The Legend of Chang Er

Wednesday (22/09/2010)

a) The Legend of Chang Er
· Why do we celebrate The Moon festival? We already knew the story of why we play lantrerns.
· I showed the kids pictures of Chang Er, Hou Yi, the jade Emperor and also the Jade Rabbit. They showed enthusiasm that they loved those pictures and have heard of the story before.
· I invited them to share the story but they were not able to. However, as I was telling the story; the kids added in the storylines of what they know about the story.
· There are many versions of this story but I shared with the kids the following version:
“Chang Er was a beautiful, kind and clever lady who lived on Earth. Hou Yi was a talented soldier of Jade Emperor in the Heaven. One day, there were 10 suns on Earth and many people suffered and were dying. Plants, animals also died and water was no longer in the river nor sea. Jade Emperor ordered Hou Yi, a good archer to shoot down 9 suns. He succeeded. As he was thirsty, he went down searching for water. Chang Er happened to be near him and offered him water. Touched by her kindness and beauty, they soon got married. However, Hou Yi was fearful because Change Er is not an immortal and will age and die. Thus, Hou Yi asked Jade Emperor for help and he gave him the “Everlasting Pill”. He brought it home and hid near the ceiling of his home. He wanted to surprise Chang Er. However, that night; Hou Yi went away for a task. Chang Er saw a light shining from the ceiling beam and out of curiosity; she climbed up to check. She was shocked to see an “Everlasting Pill”. At the same time, a thief came by and tried snatching the pill from Chang Er. To defeat herself, Chang Er swallowed the pill and started floating. At this time, Hou Yi came back in time. The thief fled away and Hou Yi chased Chang Er. When the window was opened, she flew all the way to the moon. Chang Er met Jade Rabbit and asked hime to make her another pill. Only with another pill, can she fly back to the Earth. As we know, she never succeeded. Hou Yi was so sad that he prayed and soon, he became the Sun God while Chang Er became the Moon Goddess. It was believed that on the 15th. Of Chinese Calendar 8th month; the moon is especially beautiful and bright because Hou Yi will meet Chang Er only at the day of the year.

b) Playing Lantern.
· The kids were excited and anxious at playing their lanterns at the school garden. I told them to be very careful as the recycled lantern was made from plastic bottle. Kids were not allowed to play with lantern nor fire alone at home as fire might occur.

c) Vocabulary Revision.
· We recapped words learnt throughout this theme. They were getting better. This time, I even asked them for words definition.