Hi, everyone.
My second collection of folktales and legends adapted as plays for reader's theater is now available on Amazon. The plays in this volume are based on folktales and legends from the beautiful island of Taiwan.
Thursday, July 11, 2024
The Head That Wept Actual Tears (Atayal)
Note: The names of the characters have been changed. In addition, this gruesome and disturbing legend is not suitable for young readers. The names of the main characters have been changed.
Years ago in Taiwan, Wei, a young member of an Atayal community, was left with a severe dilemma.
For the past two years, he and Lu, a lovely young woman considered as beautiful as a wild orchid, were an "item." They were in love, and Wei certainly expected to marry Lu. There was a problem, however, that had been slowly smoldering, threatening these marriage plans, and this problem had driven a wedge between the two young lovers, forcing them to meet in secret so that Lu and her family would not be subjected to ridicule.
The problem was this: Wei did not have a warrior's headhunting tattoo on his forehead as opposed to virtually all the other desirable young men of the village. That meant Wei totally lacked the prestige and potential to be the great husband all parents would desire for their daughters. Such young men as Wei were looked down upon as weak and unmanly. What's more, Wei, having grown up in this environment, just didn't have it in his heart to kill any stranger for the latter's head. It just wasn't in his nature. Lu knew this and was frank with Wei. She told him clearly that either he become recognized as a headhunter with the telltale tattoo or that they would have no future together despite her love for him.
Wei had to make a very difficult decision: to join in the next headhunting campaign and to bring back someone's head or to forever lose his chance to marry Lu.
He gnashed his teeth in anguish and finally decided to go against his own nature: he would take part in the next headhunting expedition.
Wei's father, whose other two sons had already taken heads, was overjoyed. He had long given up on Wei's ever ascending to real manhood by becoming a headhunter, but now it appeared that Wei had had a reawakening.
"Yes!" said the father. "My good son! Excellent! We will have an expedition very soon, and I'll be leading it. Now, let's get busy. We have some preparations to make."
There would be several steps before such an expedition could be launched. A lucky day would have to be selected. Prior to leaving on this lucky day, the members of the expedition would have to report any dreams. A disturbing or unlucky dream, an out-and-out nightmare, would disqualify the person from the expedition.
Early in the evening the night before the expedition was to start, Wei's father approached him and asked, "Well, Son, have you had any bad dreams lately?"
"No, Father." He looked his father straight into the older man's eyes.
That was, however, a lie. For the past several nights, Wei had been plagued by endless nightmares. For Wei to have had nightmares but still go on a headhunting trip with his group would be a gross violation of a taboo. Wei knew, however, if had told the truth he would have been kicked out of the group and then he'd never have a chance at marrying Lu. His reputation, such as it was, would also be stained forever.
"That's good, Son. Now, since you are the only one in the group that hasn't gotten a tattoo yet, you will be accorded the honor of taking the first head back to our people! You'll kill and decapitate the enemy! What do you think of that?"
"Thank you, Father," said Wei. The first head . . . The reality hit home for Wei. I will be killing another person and taking his head . . . he thought. It's really going to happen now, and there's no way out of it--not for me . . . not for the sake of Lu . . . They couldn't be content with my just being a member of the team, could they? . . . I have to do the killing . . . the decapitating . . .
"Soon enough, Son, you'll be getting a tattoo just as all the other fellows in the village have! How great is that! Now, get some sleep. It's getting dark, and we'll need to get started before dawn."
"Yes, Father . . ."
Once again, Wei entered the world of disturbing dreams. As he slept fitfully on his mat, he dreamt of a green field bordered by a bamboo forest. Next to some bamboo was a large collection of freshly severed heads in a tall pile. Not far from the heads were his father and the young men of the village, and Wei discovered he too was standing among them.
Soon came the sounds of voices, and before long three people--a father, a mother, and a small boy of about four or so--came into view. Immediately, the men of the hunting party aimed their arrows at the three and let their arrows fly, hitting all three, who fell to the ground, moaning.
The headhunters rushed over to them and preceded to cut their heads off.
"No, no, no, please don't do this!" cried Wei. "This is so cruel!"
Wei then suddenly woke up with a shudder. He relaxed again somewhat when he realized it had all been a dream.
By now the early morning daylight streamed through the window. His father had entered the hut and told Wei to get ready to go.
The headhunting party assembled. Relying on the lucky omen of a bird, Wei's father said, "All right, we're going in this direction!"
The group moved off, with everyone but Wei in great spirits, for most of the young men had had very encouraging dreams about successful headhunting. Wei, silent, moved on, hoping no one would notice his trembling legs.
Please, Evening, Wei thought, you can't arrive early enough . . .
After a long march, Wei's father announced, "We're here! This is the place . . ."
Wei's father recited a verbal formula to expel bad luck. The headhunters then performed a simple ritual to ensure success for today's expedition. Wei's father then assigned each headhunter, including Wei, to his hiding place. Wei's appointed location would face the path the human prey would take as he, she, and/or they headed towards the bamboo grove.
"Wei! Wake up and focus!" said Wei's father, noticing his son's slowness in following orders.
Wei slunk into his assigned place in the grove. He turned his head and saw a brilliant field of tall green grasses.
Haven't . . . I . . . been . . . here . . . before . . . ? he asked himself. Then it hit him: he had seen this very greenery in his dream the night before.
"All right, Wei," said his father. "Listen. Keep your eyes and ears open. Once the enemy shows up, we'll shoot him. Then, once he has been totally subdued and is on the ground, you must quickly rush out and decapitate him. Now, don't worry! We'll all be here for you and have you covered . . . "
Wei nodded and continued to lie in wait behind the bamboo, his legs continuing to shake wildly.
