This is an interesting Chinese folk tale. Many Chinese people may have heard of this story.

A giant named Pan Gu made the earth. The light air became the blue sky and the dark heavy air became the ground. Fearing that the sky and ground would mix together, Pan Gu raised the sky with his hands.

One day, Pan Gu was so exhausted that he collapsed to the ground. Since then, he could never stand up again but the sky and the ground never mixed together again. Many years later, Pan Gu’s limbs turned into mountains and his blood into rivers. His eyes became the sun and the moon, his hair became the stars in the sky and trees and flowers on the ground.

Upon seeing the sight of the new world, a beautiful and kind goddess called Nv Wa saw her own reflection in the yellow river and decided to use mud to make clay dolls. She blew masculine air into the dolls and made them men who were brave and strong. She breathed feminine air into the others and made them women who were kind and beautiful. She soon made lots of clay dolls and set up the marriage system so that men and women could give birth to more children and human beings could live on.

One day, there was a hole in the sky and it caused a flood. Nv Wa saw what had happened and decided to mend the hole immediately. She put 5 colored stones into a huge pot and the stones melted to become dense liquid. Nv Wa used the liquid to mend the hole. Finally, the sky was mended. As she was worried that the sky might fall down and the misfortune would befall on the people again, she caught a 10,000 year old turtle and cut of its legs to use them as pillars to hold the sky.  The earth became peaceful and calm again..  J

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