4 Greatest Chinese Legendary Love Stories Ever

Hey guys, welcome to Off The Grid Wives, I'm Mike. It's Dan. Now, as the great Chinese poet Yuan Hao Wen once wrote, 问世间情为何物,只叫生死相许。 Yeah, I didn't understand any of that. Come on, that was moving. That was like teardropping poetry. That meant nothing to you? It sounded nice though. Learn some Chinese, man. It sounded nice. Now, what this means is, what on earth is love? And when you take a look at some of the most famous Chinese stories about love, whether from history, literature, myths or legends, there's a lot of death going on. Yeah, but it's romantic. Don't everyone want to live and die with the one they love? No, sorry, I don't want to be Romeo and Juliet. I want to live. I mean, I would want her to live too. I just want to live. Okay, Highlander. Anyway, here are some of the most famous stories about love throughout Chinese history. Grab a tissue, everybody. Number one, The Butterfly Lovers. We've mentioned this one before. The Butterfly Lovers is a Chinese legend which tells a tragic love story between a pair of famous lovers, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. Their love story is considered as the Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet. The story happened in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. In order to pursue her studies, Zhu Yingtai disguised herself as a man and decided to go to Hangzhou for further study. During her trip, she met a scholar called Liang Shanbo. They soon became good friends and Zhu Yingtai gradually fell in love with Liang. But Liang Shanbo did not even know that Zhu Yingtai was a woman. One day, Zhu had to go home because of a family emergency and asked Liang to come to her home to meet her sister. That was when Liang found out that his bro was actually a beautiful woman. I wish that happened to me, but that would be weird. Anyway, Zhu's father arranged for her to marry Ma Wencai, a son of a high local official. Learning of this, Liang Shanbo later died of a broken heart. On the day of her marriage with Ma, Zhu went to Liang's tomb to pay respect to him. On the way, Zhu was overcome with grief and prayed the heaven to open up the tomb. Then a miracle happened. The tomb opened and Zhu leaped into it immediately. Then the lovers turned into a pair of butterflies Unless you're a butterfly catcher and you caught one of them. Yeah. It's just horrible. So stop like catching butterflies, people. How sad would that be? Like I'm a kid, I'm walking by and I see these two butterflies and I got them. Caught one. Oh, that would suck. That would suck, right? And the other one flies away. Come on, don't be mean. Or at least capture them both together. So is the lesson if you ever see two butterflies together, do not separate them? Leave them alone, people. And if you want to see the full version of the video, click here. We have it right here for you. Do it, it's awesome. Number two, Niu Long and Zhi Nü. The love story between Niu Long, a cowherd, and Zhi Nü, a weaver, is one of the most famous Chinese folk love legends. The earliest record of this myth was over 2,600 years ago. It's kind of funny because their names actually means their profession. Niu Long actually means a cowherder and Zhi Nü actually means a weaver. And that's their names. That's their names. That's kind of cool, right? So my name would be Eater. Yeah, Eater. Uber Eater. Yeah, what would mine be? What would mine be? Uber pickier, like a girl-er. Anyway, Niu Long was an honest and kind cowherd who lived by himself herding cattle and farming. One day, he met a beautiful girl named Zhi Nü, the seventh daughter of a goddess who had descended to the earth just for fun. Zhi Nü soon fell in love with Niu Long and came down secretly from the heaven to earth and married him. Unfortunately, the mother of Zhi Nü, the goddess, soon found out that her daughter married a mortal. She was furious and immediately took Zhi Nü back to heaven. Niu Long was filled with grief. Seeing Niu Long's misery, his ox, who was a magical creature, decided to help him fly to heaven to meet his wife. Don't we all wish our pet could just one day be like, yo, you look depressed. Let me, you know, fly you somewhere. That'd be awesome. That happens all the time. Back in the day, medieval times. When Niu Long was about to catch up to his wife, the goddess used her hairpin to slash across the sky. Hence created the Milky Way, which separates Niu Long and Zhi Nü. Yeah, so that's how the Milky Way was created, everybody. Moved by their love and devotion, a lot of magpies formed a bridge for the couple to meet each other. The goddess was also touched by their love and finally allowed them to meet on the seventh of the seventh lunar month every year, which became today's double seventh day, the Chinese Valentine's Day. On that day, Chinese people will look up at the sky and watch the two stars Altair and Vega meet for the yearly meeting. So people actually look to the sky on Chinese Valentine's Day? What do you do? I don't look to the sky. You should. You're missing the point here of the story and of the significance of this day. What do you do, just like stuff your face with food? Yeah, chocolates. That's what actually I do. Number three, Tian Xian Pei. Tian Xian Pei, or the Legend of Dong Yong and the Seventh Fairy, is a widely known love story in China. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, a scholar, Dong Yong, would sell himself into slavery to pay for his father's funeral. Moved by his filial piety, the Seventh Fairy descended onto Earth to marry Dong Yong without the knowledge of her father, the Jade Emperor. When the Jade Emperor discovered this, he ordered his daughter to return to the heaven and threatened to kill Dong Yong if she did not follow his order. The Seventh Fairy had no choice but to leave her husband. Alright, the next one is one of my favorite stories and it's also really sad. I guess because I like sad stuff. I like sappy and sad stuff. That's why I like this. This is the story of Meng Jiang Yu and Fan Xiliang. This story happened during the Qing Dynasty. Legend has it, an old man named Meng planted a seed of gourd in his yard. The gourd grew up and its vines climbed over the wall and entered his neighbor Jiang's yard. And out came a beautiful gourd in autumn. Amazingly, when they cut the gourd, a pretty and lovely girl was lying inside. They felt happy to have a child and both loved her very much and named the girl Meng Jiang Yu, which means Meng and Jiang's daughter. As time flew by, Meng Jiang Yu grew up as a beautiful, smart woman. One day while playing in the yard, Meng Jiang Yu found a young man hiding in the garden. It turned out that the young man, Fan Xiliang, was evading officials from building the Great Wall. The parents, Meng and Jiang, liked this good-looking, honest and good-mannered young man, like me. They decided to go wed their daughter to him. Yay, that's what you do when you like someone. Marry your daughter to him. Both Fan Xiliang and Meng Jiang Yu accepted happily and the couple was married shortly after. However, three days after their marriage, officials suddenly broke in and took Fan Xiliang away to work on the Great Wall of China. Meng Jiang Yu missed her husband and cried nearly every day. So she decided to set out on a long journey to visit her husband. Day and night, she climbed over mountains and went through rivers, enduring endless difficulties, but Meng was finally able to reach the foot of the Great Wall at the present Shanhaiguan Pass. However, bad news came to her. Unfortunately, that's Fan Xiliang had already died of exhaustion and was buried into the Great Wall. Meng Jiang Yu could not stop crying. She sat on the ground and sorely wept for three days straight. Suddenly, with a tremendous noise, a 400-kilometer-long section of the Great Wall collapsed over her bitter wail. Emperor Qin Shi Huang happened to be touring the wall at that exact time and he was enraged and ready to punish the woman. When the guards were trying to catch her, she suddenly turned around and jumped into the nearby Bohai Sea. The story of Meng Jiang Yu actually destroying a section of the Great Wall has been passed down from generation to generation. In memory of Meng Jiang Yu, later generations built a temple called the Jiang Yu Temple at the foot of the Great Wall in which a statue of Meng Jiang Yu is located. I mean, she basically destroyed it with her tears. Yeah, that's crazy. That's what happens when you are born from a vegetable. Yeah. You have these powers. Hey, so you know what I learned from all those stories? What? You know how I've got to give you some advice? You can get a girl by basically... You can get a goddess, but you've got to move her. Yeah. So you've got to either show filial piety. Yeah. Pretty much that. Yeah. And then you can move the goddess. Here's my question though. I think they have to be looking at the exact moment as you're doing it. Because think about this. Back in old days China, a lot of filial piety was everywhere. How come like a god didn't come down and marry like Mulan or something? Because you... It's like you have to show it to the 10th degree, you know? You've got to do something really... Dude, she went to war for 12 years. You've got to tell your parents you love them and maybe you cook some dinner for them. You can't say that. Yeah, that's awkward. Even the goddesses don't say I love you to their Asian goddess parents. All right, guys. Thank you so much for watching. See you later. Later.