Classic of Mountains and Seas, 1597, plate XXV (detail)

Jingwei () is a bird in

Chinese mythology Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature in the geographic area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology includes many varied myths from regional and cultural traditions. Much of ...

, who was transformed from Yandi's daughter Nüwa.Yang & An (2005), 154–155. She is also a goddess in Chinese mythology. After she drowned when playing in the Eastern Sea, she metamorphosed into a bird called Jingwei. Jingwei is determined to fill up the sea, so she continuously carries a pebble or twig in her mouth and drops it into the Eastern Sea.

Classic version

The story is recorded in the '' Shanhaijing'': The poet Tao Qian mentioned Jingwei in his ''Thirteen Poems upon Reading the Guideways through Mountains and Seas'', where he made an association between Jingwei and

Xingtian Xingtian (, also Hsing T'ien) is a Chinese deity who fights against the Supreme Divinity, not giving up even after the event of his decapitation. Losing the fight for supremacy, he was beheaded and his head buried in Changyang Mountain. Neverthele ...

in their persistence to overcome tragedies but also mentions their inability to be free from it:Strassberg, 18.

" ingweibites hold of twigs, determined to fill up the deep-blue sea. Xingtian dances wildly with spear and shield, his old ambitions still burn fiercely. After blending with things, no anxieties should remain. After metamorphosing, all one's regrets should flee. In vain do they cling to their hearts from the past. How can they, a better day, foresee?"

In popular culture

Jingwei has a dialogue with the sea where the sea scoffs at her, saying that she won't be able to fill it up even in a million years, whereupon she retorts that she will spend ten million years, even one hundred million years, whatever it takes to fill up the sea so that others would not have to perish as she did. From this myth comes the Chinese ''

chengyu ''Chengyu'' () are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expression, most of which consist of four characters. ''Chengyu'' were widely used in Classical Chinese and are still common in vernacular Chinese writing and in the spoken language ...

'' (four-character idiom) "Jingwei Tries To Fill the Sea" ( 精衛填海), meaning dogged determination and perseverance in the face of seemingly impossible odds. She is also a playable Smite heroine.

Fruit fly genetics

Professo
Manyuan Long
of the University of Chicago named a ''

Drosophila ''Drosophila'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many speci ...

'' gene (jgw) after JingweiLong, M., C. H. Langley 1993. Natural selection and the origin of jingwei, a chimeric processed functional gene in Drosophila. Science 260: 91-9

/ref> because it is - like the princess - "reincarnated" with a new function and a new appearance (structure). Related genes were named following

External links

Wang, Wen, ''et al''. "The Origin of the ''Jingwei'' Gene and the Complex Modular Structure of Its Parental Gene, ''Yellow Emperor'', in ''Drosophila melanogaster''". From ''Molecular Biology and Evolution'', Volume 17, Issue 9, 1 September 2000, Pages 1294–1301.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * {{Chinese mythology Mythological and legendary Chinese birds Chinese goddesses