Chi Lin

[ablinkin]

Does any one in here have an knowledge of Chi Lin?

Thanks

[Jingwu Man]

Qilin, the Chinese Unicorn?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_unicorn

[lkfmdc]

use the white unicorn fist too often, and you will have serious Chi loss

[ablinkin]

lol, I should have been more specific.....
http://chi-lin.net/ is more along the lines of what I was refering to.

Thanks

[lkfmdc]

OH MY F-IN LORD!

I just followed your link!

He's still out there!

RUN, RUN NOW, RUN FAR AWAY

[ablinkin]

ok, maybe I am retarded.....probably am....but why such strong fealings? I have been taking Chi Lin for sometime, I am not experienced in any other for of Kung Fu, is it that bad?

thanks.....I think :)

[lkfmdc]

are you studying under "Master Decker"? I know some guys whom were students of his for a short period of time.... he "abused" their loyalty and trust in ways I can not explain on a public forum

[ablinkin]

no Master Decker is dead, I train under Sifu Stephen Robinson, who is 3rd in lineage from Master Decker. The style is very combative and straight forward, rooted and geared toward multiple oponents. I was curious if anyone knew of its roots. Do you know much about the style? Feel free to email me anything you think not appropriate for the forum.

thanks

[Mas Judt]

I met 'master' Decker years ago - he had a group in the midwest under the tutelage of a dysfunctional police officer who took joy in hurting others. Decker himself was a raving h@m@ who would beat on students with a stick, then insist they hug him after class. Really creepy.

This was the first 'kungfu' style I ever came across. It was not completely without merit - although even his top guys out here laughed about the crazy histories Decker taught - they were fine with him having made it all up. It is apparently a mix of Pai Lum, Ying Jow, Hung Ga and other stuff. What the Dutch-Indo guys would call a 'combinasi'.

A later coach of mine, and a very skilled CMA teacher watched him on video and commented that most of it looked 'made up' but i quote 'that motherf@ker has some skill.'

So to summarize, there are generations of wierd behavior starting with the system founder, but the method is no worse than much of the 'kung fu' that is out there, but the things thay claim may not sync up with reality in the CMA world.

Some of the lessons I learned from these guys I consider very valid material, but the disgust I feel at the memory of thier character leaves me feeling ill every time I think of them.

[cjurakpt]

are you studying under "Master Decker"? I know some guys whom were students of his for a short period of time.... he "abused" their loyalty and trust in ways I can not explain on a public forum
this isn't the "lie on the sheet of love" guy, is it?

anyway, watched their promo vid - it looks really ker-zappy!

[ablinkin]

Mas Judt

thanks for the insight :)

I have very little experience with Kung Fu....I took TKD and Hung Gar and now I take Chi Lin under Stephen Robinson..he has combined Hung Gar, Tavon, Chi Lin and kick boxing to make up what we learn. He never knew Decker, but his Sifu did but it seems as thought the history is very jumbled, to put it mildly. Thankfully Sifu is not so wierd.....cause yeh, the whole hugging thing would not happen :)

I know most of the names in Chi Lin are the same as ching wu, so I had guessed that there was some connection to northern shaolin.
Nice to see that its not completely with out merit...

thanks again

[lkfmdc]

this isn't the "lie on the sheet of love" guy, is it?



WE HAVE A WINNER.......

Uh, I think Mas said pretty much all that I'd say on an open forum, there is more to it, but then again, as you say, that man is not your teacher

[Mas Judt]

I dunno, the sets and material taught back then were not entirely chin wu..

lemme see if I remember:

'wu shing wu" 108 sef defense
Tan Tui (ten line)
Sempai Godan & Rokudan [Forms taught to Karate guys to start to break them of karate habits]
King Mantis
Iron Butterfly [Inagoddadavida?]
Tiger & Crane [Obviously based on the Hung Ga, but with a very different flavor, remnicent of the Black Tiger system]

There was more, but this was decades ago....

Again, compared to much of what was available back then, it was really good. But man, the teachers of the system were a f@cked up bunch.

[cjurakpt]

WE HAVE A WINNER.......


I'll be around to collect my kewpie doll directly...

[Dragonzbane76]

I met 'master' Decker years ago - he had a group in the midwest under the tutelage of a dysfunctional police officer who took joy in hurting others. Decker himself was a raving h@m@ who would beat on students with a stick, then insist they hug him after class. Really creepy.


A later coach of mine, and a very skilled CMA teacher watched him on video and commented that most of it looked 'made up' but i quote 'that motherf@ker has some skill.'

Think you hit it on the head there. Never met the guy but being in Pai Lum myself I heard some stories that just made you shake your head. I've seen video's of him and honestly probably one of the most skilled individuals that I've ever seen. Heard he died of AIDS, not sure on that though. So many stories about the guy and the strange stuff he did. I know of a Mike Snyder whom lives close to me and is a very skilled individual who teaches Chi lin. Tight nit group from what I know, my sifu trained in the system for a bit. Other than that, all I know is they have some similar forms from other systems, but now days who knows where they actually came from especially the Tiger Crane set.

[ablinkin]

There are actually 2 guys in Huntington WV that teach Chi Lin....Daniel Honaker and Stephen Robinson (the later being my Sifu). Both are very skilled MAs. Neither talk to much about the Chi Lin history....now I know why :) Dragonzbane76, what area of the country are you from? Do you still train in the Chi Lin system?

thanks for all the info guys.....I think :) not sure I should have ever asked...lol oh well

[Dragonzbane76]

Never trained in it myself, my teach did for a good while. Which most of the stuff filtered down to us through him. One form I really liked from that system was Iron Dog. I've actually got my teacher on video doing some of the forms from there, Sun dragon, and a couple weapons forms.

Your teachers are about 3 hours away from me.:) Actually I live 15min. away from Morgantown WV.

[lkfmdc]

One form I really liked from that system was Iron Dog.



MAS, MAS, MAS!

He said "iron dog" :D

[Mas Judt]

OMG. (Too much inside information.)

Yeah, I met Decker back in the 80's. Hard to evaluate my opinions as I did not know then what I know now... but he seemed like a phenom to me then, and the students he brought with him were very, very good to my Judo trained eyes. The applications he taught in class were strange, but his students could certainly fight.

I won't knock the system or the man's skill, but the predatory nature and low moral character a real turn off when you are in a MA scenario. Only later did I learn how depraved the guy was.

But this does not mean his current guys aren't good players or good people. Just keep your eyes open.

[Mas Judt]

Um, I'm referring to martial arts skill when talking about what I know/knew.

It was obvious how creepy he was even then. Once I recall even being recruited to help steer him away from 'vulnerable' students.

Yikes.

[ablinkin]

Morgantown.....who is your teacher...do you train in Kung Fu?

yeh, I am kinda gathering that the guy was d@mn creepy.
Thank God my Sifu is not like that LOL.

[Mas Judt]

Once you penetrate the surface, there are a lot of creepy people out in CMA scene. Fortunately, the decent folks still out number them...

[MasterKiller]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WBJgU3Z5g7Y

[Mas Judt]

Oh, and the 'Chi Lin' symbol is a direct rip from Chiu Chi-in's Hung Ga association logo....

[Black Jack II]

Here is a popular kali player in the chicagoland area who has some serious issues.

http://www.isp.state.il.us/sor/offenderdetails.cfm?SORID=E96F5878&CFID=582217&CFTOKEN=35425925&jsessionid=90306c7305bfI$10Yt$B

Plus was not that iron palm player Bryan Gray sentanced for messing around with kids?

[Mas Judt]

Sadly, I knew Nate before this happened. I never would have guessed he had that in him. You really need to know who you train with.

It's scary how many f@cked up teachers I've stumbled across. Thankfully I have known more who were good people.

[MasterKiller]

Plus was not that iron palm player Bryan Gray sentanced for messing around with kids?

No, the charges were dropped, IIRC.

[lkfmdc]

No, the charges were dropped, IIRC.

IIRC turned out to be a concentual (sp?) relationship, though the fact he was gay obviously came out..

[Mas Judt]

All this info 'coming out' about predatory behavior makes one realize why clinching the sphincter is critcal day one training in CMA....

[lkfmdc]

All this info 'coming out' about predatory behavior makes one realize why clinching the sphincter is critcal day one training in CMA....

(cymbil crash)

thanks folks, thank you, I'll be here all week, don't forget to tip your waitress

[Dragonzbane76]

Morgantown.....who is your teacher...do you train in Kung Fu?

My teachers were Sifu McClain and Sifu McCullough. I currently have my own class I teach along with another member of this board at Fairmont ST. I teach Pai Lum/Judo/MMA/ all around stuff. Primary is Pai Lum which was my base style if you would call it that.

[Dragonzbane76]

MAS, MAS, MAS!

He said "iron dog"

Haha... good form reminded me of a hung ga form, but i wouldn't classify it as such. Many would be the furious hung ga if I stated it so. LOL :)

[ablinkin]

Dragonzbane76,

I didnt realize there was a kung fu scene in Morgantown, I am up there periodically, next time I will have to look up your school, if it is an open school?

[Dragonzbane76]

HAHA well you have to look for it.

Sure thing man give me a PM and work out the details. I'm not in morgantown exactly but yeah if your up this way come on over and have a work out.

