The Myth That China Has No Creation Myth

It is often averred, as one of the prime differences between China and the West, that China has no myths of cosmogony. One of the earliest examples is a remark by the missionary E.J. Eitel (1838-1908) from 1879: The idea of creation out of nothing has ever remained entirely foreign to the Chinese mind, so much so that there is no word in the language to express the idea of creation ex nihilo.1 Over time, claims about the lack of Chinese creation myths have only become more inflated. Take the view of Derk Bodde: