Ginkgo Flower
Ginkgo Flower: Not far from Luoguota in Zhangjiajie stands a ginkgo tree (also called 'white fruit tree' or 'grandfather-grandson tree'). It is 14 zhang 8 chi tall with a circumference of 5 zhang 9 chi, its trunk mottled and peeling. It is said to have lived over a thousand years and still towers into the sky with lush branches and leaves. Such an ancient tree is rare in these mountain nooks. People treasure it greatly, yet...
This article has been compiled from historical materials on 'Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network' (33519.com · Specialty Foods / Cuisine / Customs section). Prices, business hours, administrative divisions, and statistical data mentioned in the text may already be outdated. Before traveling, please refer to the latest announcements from merchants, scenic areas, and local competent authorities; the parts involving folk legends and folk customs are local historical and cultural anecdotes, provided for cultural reference.
Ginkgo Flower
Not far from Luoguta in Zhangjiajie, there is a ginkgo tree (also called 'white fruit tree' or 'grandfather-grandson tree'). It stands fourteen zhang and eight chi tall, with a girth of five zhang and nine chi, its trunk mottled and peeling. It is said to have lived for over a thousand years, yet still towers into the clouds with luxuriant branches and leaves. In this remote mountain nook, such an ancient tree is rarely seen. People regard it as a great rarity, and yet this tree can weep and moan—which makes it all the more extraordinary. Listen: every year during the flowering season at midnight in the fifth and sixth months, the tree gives out bursts of sound like a sick person's groans: 'Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!...' But when you approach the base of the tree, the sound drifts far away, as if coming from the treetop. When you step a little farther away, the sound seems to come from the roots. No one can explain this strange phenomenon of the ginkgo's moaning; only that for many years a wondrous folk tale has been passed down:
Long ago, in Zhangjiajie there was a beautiful and clever girl named Xilang. Because her parents had both died, she lived with her elder brother and his wife. Xilang was the most skilled embroiderer of flowers in the village. The flowers she embroidered, when the spring breeze blew over them, would give off a fragrance that attracted butterflies and bees to come fluttering. In particular, the tuhua bedcovers she embroidered were beautiful and elegant, and became handicrafts passed down through generations in the Tujia villages—this is the Tujia 'Xilang Kapu.' It is said that of the one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine kinds of flowers in Zhangjiajie, she had embroidered them all except the ginkgo flower.
In front of Xilang's house stood a ginkgo tree that bore fruit every year but never seemed to bloom. Curious, she went to ask the aunt next door: 'Why doesn't the ginkgo tree bloom?' The aunt told her: 'The ginkgo tree blooms at midnight and withers by the fifth watch.' Hearing this, Xilang was overjoyed. As soon as dusk fell, she brought a ladder, climbed up the ginkgo tree, and waited for the ginkgo flower to bloom. She waited and waited until midnight, and truly saw the ginkgo bloom. She watched until the fifth watch, when the ginkgo flower slowly withered, and only then did she reluctantly climb down and go home to sleep.
The next night, she climbed the tree again to watch. She was determined to embroider a ginkgo flower that would never wither.
Unexpectedly, her movements were discovered by her sister-in-law. This sister-in-law of Xilang's was lazy, stupid, and slovenly. She could not weave or embroider, but was an expert at stirring up trouble. Seeing that Xilang excelled in everything compared to herself, she had long been consumed with jealousy. One night, she said to her husband: 'Your sister goes out every night at midnight—I'm afraid she's sneaking off to meet a lover! As her elder brother, are you going to do anything about it or not?' The brother was a crude man, straightforward to the core. If his sister had ruined the family's reputation, how could he not act? When his sister went out at midnight, he took up an axe and quietly followed behind her, and the sister-in-law followed too. They saw Xilang climb up the ladder and head straight for the top of the ginkgo tree, saying to the ginkgo flower as she climbed:
'You—you're so strange! Why don't you show yourself in the daytime? Are you shy? You make me climb the tree in the middle of the night to see you.'
The sister-in-law heard this from below and, gloating over the misfortune, was determined to humiliate Xilang. She pulled away the ladder, and as she carried it off she said: 'Shameless thing, let's see how you get down!'
The brother had long been furious. Without asking any questions, he chopped down the ginkgo tree with a few strokes of his axe. Xilang fell from the tree and was killed.
Strangely enough, after the ginkgo tree was cut down, its pure white blossoms flew up one after another, drifting down onto Xilang's body, slowly building up into a flower grave. The next year, a ginkgo tree grew from the flower grave. Within a few years, the ginkgo tree had grown tall—lush green through spring and summer, and golden in autumn. But then something strange happened: every year during the flowering season in the fifth and sixth months, this ginkgo tree would give out a moaning sound: 'Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!...' The moan was like weeping and like lamenting, utterly desolate.
After that, the girls of Zhangjiajie no longer dared to embroider ginkgo flowers. At the mention of ginkgo flowers, people would naturally think of that girl Xilang who died unjustly for embroidering them. Yet though Xilang died, the 'Xilang Kapu' she invented still endures and flourishes to this day.