The Silver River lute). The story is based on a 4,000-year-old Chinese folktale about the creation of Night and Day, a story of star-crossed lovers. "The Silver River" is the Chinese name for what is known in the West as the "Milky Way", the galaxy of the solar system. In Chinese tradition, the Silver River bathed heaven and earth in constant light and connected both realms, allowing earthly and celestial creatures to meet. The Jade Emperor, Lord of Heaven, dreams of a chaos that plunges heaven and earth into darkness. His nightmare comes true when the mortal Cowherd (also known as Buffalo Boy
Places in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy their new home "Fintlewoodlewix" (though obviously the name didn't stick). Earth is widely regarded with derision and scorn by most sentient beings in the galaxy. That most other races have shunned Earth is in part due to its primitive technological state and also for its invention of the game of cricket, an unfortunate product of racial memory that appears to make light of the horrendously genocidal Krikkit Wars, which right-thinking galactic citizens find immensely distasteful. Before the arrival of Ford Prefect and the Vogons, Earth's main form of extraterrestrial contact was with "teasers": bored rich kids who cruise the galaxy