It wasn't very long before someone, actually three people, came into view--a man, a woman, and a small child, the very people he had seen in his dream.
Towards the grove the three walked, holding hands, talking, and laughing . . .
The three came closer and closer . . . still laughing, talking . . .
Wei was ready to pass out right on the spot.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Arrows flew through the air.
The three members of the small family fell upon the ground, screaming and writhing in pain.
The headhunters lunged forward, each one wanting to be the one to cut the heads off, but they held back.
"Wei, what are you doing?" barked the father. "Get over there and do what you are supposed to do!"
Wei just stood there, frozen with fear and other emotions.
When Wei refused to move, his father drew his knife, shook his head in disgust and anger, marched over to the three people on the ground, knelt, and cut off each one's head. He then picked up the three heads, with blood dripping all over him, and deposited them at his son's feet.
"All right, Wei," said his father with anger resonating in his voice, "we'll be heading back. You shall be at the head of the procession, and you will be carrying those heads to demonstrate that now, finally, you are a worthy member of our community. Don't be such a damn coward and let everyone down!"
But Wei just stood there, paralyzed.
"So you can't even pick those heads up?" asked his father. "In that case, you are no son of mine. You are no longer an Atayal like the rest of us! You're just an outright coward, and no doctor can cure you of it!"
Wei thought about his father's words, and his thoughts immediately darted to Lu. Gnashing his teeth, he finally mustered up the courage to pick up the three heads. His father softened up a bit at his son's change of heart and smiled to give him some encouragement. The other headhunters gave Wei a loud cheer.
The group marched to a nearby stream, where one of the headhunters showed Wei how to wash the heads. Next, he helped Wei shave part of each head and drill a hole into it after which a thin but sturdy vine was inserted into the heads so that they could more easily be carried together.
Wei was still anguished and afraid that he would just freeze up and be unable to make it back to the village. He somehow pushed himself to move, wishing every second this ordeal would quickly end, that he could just be back in the village with his beloved Lu.
The headhunting group, with Wei in the front carrying the heads, finally arrived back in the village in the afternoon, and they were met by ecstatically cheering villagers lining the path to the village. The villagers were particularly enthused seeing Wei carrying those three heads.
"Wei severed three heads!" the headhunters chanted as they marched along the path.
Wei saw Lu smiling broadly.
Yes . . . Wei said to himself, I guess it was all worth it . . .
Carrying a "warrior's suit" created by her own mother's efforts on the loom, Lu approached Wei and proudly handed the suit to Wei to put on.
The celebrations throughout the village continued.
Wei's father constructed a special open cabinet, a "trophy cabinet," in front of the house to display the three heads, signifying that this was a house where successful headhunters lived. Villagers crowded in front of Wei's home to watch his father anoint the heads with rice wine.
Early that morning at around three, the celebrations were still going on. Wei and Lu were doing their own celebrating, drinking rice wine. Wei thought that he would now ask for Lu's hand in marriage. He was beginning to distance himself from the day's gruesome activities, to excuse himself from what had already happened. After all, he told himself, it wasn't as if he himself had shot the three with arrows and cut off their heads . . .
"Wei!" shouted his father. "Come on over to the trophy cabinet here and stand in front of it!"
His father had inserted some chunks of grilled chicken into the mouths of the three heads. He next inserted a stalk of grass into the woman's mouth. He followed this by sticking some pork into the child's mouth.
"Now, Wei," said the father, "eat whatever is in their mouths!"
This was a custom among these headhunters, and it was designed to instill courage among those who would have to maintain headhunting as regular practice. On one level, Wei, of course, knew this, but on another level, he had caused himself to forget that he too would have to engage in this ritual.
"Umm . . . what's that?" asked Wei.
His father's eyes narrowed as Lu looked on, expecting Wei to follow the custom.
"You heard me, Wei . . ."
If cutting off heads wasn't disgusting enough, Wei now had to eat the food from all those dead lips. What could he do? He thought of Lu and how all he wanted was just to make a life with her . . .
He approached the three heads, knelt, and placed his mouth on the that of the dead man. He then began to use his teeth to pull out the food that had been stuffed in there and started to eat it.
He suddenly stopped when he felt a sharp pain on his lips. Had the dead man's mouth bitten his lips? He looked at the head; the dead man's face was contorted in obvious rage. The chanting villagers standing nearby seemed not to notice the expression on the dead man's face.
After he had managed to finish eating what was in the mouth of the male head, his father shouted, "Wei, you're doing a great job! Don't stop now! You have two more!"
Wei gathered up his courage and turned to the next head, the one that belonged to the woman. Everybody there reacted with deafening cheers of approval.
Ready to eat the stalk of grass and meat inside her mouth, Wei looked at the face.
The villagers continued with their shouting, chanting, and dancing . . .
Tears from the eyes of the woman's head began to trickle down her face . . .
Wei backed away, stood up, pointed to the woman's head, and shouted, "Everybody! Everybody stop for a moment! Take a look! Look!"
The noise and celebrating continued unabated.
"Would you all just please look?" Wei was desperate now. "Look! Look at her eyes! She's crying!"
The noise decreased somewhat while some continued to chant, scream, and dance. There was no doubt, though, that they had heard Wei's words.
The villagers could see wet tracks of tears on the face of the dead woman's head. Were they her tears or something else? many wondered. No one could be sure, but the celebrations persisted, though not quite as festively as before.
