The Chinese God of Thunder (Lei Gong 雷公)

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So I got a request from one of my long-time followers (at least I think so) and she asked if there was a Chinese god of Thunder and Lightning. The short answer is yes, there is! But the God of Thunder and the God of Lightning are two separate deities - they are husband and wife! We’ll look at Lei Gong today - ‘cause that’s what he’s called - and Dian Mu (the goddess of lightning) on Friday.

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Anyway, let’s check him out! If you’re wonderin’ if he’s supposed to look like that, the answer is yes. Fo’ shiz. Some descriptions go like this: “He had a green face, flaring eyes, a human head, and a dragon body.” Some other people think he resembled a monkey, too! He’s supposed to punish people who have committed crimes, so to scare people shitless into being good, they imagined him to look somethin’ like this. Most of the time, though, he’s the weather guy, so he uses a chisel and a mallet (see pic) to strike the drum and voila! That’s how he makes thunder.

Anyway, he’s been around since the Warring States period, when peeps didn’t know why the hell there was thunder, and so, since they were pretty scared of thunder, they thought there must be some kinda Thunder God that could mete out punishment to people who were morally corrupt.

The Mythical Origins of Lei Gong

So Lei Gong’s father was this dude called Chen Gong, and he came from Leizhou. He had no kids, and he was a hunter. But this dude had a really cool dog which had 9 ears, and this was pretty handy because the ears of the dog would move, and this helped him predict how many animals he’d catch a day. (Nine is also an auspicious number in Chinese culture because you can make puns with other cool words.) Anyway, if 5 of the dog’s ears moved, Chen Gong would get five animals, and he was obviously down with that.

One day, he saw that all 9 ears of his dog moved, and he was like, “Aww yeah, this is awesome! I’m so going to catch lotsa good stuff today.” But that didn’t happen, yo, 'cause the dog saw an egg in the middle of the forest and brought it back to his master’s house. While the dog was on his journey, the egg hatched and out came a baby boy. He had the character Lei (thunder) on his left palm and Zhou (district), which is basically what Leizhou, the place Chen Gong lived in means! Things were never the same again. A fairy from the heavens came to nurse him, and errbody called him the god of thunder - pun intended. He became the appointed governor, and peeps worshipped him as the Thunder God when he died.

Another variation of the story goes like this:

Lei Gong was known as Lei Zhen Zi, which means son of thunder, and he was hatched from an egg after a loud boom of thunder. Some dude called Wen Wang adopted him. Everything was well, but one day, Wen Wang was captured by his enemies, and Lei Zhen Zi had to step up to the plate - he had to go look for an awesome weapon and save his dad. On the way, he walked up a hill, saw that there were two apricots, and ate the. His skin turned green, he had wings, and he had awesome magical strength. Lei Zhen Zi (the Hulk) saved his dad, and he went off to gain enlightenment and shiz.

But there are more stories about Lei Gong, like this one:

A Story in which the Jade Emperor asks Lei Gong to Do His Thang

One day, the Jade Emperor was chillin’ in Heaven and he was all, “Hmm, I think I totally gotta check out what’s goin’ on in the world, 'cause I have to like, totally make sure that no one is bein’ a douche.” But when he saw what was happenin’ on earth, he was like, so freakin’ pissed 'cause errbody was bein’ a douche to one another. The worst part was, he saw two robbers robbin’ stuff from a travelling salesman, and he was like, “K, that’s it. I’ve had enough with this shit. Lei Gong! I totally summon you!”

Lei Gong was all, “Wassup Chief?” And when he heard what had happened, he was really pissed off too. The sky turned black and Lei Gong used his hammer and chisel to warn the robbers, but it wasn’t enough. Then, he used his iron spear which shot out electricity and killed them. All the peeps saw, and they were like, scared shitless and didn’t dare rob from anyone else no more.

But sometimes, Lei Gong isn’t as scary, and he makes mistakes, too. Check out this other story:

Lei Gong Accidentally Strikes an Old Lady - But Makes Amends!

Right, so there was this one time Lei Gong accidentally struck an old lady, 'cause sometimes gods make mistakes. The thing is, she didn’t die - whew! - but her right arm was severely injured. So he was all, “Ooops, my bad,” and he gave her some ointment to rub on the wound. She did that, and was like, totally healed straightaway.

The villagers were totally awestruck and wanted the ointment too, and so, they tried lifting the bottle. But Lei Gong was not down with that and so, made the bottle incredibly heavy to lift. Then, the bottle flew into the air and disappeared. The villagers were all, “Wuuut?" 

Lei Gong and his Family
So up there, in the heavens, there is The Ministry of Thunder and Storm Making rain is like, real hard work, so there are many people who make this operation work. There’s Lei Gong, his wife, Dian Mu (電母), There’s also Yun Tong, (云同), which translates as Cloud Lad/Dude, and Yu Zi, (雨子)which is like, the dude in charge of rain. Oh yeah, don’t forget old Uncle Feng, or Feng Bo (凤伯)- you need strong winds to create the storms, after all.

We’ll have a closer look at Lei Gong’s family on Friday with his wife, the Goddess of Lightning, so keep your eyes peeled here!

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