[ablinkin]

rock on man, I will for sure!

our Kung Fu scene here is not so hot, we have 2 schools here.....
but we have about 200 TKD schools :)

[GeneChing]

Lair of King Tongmyong's Unicorn Reconfirmed in DPRK (http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm)
Pyongyang, November 29 (KCNA) -- Archaeologists of the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences have recently reconfirmed a lair of the unicorn rode by King Tongmyong, founder of the Koguryo Kingdom (B.C. 277-A.D. 668).

The lair is located 200 meters from the Yongmyong Temple in Moran Hill in Pyongyang City. A rectangular rock carved with words "Unicorn Lair" stands in front of the lair. The carved words are believed to date back to the period of Koryo Kingdom (918-1392).

Jo Hui Sung, director of the Institute, told KCNA:

"Korea's history books deal with the unicorn, considered to be ridden by King Tongmyong, and its lair.

The Sogyong (Pyongyang) chapter of the old book 'Koryo History' (geographical book), said: Ulmil Pavilion is on the top of Mt. Kumsu, with Yongmyong Temple, one of Pyongyang's eight scenic spots, beneath it. The temple served as a relief palace for King Tongmyong, in which there is the lair of his unicorn.

The old book 'Sinjungdonggukyojisungnam' (Revised Handbook of Korean Geography) complied in the 16th century wrote that there is a lair west of Pubyok Pavilion in Mt. Kumsu.

The discovery of the unicorn lair, associated with legend about King Tongmyong, proves that Pyongyang was a capital city of Ancient Korea as well as Koguryo Kingdom."

Coincidentally, I'm running an article on Chinese unicorns in our next issue (not the Jan+Feb 2013 (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1199102), the Mar+Apr 2013). I am totally serious about this.


North Korea Has Found a Secret Unicorn Lair, Apparently (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/11/north-korea-says-they-unearthed-unicorn-lair/59483/)
Alexander Abad-Santos 148,805 Views 8:44 AM ET

"Archaeologists of the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences have recently reconfirmed a lair of the unicorn rode by King Tongmyong, founder of the Koguryo Kingdom," reports the — wait. Stop. UNICORNS? That's an actual snippet from a report from the Korean Central News Agency, the state news agency of North Korea and fine, okay, we totally understand that this might be a retaliatory joke in response to China getting fooled by The Onion naming Kim Jong-un the Sexiest Man Alive or something.

But experts don't lie, do they?

Jo Hui Sung, director of the Institute, told KCNA:

"Korea's history books deal with the unicorn, considered to be ridden by King Tongmyong, and its lair.

And these are the history books Hoi Sung is talking about :

The Sogyong (Pyongyang) chapter of the old book 'Koryo History' (geographical book), said: Ulmil Pavilion is on the top of Mt. Kumsu, with Yongmyong Temple, one of Pyongyang's eight scenic spots, beneath it. The temple served as a relief palace for King Tongmyong, in which there is the lair of his unicorn.

And there's more. It's not like this is a National Enquirer/Bat Boy type of fleeting story. This one has significance It looks like North Korea is using the unicorn lair to prove a bigger point:

The discovery of the unicorn lair, associated with legend about King Tongmyong, proves that Pyongyang was a capital city of Ancient Korea as well as Koguryo Kingdom.

Taking into account that this is the same country with news agencies telling their people that mountains cry and birds lament when Kim Jong-il died and did so because he was sent down from the cosmos to destroy the Japanese to sink holes in one and that's totally normal, this isn't too far-fetched of a — you know what? I give up.

Note: As a commenter has pointed out, western ideas of a unicorn and Korean ideas of a unicorn are a bit different and a unicorn is called a Qilin in Korea. It's still a mythical creature. You can see the Qilin here.

[Kellen Bassette]

It is incredible how many diverse groups of ancient people came up with dragons and unicorns. I mean, could all these societies have had communication thousands of years ago?

Not just Asian cultures either, you'll find dragons and unicorns in books and artwork through the Himalayas, the Middle East, Europe, the Bible, ect... ect...
Do we all have the same imagination, or was it more...just saying...

[sanjuro_ronin]

It is incredible how many diverse groups of ancient people came up with dragons and unicorns. I mean, could all these societies have had communication thousands of years ago?

Not just Asian cultures either, you'll find dragons and unicorns in books and artwork through the Himalayas, the Middle East, Europe, the Bible, ect... ect...
Do we all have the same imagination, or was it more...just saying...

First off, what we name things may not be what things were.
Second, just because we don't have those things NOW< doesn't mean they never were.
3rd, things aren't always what they seem...
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/29259726.jpg

[Kellen Bassette]

How come everyone on the history channel nowadays seems like one of those characters??:eek:

[GeneChing]

Unicorn is definitely a mistranslation of Chilin (or Qilin 麒麟) which is a common mythological creature in Asian legend. I imagine Asians would have as much difficulty translating Chimeara.

As for this author, hasn't he ever been to a Japanese restaurant? :rolleyes:
http://www.kirin.com/portals/0/images/ichiban_ichiban_light.jpg


North Korea 'Secret Unicorn Lair' May Have Belonged To Beast With Dragon Head, Deer Body, Cow Tail (PHOTO) (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/08/north-korea-unicorn-lair-beast-dragon-head-deer-body_n_2259988.html)
Posted: 12/08/2012 11:59 am EST | Updated: 12/08/2012 12:06 pm EST

Was it a unicorn or something even more bizarre?

In a bizarre twist to the earlier claim that archeologists had found a secret unicorn lair in North Korea, new reports claim that the liar may not have been the stomping grounds of the legendary animal after all. Instead, the fabled resting place, located in Pyongyang, may have belonged to this mythical mishmash of a beast:
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/895056/original.jpg
mythical north korean creature unicorn
(Courtesy: Gawker Media)

Citing a report on the International Business Times, Gizmodo's Jesus Diaz, who put the composite image of the strange animal together, writes:

[T]he magic unicorn was based on a "mistranslation" of the original study. The reality is that the unicorn lair was actually the nest of a "beast with a dragon's head, a deer's body, the tail of a cow, hooves and a mane."

I put together the illustration above so you can clearly picture this amazing beast. It's definitely not a unicorn.

The "magical" animal hideaway made headlines last month when a North Korean state news agency reported the bizarre news that archaeologists had found "the lair of a unicorn once ridden by an ancient Korean king."

According to an earlier Huffington Post report, Korean Central News Agency claimed that the "lair of the mythical creature is located 200 meters (about 219 yards) from the Yongmyong Temple in Pyongyang. A rock that sits in front of the lair contains carvings that some believe date back to the period of the Koryo Kingdom (918-1392)."

However, experts have since asserted that a mistranslation of the original Korean had likely led to the misuse of the word "unicorn" to describe the lair's former occupant.

Sixiang Wang, a Korean scholar, explained to i09 that "Kiringul," the name archeologists used to describe the lair, has nothing to do with unicorns.

James Grayson, emeritus professor of Korean studies at Sheffield University, told the Guardian that the confusion had centered on the translation of the word kirin or qilin, which he describes as "a four-legged beast with a dragon's head." Sukyeon Cho, a colleague of Grayson's, added that kirins have "the body of a deer, the tail of a cow, hooves and a mane, as well as a horn jutting out from the top of their heads."

Hmm.

[mawali]

It's an Asian Pegasus! How delightful!

[GeneChing]

See Qilin: Kung Fu's Other Martial Dance By Williy Pang (March/April 2013 (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=1082)).

[lkfmdc]

well, ask the typical English speaker to describe / explain a Chimeara and see what happens....

[GeneChing]

I'll start with this little news item:


Genghis Khan versus the Unicorn (http://www.historytoday.com/geoffrey-humble/genghis-khan-versus-unicorn)
By Geoffrey Humble
Posted 29th March 2016, 9:54
The Mongol leader's encounter with a mystical beast marked him as a great leader, but says at least as much about his adviser.

http://www.historytoday.com/sites/default/files/history-matters/unicorn.jpg
Mirror stand in the shape of a unicorn. Chinese, 1100-1350

Mongol forces were poised to enter the territory of the Delhi Sultanate in northern India in 1224, after a long campaign against the forces of the Shah of Khwarazmshah in Transoxania and eastern Iran. After destroying the shah’s forces in the Punjab, however, Genghis Khan returned north, leaving the sultanate intact. The Persian historian Juzjani, writing from exile in Delhi, reported that a combination of climate, terrain and divination caused Genghis’ return. The latter may relate to an encounter, described in Chinese histories, between Genghis and a single-horned animal and its interpretation by the Khan’s adviser Yelü Chucai (1189-1243).

The encounter is recorded in two medieval biographies of Chucai, a scholar and official in Mongol service, which locate it near the Iron Gate Pass in ‘East India’ (the Buzgala Pass, in modern Uzbekistan). ‘Shaped like a deer [with] the tail of a horse, green in colour and with a single horn’, the animal could ‘speak like a human’ and addressed the imperial bodyguard, recommending: ‘Your lord should return early.’ Genghis turned to Chucai for an explanation and, on receiving it, followed the creature’s advice by withdrawing immediately.

Genghis had given Chucai the nickname Urtu Saqal (‘Longbeard’) at their first meeting. He had already spent six years in the Khan’s retinue, interpreting various portents – deep summer snow, a winter thunderstorm, a meteor – as omens of victory. Ordered to perform divination before every campaign, Chucai conducted scrying sessions at which his calculations were compared to Genghis’ own from scapulimancy (charring sheep’s shoulder blades and reading the cracks).

