In the West, there is the story of Noah, who built an ark to survive a divine flood. His tale is about obedience—one man preserving life by following the will of God.
In the East, another flood came long before any ark was imagined, and the man who faced it did not escape the waters. He shaped them. His name was Yu.
Long ago, the world drowned.The rivers burst from their paths, the seas swallowed the fields, and rain fell without end. Entire villages vanished overnight. Mountains became islands in a restless ocean, and the cries of the people reached the heavens.
The gods looked down and saw that the floods were the work of Gong Gong, the furious water god who had struck the pillar of the sky. To restore balance, they chose a man named Gun, ancestor of Yu, to tame the waters.
Gun tried to stop the flood by building great dikes, blocking the rivers with high walls of earth. But the waters rose higher still, climbing over his barriers, crushing everything beneath them. For nine years he struggled and failed. At last, he was punished by Heaven, and the task fell to his son, Yu.
Where his father fought against the water, Yu listened to it.He watched the currents, studied their flow, and understood what his father had not—the floods could not be stopped, only guided.
Yu gathered his people and began to carve channels through the mountains, digging with his bare hands and tools of stone. He opened paths for the rivers to return to the sea. He slept little, ate little, and worked without rest. It is said that when he passed by his own home three times, he heard his wife and newborn child inside, but he did not enter. The water would not wait, and neither could he.
Year after year, Yu traveled across the land. He followed the rivers through mist and mud, through storms that broke mountains apart. His body grew thin, his skin rough as bark, but his resolve only deepened. Wherever he walked, the water began to recede. Fields reappeared, forests took root again, and people returned to build their homes.
When the flood finally ended, the world was changed.New rivers wound through the plains, and the land breathed once more. The people called Yu Da Yu, "Yu the Great," not for his power, but for his endurance.
He had not conquered the flood; he had taught it how to flow. And through that, he had taught humanity how to live with the world rather than against it.
Yu refused every reward offered to him, saying that the rivers themselves were his legacy. In time, he became a ruler, but even as an emperor, he walked barefoot through the mud whenever the rains returned, listening to the water's voice.
His story was not of miracles or divine favor.It was about effort that outlasts despair, patience stronger than violence, and a man who turned chaos into harmony with nothing but his hands.
For even the greatest floods will fall silent one day,but the paths carved by perseverance remain.