The stories featured in Greek out are usually original adaptations of classic Greek myths.

This week's story features unnamed evil, lots of studying, jealous rats,

word definitions, and three major belief systems.

Today, we're exploring a new corner of the mythology universe, Chinese mythology.

What we are calling Chinese mythology here is a collection of history, religion, and folk tales

that were passed down from generation to generation for over 4,000 years in what is now China.

Yep, just like in Greek mythology. And over time, the people of what is now China began to

incorporate different aspects of their lives into the tales. That's why these stories are such a

unique blend of sources. Over time, they all just kind of mixed together.

The mythology features elements from three major belief systems, Confucianism, Taoism,

and Buddhism. Right, and these are religious and belief systems that people practice in the modern day,

as well as in ancient times, with a lot of variations.

This is accurate, however, even though many of the details differ, the general morals and

principles behind the myths often stay the same. Yes, and they tend to feature the same cast of

characters, like the focus of today's story, the Jade Emperor. He's considered to be the supreme

ruler of the realm of the gods, or Tian. And he's basically the big guy in charge. He's kind of like

the Zeus of Chinese mythology. The word Tian actually refers to both a higher power that rules the

universe and a place. In this episode, we are using Tian to refer to a place and not a higher power.

Right, we're using words and concepts that we already know to describe things that are new to us,

because just like Zeus had to fight the Titans and prove himself to be worthy enough to become

king of the gods, so did the Jade Emperor. So let's go back to the beginning, like the very beginning,

the beginning of time. You see, according to these stories, the beginning of time wasn't that much

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