Jingwei

Jingwei (traditional Chinese: 精衛; simplified Chinese: 精卫; pinyin: Jīngwèi; Wade–Giles: Ching-wei; lit. 'Spirit Guardian') is a bird in Chinese mythology. She began as the daughter of a powerful figure named Yandi. After she sadly drowned while playing in the Eastern Sea, she transformed into a bird known as Jingwei.

As a bird, Jingwei has a very determined mission. She wants to fill up the entire Eastern Sea. To do this, she continuously flies to the shore, picks up a small pebble or a twig in her mouth, and drops it into the sea. This story shows her endless effort and her wish to change the sea forever.

Classic version

The story of Jingwei comes from an old book called the Shanhaijing. It tells of a bird named Jingwei who looks like a crow with a patterned head, a white beak, and red feet. Jingwei was once the younger daughter of a leader named Nüwa. Nüwa was swimming in the Eastern Sea when she couldn’t get back to shore and couldn’t return. She then changed into the bird Jingwei. Now, Jingwei carries twigs and stones from the Western Mountains to try to fill up the Eastern Sea. There is also a river called the Zhang River that starts nearby and flows into the Yellow River.

A poet named Tao Qian wrote about Jingwei in his poems. He compared her to another figure, Xingtian, saying both were very determined but still faced sadness.

In popular culture

Jingwei tells the sea that no matter how long it takes, even if it is a hundred million years, she will keep trying to fill it so that others won’t suffer like she did. This story gave us a famous Chinese saying, "Jingwei Tries To Fill the Sea," which means never giving up, even when something seems impossible.

In 1988, a big painting showing Jingwei’s story was shown at Tianjin railway station. She is also a character you can play as in the game Smite.

Fruit fly genetics

Professor Manyuan Long of the University of Chicago named a Drosophila gene (jgw) after Jingwei. He did this because the gene, like the princess in the story, gains a new function and looks different after being reborn. Other related genes were also named using ideas from Chinese mythology.