Wei was now able to step away from the heads and the need to eat what was in their dead mouths. No one said anymore about it; instead, the celebrations continued for a few more days and nights.
Since the beginning of the celebrations, Wei had been visited nightly by the three headhunting victims. They would approach him and stand near him with looks of disgust on their faces.
Finally, when he could no longer stand these visitations, Wei knelt before the trophy cabinet and offered his apologies to the three heads, promising never again to take part in a headhunting expedition.
The ghostly visits then totally ceased.
Wei went on to wed Lu and lived the rest of his life as a humble farmer, not as a swaggering headhunting warrior.
from
Taiwan shandicun guiying chuangchuang 台灣山地村鬼影幢幢 [The flickering of apparition shadows in Taiwanese Indigenous villages]. Li Meng. Taipei: Xidai, 1995: pp. 10-34
This legend comes from an anthology of ghost stories from Indigenous Taiwanese communities. The main character in the story, "Wei," was purported to be still alive when this book was first published, in 1995. The story itself supposedly took place in the early 1930s, during the Japanese occupation era. I created single names for each character so as not to identify the families of those involved in this tale.
The Atayal, along with other Indigenous peoples, engaged in the practice of headhunting or, to use a euphemism translated from Chinese, "to weed, to eradicate weeds" [出草]. Separate research done by anthropologists Julian Baldick and Lars Krutak suggests that the heads of interlopers on tribal lands were taken to propitiate the gods to ensure a good harvest, to honor ancestors with these heads, and to serve as an initiation ritual (rite of ordeal) to establish the headhunter as a true warrior, a worthy member of the community, and thus a worthwhile, eligible marriage choice. Those who came back from headhunting expeditions/campaigns with heads were each entitled to a tattoo, depending on the tribe, on the chin and/or forehead. Such a tattoo was an indispensable ticket in seeking a wife. More heads would allow the headhunter to have a special tattoo on his back. Whose head would be taken? The intended quarry could be a different tribe member encroaching on tribal land, a Han Taiwanese, or a Japanese. As indicated by this story, a woman could lose her head as well as any male outsider. (See Julian Baldick's Ancient Religions of the Austronesian World [London: I. B. Tauris, 2013] and Lars Krutak's "Losing Your Head Among the Tattooed Headhunters of Taiwan" from www.larskrutak.com/losing-your-head-among-the-tattooed-headhunters-of-taiwan.
Motifs: cE231.5, "Ghost returns to murderer, causing him to confess"; F1001, "Extraordinary heads act as living objects"; H106.2, "Severed head as proof of killing"; H335.4.1, "Suitor task: to bring enemy's head"; M302.7, "Prophecy through dreams"; P555.2.1., "Heads of slain enemies displayed"; S139.2.1.1, "Head of murdered man taken along as trophy."
Interestingly, in the world of folktales, myths, and legends, with flying and talking heads, I was unable to locate an existing motif for something like "severed head cries tears." Perhaps further research will reveal such a motif.
Sunday, July 7, 2024
The White-Nosed Cat (Taiwan)
A long time ago, somewhere in the south of Taiwan, a wealthy couple were blessed with the birth of a son, their only child. However, this boy, called Ah Fu, grew up to be a lazy good-for-nothing, for his parents spoiled him shamelessly. He became more and more indolent as his mother and father refused to discipline him and turned their eyes away from his shortcomings, which were many. By the time he was a young adult, he was unable to master even the most basic of chores, such as survival skills like simple bookkeeping or cooking, all because he couldn't be bothered staying out of bed long enough to learn them.
Ah Fu remained lazy and generally worthless, and his doting parents persisted in not seeing just how lazy their only son was.
Then came the day when he was all alone in the house his ancestors had built. His mother and father were now gone, but life went on much the way it always had--days and nights of sleeping, eating, and more sleeping. However, money doesn't generate more money unless one plans for it, and so one day Ah Fu found himself in a small brick house furnished with only a grass mat and a blanket. The big house had been sold to pay debts, the servants had all been dismissed, and the family fortune was now but a memory.
Under these circumstances anybody with a bit of sense would go out into the world to make a living, but not Ah Fu. He preferred, as he always had, to lie on his mat and sleep. As expected, the longer he slept, the weaker he became because he no longer had money to buy food.
He had lain on his mat for three days now. He knew that he was dying; an inner voice had told him so. He summoned up every ounce of strength left to him, stood up and staggered out of his brick hut, leaving the door ajar. He headed for the local temple of the God of Wealth.
He made it to the temple altar and collapsed upon the flagstone floor. Again, he managed to summon some strength to prop himself up on his elbows.
"Please," he prayed to the god, "grant me a string of gold coins so that I may live and not starve. I don't want to die of hunger; I don't want to turn into a wretched, wandering hungry ghost . . . "
Immediately he found himself in the spectral realm of the God of Wealth. Before him was seated the god himself. Above Ah Fu was standing a giant of a man with muscles rippling in all directions. The man held an iron whip in his right hand. He cracked the whip right before Ah Fu's eyes.
"Ah Fu!" snarled the giant. "You useless, miserable bag of bones! You deserve to become a hungry ghost, the most wretched one there is! You dare ask for money without doing any kind of honest labor?"
"Have mercy . . . have mercy . . . " Ah Fu said, almost inaudibly.
"Have mercy?" The giant's voice boomed into Ah Fu's ears. "Why do you of all people deserve any mercy?"
Ah Fu, too afraid to look up, managed to say, "I don't want to die a despised pauper! I'm not such a bad man, a little lazy perhaps . . ."
"Silence!" roared the giant. "The God of Wealth wishes to speak!"
