In the ancient time, there were ten suns in the sky. All of them were the sons of god. Everyday each sun rose in the sky in sequence. Humans appreciated for those suns so much. As time going on, ten suns got bored of repeated the same thing every day, so they decided to go together on a day. Suddenly, the whole world was burned. All the crop was destroyed. Water was vapored. People could not live under such condition. In such a disaster, a god named Hou Yi, who was a skilled archer, decided to shoot those suns. He shot nine of suns and left the last one in the sky. Those nine suns became crows when falling down. The only sun was left and works every daily time until now.
(Unknown, baidu baike, unknown year
https://baike.baidu.com/item/后羿射日/1059?fr=aladdin)
It is a traditional Chinese myth. And I heard this story several times since I was young. Even though I heard and read for many times, I still feel surprised that ancient people were full of imagination. They were so curious about nature and tried so hard to explain everything on earth. Compared to people living in current modern society, ancient people could create more imaginative stories. They only saw one sun in the sky, but they connected so many other characters like archers and the god to make up the complete story. More specifically about this myth, I think people really show the respect to the sun through this myth. Sun provides energy for all the creatures on the planet. Also, the archer in this myth is interesting. He is considered as a hero, who is an archer to shoot the suns. Everyone nowadays knows it is impossible to shoot the sun, but ancient people back to that time knew little about science. Shooting was one of their necessary skill for living, so I believe that is one of the reasons that Hou Yi was described as an archer for shooting the suns.
As for me, I like this myth. First of all, the idea of nine suns is really out of imagination and unbelievable. Second, I appreciate that the ancient have the strong curiosity of learning about the unknow objects. The sun is so powerful and meaningful for the human, so ancient people might be worshipers to the sun. They knew they can get benefits from the sun, but they also want to imagine about the negative side of the sun. They wondered whether there were some disasters caused by sun or nor. Moreover, they want to create a person to put their wish into him, so Hou Yi came out. Last but not the least, the falling suns were turned into craws, which is reasonable, because in Chinese’s mind, craw are related to bad luck. I believe ancient people really use their limited knowledge to create such wonderful myth which deserved to be remembered.
