My project has continued to develop over the last couple of weeks to be something quite different to what I usually do. By this I mean, as I try to experiment and include some more interactive aspects to my final essay, I am also going to present my work in a way that is a little less structured than what I usually would do. The aim of this experimentation is to have these different interactive tools serve as a complimentary force to my own analysis. At first this was something that worried me as I usually try to have a very strong through point in my essays that helps to keep me on topic and explore the themes present to a sufficient level. This more unstructured approach will not only allow for me to use other mediums of presenting findings/evidence but will also allow me to jump between different myths and deconstruct how it is that they effected Chinese society.
This new approach is something that I think came about because of how many different myths I have read about and how interesting I find their stories. One of the ones that I found most interesting was about the ‘Monkey King’. Reading about him reminded me of Loki from Norse mythology which was a childhood favorite of mine. Although I am not sure if his story is one that will make it into my final project it was a fun rabbit hole go down and made me think about how I could explore each of the myths I have read about independent of an overarching structure that might limit the fun that I could have with the project.
In addition to the embracing of these new forms of presenting information I have over the last several weeks watched my project develop from looking at one myth, the Mandate of Heaven, and looking at how it is it effected Chinese society. To instead converting this analysis of larger societal consequences into a lens from which I will look at various other myths. Some of these other myths I plan to investigate include the bone cracking ritual of the Shang as well as the Chinese zodiac race that I mentioned in my last post but was confused as to how I would use it to compliment my final project. I am sure as I continue reading that there will be more myths that I write about as I try and illustrate the impact that many of these myths have had on Chinese society.
So far, much of what I have been reading has been quite broad as I have tried to identify the myths that I do want to be looking at. I have enjoyed this search quite a lot as it has let me to concentrate on the story telling element of these myths. As I come closer to finishing my project, I am going to try rely more so on academic papers that can provide the back bone for my analysis as I bring each of these stories under an investigative lens and identify the impacts they had on Chinese society.
Sources:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1354067X19871198
https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/feb/08/top-10-chinese-myths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven
https://www.worldhistory.org/Mandate_of_Heaven/