The giant then stepped over to the throne of the God of Wealth and spoke to his master. After a minute or so, the giant returned to where Ah Fu lay helpless upon the floor.
"Ah Fu! The God of Wealth is truly merciful. He has agreed to spare your unworthy life by giving you a string of gold coins. You shall receive them provided that you agree to mend your greedy, slothful ways. You must use the money wisely to feed yourself so that you may have the energy to seek employment! Do you agree to the terms?"
Ah Fu nodded weakly. The giant then cracked his whip on Ah Fu's head. Excruciating pain split his skull, and for several seconds brilliant bolts of lightning pierced his eyeballs.
"Aiioh!" he cried. "I'm dead!"
He opened his eyes slowly. He was lying on his back on his own straw bed. He was back in the small brick hut and he was alive. The trip to the temple and the journey to the court of the God of Wealth had all been a dream. But had it? Was it not true that the gods often communicated with mortals through dreams?
Ah Fu began thinking. The bizarre experience had been too real for a mere dream. He lay very still and thought about it.
Yes, he thought, I've been rescued. I will get a string of gold coins from the God of Wealth!
He then went to sleep while planning what he would do with the money, the money that would be in the palm of his hand when he awoke. He fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Ah Fu died in his sleep three days later.
The next time he awoke, he found himself in the Land of the Dead, the domain of King Yanluo. This was a far different place than the court of the God of Wealth.
"What's this? I've been tricked!" cried Ah Fu.
"Yes, that's what many say," said King Yanluo's keeper of the Book of Life, that huge volume which lists the names, life spans, and fates of all those born into the world of mortals.
"No! You don't understand!" insisted Ah Fu. "I've really been tricked! The God of Wealth promised me gold, and he never delivered it!"
"The God of Wealth? Hmm," said the keeper of the Book, "that's a pretty serious charge."
Ah Fu protested so much that his complaint was relayed to King Yanluo, who, in turn, reported it to the God of Wealth. Soon, Ah Fu was summoned to King Yanluo's throne room to appear before both gods.
"What do you have to say for yourself, Ah Fu?" roared stern King Yanluo. "The Book of Life clearly states you were to starve to death. "
"But the God of Wealth promised me a string of gold coins so that I might live and turn my life around!" Ah Fu replied.
The God of Wealth would not stand idly by. "Ah Fu!" he said. "Four or five times did one of my messengers knock on your door. Each time he received no answer. Had you bothered to get up to open your own door, you would have gotten your gold!"
Ah Fu looked down at his feet. "I . . . fell . . . asleep . . . " he said.
King Yanluo looked at Ah Fu and chuckled, "It's hard to dislike you, Ah Fu, because you are not really a bad person. Your laziness has been your downfall, but I can see how you might have thought your gold was to come to you in a different manner and why you were not ready for it when it finally did arrive.
"Because of all this and owing to the fact that an ancestor of yours had performed a meritorious deed, I am giving you another chance. I will allow you to be reborn as a human in any future occupation you desire. Now tell me, Ah Fu, what would you like to be in your next life? A merchant perhaps? How about an imperial chamberlain?"
Ah Fu thought a moment and then said, "I would like to be reborn as a white-nosed cat."
King Yanluo couldn't believe his ears. "What!" he roared. "Are you trying to be funny now?"
"No, Your Majesty."
"Then explain yourself. Why do you wish to be reborn as a white-nosed cat?"
"Well, Your Majesty," said Ah Fu, "such a cat wouldn't have to work for food as hard as a man does or even search for mice as hard as an alley cat. Mice would mistake its white nose for grains of rice. Such a cat could then feed itself without moving practically a muscle. Mice would just leap into its jaws!"
"So you'd really rather be reborn as a white-nosed cat instead of a person?" asked the astonished King of the Dead. "Did I hear you correctly?"
"Oh, yes. People have to work much too hard to stay alive!"
"So be it!" said King Yanluo. "Ah Fu, you are hereby destined to be reborn as a white-nosed cat in your next life!"
And with those words, a white-nosed kitten was instantly born into a litter of kittens somewhere in our world. It was a very lazy kitten and eventually grew into an even lazier cat. It could afford to be lazy, for it always had its fill of mice just by lying still and allowing all the mice around to crawl up to its white nose and waiting jaws!
Notes
from Qiu Jie, pp. 6-9.
Cats have a rather sinister reputation in China. It is said that if a cat jumps over a corpse or coffin, the dead will soon become reanimated and terrorize the living, a tradition known also to other cultures (Ong Hean-Tatt, 228). In southeastern China, including Taiwan, dead cats have often not been buried but hung from trees to prevent their spirits from becoming malevolent after death (Wolfram Eberhard, A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols, 58-59). Cats are also regarded as lazy, a notion that befits the cat in this story. Thus, it may not be a total surprise that the cat did not make it into the Chinese zodiac, though the tiger is represented.
Ah Fu remained lazy and generally worthless, and his doting parents persisted in not seeing just how lazy their only son was.
Then came the day when he was all alone in the house his ancestors had built. His mother and father were now gone, but life went on much the way it always had--days and nights of sleeping, eating, and more sleeping. However, money doesn't generate more money unless one plans for it, and so one day Ah Fu found himself in a small brick house furnished with only a grass mat and a blanket. The big house had been sold to pay debts, the servants had all been dismissed, and the family fortune was now but a memory.
Under these circumstances anybody with a bit of sense would go out into the world to make a living, but not Ah Fu. He preferred, as he always had, to lie on his mat and sleep. As expected, the longer he slept, the weaker he became because he no longer had money to buy food.
