Translation by Xueting C. Ni
About the author
Xinfeng Xike, an emerging science fiction author born in Northeast China in 1994. He holds a Master’s degree from Beijing Normal University and currently resides in Jilin, Changchun. He has worked as an independent game developer and book publisher, authoring over 10 children’s picture books. Presently, he holds the role of an editor for a scientific journal focused on technology. He has a passion for reading and writes in his spare time.
About the translator
Xueting C. Ni is a British Chinese culture writer, curator and literary translator. She has written extensively on China’s culture since 2010, working with institutions, festivals and companies such as the BBC, Confucius Institute and Tordotcom to further understanding and exchange. Her non-fiction writing includes From Kuan Yin to Chairman Mao: An Essential Guide to Chinese Deities (Weiser Books) and Chinese Myths (Amber Books). Her SFF translations include the curated sci-fi anthology Sinopticon (Solaris) and horror anthology Sinophagia (Solaris). Her current projects include a book on Wuxia culture and a queer Chinese fiction collection.
Word count: ~3600 | Est. read time: 19 mins
Main text：
The evolution of life on earth is fundamentally a competition of self-replication between different organic structures, the smallest unit of this replication being “the gene”. Existence is the gene’s ultimate goal—the greater the frequency of self-replication, the greater the composition of the entity, and the greater the success. Memes are similar, in that they are a kind of information that, like genes, are able to achieve self-replication. Essentially, the meme’s ultimate goal is the same as that of the gene, which is to propagate itself, not between biological generations, but by spreading from one person’s mind to another. For instance, Mona Lisa’s smile is a successful meme that has continued to propagate throughout humanity’s cultures for hundreds of years, continually replicating and sustaining mutations (whether benevolent or malign), and has shown little signs of degradation even today.
However, we’re not discussing the Mona Lisa today,
We’ll talk about the dragons.
That’s correct. The dragon is a meme.
Regard this photograph of the Nine-Dragon Wall of the Forbidden City in Beijing, the image of a typical cloud dragon in East Asian cultures can be observed. Its body is long like a snake, without wings, has deer antlers and an ox-like head with long whiskers. Its varying numbers of scales and claws are dependent on and is closely linked to its significance as a symbol. The cloud dragon’s image is often accompanied by auspicious cloud patterns, its body displayed in a coiling state without actually becoming knotted, and would partially be obscured by those auspicious clouds, adding a sense of dimensionality and mystery to the pattern’s design.
This slender, coiling, spiritual totem is the subject of our discussion today—which I will refer to as the “Loong1 Meme”, separating the cloud dragon from the other “dragons” which will not be included in this discussion. Several thousand years ago, Earth was dominated by a species of reptiles, and when the bones of these animals were discovered, the scholars of China generally referred to them as “dragons of dread”; yet in reality, they were distinctly different from East Asian cultures’ cloud dragon. It is also incorrect to confuse Loong with the legends found around the Mediterranean of the winged, long-tailed dragons, prone to breathing fire, or the bipedal Wyvern, whose memes each have their respective origins.
Observe this blue-white porcelain goblet, patterned with sea wave and the Loong, it comes from the Xuande Period of the Ming Dynasty. Made by the official kiln on the orders of Zhu Zhan, the Emperor Xuanzong, this was a high-end luxury product used exclusively by members of the royal family. The bowl of the cup features a cloud dragon reclining between the sea and sky, it is portrayed using the Suma Liqing pigments imported from Persia. During the firing, the craftsman would employ a template, continuously replicating this pattern onto the goblets, allowing each finished cup to have the same design; those who see it would have the design imprinted into their memories—this is one of the processes by which the Loong Meme is replicated.
Other than this, the dragon has countless ways of replicating itself. This meme has been extremely successful in East Asian cultures, appearing constantly in various forms of mythology, legends, records and creative works, propagated both orally and aurally, vibrantly and ceaselessly. There has never been any evidence to the existence of a real dragon anywhere on the face of this Earth; no fossils, no eyewitnesses, nor has there been any scientific explanation for the dragon’s existence. But based on the memological methods of propagation, the dragon has continued to reproduce and thrive for thousands of years.
1. The Characteristics of the Loong Meme
As with the gene, memes also undergo mutation, reconstitution, and are subjected to the pressure under “the survival of the fittest”. Placing the dragon under the lens of memology, we cannot help but recognise the commonalities in developmental patterns it shares with Earth’s bio-organic evolution—even though dragons do not exist on Earth, and organisms that arise from myths and legend do not always evolve.
