The Mythic Origin of PHOENIXA
The Classic of Mountains and Seas
Cheng has created something otherworldly:
P.H.O.E.N.I.X.A
The Classic of Mountains and Seas
"J.J. Cheng finds dark reality and unsettling truth in ancient myth.
When you dive into the perilous worlds in her novel,
you will find out why."
跨文化跨緯度作家程一若在上古神話中發現了影射現實令人髮指的黑暗真相。
當你多遍沉浸讀透她的小說時，
你就會明白她所展開的內外多維世界寓意深刻。
The Classic of Mountains and Seas
"J.J. Cheng finds dark reality and unsettling truth in ancient myth.
When you read her novel, you will find out why."
Shan Hai Jing 《山海經》— The Classics of Mountains and Seas
The eldest of all Chinese myth classics offers profound insight into the ancient worldview and mythological imagination of early China and its surrounding civilizations. The surviving eighteen volumes—comprising over 31,000 words—span a remarkable range of subjects, including geology, mythology, anthropology, mineralogy, cosmology, legends, and folklore.
Among its fantastical beings stands Feng Huang, the immortal bird of rebirth and harmony, which J.J. Cheng adopts as the totem for her PHOENIXA Saga. Like many divine and composite creatures in the text, Feng Huang embodies the union of opposites—heaven and earth, yin and yang, life and death. The Classics also depict wondrous flora, fauna, minerals, and natural phenomena that blur the boundaries between the real and the mythical.
American researcher Henriette Mertz, author of Pale Ink: Two Ancient Records of Chinese Exploration in America, proposed that some landscapes described in Shan Hai Jing correspond to those of North America, suggesting that Chinese explorers may have reached the continent long before Columbus. This bold hypothesis—challenging the Eurocentric narrative of “discovery” in 1492—inspires J.J. Cheng, the bilingual Chinese American author, to explore such cross-cultural enigmas in her mystical novels, PHOENIXA.
《山海經》——中國最古老的典籍 -《鳳程》神話傳奇文學系列靈感來源之一
《山海經》，為諸經之祖，蘊含著上古中國及其周邊文明的世界觀與神話想像。現存十八篇，共三萬餘字，內容包羅萬象，涵蓋地理、神話、人類學、礦物學、宇宙觀、傳說與民間志怪。
在眾多奇異的神靈與幻想生物之中，鳳凰（Feng Huang）——象徵和諧與重生的不死之鳥——成為程一若（J.J. Cheng）《鳳程》（The PHOENIXA Saga）的精神圖騰。與《山海經》中諸多神祇與混合體相似，鳳凰體現了陰陽、天地、生死的合一。書中亦記述了奇花異草、珍禽異獸、奇石異礦，以及介於真實與神話之間的自然現象。
美國學者**亨麗埃特·梅茨（Henriette Mertz）**在其著作《淡墨痕：中國古代探險美洲的兩份記錄》（Pale Ink: Two Ancient Records of Chinese Exploration in America）中提出，大量《山海經》所描繪的地貌實與北美洲相符，暗示中國人或早於哥倫布抵達美洲。這一挑戰「1492年哥倫布發現新大陸」的西方中心論觀點的假說，激發了中美雙語作家程一若的靈感。她在其神秘小說《鳳巢》中，探索這些跨文化的未知與遠古的聯繫。
Over the span of a decade, J.J.Cheng sojourned deep into China in search of her ancestral roots. Cheng’s journey is one of profound metamorphosis, taboo-breaking, and new myth-making. It all started with one image, the image of FENG HUANG, and a 78-Chinese word passage read again and again by a Chinese little girl in a Cheng Courtyard in Beijing, China, not so long ago… The celestial spirit of Feng Huang transformed Cheng as she rendered the nearly 100,000-word novel PHOENIXA, THE NEST, A Mystical Quest for the Cheng Legacy. Cheng has created something off this world: P.H.O.E.N.I.X.A, a sacred energy, a cosmic code, a chameleon entity of creation and transformation, with its source validated in Shan Hai Jing, or The Classic of Mountains and Seas, the oldest Chinese Book of myth.
十年間，程娟（J.J. Cheng），又名程一若（Phoenixa Cheng），這位享譽國際的旅美華裔作家與影人，深入中國大地，踏上尋根之旅——這是一場關於蛻變、破禁與重塑神話的心靈征途。「P.H.O.E.N.I.X.A」——一種神聖的能量，一道宇宙的密碼，一個創造與轉化的變色靈體——其源頭，程一若在《山海經》中尋得。這一切的開端於-一段78字的古文中的一個意象：鳳凰。不久之前，一個小女孩在中國老院落裡來自中國北京一座民國四合院裡高聲朗誦著這段最古老的神話…鳳凰的天靈之力在她心中甦醒，化為創作的火焰。當成年的程一若傾注心魂，完成近十萬英文字的長篇小說《鳳巢：尋脈之旅》（PHOENIXA, THE NEST: A Mystical Quest for the Cheng Legacy）時，程一若本人也經歷了一場靈魂的重生。如今，這部作品已面向全世界的讀者，傳遞著鳳凰永恆的光與焰。