He had lain on his mat for three days now. He knew that he was dying; an inner voice had told him so. He summoned up every ounce of strength left to him, stood up and staggered out of his brick hut, leaving the door ajar. He headed for the local temple of the God of Wealth.
He made it to the temple altar and collapsed upon the flagstone floor. Again, he managed to summon some strength to prop himself up on his elbows.
"Please," he prayed to the god, "grant me a string of gold coins so that I may live and not starve. I don't want to die of hunger; I don't want to turn into a wretched, wandering hungry ghost . . . "
Immediately he found himself in the spectral realm of the God of Wealth. Before him was seated the god himself. Above Ah Fu was standing a giant of a man with muscles rippling in all directions. The man held an iron whip in his right hand. He cracked the whip right before Ah Fu's eyes.
"Ah Fu!" snarled the giant. "You useless, miserable bag of bones! You deserve to become a hungry ghost, the most wretched one there is! You dare ask for money without doing any kind of honest labor?"
"Have mercy . . . have mercy . . . " Ah Fu said, almost inaudibly.
"Have mercy?" The giant's voice boomed into Ah Fu's ears. "Why do you of all people deserve any mercy?"
Ah Fu, too afraid to look up, managed to say, "I don't want to die a despised pauper! I'm not such a bad man, a little lazy perhaps . . ."
"Silence!" roared the giant. "The God of Wealth wishes to speak!"
The giant then stepped over to the throne of the God of Wealth and spoke to his master. After a minute or so, the giant returned to where Ah Fu lay helpless upon the floor.
"Ah Fu! The God of Wealth is truly merciful. He has agreed to spare your unworthy life by giving you a string of gold coins. You shall receive them provided that you agree to mend your greedy, slothful ways. You must use the money wisely to feed yourself so that you may have the energy to seek employment! Do you agree to the terms?"
Ah Fu nodded weakly. The giant then cracked his whip on Ah Fu's head. Excruciating pain split his skull, and for several seconds brilliant bolts of lightning pierced his eyeballs.
"Aiioh!" he cried. "I'm dead!"
He opened his eyes slowly. He was lying on his back on his own straw bed. He was back in the small brick hut and he was alive. The trip to the temple and the journey to the court of the God of Wealth had all been a dream. But had it? Was it not true that the gods often communicated with mortals through dreams?
Ah Fu began thinking. The bizarre experience had been too real for a mere dream. He lay very still and thought about it.
Yes, he thought, I've been rescued. I will get a string of gold coins from the God of Wealth!
He then went to sleep while planning what he would do with the money, the money that would be in the palm of his hand when he awoke. He fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Ah Fu died in his sleep three days later.
The next time he awoke, he found himself in the Land of the Dead, the domain of King Yanluo. This was a far different place than the court of the God of Wealth.
"What's this? I've been tricked!" cried Ah Fu.
"Yes, that's what many say," said King Yanluo's keeper of the Book of Life, that huge volume which lists the names, life spans, and fates of all those born into the world of mortals.
"No! You don't understand!" insisted Ah Fu. "I've really been tricked! The God of Wealth promised me gold, and he never delivered it!"
"The God of Wealth? Hmm," said the keeper of the Book, "that's a pretty serious charge."
Ah Fu protested so much that his complaint was relayed to King Yanluo, who, in turn, reported it to the God of Wealth. Soon, Ah Fu was summoned to King Yanluo's throne room to appear before both gods.
"What do you have to say for yourself, Ah Fu?" roared stern King Yanluo. "The Book of Life clearly states you were to starve to death. "
"But the God of Wealth promised me a string of gold coins so that I might live and turn my life around!" Ah Fu replied.
The God of Wealth would not stand idly by. "Ah Fu!" he said. "Four or five times did one of my messengers knock on your door. Each time he received no answer. Had you bothered to get up to open your own door, you would have gotten your gold!"
Ah Fu looked down at his feet. "I . . . fell . . . asleep . . . " he said.
King Yanluo looked at Ah Fu and chuckled, "It's hard to dislike you, Ah Fu, because you are not really a bad person. Your laziness has been your downfall, but I can see how you might have thought your gold was to come to you in a different manner and why you were not ready for it when it finally did arrive.
"Because of all this and owing to the fact that an ancestor of yours had performed a meritorious deed, I am giving you another chance. I will allow you to be reborn as a human in any future occupation you desire. Now tell me, Ah Fu, what would you like to be in your next life? A merchant perhaps? How about an imperial chamberlain?"
Ah Fu thought a moment and then said, "I would like to be reborn as a white-nosed cat."
King Yanluo couldn't believe his ears. "What!" he roared. "Are you trying to be funny now?"
"No, Your Majesty."
"Then explain yourself. Why do you wish to be reborn as a white-nosed cat?"
"Well, Your Majesty," said Ah Fu, "such a cat wouldn't have to work for food as hard as a man does or even search for mice as hard as an alley cat. Mice would mistake its white nose for grains of rice. Such a cat could then feed itself without moving practically a muscle. Mice would just leap into its jaws!"
"So you'd really rather be reborn as a white-nosed cat instead of a person?" asked the astonished King of the Dead. "Did I hear you correctly?"
"Oh, yes. People have to work much too hard to stay alive!"
"So be it!" said King Yanluo. "Ah Fu, you are hereby destined to be reborn as a white-nosed cat in your next life!"
And with those words, a white-nosed kitten was instantly born into a litter of kittens somewhere in our world. It was a very lazy kitten and eventually grew into an even lazier cat. It could afford to be lazy, for it always had its fill of mice just by lying still and allowing all the mice around to crawl up to its white nose and waiting jaws!
Notes
from Qiu Jie, pp. 6-9.
Cats have a rather sinister reputation in China. It is said that if a cat jumps over a corpse or coffin, the dead will soon become reanimated and terrorize the living, a tradition known also to other cultures (Ong Hean-Tatt, 228). In southeastern China, including Taiwan, dead cats have often not been buried but hung from trees to prevent their spirits from becoming malevolent after death (Wolfram Eberhard, A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols, 58-59). Cats are also regarded as lazy, a notion that befits the cat in this story. Thus, it may not be a total surprise that the cat did not make it into the Chinese zodiac, though the tiger is represented.
Motifs: D142, "Man transformed to cat"; E722.2.10, "Soul taken away by a god"; M201.0.1, "Bargain with a god."
The Filial and the Unfilial (Taiwan)
The ancients said it best: "If one is not a member of the family, one shouldn't enter through the family gate."
Long ago, there were two brothers. The older brother was terribly unfilial. Not only did he not listen to his parents but he was also lazy, shiftless, undependable. The younger brother, on the other hand, was totally different. He was a model son who did his utmost to show his love for his parents, to comfort them in their old age, and to make them proud. He was known far and near for being a filial son.
And just as people say, "Fish gather with other fish; shrimp gather with other shrimp," the two brothers each married a woman just like himself in character. Thus the aged parents gained a wonderful honorable daughter-in-law with the younger son's wife; with the older brother's wife, this was much less true.
Now it happened that the father fell sick and was confined to bed. The younger son and his wife stayed by the bedside around the clock, doing their best to comfort and to aid the stricken old man. As for his older brother and sister-in-law? They did what they normally did--they ate and fooled around.
In time the father's conditioned worsened. Sensing the end was near, he summoned his two sons and said, "You, my older son, have been a perfect disappointment. I've waited in vain for you to mature and to assume your duties. I had some hope that once you married that would happen. Now I am afraid that once you receive your inheritance, you will only waste it.
"In any case, you are still my older son, and I will not deny you an inheritance. After I am gone, you and your younger brother are to divide my property and money evenly between the two of you. As for your mother, my wife, once I am gone, you, my younger son, will take care of your mother."
He died not long after and was buried.
Then it came time to divide up the property.
"All right, " said the older brother to his younger brother, "this is how it shall be. I am older and now the head of the family. I am taking full ownership of the house and the land. I will, when I'm ready, give you some of the money, but for now, this is how it shall be. Do you understand?"
The younger brother smiled and nodded. He didn't argue.
So that is how it went. The two couples and the widowed mother still had their own rooms, and everybody lived under the same roof. The older brother was loud, lazy and abusive with his new power, but his younger brother said nothing. He accepted it all, though it was far from a happy situation. He just contented himself by working hard. He purchased a wheelbarrow, went up the mountain, chopped firewood, and sold it for cooking oil, salt, rice and other grains.
Now one day he was up on the mountain, gathering wood when from afar he could see two people approaching. They came closer and closer. Then he saw not who they were but what they were--a green ghost and a red ghost. The younger brother was frightened out of his wits. He climbed all the way up the nearest tree, a kujian tree. He hid himself at the top as the two ghosts approached, each one carrying a bulging sack. To his relief, they walked right by him and the tree, muttering something to themselves as they passed. They then stopped at a nearby boulder lying against the side of the mountain.
The younger brother watched them carefully.
The red ghost turned and faced the boulder. Then he shouted, "Ha!"
One side of the boulder slowly moved away from the side of the mountain, like a door, to reveal a cave. The ghosts then carried their sacks into the cave. Minutes later, they left the cave with their now empty sacks. The green ghost turned to the boulder and shouted, "Ha!" The boulder then slowly swung shut. The two ghosts then left on the same path that had brought them up the mountain.
The younger brother waited until he made sure the two ghosts were gone. He climbed down the tree and crept over to the boulder. He faced it and shouted, "Ha!" As expected, the boulder slowly opened to expose a cave entrance. The younger brother walked up to the cave entrance and peered inside. He nearly fainted, for from where he stood, he saw nothing but precious jade, pearls, agate, coral and silver and gold--mountains of priceless objects!
Well, he dumped his wheelbarrow of firewood and instead loaded up on the treasures of the cave. He shouted the magic word to close the cave and made it back home, where he showed his riches to his mother. He recounted in detail exactly what had happened.
"You are a filial son," his mother said. "Old Heaven has eyes; it has rewarded you!"
The younger daughter-in-law was also overjoyed. In fact, she was so delighted she immediately went to her brother-in-law's to borrow his scale to see just how much the gold and silver weighed.
"Why do you need to borrow my scale?" asked the older brother-in-law.
The younger wife immediately told him the whole story of how her husband, his younger brother, had spied on the red ghost and the green ghost, how they had opened up the entrance to a cave of riches, and so on.
The very next day, the older brother went up the mountain with his own wheelbarrow right to the spot just beyond the kujian tree. Not only that, he also intoned the magic sound, "Ha!", entered the cave and then closed the entrance behind him. All the jewels and riches lay before him. He had just begun planning how he would cart everything away when the boulder slowly swung open. Standing in the entrance were none other than the red ghost and the green ghost, each carrying a sack.
"Well, well, well!" said one of the two ghosts. "Look who's here! The same disgusting lowlife scoundrel who was here yesterday and who stole some of our wealth! You've got a lot of nerve, my friend, returning here for some more!"
"No, no, wait!" said the older brother.
Right away the two ghosts were upon him and throttled him to death. They then dragged the dead older brother's body out by the kujian tree and left it there underneath its branches.
Hours later, the older daughter-in-law, out looking for her husband, found his body. There was no sign of any cave entrance anywhere.
And so the older brother, who, true to his father's fears, had never amounted to much, caring more about eating, sleeping and other pursuits rather than respecting his elders or working hard, was buried. The younger brother-in-law and his wife invited the widowed older sister-in-law to live with them, which she did.
Now one day, relatives were having a wedding celebration and feast. The mother was too infirm to attend, so the younger daughter-in-law decided to leave the party early to take a platter of the sumptuous wedding food back to her mother-in-law.
"Now there goes a true honorable daughter-in-law!" someone said. "She could have stayed and had even more to eat, but she thought about her mother-in-law!"
"Yes," said another, "she is indeed a model of what we call 'filial.'"
The younger daughter-in-law was happy to take some food back to her husband's mother. She was thinking about how happy her mother-in-law would be when, due to the rain, she suddenly slipped, allowing the food to fall upon the ground, some of it in a puddle.
Now what could she do? Arrive home empty handed? Go back to the party and ask for more? She thought quickly and looked at the food. Some of it hadn't touched the ground; some of that which had landed in the puddle could be rinsed and salvaged; the rest could be thrown away. So that is what she did: she separated the edible from the now inedible, making sure any dirt and grit had been washed away before happily presenting the food to her mother-in-law.
The aged woman beamed with joy when she saw the food her daughter-in-law had brought her and ate it all up! However, not long after, dark clouds gathered over the town; thunder and lightning boomed, shaking the house and rattling the windows.
Immediately the younger daughter-in-law thought: "I caused this. The God of Thunder has seen what I have done, to feed my own husband's mother dirtied food. He's going to punish me with thunder and lightning! Let me be the one, not Mother!"
She immediately looked up to the ceiling and cried out: "I am unfilial! I fed my own mother-in-law bad food! Please punish me! I am ready!"
She ran to the front door, threw it open and ran outside into the thunderstorm. She stopped before a large tree and faced heaven.
Instantly a large fireball shot down from the clouds, rocketed past her and split the tree right behind her. She was unharmed but the tree was totally cleft, revealing inside a hidden cache of gold, silver and pearls.
She gathered the treasure up and took it home.
Very soon, the older daughter-in-law learned of the younger daughter-in-law's bonanza and how it came about; she became very jealous.
That's absolutely unfair! she thought. I am the older daughter-in-law, the widow of the first-born son! I am entitled to as many, if not more, riches!
She waited for the right chance. Then, one day, it came.
There was another relative's wedding party. When the mother once again excused herself from attending, the older daughter-in-law sprung at the chance to bring food home for Mother.
"Let me bring food home for you this time, Mother!" she said. "Just rest and I'll soon be home with some delicious food!"
The mother-in-law nodded.
The older daughter-in-law selected some nice food from the banquet, wrapped it up and excused herself to take it back to her beloved mother-in-law.
The older people all beamed at this display of filial love and watched her leave.
When she was good and far from the banquet hall, the older daughter-in-law headed over to a puddle and dropped the food in. She then separated the edible from the inedible and wiped clean the food she felt could still be eaten. She then headed directly home with her mother-in-law's dinner.
"Wonderful!" said the mother-in-law. "Very, very nice food!"
The mother-in-law continued to eat as the sounds of distant thunder rumbled. The older daughter-in-law looked outside. As expected, dark, menacing clouds had gathered in the sky.
"Eat up, Mother!" said the older daughter-in-law.
Only when the house was buffeted by thunder and lightning crackled outside did the older daughter-in-law abruptly stand up, look up at the ceiling, and cry out, "What have I done! I have fed my own blessed mother-in-law polluted food! God of Thunder, punish me!"
She ran to the front door, pushed it open and charged into the lightning storm. She ran to the nearest tree and stood with her back to it. She raised her arms up, looked to heaven, and said, "Here I am! Punish me!"
Immediately a lightning bolt split the woman in two.
Notes
from Shi Cuifeng, pp. 22-26
Long ago, there were two brothers. The older brother was terribly unfilial. Not only did he not listen to his parents but he was also lazy, shiftless, undependable. The younger brother, on the other hand, was totally different. He was a model son who did his utmost to show his love for his parents, to comfort them in their old age, and to make them proud. He was known far and near for being a filial son.
And just as people say, "Fish gather with other fish; shrimp gather with other shrimp," the two brothers each married a woman just like himself in character. Thus the aged parents gained a wonderful honorable daughter-in-law with the younger son's wife; with the older brother's wife, this was much less true.
Now it happened that the father fell sick and was confined to bed. The younger son and his wife stayed by the bedside around the clock, doing their best to comfort and to aid the stricken old man. As for his older brother and sister-in-law? They did what they normally did--they ate and fooled around.
In time the father's conditioned worsened. Sensing the end was near, he summoned his two sons and said, "You, my older son, have been a perfect disappointment. I've waited in vain for you to mature and to assume your duties. I had some hope that once you married that would happen. Now I am afraid that once you receive your inheritance, you will only waste it.
"In any case, you are still my older son, and I will not deny you an inheritance. After I am gone, you and your younger brother are to divide my property and money evenly between the two of you. As for your mother, my wife, once I am gone, you, my younger son, will take care of your mother."
He died not long after and was buried.
Then it came time to divide up the property.
"All right, " said the older brother to his younger brother, "this is how it shall be. I am older and now the head of the family. I am taking full ownership of the house and the land. I will, when I'm ready, give you some of the money, but for now, this is how it shall be. Do you understand?"