Consider this Jade Boar-Dragon sculpture excavated from the Hongshan archaeological site: it appears in the shape of the roman letter C, or like a snake about to bite its tail: the dragon head has yet to develop complex characteristics and resembles more like the head of a boar. The body was scaleless and shaped like a clawless reptilian creature in an embryonic state. This was the earliest example of the Loong Meme, the meme in its embryonic state. In Hongshan culture from 3000 BCE, this proto meme is just an abstract of physical animal forms, articulated through the vehicle of a jade sculpture. It has been replicated hundreds of thousands of times, spreading across the northern terrains of China.
In the process of its evolutionary cycles, the cloud dragon developed the snake’s body, the deer’s antlers, the horse’s nose, the eagle’s claws, the fish’s tail and fins…it is the most primeval of totems, the tribal emblem of the ancient human race, and the primeval building blocks, later absorbed into the Loong Meme that became prevalent across East Asia, ultimately converging into the image that would appear later on the dragon=patterned goblet and the Nine Dragon Wall.
We have reasons to believe that the dragon is the most ancient meme of humanity. Those which preceded it have become extinct, and today’s popular memes are often no match for its established antiquity. During the Shang and Zhou eras of ancient China, the Loong Meme had already begun to define its form and enjoy the status of a proprietary pictographic symbol. The longevity of this meme enabled it to etch such deep impressions in the cultural memories of East Asia that, as they entered the feudal era, the dragon became the symbol of the emperor and was endowed by humans with the mystical power to control the clouds and rain. These people venerated the dragon king, for the main purpose of “bribing” the deities in charge of all the water systems in the land—beseeching them not to cause too much rainfall or suddenly raise the rivers, or worse, stop the rain altogether, causing rampant drought.
It must be emphasised that in East Asian cultures, the allegorical meaning of the dragon is auspicious. Its mythical powers manifest as the regulation of weather, the nourishment of plants, and the assurance of good harvests from crops that were at the time highly at the whims of wind and water, upon which the general population were completely reliant on. In turn, despite their divine powers, the dragon maintained a disinterest in the affairs of humanity.
In modern culture, the Alien Meme often appears in the form of invaders, marauding across Earth, killing its people and raiding its resources, transforming our biome into their own. This stands in stark contrast with the Loong. If a dragon were to arrive on earth, it would never have to worry about being captured by warmongers and experimented upon. There was no conflict of interest between humans and dragons. Jehovah brought punishment upon the sins of humanity, Zeus plundered the wives of mankind, but the dragons in Eastern mythology had never been vindictive, nor do humans stand in enmity against the dragons.
Dragons do not govern worldly affairs directly; they seem separated from the lives of mortals by a thin but impenetrable barrier, and communication is achieved via the fire of incense and the appearance of mysterious omens. Sacrificial offerings and witchcraft are not the prerogative of dragons. The tribute of valuable objects to the gods are deeply rooted in the origins of most cultures—incense, monetary objects, food and labour, are offered to the gods as a form of contract to gain boons. Offerings made to the dragon king and his opposing counterpart, the god of droughts, are particularly abundant. Observe this image of a temple which has been digitally restored. Sitting in the middle, accepting the highest grade of ceremonial worship, is the personified dragon. During the late Ming and early Qing eras that occurred in the fourth “little Ice Age”, these kinds of temples were present across East Asia, in numbers too many to quantify.
There is no real articulation of a dragon’s life cycle in Eastern Asian cultures. The dragon is considered to possess longevity, to a degree that they were practically immortal. The dragon king whose palace is in the Eastern Sea can procreate like the dukes of ancient China—although many do not want to admit that dragons have genders, or are capable of sexual reproduction—some of these offspring may perish (due to confrontations with other supernatural forces, for example) but they would never die of natural causes, nor inherit their father’s throne. Without the hereditary system, the society of dragons is stable, and static. This is the Loong Meme with its simple, unadorned cultural principle, rather than having any inevitable link to the natural sciences. If people believed that dragons do not die, then they simply do not.
Another basic principle worth noting is that the dragon’s sharp claws are not for walking on, nor is it for low work; though the formation of the dragon’s early image are related to crops, as evidenced in the second nine of the Qian hexagram in I Ching— “seeing the dragon in the paddy fields” —this connection has however vanished through the eons. The dragon has become an ethereal, mystical creature which can soar through the clouds without wings, its claws now all but cosmetic. The dragon cannot dig the ground with its claws, nor could it burrow, much less using it to operate intricate equipment.
