The Door Gods

There are many legendary Door Gods in different periods of Chinese history. The most ancient are Shen Tu and Yu Le. According to the stories found in old books, Shen Tu and Yu Le helped the Yellow Emperor to manage the kingdom of spirits and ghosts under an enormous plum tree. Those spirits were afraid not only of the two Gods, but also of golden roosters and tigers. Our author and artist have been inspired by the many imaginative and creative ideas in these ancient stories to make this lovely picture book. Other Door Gods include those from the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) such as Qin Shu Bao and Wei Shi Gong, who were real persons in history, and the legendary 'Heng and Ha Generals' who guard the gates of Buddhist temples. General Heng puffs out white smoke from his nostrils and General Ha breaths out yellow smoke from his mouth to scare away bad people. During recent years Door Gods have played different role in helping people to get more good luck rather than to ward off evil spirits, so more friendly images of the Door Gods have appeared for people to pray to for good fortune and blessings. Apart from gods, Chinese ghosts, fairies and spirits have acquired mysterious and extraordinary images in the legends that have been passed down from the ancient times and were spread by word of mouth. Some of these characters have the appearance of a human and some of them have animal elements mixed into a human image. They can be either huge or tiny with changeable forms. Some of them were human before they became spirits and some were about to become human after working very hard in a spiritual world. As a result, they have different human characters of being either good or bad. This is the basic design concept for the many lovely forms of the spirits that can be found in the picture book. The story of the picture book tells us that we must keep a kind heart whatever we do or think, for no matter whether they are spirits or humans, kind people will always be loved and supported while bad people will be always punished eventually for the wrong things they do.