Chucai was descended from the Kitan Yelü family, which had ruled northern China and Inner Asia from 907 to 1125 as the Liao Dynasty. After its fall, his father and grandfather served the Jin Dynasty (1125-1234). Chucai received an education based on the Confucian canon, covering medicine, mathematics, astrology and music and got top marks in the civil service examination set by Jin emperor Zhangzong. After surviving the Mongol siege of Zhongdu (now Beijing) in 1214-15, he spent several years at a Buddhist retreat. He was among many Kitan aristocrats recruited by Genghis in the vital and fluid frontier between the plains of China and the Inner Asian steppe. Besides divination, Chucai governed former Jin territories conquered under Genghis, the second Great Khan Ögödei and Ögödei’s widow, Töregene, until his death in 1243.

Chucai drew on his education to identify the single-horned animal as a jueduan, a loan word related to Sanskrit khadga and Persian kargadān, ‘rhinoceros’. This fits modern scholars’ conclusions that this is an embroidered encounter with the Indian rhinoceros. Chucai’s explanation is less mundane; paraphrasing the Songshu, the history of the southern Chinese Liu Song Dynasty (420-79), he reported to Genghis:

Able to travel 18,000 li [6,000 miles] in a day, it understands the languages of the four yi [i.e., foreigners]; symbolizing the abhorrence of taking life, it must have been sent from Heaven Above to warn Your Majesty.
Chucai’s identification is selective. Chinese readers might know that the Songshu goes on to state that the jueduan appears at times of enlightened rule and would be expected to present the monarch with a message.

Chucai interpreted the jueduan and its message as meaning ‘return early’. Both biographies quote him telling Genghis that the animal brings him a message expressing divine will. Choosing to accept this confirms Genghis as a monarch worthy of receiving such a message and links heaven’s will to the protection of human life. Sitting uneasily alongside what we know of the Mongol conquest after 1224, Genghis’ obedient withdrawal seems an insufficient reaction to such a message. For readers of the encounter in the Yuanshi, the most important source on Mongol rule in China, the episode both confirms and questions the divine basis of Genghis’ authority.

As importantly, however, Chucai’s identification of the jueduan makes him a sage in a long Chinese intellectual tradition.

Beside the animals’ nature as messengers to rulers, accounts of such encounters, prominently with the ‘Chinese unicorn’ qilin (Japanese kirin, hence the beer), similarly associated with royal status, emphasise those who recognise and name them. Chucai is thus linked to Confucius himself, who reportedly identified a qilin from eyewitness descriptions in 481 bc. It is also significant that, whether or not Genghis is a monarch worthy of messages from heaven, Chucai is clearly essential to his understanding of those messages. Chucai’s sagehood is, it seems, far more secure than Genghis’ empire, and the appearance of the jueduan – rhino or unicorn – is no simple event, but a tale making Yelü Chucai more than equal to his warlike rulers.

Geoffrey Humble is a PhD student at the University of Birmingham, researching imperial Mongol historiography.

[GeneChing]

Giant Siberian unicorn may have existed at the same time as humans, fossil find hints (http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/giant-siberian-unicorn-may-have-existed-same-time-humans-fossilized-skull-hints)
MICHAEL GRAHAM RICHARD
March 28, 2016, 2:21 p.m.

http://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2016/03/siberian-unicorn-painting-01.jpg.653x0_q80_crop-smart.jpg
A painting from the 1920s by Heinrich Harder showing what the Siberian unicorn might have looked like. (Photo: /Wikimedia Commons)

The discovery of a fossilized skull in Kazakhstan is making paleontologists rewrite the timeline of the Siberian unicorn, Elasmotherium sibiricum. This impressive animal was a real-life unicorn, though it didn’t match the image most of us have for the fairytale creature.

Closer to a rhino than a horse in appearance, it was similar in stature to the mammoth. Measuring up to 6.5 feet tall and almost 15 feet long, it weighed up to 9,000 pounds. Its most recognizable feature was its single horn, which is thought to have been much longer than a rhino’s, up to multiple feet long. Its habitat was the vast territory from the Don River in Russia to east of modern Kazakhstan.

Here's a reconstructed Siberian unicorn skull at the London Natural History Museum. Note how sword-like the horn is, very different from the horn of a modern rhino.

http://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2016/03/Elasmotherium-sibiricum-siberian-unicorn-002.jpg.838x0_q80.jpg
A Siberian unicorn's reconstructed skull and horn. (Photo: Ghedoghedo/Wikipedia)

The Siberian unicorn, which first emerged in the fossil record around 2.5 million years ago, was thought to have disappeared 350,000 years ago. But the discovery made by researchers from Tomsk State University in Siberia, Russia, seems to show that E. sibiricum might have stuck around much longer. In fact, the beast and humans might have met, since our ancestors began spreading across Asia more than 50,000 years ago and likely went to Siberia around 35,000 years ago.

