Blue Star (3)
Mi told El many stories of Eastern mythology, from Pangu creating the world to Shennong tasting hundreds of herbs. Joe, with his richer knowledge, kept adding to the stories. Sometimes Mi would ramble on, and Joe would just smile and watch her ramble.
“Your legends are very interesting; even your gods are so self-sacrificing,” El asked, looking up at Mi. “Your gods must have many followers, right?”
“The truth is quite the opposite,” Mi said after a moment of contemplation. “The gods of the East are incredibly diverse. One of the more popular gods in our region is Mazu. She was a real human being, and of course, she helped many people when she was still human. After her death, she was constantly remembered and mourned, and eventually became a god. She is a local deity. Most gods don’t have followers, or they only have followers during specific periods. For example, the Kitchen God is only worshipped on the day he ascends to heaven.”
"You are very pragmatic."
"Practical?" Mi thought for a while and said, "You're right. We also have a custom of beating gods where we're from. If a god doesn't listen to us, we take down the statue and beat it a few times. Just like the sun, if it doesn't listen to us, we kill it. Gods are meant to serve people."
Al glanced at Joe again: "Really?"
“Really.” Mi also glanced at Qiao and said, “Didn’t Qiao tell you that people where I’m from believe in ‘respecting ghosts and gods but keeping them at a distance,’ which roughly means that you should stay away from me if there’s nothing wrong, and you should stay away from me even more if something happens.”
"And what about the emperor? Don't you believe in the divine right of kings?"
“The emperor in our area is also called the Son of Heaven,” Qiao scratched his head. “Actually, we also have a saying there: ‘The emperor’s throne rotates, next year it might be my turn.’” Mi looked at this old-fashioned man from the Republican era. Her ideas were quite progressive, and she didn’t seem to have much loyalty to the emperor.
"Where we're from, cultivating immortality is very popular. Although immortals are high above, people can become immortals through cultivation." Mi thought for a moment and then said, "Gods aren't really high above, at least not greater than earthly kings. One thing our kings really enjoy is bestowing titles upon gods. Here, they'll bestow the title of mountain god; there, they'll bestow the title of water god. Even immortals need the king's decree to be granted one. Rebellion is also very popular where we're from. A dynasty lasts only a few decades, the shortest seems to be only one or two years, and the longest is two or three hundred years, but in the end, they always can't escape the fate of being overthrown. Everyone has a dream of being an emperor, or rather, everyone has a dream of becoming an immortal."
"Don't you have slaves?"
"Yes, but as long as one has talent and learning, even a slave can become a prime minister."
"You mean Baili Xi?" Qiao asked from the side.
“Yes, we have a saying—a hero’s origins are irrelevant.” Mi thought about it seriously. “A person’s birth is certainly important, but not that important. Throughout the East, whether it’s gods or emperors, everyone is pursuing personal struggle and climbing to the next level. Common people want to be emperors, and emperors want to live forever.”
"Easterners are amazing," El exclaimed in admiration.
“Oh, no.” Mi shook his head. “We have another saying where I’m from—one Easterner becomes a dragon, a group of Easterners become worms. Easterners are too focused on personal success, and the worship of individual heroes has a very strong influence in the East. Many times, ordinary people are waiting for a hero to appear and lead them out of their predicament.”
"You must have many heroes where you live, where everyone respects capable people."
“How could that be?” Mi suddenly chuckled. “Where we live, we do say ‘the capable should rule,’ but you also know that genes inherit everything except abilities. When a hero becomes an emperor, he doesn’t think about passing the throne to a capable successor; he passes it to his own son.”
"That's true. Once power is in your hands, no one is willing to let go. The only people who can take over power from the emperor are his blood relatives."
“Emperors come and go, some wise and capable, others crazy and reckless, and so one dynasty replaces another.” Mi Tan gestured. “Humans just love killing each other.”
“On your Blue Star,” El said after a moment’s thought, “bloodline isn’t that important. Capable people can gain public support. The line between nobles and slaves isn’t clear either. Even a slave can become prime minister. People are equal.”
“How could that be? Humans are probably the only species that has divided itself into many hierarchical classes, envying and mocking each other.” Mi suddenly became depressed. “In our society, the whole society mocks two kinds of people: the poor and women. The poor are at the very bottom of society, and even if they are already at the bottom, they can still kill another kind of person: women. The poor can’t survive on their own, while women suffer a different kind of passive surviving. If a family can only raise one child, the woman in the family will drown the baby girl she gives birth to, even if the family isn’t so poor that they can’t afford to raise a baby girl. The baby girl will still be drowned.”
"Aren't the men on Earth born of women?" El paused briefly before speaking. "Everywhere, women are property, because only women can give birth to new life."
“I forgot to tell you, drowning female infants is usually done by older female members of the family, the girl’s mother or grandmother.” Mi stared at the black soil on the ground, her tone somber: “I can’t find anywhere in the world where women despise women so much.”
Have you ever thought about why?
“I’ve thought about it, I’ve really thought about it seriously.” Mi smiled bitterly. “Women don’t have property rights, and sometimes they don’t even have personal autonomy. Throughout history, in different dynasties, women could be sold by their fathers, by their husbands, or even by their sons.”
