The Legend of Tao Tia

A lot of bronze wares from the Xiao and Zhou dynasties have a design pattern called Tao Tia. It is basically the face of a monster with a big mouth wide open, no body,. just the mouth, to signify how greedy it is. There are various Tao Tia patterns, and not all of them are associated with a monster; they disappeared with the end of the Zhou dynasty. And coming up in our next episode, I would like to introduce a righteous magical creature, much revered in Chinese culture, with the name of Xiu Joon.