2. On the Investigation of the Origins of the Loong Image
It must be acknowledged that we have come too late to the work on tracing the origins of the dragon image. During the lengthy duration of the Feudalist Era, the dragon’s image remained consistent with very little change, there was no need for a largescale tracing of the meme’s origins. Through hundreds of thousands of years, the icons worshipped by the dragon temples across East Asia were, by and large, similar in form. With the advent of the Industrial Era, a crisis of faith spread across China’s land, then came the birth of the internet which instigated another meme revolution during the 21st century, comparable to the Cambrian Explosion of biological diversity. The various phyla of memes that flourish in today’s culture have all originated from the internet. Among those, the Loong Meme had also embarked on its period of rapid reproduction.
We have encountered a large quantity of cartoon dragons, many of whom even became the transport of heroic characters; whilst others, mere pets to be collected in video games. The Loong could not avoid becoming indiscriminate in terms of good and evil as a large number of memes from dinosaurs and western dragons were crudely grafted onto the Loong Meme, weakening its positive image and stripping it of its god-like properties. The endowing of human traits has led to many anthropomorphised dragon images to surface, including feminised ones. After living through the violent and rage-fuelled second half of the 21st century, we suddenly discovered that the Loong Meme in human cultures has become functionally impotent.
The extinction of the meme was inevitable. Whilst certain memes will flourish, others wither in the waves of evolution, waiting for the last cultural propagator of the meme to relinquish it from their memory. But why did the dragon disappear? On one hand, the image of the dragon had not assimilated any new concepts for several eras—ever since it settled into its fixed form, no one had considered the addition of rocket launchers, laser eyes, or wi-fi capability as it headed into the new era… On the other hand, memes that were more functional and viral flooded the vectors of popular culture, pushing those less advantaged ones out of this space. Around this time, the Long Meme was no longer fulfilling its function, the technological revolution brought about a global collapse of faith, and on today’s Earth, it is extremely difficult to find people who still venerated the dragon for good weather. For the entire second half of the 21st century, not a single temple dedicated to the dragon king has been built.
For our next consideration, it is vital to investigate the cultural origin of the Loong Meme. This will determine the future fate of our entire race. I can finally confirm that the standards of the Loong Meme are as follows:
- A type of creature that has never really existed on earth.
- A symbol of auspicious wish fulfilment, good weather, not evil or greedy.
- Mysterious and unapproachable, with the capability of controlling supernatural forces.
- Snake body, ox head, deer antlers, horse nose, long whiskers, protruding eyes, eagle claws, fish tail, born from the clouds, scaled.
Observe this image carefully, the dragon on this image has been verified as the standard Loong Meme. These findings are the result of my research and debates with experts at high-level institutes of scientific research.
3. The Exploitation of the Loong Meme
Before the Loong Meme can be exploited, some alteration to the standard meme is necessary to ensure its widespread propagation. This is a type of manual propagation, with a fixed mutational direction, which we call the meme’s Orientated Evolution, or Meme Caching.
This process is not without precedent. Before 2013 CE, the “Dark Web” was just a long-standing internet myth, which purported that only 3% of the internet’s actual content was available to 97% of the users through standard search engines, and the other 97% of content—unable to be indexed or accessed without special channels—were anonymously used by the remaining 3% of users. Most mentions of the Dark Web meme at this time were related to other urban-legends and memes, such as websites that induce madness in the user after visiting, or having portals to dark, alternate branches of the multiverse, and so forth.
Some hacker groups saw the opportunity to exploit the Dark Web meme and manifested the meme into a real, lucrative platform. Yet today, a hundred years on, the Dark Web accounts for less than 3% of the total content on the world wide web, let alone 97%. The attributes of the Dark Web meme had been deliberately obfuscated, whilst ancillary concepts that were not originally part of the meme, such as organ trafficking and cryptocurrency exchange—memes that were younger than the Dark Web itself, were folded in.
Through meme caching, the Dark Web underwent slight mutation, from a horror story to an underground shopping platform. Most notably, very few people were aware of the caching process, despite it happening right under their noses. Once humans accept the base concept, it becomes much harder to distinguish it from acts which merely mimicked the meme.
We will be recruiting the successors of these mentally agile hacker groups to complete the meme caching. Routines embedded within the internet and other meme propagating industries will be turned on to full blast, constantly reproducing and disseminating the Loong Meme. The Loong Meme shall be completely resurrected for the 22nd century, in the following forms:
- Images of cloud dragon, western dragon and dinosaurs are all clearly delineated, with emphasis on the cultural origins of the cloud dragon.
- The inhibition of all representations of the cloud dragon image which detract from its auspicious or supernatural nature; whilst promoting the positive images of the cloud dragon. The dragon shall be the embodiment of auspiciousness and benevolence.
