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The stone totems outside of Aunt Wu’s village

According to the official art book (p. 65), the stone totems we see outside of Aunt Wu’s village (and in the opening sequence) are based on Korean stone totems called Dol hareubang

Dol hareubangs, also called tol harubangs, hareubangs, harubangs, are large mushroom-like statues found on Jeju Island off the southern tip of Korea. They are considered to be gods offering both protection and fertility and were placed outside of gates for protection against demons travelling between realities.

Symbolism and Imagery in Aunt Wu’s village

The circular door to Aunt Wu’s house is called a moon gate 月亮门.

Moon Gates have many different spiritual meanings for every piece of tile on the gate and on the shape of it. The sloping roofs of the gate represent the half moon of the Chinese Summers and the tips of the tiles of the roof have talisman on the ends of them.

The cloud design we see on the villagers’ clothes are a pun on the word ‘yun’, since both clouds 云 and luck 运 are pronounced that way.

This specific, and wildly used pattern, resembles the ling zhi mushroom, the 'mushroom of immortality’.

This pattern is to symbolize never ending luck and good fortune.

Jan 08

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Wu: “Your future is full of struggle and anguish. Most of it, self-inflicted

When Sokka kicks a stone after leaving Aunt Wu’s house it bounces off a sign with the character for ‘luck’ on it and hits him in the head.

While that is funny in itself, it is even funnier when you take the usage of auspicious symbols in Chinese culture into consideration.

When the stone hits the sign, the sign swings, turning the character upside down.

The character (dao 倒) "upside-down” and the character (dao 到) “to have arrived” are both pronounced dao. This pun is commonly used to give symbols of luck, prosperity etc.an even more auspicious meaning.

The joke here is that Sokka’s happiness 'arrives’ in the form of a stone to the head. XD

Jan 07

Aunt Wu’ divination method is based on the Oracle Bones, on the Jia Gu

Oracle bones 甲骨 are pieces of bone normally from ox scapula or turtle plastron (underside) which were used for divination chiefly during the late Shang Dynasty 1600 BCE–1046 BCE.
The bones were first inscribed with divination in oracle bone script (Chinese: 甲骨文; pinyin: jiǎgǔwén) by using a bronze pin, and then heated until crack lines appeared in which the divinations were read.

Aunt Wu’s name:

There are two possible puns for her name. The first one, Wu - 巫 meaning witch or shaman, is, given her occupation, rather obvious.

The second one, a reference to Emperor Wu Ding - 武丁 from the Shang Dynasty, who not only practiced divination via oracle bones, but also via dream divination:

In the third year of his reign he had vivid dreams about the way to rule his kingdom.

Jan 06

The screen in Aunt Wu’s waiting room has calligraphy in Grass Script on it. Grass Script is a highly stylized version of calligraphy and while extremely beautiful also extremely hard to read. I cannot read it.

草书; sometimes translated as Grass script (see Names below) is a style of Chinese calligraphy. Cursive script is faster to write than other styles, but difficult to read for those unfamiliar with it. It functions primarily as a kind of shorthand script or calligraphic style. People who can read standard or printed forms of Chinese may not be able to comprehend this script at all.

Follow this link to more examples of Chinese calligraphy, all of them which we see at one point or another in the show.

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The man the Gaang meets before entering Aunt Wu’s village is wearing a framed:

Jin

Jin are caps of civilian usage. Jin with the use of frames can also be called Ze (幘), and are deemed more formal than the unframed ones.

This means he is not a government official, i.e. he is not the village leader.

Jan 02

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The Bending Arts: Earthbending

Earthbending is based on:

Hung Ga 洪家, Hung Kuen 洪拳, or Hung Ga Kuen 洪家拳 is a southern Chinese martial art associated with the Chinese folk hero Wong Fei Hung, who was a master of Hung Ga.
The hallmarks of the Wong Fei-Hung lineage of Hung Ga are deep low stances, notably its “sei ping ma”^[1] horse stance, and strong hand techniques, notably the bridge hand^[2] and the versatile tiger claw.^[3]

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