The Jade Emperor's Gong
The Jade Emperor's gong is the bronze instrument of a Vietnamese folk tale in which a frog leads a deputation of animals to heaven to complain that rain never falls. Because the frog croaks so loudly, the Jade Emperor hears it above the clouds and summons the delegation; the frog is granted the power to control rain, and to this day the croaking of frogs is said to warn of coming rain. In some tellings the frog beats the Jade Emperor's own bronze gong to announce the arrival of the animals, or to wake the sleepy god, and the tale survives chiefly through oral retellings across the Red River de