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About this website

People in Asian countries have long believed that there is a hare/rabbit on the Moon. The rabbit on the Moon is called "jade rabbit” or “yutu (玉兎).” Recently, yu-zu was used as the name of a lunar rover (exploration vehicle) launched by China. The Moon rabbit pounding rice cakes is also well known in Japan.

Why is hare/rabbit thought to exist on the Moon? This site examines the origin and culture of the Moon rabbit (jade rabbit).

Page Menu

1.  Moon Rabbit in India

2.  Moon Rabbit in China

3.  Moon Rabbit in Japan and Pounding Rice Cake

4.  Author of this web site

Paper

About history of the Moon rabbit

1. Shoji, D. (2021) "When and how did Japanese jade rabbit begin to pound rice cake?" Geology and Culture vol. 4 (2), 42-56. (PDF  text in Japanese, abstract in English)

Note

About machine learning and the Moon rabbit

1. Shoji, D. (2022) "Rabbit, toad, and the Moon: Can machine categorize them into one class?" arXiv:2203.16163. (PDF)

2. Shoji, D. (2017) "What does a neural network recognize in the moon?"  arXiv:1708.05636. (PDF)