Chinese Dragon

The decorations for the Chinese new year which is on the 8th Feb are being done in different parts of the city in full swing. We saw this huge dragon at the Box Hill suburb mall which seemed to be different than other festival decorations.

Till date I never knew what the dragon represents in Chinese culture and why it is a part of their celebration (especially the new year parade). When I read about it, I got to know that Chinese Dragons are legendary creatures in Chinese mythology and Chinese folklore.

Chinese dragons traditionally symbolize potent and auspicious powers, particularly control over water, rainfall, typhoons, and floods. The dragon is also a symbol of power, strength, and good luck for people who are worthy of it. With this, the Emperor of China usually used the dragon as a symbol of his imperial power and strength.

In Chinese daily language, excellent and outstanding people are compared to a dragon, while incapable people with no achievements are compared with other, disesteemed creatures, such as a worm. A number of Chinese proverbs and idioms feature references to a dragon, for example: "Hoping one's son will become a dragon"!

On our graduation day, there was a speech delivered by Xungai Wang (Director of Institute for Frontier Materials at Deakin University) who addressed the graduates on how their journey ahead should progress. He said that there is an alphabet in Chinese which looks like a person with his hands wide spread out. Explaining its meaning in English he rightly pointed that unless you take an effort to learn and gain knowledge as much as you can you will not be able to sustain in this competant world. You need to have the hunger to learn new stuff relating to your field of study which would help you climb up the success ladder.