In the beginning there was nothing but chaos in the universe. In this chaos was a giant egg, and in it dwelt Pangu, who was yet to be born. When the egg finally hatched, Pangu had grown as large as a giant, and he awoke from his deep sleep with such a great force that the egg shattered into many pieces. The lighter pieces floated up and formed the heavens, whilst the heavier pieces sank to form the earth.

Having heaven and earth now separate and distinct, Pangu feared that one day the heavens might sink and the earth might rise, destroying the boundary. To prevent this from happening, he stood between the earth and the sky and used his hands to hold the sky, and his feet to support the earth.

Pangu held the world up for eighteen thousand years, growing ten feet by day. When he eventually died, the heaven and earth had a thirty thousand mile separation and was safe from merging. So Pangu, after holding up the sky for many millenniums, finally fell into an eternal sleep from the exhaustion.

The many parts of his body became the many elements in the world. His breath turned into the winds and the clouds, and his voice turned into the growling thunder. His eyes became the sun and the moon and his limbs became the cardinal directions. His bloody became the rivers and his flesh became soil. His hair became the heavenly bodies and his body hair became the grass and flowers of the earth. From the hard parts of his body like his teeth and bones came stones and metals, and finally, the parasites on his body became man.

The Chinese also tell of another myth which explained the creation of Mankind. It was the story of Nu Wa, the goddess who took the form of half human and half snake. The earth was still young, and she took much pleasure in taking in the sights of the new world. In spite of the many beautiful landforms and sceneries, she thought something was missing. It was companionship and company, and so, she set out to creating beings in her likeness.

Nu Wa sat beside a river and looked at her reflection in the water, after which scooping up a handful of mud from the river bed and moulding it in her likeness.
However, instead of making a snake like lower body like hers, she gave the little mud figures legs so they could stand upright. When it was done, she placed the little figure on the ground, and almost immediately it came alive.

The little person delighted Nu Wa very much, and she was determined to make more of these little people so that the world would be full of them. Nu Wa worked night and day moudling the people, but soon she was tired and she realized that she could not possibly create that many people. She therefore turned to her godly powers to finish the task. She took a vine and dipped it into mud, then, swinging the vine, she flung mud all around. When the mud touched the ground, they became human beings. The world was now full of human beings, and to allow them to reproduce on their own, Nu Wa split humans into two groups- male and female, so that they may reproduce on their own.

Legend has it that the descendants of the people created personally by Nu Wa were the powerful and influential, whilst those who were created off the vine were the poor peasants.

After the creation of the world, many ages past, and one day the gods Gongong and Zhurong decided to compare their powers in a duel. The duel began and eventually Zhurong won. Gongong was overcome with shame, so much that he tried to end his own life by flinging himself against a high mountain. Unfortunately, the mountain was one of those which held up the sky, and when the god rammed himself against the mountain, the mountain moved and a huge hole had been torn in the sky.

From the hole issued fire and water, where a flood covered the earth whilst many homes were destroyed in fire, and entire harvests were burnt to ashes. Nu Wa, on seeing this, was worried for her little creatures, and she set out to repairing the hole in the sky. She used coloured stones and melted them into a cement which she used to close the hole. To make sure the sky never collapsed again, she took a giant tortoise and placed its four legs at each cardinal point to hold up the heavens.

Now the humans were safe, and the world was back to its original state. However, the heavens had been tilted in the process and it now had a northwesterly tilt, which caused all the water of China to drain into the sea in the east.

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