The Dragon Stone

Location: China

The BBC ran a story today about the differences in perception of Chinese dragons and the stereotypical western variety. The story was fueled by academics bringing up the idea of dropping the dragon as the symbol of China, due to negative views of dragons in the west. The BBC reports that 90% of replies on a Chinese website survey disagreed, saying the dragon should be kept.

This idea is not a new debate topic. The differences between Chinese and western dragons have been highlighted for a long time, with people suggesting that Chinese dragons should not be called dragon at it. It is interesting to see it getting mainstream news coverage. Previously it has been restricted to academic circles (for a book treatment of it, check out ‘Legend of the Chinese Lung’ by Dr. Ong Hean-Tatt).

I can’t help but feel this debate is getting slightly outdated. Though the average person on the street does not know the full depth of western dragon mythology (they aren’t all maiden munchers), modern fantasy dragons are often portrayed in a good light. It seems somewhat ironic to see this debate entering the news days before the release of the ‘Eragon’ movie. Eragon has a central good character in the form of western-style dragon Saphira.

Would people outside of China have worried about a friendly dragon cartoon mascot for the Olympics? It’s hard to imagine it would have been the big problem the news is making out to be, when cuddly dragon characters have been shown in western children’s cartoons for years. Overall, I agree with the 90% of survey respondents. Keeping the traditional dragon is not going to make people think China is evil.

Sources:
BBC