The well-preserved skull found in the Pavlodar Priirtysh region of northeast Kazakhstan was dated using the radiocarbon Accelerator Mass Spectrometry method and found to be about 29,000 years old. "Most likely, it was a very large male of very large individual age. The dimensions of this rhino are the biggest of those described in the literature, and the proportions are typical," Andrey Shpanski, a paleontologist at Tomsk State University, said in Phys.org. These findings are described in the American Journal of Applied Science.

It’s not yet clear why a Siberian unicorn was alive so long after the rest of the species was thought to be extinct, but scientists have some theories: "Most likely, the south of Western Siberia was a refúgium, where this rhino persevered the longest in comparison with the rest of its range. There is another possibility that it could migrate and dwell for a while in the more southern areas," said Shpanski.

http://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2016/03/Elasmotherium_1878.jpg.838x0_q80.jpg
This is the first published restoration of Elasmotherium sibiricum. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)


Michael Graham Richard ( @Michael_GR ) Michael writes for MNN and TreeHugger about science, space and technology and more.

The unicorn/chi lin translation never quite worked for me. Just like the dragon/long translation, these mythical creatures aren't quite analogous, neither in their appearance nor their symbolism.

[GeneChing]

Weird Qilin story. Maybe the Feng Shui backlash of the Starsucks Unicorn Frappacino?


Mystery of the dragon warrior: Experts are puzzled by a giant earth pattern found on a rural Chinese mountain (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-4466508/Experts-puzzled-giant-mysterious-pattern-mountain.html)

Alleged pattern was spotted on Mengding Mountain in Sichuan Province
It's thought to depict a warrior riding a dragon-like mythical creature
Experts have studied it for 10 years, but couldn't explain why, said reports

By TRACY YOU FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 07:00 EDT, 3 May 2017 | UPDATED: 07:35 EDT, 3 May 2017

A mysterious pattern found on a rural Chinese mountain has reportedly kept scientists puzzled for a decade.

The supposed formation, situated on Mengding Mountain in Sichuan Province, is thought by many to depict a warrior riding a dragon-like mythical creature, known as Qilin.

Despite on-going research effort, experts are yet to give explanation on how the pattern has formed, according to Chinese media.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/05/03/11/3FE34DA100000578-4466508-image-a-15_1493807880258.jpg
Chinese experts have tried to demystified a mysterious pattern in Sichuan Province, China

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/05/03/10/3FD9094000000578-4466508-image-a-2_1493802168928.jpg
An illustration released by China Global Television Network shows what the image is supposed to look like. Many think it depicts a warrior riding a Qilin, a dragon-like mythical creature

The alleged pattern was discovered in 2007 by a Chinese man who was using Google map to see the satellite images of his hometown, according to Huanqiu.com, a part of People's Daily group.

The man, named Xie Qiang, worked for the Beijing General Research Institute of Mining of Metallurgy at the time.

In an interview with China Central Television Station, Mr Xie said that he was using Google satellite to look for his hometown Ya'an, but his attention was quickly drawn by some lines on the surface of the mountains nearby.

The man said: 'First, I saw the silhouette of a human face.

'Then when I zoomed out to see the entire Mengding Mountain, I saw more than a human face. In fact, I saw a pattern that looks like a warrior riding a Qilin.'

Qilin, an auspicious creature in ancient Chinese mythology, is said to have the head of a dragon, the body of a deer, the tail of an ox and the hooves of a horse.

Mr Xie thought the warrior looked like a gladiator in particular because of the shape of his helmet.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/05/03/11/3FE350A400000578-4466508-image-a-7_1493807723538.jpg
The supposed pattern was discovered in 2007 by Xie Qiang as he was using Google map. Mr Xie thought part of it looked like a warrior, in particular a gladiator (pictured)

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/05/03/11/3FE2C0BC00000578-4466508-image-m-6_1493807639773.jpg
Mr Xie also said the pattern included a Qilin (pictured), which is a mythical creature in China

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/05/03/10/3FDB072700000578-4466508-image-a-4_1493802177938.jpg
The 'dragon warrior' pattern is situated on Mengding Mountain on the 30th parallel north

According to Mr Xie, the pattern measures about 6.2 miles (10 kilometres) long and 2.5 miles (four kilometres) wide, and is situated on the 30th parallel north, or latitude 30 degrees north.

Since Mr Xie published his so-called discovery, Chinese scientists and media have tried to demystify the phenomenon.

Teams of experts were said to be sent to the area to study its geological features while documentaries about the mysterious pattern have been aired on state TV.

Wang Chaozheng, a resident of the Houyan village near the mysterious site, told a reporter from Huaxi City Daily that the locals have long heard about the alleged pattern.

