中国故事英文版

1 中国故事英文版

The legend of Chinese New Year春节传说

A long long time ago in China,there was a big, scary beast minion Nian,

whose name means here. He had sharp teeth, big claws. Most of the time

he lived in the forest. But on the darkest night of the year when the new

moon was in the sky,he would come into the village and scare everyone

and the animals. People was frightened the new moon for many many

years. Until a wise man taught them the three things. Nian was afraid of

loud noises, fire and the colour red. The next time Nian came, the

villagers fought back, they hit the drum so loud, and ear the color red

from head to toe. Nian ran away and never came back. After that people

started celebrating the union instead of fearing it. That celebration

became 15 days festival of family food and good fortune called Chinese

New Year.

Dragon Boat Festival

Long time ago, there was a great poet called Qu Yuan. He didn’t bear the

when his country was invaded，so he drowned himself in the river. Local

people rode boats to save him and drop the rice balls into the river ,

because they wanted to protect his body. Later people rowed and made

Zonezi on the Dragon Boat Festival for remembering him. That’ how the

2 tradition of dragon boat racing and eating Zongzi were started. A nation

tradition on Duanwujie is to put wormwood on the front door to repel bad

things. In some places people drink wine and children wear sachet。 Now

the family gets together on Duanwujie. People have all kinds of tings to

celebrate this traditional festival.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful woman called Chang’e. Her

husband Hou Yi was a great archer. At that time, there was ten sun in the

sky and the people on earth were living in the heat. To save the earth,Hou

Yi used his bow and arrow to shoot down the nine of the suns. Hou Yi

was respected as a national hero and got some medicine of immortality（长生） as a reward（奖励）. But it’s only for one person, and Hou Yi

and Chang’e didn’t want to leave each other. But one day one of Hou Yi’s

students wanted to steal the medicine when he wasn’t home. Chang’e

didn’t want the thief to get the medicine, she had to eat the magic

medicine. Then she flew to the moon and became the moon goddess..

Hou Yi missed his wife so much that he made an offering to the moon,

and tried to find the shape of Chang’e on the moon. To remember

Chang’e , people worship the moon by eating fruit and mooncakes.

3

Draw a snake and add feet to it

Long long ago, several people had a jar of wine among them and

all of them wanted to drink it by himself. So they set a rule that

every one would draw a snake on the ground. And the man who

finished first would have the wine. One man finished his snake

very soon. And he was about to drink the wine when he saw the

others were still busy drawing , so he decided to draw the feet

to snake.. However, before he could finish the feet, another

man finished and grabbed the jar from him, saying” Who has

ever seen a snake with feet?” The story of “ Draw a snake and

add feet to it” tells us going too far is as bad as not going far

enough.

The Legend of cowherd and weaver girl

The Legend of cowherd and weaver girl is a well-known folktale.

The cowherd was a poor yet hard-working young man. The

weaver girl was a goddess who waves the clouds. An old talking

cow introduces them to each other. The two fell in love at first

sigh and got married. When the Eternal Mother found out, she

took the Weaver Girl away and made the Milky Way to separate

4 them. They were very sad . all the animals thought and thought

what to do. At last, they came up with a big plan. All the crow on

the earth gathered together. They flew up to the sky, higher

and higher. Then one by one, the birds lay down and made a

bridge. It was the day for Niu Lang and weaver to meet

again.They were only allowed to meet once a year on the 7th day

of the 7th lunar month. On a clear night, you can still see Niu

Lang and Weaver in the stars.