under the Jade Empire’s control just in responsible of rainfall. Speaking of openness, the Chinese gods like to have everything in order and under there control. They are a entire strike system and have a set of serious complex rules about the sky, the human world, the hell, and once the rules is broken the leading class will respond to the emergency immediately with their supreme authority and get everything back to the original trajectory. On the contrary, the Greek gods do whatever they want with their highest power in a free atmosphere—they love, hate, fight and nobody would blame them for disturbing the social order. These differences verify an old Chinese saying that human beings are shaped by the land around them and it does make sense.§2.3 Differences of ValuesDifference of values is one of the most basic and biggest differences between Chinese and Greek myth. It can be seen obviously in Chinese myth that what Chinese myth extols is virtue. It worships collectivism. On the contrary, Greek myth worships strength and individualism.2.3.1 Worship of Virtue and Worship of StrengthBecause of different national spirit, Chinese myth and Greek myth express different characteristics. Chinese myth worships virtue and Greek myth worships strength.In Chinese myth, the gods are few related to each other, they get the qualification of being gods by steeling themselves and benefiting human beings. There are three levels inChinese myth: the heaven, the human society and the hell. As to how to rank and classify the three levels, it is all dependent on one’s behavior in his this-world. After one’s death, the soul would be send to the hell to be judged into different next-world and the criterions are the merit and virtue. Even the gods already in the heaven should also obey the laws of god in heaven and set examples for the human beings even though some of them are decayed. One of the most famous stories is the classify story: Journey to the West. The book describes the story of Tang(唐) venerable XuanZang's（玄奘）who is said to be the next-life of a disciple of the Buddha named "Golden Cicada" travel to the western land to obtain the Buddhist scriptures and he had to steel himself and benefit mankind by going on a pilgrimage for Buddhist scriptures.. It displays the traditional theme of punishing the evil while praising the good. It is not important for them to survive in the journey, but to save people from the evils’ hurts. The progress they have been through is also a progress of learning the Chinese virtues for the three of the followers of Xuanzang（玄奘）: Kindness, patience, love for human beings, hardworking, loyalty, justice, simple, etc., all of above are Chinese traditional virtues. The virtue is always rewarded and evil punished .The monkey king is an obvious image of transition into a standard sage in Sinicism. Born from a rock, he was just a wild monkey with great power knowing nothing about love, patients and doing whatever he wanted. He havocked in the Heavenly Kingdom just because of his anger and fight with Buda without showing any respects. He even beat a group of robbers to death. While in ancient Chinese, people worshiped virtue more than just strength, and what to advocate is helping the poor and saving the weak like three sage “kings” and five virtuous “emperors”—legendary rulers of ant iquity five virtuous “emperors”-- who had lofty qualities and placed strict demands upon themselves. As time went by, the progress of the monkey king becoming a sage and helpful deity in the heaven instead of just a wild violent animal with control of the headband ring and teaching from Xuanzang(玄奘) is the progressof learning Chinese virtues. On the other hand, some of the rules do have killed the nature of the monkey king, make him lose freedom and be constrained. That is one of the bad influences of Ancient Chinese virtue. Too much rules in the heaven caused the deities have few feelings, even it would be regarded as breaking the law and the deities would be punished hard by Xiwangmu（西王母）,if they have feelings for the others especially human beings. And as mentioned earlier, China is located on an inland, which faces blue sea on the east, extensive desert to the northwest, the highest tableland Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the world to the southwest, so the transportation is not very convenient. This semi-isolated environment can help create cultures and subcultures, but blocks cultures of other countries to enter. So the ancient Chinese is conservative. We can see this from ancient Chinese myth where there are nearly not any love stories. Ethic is more important than love. Ancient Chinese’s love is founded on Chinese’s ethics. One of the most famous stories about it should be the story of Niulang(牛郎) and ZhiNv（织女）. People in ancient Chinese must show absolutely resection to the Heaven, the Earth, the emperor, their parents and their teacher. Here is an old saying that you have to die if the king wants you do. let alone their marriage- the proper way of contracting a marriage was the command of parents and the good offices of a go-between, no concerning about the couples’emotion which was considered to be ashamed in ancient China.Formation of Greek myth and national spirit is ascribable to economic, powerful and technical cohesion. Ancient Greece was a country consisted of city-states, and the typical model of city-states’ origin was: there first app eared a military fortress, and then surrounded the military fortress gradually appeared markets; at last they became a complete city. This city is not only an important military field, but also an economic center. The aim is pursuing strength. Therefore, i n the whole Greek myth, what to worship is Olympian deities’ miraculous strength which is unrelated to morality. The deities in Greek myth show norespect to virtues and there are many incest relations: Zeus is the king of the gods. He is the