Mr Wang, 70, said: 'It's been featured on TV many times. Experts have come here to study too. However, so far nobody knows how it has formed.'


SPECULATIONS: HOW DID THE PATTERN COME INTO BEING?
Over the years, many speculations have emerged on Chinese media, which tried to explain the origins of the 'dragon warrior pattern'.

Below are three examples.

1. Dug by ancient residents:

It's been suggested that ancient residents in the area had created the giant pattern by digging trenches on the ground.

According to the theory, Mengding Mountain had many tea plantations. The pattern was used to worship the 'Tea God'.

However, Xie Qiang, who discovered the pattern, opposed to the theory. He said it would have been too difficult for the ancient Chinese to carry out a big project as such.

2. Created by a meteorite

Some people have suggested that the pattern was created after a meteorite had hit the area in ancient times.

However, Xie, a metallurgist himself, said the power of a meteorite wouldn't have been strong enough to make such an impact.

3. Centuries of erosion

Some geologists suggested that it wasn't a purposefully drawn pattern.

They suspected that these are random lines carved on the sandstone by rainwater. When they are viewed as a whole, they happen to imitate the suggested image.

Source: Huanqiu.com/Huaxi City Daily

[GeneChing]

'Unicorn': Nothing Is What It Seems (https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/unicorn-nothing-is-what-it-seems)
Unicorns didn’t always look like that.

Poor Marco Polo. The 13th century Italian explorer had finally gotten a glimpse of a unicorn and he was sorely disappointed:


Their hair is like that of a buffalo, and their feet like those of an elephant. In the middle of the forehead they have a very large black horn…. Their head is like that of a wild boar, and is always carried bent to the ground. They delight in living in mire and in mud. It is a hideous beast to look at, and in no way like what we think and say in our countries, namely a beast that lets itself be taken in the lap of a virgin. Indeed, I assure you that it is quite the opposite of what we say it is.

https://assets.merriam-webster.com/mw/images/article/art-wap-article-main/alt-59d3b3f724f02-4320-392adc05182bb6591a9c5e18649636b3@1x.jpg
Best stock photo search ever.

It's not hard to feel for him. Like the rest of us, he thought he knew what a unicorn looked like. Most of his contemporaries did too, as it was a very popular animal in the medieval equivalent of the Internet, i.e. art and literature. Just like today, medieval depictions of unicorns varied from artist to artist, but in general it was similar to the one we know: it was a horse-like (or goat-like) creature, pure white in color and dainty and refined in appearance. Unique to this marvelous animal was one long and tapering horn that grew straight out from its forehead. But where did this image come from? And what animal was Marco Polo so underwhelmed by?

First things first: we can blame the Greek physician and historian Ctesias for the kernel of the ideal unicorn. As Margaret Beam Freeman reports in The Unicorn Tapestries, Ctesias was the first person to write about the one-horned animal. She quotes from his book Indica, written around 400 BCE:


There are in India certain wild asses which are as large as horses and even larger. Their bodies are white, their heads are dark red, and their eyes dark blue. They have a horn in the middle of the forehead that is one cubit [about a foot and a half] in length; the base of this horn is pure white … the upper part is sharp and of a vivid crimson, and the middle portion is black. … Other asses, tame or wild … do not have an ankle-bone… but these do have an ankle-bone … the most beautiful that I have ever seen…. This animal is exceedingly swift and powerful, so that no creature, neither the horse nor any other, can overtake it….

This early description gave the world the image of the horse-like body, the white color, and the single horn, an image that would later be transformed into the medieval unicorn. (And note the ankle bone. Swoon.) But it seems clear from several of Ctesias's statements that he actually had the Indian rhinoceros in mind (or perhaps someone's description of it—Ctesias himself never visited India). The Indian rhinoceros and one other Far-Eastern species are the only land mammals with one horn (the two species of African rhinoceros have two horns). Ctesias mentions the pharmaceutical value of the horn from the "Indian wild ass"; rhinoceroses have suffered for centuries from the supposed value of their horns as aphrodisiacs and antidotes. He considered the wild ass very fleet and difficult to capture; the Indian rhinoceros, despite its lumbering appearance, is swift, and its capture is both difficult and dangerous. But the Indian rhinoceros has a massive, ungainly body, stumpy legs, and a thick, folded hide that looks like plates of armor. With the exception of its single horn, it is profoundly unlike the lithe unicorn of medieval art, and one can understand why Marco Polo wasn't exactly dazzled.

How did this huge and distinctly undainty beast get turned into a beautiful white horse? The beautiful ankle bone may have played a part, but a linguistic fumble likely shares some of them blame. We start with the word rhinoceros, based on the Greek rhin-, "nose," and keras, "horn," an accurate enough name for the animal. All rhinoceros species do have horns (more precisely, masses of compressed hairlike material), more or less on the nose. And what about unicorn? That means "one horn," from the Latin uni-, "one," and cornu, "horn." While this is a descriptive name for the rhinoceros, unicorn was originally applied to something entirely different.

