Talk:Great Flood (China)

Reasons for separate article

The reasons why I think this article deserves to and should stand on its on are that there are both traditional mythological versions of the Great Flood (or various floods, which don't really fit into a coherent chronology), as well as a more traditional historical approach, although there are differences in opinion among historians in this area, particularly since we are dealing the more ancient parts of Chinese history and some of the oldest, or claimed to be oldest documents. I don't think that an article, for example, on Yu the Great is the best place for an overall coverage of the Great Flood, after all it is dated to the reign of Yao, and Yu was a relative late-comer when he began his flood control activities (after Gun and Gong Gong); and, also the whole flood story includes the involvement of agricultural development by Qi/Houji, the Abandoned One, who is ancestral to the House of Zhou, the activities of Yi the hunter, and so on. Handling all of the various aspects of the flood in any one of these articles seems less workable than using a separate article which can serve as a nexus for this. (adapted from my talk page)Dcattell (talk) 17:20, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

As I've started a formal discussion you will probably want to move this to Talk:Yu the Great#Merge proposal. Dougweller (talk) 20:23, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion; however, I have instead commented in somewhat different words there. Dcattell (talk) 00:14, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

While i oppose a merger (argued at the proposal), i think the title should be Great Flood (China)Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:33, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good.... Dcattell (talk) 03:22, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Dougweller (talk) 05:36, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Page Moved

Page moved to "Great Flood (China)", apparently a better title, using the move tool. Dcattell (talk) 01:32, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

One more reliable source

Just quickly to suggest a source that could add a lot to this article. It's called The Flood Myths of Early China (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006), by Mark Edward Lewis, which contains all there is to know about floods and flood taming in ancient Chinese culture. Good editing! Madalibi (talk) 00:33, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Splitting the article

Hi everyone. @Dcattell:, @Dougweller:, @Mercurywoodrose:, @Madalibi:. I suggest another splitting for this article. I mean, this article should be the main article about Chinese deluge myth BUT, most of the content should be moved to a new article, i.e. Gun-Yu Flood -or something like that. Because, as far as I know, there are still another 3 unrelated version of Chinese deluge myth: Fuxi-Nuwa great flood; Nuwa great flood; East Sea deluge (or related to the mulberry field and Magu). I'm gonna make the articles on Indonesian Wikipedia and I like to let you know -and help me if you have time :p . Thank you for your understanding -and "help" #choked. Okkisafire (talk) 03:49, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

I believe there is another version of Chinese deluge myth beside the ones I've mentioned above: Gun deluge myth. But this version is related to Gun-Yu myth, although the story is much different. Maybe this version can be placed on a section under Gun-Yu flood myth. Okkisafire (talk) 04:09, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Expanding the content of the present article is a work which should well be worth the effort. One difficulty is that although there appear to be various separate mythological/historic accounts of about Chinese deluge myth, over time they appear to merge together and influence each other to some extent (that is, for example, it's gonna be hard to make a clean case of Fuxi-Nuwa and Nuwa great floods being unrelated, since they share Nuwa). I personally would support your work in this endeavor, particularly regarding Magu (deity) and the cyclical flooding of the mulberry fields. However, instead of moving content out of this present article I suggest that the best approach is to develop the separate articles, and then create a new umbrella (that is, new main article, "Flood Mythology of China", or something like that), which would cover the "Great Flood", Magu and the cyclical flooding of the Eastern Sea, and so on. Also, some of the accounts of Sunshu Ao and Ximen Bao seem to have some mythological elements to them, and Gun and Yu's projects for flood control seem to have certain aspects of agricultural irrigation projects to them. Dcattell (talk) 17:02, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

