Zao Jun- Chinese GodDeity"Lord of the Stove"

Zhang Lang's Fire

Multiple legends explain how Zao Jun became the Kitchen God, but the most widely told centers on a mortal named Zhang Lang. He was a married man who abandoned his virtuous wife for a younger woman. When the new wife proved faithless, his fortune collapsed, and he lost his sight, ending up as a blind beggar wandering the roads. One day he came begging at a house where his first wife, now prosperous, recognized him. She took pity and fed him a meal. When Zhang Lang realized whose hands had prepared his food, the shame was more than he could bear. He stumbled forward and fell into the cooking fire.

The Jade Emperor appointed Zhang Lang to the position he had died in: watching over families from above the kitchen stove, observing their conduct, and reporting it to heaven.

Honey on His Lips

All year long, Zao Jun's paper image sits above the stove, silently watching the family eat, quarrel, and reconcile. On the twenty-third or twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month, about a week before Chinese New Year, families burn his image to send him to heaven for his annual report to the Jade Emperor. But before the paper catches fire, they smear honey or maltose on his printed lips, sweetening his mouth so he will speak only good things. Others press sticky rice cakes against his face, hoping to glue his mouth shut entirely.

Paper horses accompany the burning image as transportation for the kitchen god's journey to the celestial court. After New Year's Day, a fresh image goes up above the stove, and another year of divine surveillance begins. Even heaven's spy can be bribed with honey.