In Chinese culture, boys are still highly prized. They are still, for many, the family legacy. In Chinese art, you may find the wish for a son. The word Pumpkin is a homonym for the word boy.
If you are really interested in the symbolism, go to your Aug. 15 calendar. Lights out on the farm. Women go out and seek where the pumpkins and beans are planted. In the dark, if the gal touches a pumpkin, she will give birth to a son. If she touches a bean plant, she will have a daughter. (As a note, I am a female with four daughters, that’s a lot of beans.)
There can never be enough pumpkin competitions. England has many and when the U.S. found another way to raise the commercial goal, the lot expanded.
From India comes the tale of a wise man who had a prized son. But the son became ill. The wise man, or sage, could not touch the body for days. But eventually he had to move it. So the sage searched for the largest pumpkin. He put his son’s body within the pumpkin, then carried this to a nearby mountain.
The sage left, thinking nothing would occur. But when he returned, water began exploding from the crumpling pumpkin. Not only did fish flow out, but so did several whales. The sage quickly reported this phenomenon to his community.
Four brothers ran out to catch the flowing fish. The sage, Iaia, tried to stop them. But the brothers arrived and tried to lift the phenomenal pumpkin. However it was so heavy, they dropped it. It broke into many pieces. From each broken part came a river. The river expanded until it became an ocean.
There is an old story about the world being covered with water at one time. A great amount of respect is still paid to the pumpkin in Chinese culture because of this old legend.
If you are really into pumpkin tales, there is one very old one in Europe about a dunce who throws a pumpkin into the bushes. Out of the bushes comes a rabbit. The dunce figures the rabbit is a young ass. So he takes it home, usually.
In Chinese culture today, the pumpkin is considered the emperor of the garden, symbolic of both fertility and wealth. In Burma mythology, all regions contributed items to a pumpkin, and when they filled it up, mankind was created.
So far, the heaviest pumpkin is 2,819 pounds from England. Sounds like a fun project for next year!