When scholars were translating the Bible's Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek in the third century B.C.E., they encountered a mysteriously named animal. The Hebrew word for this creature was re'em, and the beast was evidently large and powerful. In Job 39:9–11 the writer asks, as the 1611 King James Version puts it:


Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?

Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?

Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labor to him?

Modern scholars believe the re'em was the aurochs, or wild ox, which is now extinct. The Revised Standard Version of the Bible, published in 1952, translates the passage differently to reflect this belief:


Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night at your crib?

Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes, or will he harrow the valleys after you?

Will you depend on him because his strength is great, and will you leave to him your labor?

Although our modern view of the creature referred to here is quite different, ancient scholars had to come up with a Greek word for it, so, drawing on garbled descriptions of the rhinoceros, they settled on the Greek word monokeros, meaning "one horn." (Monokeros had already been used by some writers for the Indian rhinoceros.) The Latin version of the Bible turned this word into unicornus, which in English became unicorn.

To sum up: vague information on two different animals, the Indian rhinoceros and the aurochs, was conflated to produce another, imaginary animal, the unicorn. Then medieval writers, who tended to see the natural world as a single, unified allegory of Christian history and doctrine, turned this biblical animal into a symbol for Christ. And thus Marco Polo's disappointment was made inevitable.

You, we should mention, are not required to join Mr. Polo in that disappointment. There's no reason why you can't enjoy the same old unicorn t-shirts and unicorn stickers and unicorn makeup and unicorn card games and unicorn noodles you always have. And certainly the business world need not stop its metaphorical unicorning at the one we've already written about—by all means bring on the the "unicorn dinosaur" too. We'll deal with it if we have to. Words are not ruined by their histories.

One last question we'll address here: why is it unicorn and not unihorn? Besides the fact that it traces back to the Greek monokeros, the h at the beginning of the Old English word horn didn't sound like our h. It was a scraping of the tongue in the back of the mouth kind of sound (technically a voiceless velar fricative), like the Scottish ch at the end of loch. It sounded a lot more like corn than is apparent to a modern speaker, which we hope will be of some comfort to our readers.

And there you have it: the original unicorn was a rhinoceros; our ancestors pronounced horn a lot like corn; and the business world is trying to make unicorn dinosaur happen. Don't let any of it prevent you from squeeing over the next unicorn you see.

Not really about the qilin (the unicorn translation of qilin is poor because qilins have two horns, but that translation persists so we won't quibble). At least it mentions Marco Polo (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?62877-Marco-Polo-Netflix-Original-Series).

[GeneChing]

I'm splitting the Chi Lin thread (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?46883-Chi-Lin) into a separate Unicorns thread on the Off Topic subforum. (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70511-Unicorns) The topics really are distinct. Unicorn is a crappy translation for Chi Lin.


Iceland's 'unicorn' goes under the hammer (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-41566531)
By News from Elsewhere...
...as found by BBC Monitoring
10 October 2017 News from Elsewhere

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/960/cpsprodpb/469D/production/_95777081_unicorn2.jpg
ERLA POREY OLAFSDOTTIR Einhyrningur's unique appearance may yet save him from the abbattoir

There's good news for a single-horned ram found in Iceland earlier this year, after it emerged that he's been saved from the slaughterhouse.

Einhyrningur, which incidentally is Icelandic for 'unicorn', was found among Erla Porey Olafsdottir's flock with his horns fused into one, and become an internet sensation around the world .

As the Iceland Monitor reported at the time , Einhyrningur was destined for the slaughterhouse. Reykjavik Zoo offered to take him, but Iceland's strict animal movement rules meant he couldn't go there, and his sale options were limited.

However, the animal's future seems a little brighter now with the news that he's to be auctioned for local charities next month, Frettir news website reports.

Owner Erla says she's kept Einhyrningur out of the limelight since his brush with fame in April.

"He just spent the summer in the fields with the other rams. But he's a bit of a loner, he gets left out a bit. I don't know if it's because he's different or whether he just chooses to be alone for some reason," she told Iceland Monitor .

Erla's only real concern for the ram is about the horn itself.

"Of course, the horn has grown a lot, and my children are still worried that it will eventually grow into his back because it bends back and forth," she says.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/960/cpsprodpb/17B35/production/_95777079_unicorn1.jpg
ERLA POREY OLAFSDOTTIR Einhyrningur will be sold to help local charities

Reporting by Alistair Coleman

[David Jamieson]

I think the pattern figure looks like Mithras slaying the bull, but that's just my perception.
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