Jellyfish Goddess 水母娘娘 (泗州城)

This is  my dream photo project for 2026 - 晚清時代的京劇 Peking Opera of the late Qing period…

The concept is to recreate the exact scenes from the late 1800s based on actual historical paintings and those colored rice paper drawings sold to wealthy European tourists…

Everything is original, including the backdrop which is painted…

Took me months to plan this…

Took Master Tang years to collect and repair the antique costumes…, and spending huge amounts of money buying useable antique clothings and accessories for this purpose.

The costumes are then reassembled using old drawings and paintings from the same era.

Not an easy feat because fabric degenerates over time and many artefacts were lost during the wars and the cultural revolution. Sourcing for exactly the same marching historical pieces to recreate the same look is a very tedious and expansive task.

And then we need a makeup artiste who can recreate the Qing Dynasty style of face painting…

The model is a real Peking opera actress picked especially to match the look.

Just a very sincere photo project by a bunch of people doing what we love…

China is indeed amazing…

Shuimu Niangniang (Chinese: 水母娘娘), is a water demon, spirit or goddess of Buddhist and Taoist origin in Chinese mythology. She is also identified with the youngest sister of the transcendent White Elephant (Buddha's gate-warder). According to Chinese folklore, she is responsible for submerging Sizhou  (an ancient Chinese city located in today's Anhui Province) under the waters of Hongze Lake in 1574 A.D. and is currently sealed at the foot of a mountain in Xuyi District. However, different tales of Shuimu exist in different regions of China. For example, in Suzhou, Anhui she may be a demon goddess, while in Taiyuan, Shanxi it is believed that she was a woman who was gifted a magical whip by an old man.

She has been described in some sources as a woman who can turn into a snake or dragon. According to Henri Dorés "Researches into Chinese Superstitions", in her 'human' form she carries a sword along with two buckets and has black hair with a youthful appearance.

According to Chinese folklore, Shuimu inundated Sizhou yearly and so on the insistence of the locals, Yu Huang or the Jade Emperor raised an army to capture Shuimu and deprive her of her powers. The water demoness, however, was able to trick the army and escape after which she continued to wreak havoc upon the city. One day Shuimu was carrying two buckets of water near the city gate. Li Laojun (a famous philosopher from Dao that takes on a mythological personification here) suspected that she was going to attack Sizhou so while she was away, he led a donkey to the buckets and allowed it to drink the water. However, the donkey was unable to finish all the water as the buckets contained the sources of the five great lakes. Shuimu saw through Li Lao's scheme and overturned one of the buckets with her foot creating a massive flood which submerged the city.

The tale of the magic vermicelli is a continuation of the story after Shuimu had submerged the city of Sizhou. The Monkey King tried to capture her but she continued to slip through his fingers and so asked Guanyin  (the Goddess of Mercy and also the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara) for help. Shuimu was famished after being constantly chased so she went to a vermicelli stand where Guanyin (disguised as a woman) was waiting for customers with two bowls of food. However, while she ate, the vermicelli in her stomach turned into iron chains with the end protruding from her mouth. The remaining contents of the bowl also became chains and welded themselves to the end of the ones in her mouth after which she surrendered. Guanyin then ordered The Monkey King to chain Shuimu in a well at the foot of a mountain in Xuyi District. It is believed that the end of her chain can still be seen when the water is low.

There are different legends about Shuimu depending in different region of China. In Shanxi, the story goes that a peasant women was given a magical whip by an old man. Whenever she needed water, she would simply knock her jug with the whip and immediately water would spring out from it. However, her mother-in-law found out about the whip and tried to do the same thing herself, only this time, the water did not stop flowing and the area became the spring Nanlao Quan (难老泉), a source of the Jin River (晋河). At the Jinci temple complex above Nanlao Quan in Taiyuan, one of the temples is dedicated to Shuimu, Shuimu Lou temple (水母楼), was built in the 17th century. The Shuimu Lou temple is a two-storied structure containing a statue of Shuimu.

"Presenting the gift of a pearl at the rainbow bridge" or Hongqiao Zengzhu, is a Chinese play in which Shuimu is a demoness that lives under the Rainbow Bridge. The bridge is also close to Sizhou and she calls herself 'Granny Water Mother'. She rules over other demons and one day meets a young man while she is in town (Sizhou). She falls in love with him and invites him into her underwater residence. The man follows her inside willingly despite knowing that she is a demoness. Once there, he sees the 'water-repellent pearl' on her collar and so he gets her drunk, takes the collar and flees. In retaliation, Shuimu drowns Sizhou. Guanyin hears the plight of its people and gathers an army to fight Shuimu, however she does not relent. As a result, Guanyin tricks her into eating noodles that turn into chains while they are in her stomach so she surrenders.

The Water Goddess, whose real name is Liu Chunying, is from Jinsheng Village, Jinyuan District, Taiyuan City. She is the water goddess of Jinyuan in Chinese folk religion and is also known as the Oriental Mermaid.

Her sacrificial site, the Water Goddess Pavilion, is located on the west side of the Nanlaoquan Pavilion in Jinci Temple. It was first built in the 42nd year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1563) and rebuilt in 1844. It is a two-story pavilion with a double-eaved hip roof. The lower floor has a bronze seated urn statue, and the upper floor has a statue of an ascending immortal and is painted with murals from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The 15th day of the sixth lunar month is recognized as the birthday of the Water Goddess. On this day, the local people hold a performance of opera to thank the goddess.

Sizhou City is a Peking Opera adapted from the historical facts and myths of the flooding of Sizhou. It tells the myth of the Water Goddess transforming into human form to force the scholar Wu Yanyu to marry her. After being tricked out of the water-avoiding pearl, the water flooded Sizhou City. In the end, she was subdued by Guanyin.

The play is known for its high-difficulty martial arts scenes. It uses the special technique of "fighting with hands" to show the fierce battle scenes. It is a representative play of the female martial arts role.

Peking Opera developed in Beijing during the mid-Qing dynasty, with its origins traced to a 1790 performance by four Anhui troupes for the Qianlong Emperor's 80th birthday. The Anhui troupes, along with Hubei troupes, stayed in Beijing and developed the new style that became known as Peking Opera. The art form reached its peak of popularity within the Qing imperial court, where it was considered a national treasure.

Sizhou City is a real classic but considered one of the less performed plays nowadays. The costumes are all antique from the late Qing Dynasty period and the make-up inspired from old Chinese paintings of the same period.