Joe raised her hand to cover her face, her shoulders trembling, her whole body feeling as if it would break. El gently stroked her, and after a long while, she asked, "Is it still like this now?"
“Now,” Mi looked up at the sky, “I don’t know, but legally speaking, human trafficking is prohibited.”
This time, it was Joe who burrowed into the dormant flower. Mi looked at El, who was standing guard to the side: "Didn't you say Joe was a man?"
“You’ve forgotten that he’s a sorcerer, and the essence of a sorcerer is perception and insight,” Al said. “He’s not less pain than you have felt for everything you’ve said.”
“Ha, crocodile tears.” Mi looked at the dormant flower. “Westerners say that Easterners are full of servility. That’s because even the lowest slave in society, after being mistreated, can still act like an emperor in front of his woman when he gets home.”
"And what is the West?"
"You know that Earth is a sphere. I came from the East, so there is also a West on Earth."
Are Westerners and Easterners different?
"Yes, the East and the West have been different since mythology and legends."
Tell me about it.
“As I mentioned before, in Eastern mythology, heaven and earth were originally one, and the great god Pangu only separated them. Later, a hole was broken in the sky, and a goddess named Nuwa repaired it. The gods of the East have been using and repairing this world.” Mi thought for a moment, “But in Western mythology, the earth is a mother goddess, the sky is a goddess, the ocean is a goddess, the sun is a goddess, and the moon is a goddess. Gods are the world, and gods are the rulers. They believe in the geocentric model, that everything in the world revolves around the earth. Later, someone proposed the heliocentric model, and he was burned at the stake.”
"Westerners must be very domineering."
Why do you say that?
“In human mythology, gods are merely reflections of humans,” Al said. “Western gods believed that they were the world, so colonial culture must have been very prevalent in the West.”
“You’re right,” Mi hesitated for a moment before saying, “but the West has Ragnarok, and the gods eventually fell.”
"Did humanity manage to wrest power back from the gods?"
“Yes. To be honest, in my time, the West was almost synonymous with civilization and freedom.” Mi glanced at Joe. “Of course, for Joe, Joe was the one who was colonized by the West.”
"Did the West colonize many places?"
“Yes, their colonization efforts have covered almost the entire planet Earth. Two countries, vying for colonies, drew a ‘Papal Meridian’ on Earth, dividing the world between them.” Mi suddenly chuckled. “You know what’s the funniest thing? There’s a place called the Beautiful Country, which was once entirely a Western colony. Those who came from the West to colonize this place raised the banner of freedom and independence, resisted Western colonization, and established the Beautiful Country.”
"You mean the colonizer was overthrown by his local colonial rulers?"
"More or less, although the actual situation is certainly much more complicated." Mi smiled. "Western nations have a knack for turning whatever they encounter into their own through force. First it was Africa, then the Americas and Oceania, and then Asia. There is no country that can't be opened with cannons."
"What about the native people of the United States?"
“Some of those who resisted were killed, some were kept in captivity, and some were assimilated, eventually becoming citizens of the same country.” Mi thought for a while, “I think the United States is probably the country with the most ethnic groups and races in the world. The number of immigrants to the United States is probably far less than the number of native residents. The United States buys slaves from all over the world. There are the smartest people on the entire planet, and also the most slaves on the entire planet.”
"Did the West also have slavery and discrimination?"
"Yes, the West developed through plunder and enslavement, and it is full of all kinds of discrimination. But as Westerners who pursue freedom and democracy, they prohibit discrimination. What's really funny about the West is that they find out what they did in the past, then they think it's wrong, and then they prohibit doing it."
"Why?"
"I think it probably started from the moment they rebelled against God; they were more like undergoing self-correction. Westerners used to discriminate, and they felt that discrimination was bad, so they enacted laws to prohibit it."
"This can be banned?"
“They can keep you from saying it, but no one cares what you’re thinking. After all, the law corrects behavior, not thoughts.” Mi thought for a moment and then said, “The East will also make corrections, but the East’s corrections are internal and not external, or that’s the biggest difference.”
What is the difference between inside and outside?
“Hmm, let me think about it,” Mi said after a long pause. “Western countries like colonial expansion. Take discrimination, for example. Of course, discrimination exists in them, but they have laws prohibiting it. Then, when they see discrimination in other countries, they will step in and interfere. Although land colonization has been abolished, ideological colonization still exists. In the East, legislation is aimed at their own country and they don’t interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. To give an inappropriate analogy, imagine two families, both of whom beat their wives. The family living in the west says, ‘Beating your wife is bad, I will not beat my wife anymore,’ and then says to the family living in the east, ‘Hey, you can’t beat your wife.’ In reality, both families beat their wives, but outsiders, including the wife of the family living in the east, will think that the family living in the west is better.”
What about Western women?
“Oh, that’s almost completely different from the status of women in the East.” Mi hesitated for a moment. “Initially, women’s status may have been similar, but by the 18th century, the ownership and protection of property rights for women in the East and West were completely different.”
Why is that?
“I have thought about that,” Mi replied after a moment’s thought. “I think it’s because of the institution of marriage.”
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