child of Cronus and Rhea who are brother and sister; Hera is Zeus's wife and the mother of many of his children. She is also Zeus's sister; Aphrodite is older than Zeus according to many legends, but in some versions, she is his daughter, etc.Though they have complex relationships with each other, they do seem to show neither respect nor love. All they care about and worship is strength. Let us take Zeus as example: Zeus is son of Cronus. Cronus sired several children by Rhea: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, but swallowed them all as soon as they were born, since he had learned from Gaia and Uranus that he was destined to be overcome by his own son as he had overthrown his own father. When Zeus was about to be born, Rhea sought Gaia to devise a plan and saved him. After reaching manhood, Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge first the stone then his siblings in reverse order of swallowing, killed him and defeated Titan, became the king of the sky and air. The Greek gods in myth has no sense of love and virtue but strength and power and influence.As to his marriage, Zeus had numerous love affairs before he married Hera, but marriage did nothing to end his philandering. He has more than 20 lovers most of who were cheated or forced by Zeus, which was also a characteristic of humanity-selfish.And most heroes in Greek myth were the children of human and deities. They had great strength at birth. They always make use of strength to suppress others, make use of strength to obtain victory of fighting and keep heroic reputation.2.3.2 Collectivism and IndividualismCollectivism is any philosophic, political, religious, economic, or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human being. Collectivism is a basic cultural element that exists as the reverse of individualism in human nature.Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook thatstresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing external interference upon one's own interests by society or institutions such as the government.4 In Chinese myth, collectivism is the root of the ethical standard. The individualism comes later. As the perfect ancient deities in the hearts of Chinese nation, all of them should give their best until death, which can be conclude from the well known stories of Pangu(盘古), Huangdi（黄帝）, NvWa（女娲）, etc. Pangu (盘古) supported the sky and earth till end of life and after his death his breath became the wind, his voice the thunder, left eye the sun and right eye the moon, his body the mountains and extremes of the world, his blood rivers, his muscles the fertile lands, his facial hair the stars and milky way, his fur the bushes and forests, his bones the valuable minerals, his bone marrows sacred diamonds, his sweat fell as rain, and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became the fish and animals throughout the land; Huangdi (黄帝)tasted all the grasses on earth to feed and cure people till his death, NvWa(女娲) melted rocks of five colors and used them to mend the cracks in the sky. The relationship between deities and human heroes is harmony and of the same purpose of peace and safety all over the world in Chinese myth. Human beings can be rewarded to reach the Heaven if they have done enough good jobs and accumulate enough merits. The deity and human beings are of same collectivity.In contrast, what to eulogize in Greek myth is individualism and venturesome spirit. To achieve personal purpose, they even used force. First, Greek myth was full of bloody family conflict about power. Cronus killed his father Uranus and took his sister Rhea to wife, and then he was overthrown by his own son Zeus. Deities and heroes in Greek myth are all individualists except Prometheus. In Greek myth, the deities are mythological people: they have not only human’s images but also human’s characteristics like angry, jealous, love and so on. And the deities do not always get along well with human beings and human beingsoften challenge deities. Zeus decided not to give men fire because he scared that human beings would be smart and strong like the deities in the Heaven and drove them out of their temples with fire, while Prometheus who set his heart on mankind stole fire for men. Zeus became angry and gave Prometheus severe punishment and brought disaster to the world via Pandora’s Box which was full of the Spites that might plague human beings, such as Old Age, Sickness, Insanity, Passion and Vice. Deities and human beings are two separated systems. The gods living on the Olympia Mountain do not intervene in men’s lives too much. They only punish human beings if they felt offended, which is also an evidence of the individualism of the Greeks. The tendency of humanistic expresses strong humanism spirit and shows individual standard in ancient Greek culture, which values the satisfaction of individual desires, affirm the necessity of individual and even agree with some extreme methods to achieve izzat, high position and riches. These are all headstream of individualism.§2.4 Difference of Conception of NatureWith the development of mankind's thought, people started to recognize nature and mankind, as well as the relationship between nature and mankind.Chinese philosophy has from the start emphasized immanence and unity. While Western dualism led to an opposition between man and nature, Chinese monism led to a harmony between the two. The theory that man is an integral part of nature first originated in the Spring and Autumn, and Warring States periods (770-221BC). With the elaboration of Dong Zhongshu （董仲舒）in the Han（汉）Dynasty (206BC-220AD), the theory was summarized and clearly presented by the Confucian School of idealists in the Song（宋）(960-1279) and Ming（明）(1368-1644) dynasties. The proposition of tian ren he yi (天人合一)is also a Chinese idiom. The thought originated in the pre-Qin philosophy schools, but the idiom appeared much later。