- All sub-memes stemming from the cloud dragon will be suppressed, including mythical creatures such as suanni, bi’an, bixi; whilst propagation of the standard meme will be highlighted.
- In the process of meme propagation, the standard characteristics of the cloud dragon shall be gradually replaced, shortening the length of the whiskers until they do not exceed a quarter of the dragon’s entire length. The sharpness of its horns should be decreased, and their resemblance to soft, infantile, deer antlers enhanced. The size of the dragon’s eyes will gradually be raised to around 300% larger than the traditional image, and the dragon’s length shall be standardised to the 3-5 metre range.
- The number of the dragon’s scaled claws shall be standardised as eight, arranged in four pairs, symmetrically arranged. The front claws each portrayed with a fifth toe, in an opposable position. The back claws, as four toes each, with no thumb-like structure.
- A sub-meme shall be inserted that dragons like to coil around, or roost on, the tops of high mountains, and sharpen their claws against hard rocks. As a cautionary measure, humans should refrain from approaching or engaging in any form of contact with dragons during these times.
The spreading of the following possible memes shall be suppressed:
- Dragons are able to communicate with humans and speak their language
- Any scientific explanation of the dragon’s supernatural abilities
- Details of societal or organisational structures of the dragons
- Any connection between dragons and alien life…
When the occasion necessitates, real evidence on the existence of cloud dragons may be introduced, such as the fabrication of ancient or esoteric texts, videos and eyewitness reports.
The whole Meme Caching operation is estimated to attain measurable progress within 3-5 years and reach completion within 5-10 years. Once complete, the Final Plan can be executed immediately.
The Final Plan is divided into three stages:
Firstly, the simultaneous activation of the portals on Planet Anstra and at the bottom of Earth’s Pacific Ocean will allow for hyperspace jump, transporting the advance team and building materials for the construction of the Undersea Base. The Base will serve to shelter most members of our tribe, preventing excessive contact with human civilisation.
After the completion of the base, we shall gradually enact contact with humanity. Upon first contact, we will unanimously present ourselves to the people of Earth as the “Dragon Tribe” —supernatural gods from “Heaven” or “The Dragon Palace of the Eastern Sea”, under the jurisdiction of the Dragon King. We have searched for eons across the universe, among civilisations countless as grains of sand, before discovering this Loong Meme which shares almost identical physiognomy with our Anstra Race—the Terrans will suspect nothing, only that their dragon gods have manifested their real forms. We must, however, take care to avoid cognitional conflict with the Terrans, and not reveal the democratic election system of our Anstra Tribe. Whilst we do elect a political leader every 500-1000 years, all future elected leaders must refer to themselves as “The Dragon King Ao Guang”.
Members responsible for making contact must be equipped with stealth anti-gravity modules, operate primarily within the troposphere and stratosphere, and taking care to prevent their heads and tails from being observed simultaneously. When necessary, they may use misting devices to fabricate artificial “auspicious clouds” and obscure their activities from humans. All members must maintain a sense of distance and mysteriousness while dealing with the Terrans at all times, especially with those within the East Asian cultural spheres. They must not be observed eating, gestating, or showing any signs of sickness or mortality. Juvenile members of the race must not have any contact with humans before shedding their “jade boar” forms. No Anstran shall reveal the alien origins of our tribe under any circumstance, nor the fact that our home planet has suffered ecological disaster, compelling this intergalactic migration. Particular attention must also be given to the issue that to the Terran ear, our voices may somewhat lack gravitas, and may even be considered “adorable”. To this end, and to prevent undermining our dignity, no member of the tribe shall speak to humans without employing a voice changer.
The final stage is to perform covert climate control experiments over the Pacific Ocean. Once successful, immediately begin large-scale contact with the Terrans, offering meteorologic control in exchange for a tributary treaty from the Terrans. This will most likely be the only way our race could obtain resources from now on, as other methods, such as plundering behaviour, will most likely result in the amalgamation of evil Invader Memes with that of the Loong, and ultimately lead to our punitive suppression by the Terrans. The probability of winning an open war with the humans for the control of Earth is zero. But, if we can offer ecological protection of Earth, and live in harmony with humans, this will create the most optimal situation, with them never discovering that a group of aliens are living among them.
Supreme Anstran Science Officer “Giant Claw” Wuuuuuuwuuuuaoaoooowugh.
- Editor’s Note: This article will focus on the origin of China’s Loong, or cloud dragon, the traditional Chinese dragon patterned with auspicious cloud. ↩︎
Translation Editor: Ruxuan