In terms of the Great Flood (from traditional Chinese sources, 大洪水, literally "Great Flood") there are indeed different versions. One thing to bear in mind is that a general analysis of Chinese mythology suggests a general rule that almost every major myth exists in two forms: one of these forms being closer to folk/popular mythology and one being a rationalized/semi-historical version of the same. So, in one version of the Great Flood myth magic turtles and birds work toward controlling the flood, in another version self-expanding earth, channel-digging dragons, and giant mud-hauling tortoises are rejected in favor of a more rationalistic version of hydraulic engineering, along the lines of Sunshu Ao and Ximen Bao (and failure to adequately deal with these two literary approaches to the same underlying material is a weakness of the current "Great Flood (China)" article). I'm not sure what Gun deluge myth you are working on, but "Great Flood (China)" is probably the best place for variations on the flood mythology related to Gun and Yu. Certainly, an added section on variations of the myths would be good. Dcattell (talk) 17:02, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess you're right. Maybe I should leave this article as it is because it's already linked to so many articles on en.wiki and other wikis as well. A new umbrella should be made. But I already separated it and arranged all the stories about Chinese deluge and can make a conclusion: there should be about 5 more articles related to this (the sixth should be East Sea (Chinese literature) while the seventh is Magu (deity)).

• The umbrella article: Flood Mythology of China. I split this Great Flood (China) article into Banjir besar Tiongkok (the main article) and Banjir besar Gun-Yu.
• Myth related to Nuwa: Nuwa patching the sky aka Nuwa menambal langit (id.wiki, just made it yesterday). This article is about the story of Nuwa patching the sky as a favorite theme for artisans, movies, novels, etc.
• Great flood and procreation aka Banjir besar dan prokreasi (id.wiki, just yesterday): about two siblings. Yesterday I called it as the myth of Fuxi and Nuwa, but actually it doesn't always. Their names are varies and the storyline is so different compared to the legend of Nuwa patching the sky.
• Sinking city myth (Chinese) aka Mitologi kota tenggelam (Tiongkok) (id.wiki, just today). The storyline is very similar to the legend of Baucis and Philemon.
• The idioms about Mulberry field (idiom) : 沧海桑田 and 渤澥桑田. Actually, both are different idioms with different (but connected) meanings (you can see it in here), both are related to Magu. I hasn't made the article yet and I dunno when. lol.

Okkisafire (talk) 15:05, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Before I forget, actually the myth about sinking city, I don't think we can call it as a "great flood" in it's original form, because it's only cover a small area of a city (compared to the whole world). But as time goes by, from the sources I've been read, people of China have fused this myth with the myth of "two siblings" and enlarged the area which was covered by flood into the whole world, let both myths have the same ending(s). Okkisafire (talk) 15:21, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

@Dcattell: About mulberry field idioms, the second is belong to Magu, while the first I'm not sure. But from the meanings, I believe they both related. I Think I'm gonna make the article but need some advice: should I make it into 2 different articles? I hope not. And how about the title? Thank you again :) Okkisafire (talk) 15:30, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

source unknown

What is the source for the final sentence?

• "In a more mythological view of Yao and his reign, this evidence for accurate astronomical observations could be interpreted as an intrusion of archeoastronomy into the realm of myth." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stjohn1970 (talk • contribs) 15:05, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

No idea either. Before I edit the article, the sentence was already there. Okkisafire (talk) 06:14, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

New geological evidence for the Flood and its date

This just seen on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36966274

which has a link to the Science magazine article:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6299/579

I'll leave it to others with greater knowledge of this topic to make any Article edits they deem appropriate. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.123.26.60 (talk) 02:35, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Though no kind of expert, I have had a go. (The original article is free access. The editorial on it, http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/massive-flood-may-have-led-chinas-earliest-empire, contains useful words of caution.) Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:59, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Why don't you edit it by yourself? :) Okkisafire (talk) 06:16, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to improve citation "style"

Re the previous section, the contribution and significance of the "Outburst flood" article needs work. But I am somewhat dismayed by the poor state of "referencing" (citation). Would anyone mind terribly if I did a thorough "refimprove"? In particular, I would template full and short citations, and add the year to the short-cites (necessary to distinguish three different "Wu et al." sources). ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:41, 22 December 2018 (UTC)