In Chinese mythology and folklore, Feng () is an edible monster that resembles a two-eyed lump of meat and magically grows back as fast as it is eaten. Early Chinese texts also referred to this legendary food with the names , , and . is a modern name popularized by Chinese news media reporting on purported discoveries of Feng throughout China.
In Old Chinese, Feng meant "mound, tumulus, raise a mound; altar; earth up (a plant); wall, bank of field; boundary embankment, fief". In Modern Standard Chinese, it means "to seal; bank (a fire); confer (title/territory/etc.) upon, feudal; envelope". Feng occurs in other Chinese mythological names. ( with "pig; swine") or (, with "elder brother; uncle"), the son of Kui and (, "Dark Consort"), was named owing to his "swinish" wickedness. Wolfram Eberhard says, Fengzhu translates "pig with a hump" because feng means "hump", although commentaries often interpret the word as "big".
compounds with . The Kangxi Dictionary entry for quotes Guo Pu's Shanhaijing commentary to use the otherwise unattested variant (, with ).
compounds with . Compare (, with ), which is the Chinese name for "Cinnamomum osmophloeum".
uses rou with the complex word . Fabrizio Pregadio explains, The term zhi, "which has no equivalent in Western languages, refers to a variety of supermundane substances often described as plants, fungi, or 'excrescences'." â known in English as the Lingzhi mushroom and identified with Ganoderma genus â is seen in the modern Feng name .
, combining and in reference to Jupiter's orbit of 11.86 years (12 years in Chinese tradition), is an old name for the planet Jupiter. Jupiter is the God of the Year in the Chinese zodiac and Fengshui, and worshiped in religious Daoism. Feng is considered to be the earthly manifestation of Jupiter's and sometimes syncretized with the deity Taisui Xingjun (who in the novel is born from a lump of flesh)
Beginning in the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE), the Chinese classics have recorded Feng and its synonyms.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas has 14 usages of , in locations north, south, east, and west of "The Classic of Regions Beyond the Seas" and "The Classic of the Great Wilderness". Scholars generally date these textual sections from around the 1st century BCE to 1st century CE, making shirou the earliest recorded name for feng. For instance,
"Lofty" and "Tellswift" translate Emperor Yao and Emperor Ku. Birrell notes that the shirou is:
The Shanhaijing commentary of Guo Pu (276-324) provides invaluable information about the shirou and turou .
Feng also appears in the Shanhaijing mythic name , for example, "[On Mount Accord], the jade is abundant on its summit, as well as copious amounts of bloodstone and fief-stone." The Shanhaijing commentary of Hao Yixing (, 1757âÂÂ1825) quotes the (c. 533-544 CE) Qimin Yaoshu, "The stone is medicinal. It tastes sweet and is not poisonous."
Zhang Hua's (c. 290 CE) Bowuzhi "Record of the Investigation of Things" says, "In the land of Yuexi/Yuesui there is a cow that does not die if you cut a piece of meat off it. After some days the flesh has grown back again as before." Yuexi/Yuesui commandery was around present-day Xichang, Sichuan.
The (c. 320 CE) Baopuzi, written by the Jin Dynasty Daoist scholar Ge Hong, mentions in two contexts. Ge Hong's "A Taoist Library" lists the illustrated text , which is no longer extant. "The Genie's Pharmacopia" () categorizes zhi ( "a legendary numinous mushroom; Ganoderma; excrescence"), "There are five types of excrescences: rock [], wood [], herb [], flesh [], and the tiny [, jun means "mushroom; fungus; bacterium; germ"]", and each of them has 120 species. The text lists six kinds of rouzhi "flesh excrescences" that will give one the invulnerability and longevity associated with Daoist xian. Here are two examples.
The Zazhi "Miscellaneous Notes" by the Song dynasty official Jiang Linji (1005-1060) records that the Neo-Confucian teacher Xu Ji (1028-1103) found a Feng in Luzhou (modern Anhui).
The (c. 3rd century) is no longer fully extant, but is identified with a Dunhuang manuscript (P2682).
The (1547) Xihu Zhi ( "West Lake Record") by Ming dynasty scholar Tian Rucheng (, 1503-1557) uses the name Taisui. "When Dung Biaoyi [] dismantled a house and dug up the earth, something like a lump of meat was found. A Taoist master said this was Taisui. It was harmless. So it was abandoned."
Li Shizhen's (1578) Bencao Gangmu classic Chinese materia medica includes the Feng under Chapter 51, which describes medicines derived from and such as the and . The Feng entry quotes the Shanhaijing with Guo's commentary, the Zazhi, and Xihu Zhi. Bernard Read's translation glosses the Feng as "a naiad" and says, "This refers to a class of peculiar organisms such as the sea cucumber or anemones to which were accredited supernatural qualities, based upon the supposition that they were spiritual beings." The sea cucumber and sea anemone are both marine animals, as is the turou.
For 2,000 years, the Feng creature (a.k.a. Taisui, Rouzhi, etc.) has been an obscure aspect of Chinese mythology, but in the late 20th century, Chinese media began reporting a series of fake Feng findings. In modern context, counterfeit and imitation goods made in China are so common that English borrowed the Chinese loanword shanzhai.
Most of the alleged Feng findings have been restricted to Chinese-language sources, often with extraordinary pictures. For instance, construction workers near Lüshunkou District of Dalian dug out a 7-to-8-kilogram lump of fatty meat, which they sold to a Mr. Sun () for 20,000 yuan (about $3,200), who later began selling "Taisui" mineral water. The Xinhua reporter, who inspected Sun's "Taisui" kept in a water-filled tank, said it was about 40 cm wide, resembled white pig fat wrapped in a brown and yellow skin, and felt like sauced beef tendon.
One "Feng" story received international attention in June 2012. Xi'an Television reported that villagers digging a well had found a "Roulingzhi", which was being kept in a bucket of water. The reporter who handled the object described as a fleshy monster with a mouth and nose. However, after viewers identified it as a fleshlight sex toy with a vagina and anus, the story became an internet meme in China, and the station issued an apology.
Legends about a "lump of flesh" are culturally widespread.
In Chinese mythology, the world-creator Hundun resembled a lump of flesh; the nine sons of the dragon were born as a limbless lump of flesh, split into nine parts and thrown them into the river, where they became dragon kings; the hero King Zhao of Zhou was born as a lump of flesh that had to be split; and the dead sometimes appear as a lump of flesh, like the Taisui. In a Chinese fairy tale, The Pretty Little Calf was born as the third wife's son, but the first and second wives claimed he was a lump of flesh, and tried to kill him by drowning and feeding to a water buffalo.
Examples can be found in many cultures. The Indian Mahabharata tells how Gandhari, the wife of Dhritarashtra, wished for 100 sons, and after two years of pregnancy gave birth to a lump of flesh, which were cut into 101 pieces and placed in jars, and developed into 100 sons and a daughter. The Tamil saint Thirumalisai Alvar was born as a limbless lump of flesh after twelve months in the womb, abandoned by his parents, and returned to life by Vishnu. The creation of man in the Qur'an (22:5) says, "We first created you from dust, then from a sperm drop, then from clotted blood, then a lump of flesh [mudghah], both shaped and unshaped, so that We might manifest to you [Our power]". In Welsh mythology, Lleu Llaw Gyffes was born from a lump of flesh dropped by Gwydion, and concealed in a chest until he matured. In Manx folklore, if a Tarroo-ushtey water bull mates with a cow, it only calves a lump of flesh and skin without bones.
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