The younger brother smiled and nodded. He didn't argue.
So that is how it went. The two couples and the widowed mother still had their own rooms, and everybody lived under the same roof. The older brother was loud, lazy and abusive with his new power, but his younger brother said nothing. He accepted it all, though it was far from a happy situation. He just contented himself by working hard. He purchased a wheelbarrow, went up the mountain, chopped firewood, and sold it for cooking oil, salt, rice and other grains.
Now one day he was up on the mountain, gathering wood when from afar he could see two people approaching. They came closer and closer. Then he saw not who they were but what they were--a green ghost and a red ghost. The younger brother was frightened out of his wits. He climbed all the way up the nearest tree, a kujian tree. He hid himself at the top as the two ghosts approached, each one carrying a bulging sack. To his relief, they walked right by him and the tree, muttering something to themselves as they passed. They then stopped at a nearby boulder lying against the side of the mountain.
The younger brother watched them carefully.
The red ghost turned and faced the boulder. Then he shouted, "Ha!"
One side of the boulder slowly moved away from the side of the mountain, like a door, to reveal a cave. The ghosts then carried their sacks into the cave. Minutes later, they left the cave with their now empty sacks. The green ghost turned to the boulder and shouted, "Ha!" The boulder then slowly swung shut. The two ghosts then left on the same path that had brought them up the mountain.
The younger brother waited until he made sure the two ghosts were gone. He climbed down the tree and crept over to the boulder. He faced it and shouted, "Ha!" As expected, the boulder slowly opened to expose a cave entrance. The younger brother walked up to the cave entrance and peered inside. He nearly fainted, for from where he stood, he saw nothing but precious jade, pearls, agate, coral and silver and gold--mountains of priceless objects!
Well, he dumped his wheelbarrow of firewood and instead loaded up on the treasures of the cave. He shouted the magic word to close the cave and made it back home, where he showed his riches to his mother. He recounted in detail exactly what had happened.
"You are a filial son," his mother said. "Old Heaven has eyes; it has rewarded you!"
The younger daughter-in-law was also overjoyed. In fact, she was so delighted she immediately went to her brother-in-law's to borrow his scale to see just how much the gold and silver weighed.
"Why do you need to borrow my scale?" asked the older brother-in-law.
The younger wife immediately told him the whole story of how her husband, his younger brother, had spied on the red ghost and the green ghost, how they had opened up the entrance to a cave of riches, and so on.
The very next day, the older brother went up the mountain with his own wheelbarrow right to the spot just beyond the kujian tree. Not only that, he also intoned the magic sound, "Ha!", entered the cave and then closed the entrance behind him. All the jewels and riches lay before him. He had just begun planning how he would cart everything away when the boulder slowly swung open. Standing in the entrance were none other than the red ghost and the green ghost, each carrying a sack.
"Well, well, well!" said one of the two ghosts. "Look who's here! The same disgusting lowlife scoundrel who was here yesterday and who stole some of our wealth! You've got a lot of nerve, my friend, returning here for some more!"
"No, no, wait!" said the older brother.
Right away the two ghosts were upon him and throttled him to death. They then dragged the dead older brother's body out by the kujian tree and left it there underneath its branches.
Hours later, the older daughter-in-law, out looking for her husband, found his body. There was no sign of any cave entrance anywhere.
And so the older brother, who, true to his father's fears, had never amounted to much, caring more about eating, sleeping and other pursuits rather than respecting his elders or working hard, was buried. The younger brother-in-law and his wife invited the widowed older sister-in-law to live with them, which she did.
Now one day, relatives were having a wedding celebration and feast. The mother was too infirm to attend, so the younger daughter-in-law decided to leave the party early to take a platter of the sumptuous wedding food back to her mother-in-law.
"Now there goes a true honorable daughter-in-law!" someone said. "She could have stayed and had even more to eat, but she thought about her mother-in-law!"
"Yes," said another, "she is indeed a model of what we call 'filial.'"
The younger daughter-in-law was happy to take some food back to her husband's mother. She was thinking about how happy her mother-in-law would be when, due to the rain, she suddenly slipped, allowing the food to fall upon the ground, some of it in a puddle.
Now what could she do? Arrive home empty handed? Go back to the party and ask for more? She thought quickly and looked at the food. Some of it hadn't touched the ground; some of that which had landed in the puddle could be rinsed and salvaged; the rest could be thrown away. So that is what she did: she separated the edible from the now inedible, making sure any dirt and grit had been washed away before happily presenting the food to her mother-in-law.
The aged woman beamed with joy when she saw the food her daughter-in-law had brought her and ate it all up! However, not long after, dark clouds gathered over the town; thunder and lightning boomed, shaking the house and rattling the windows.
Immediately the younger daughter-in-law thought: "I caused this. The God of Thunder has seen what I have done, to feed my own husband's mother dirtied food. He's going to punish me with thunder and lightning! Let me be the one, not Mother!"
She immediately looked up to the ceiling and cried out: "I am unfilial! I fed my own mother-in-law bad food! Please punish me! I am ready!"
She ran to the front door, threw it open and ran outside into the thunderstorm. She stopped before a large tree and faced heaven.
Instantly a large fireball shot down from the clouds, rocketed past her and split the tree right behind her. She was unharmed but the tree was totally cleft, revealing inside a hidden cache of gold, silver and pearls.
She gathered the treasure up and took it home.
Very soon, the older daughter-in-law learned of the younger daughter-in-law's bonanza and how it came about; she became very jealous.
That's absolutely unfair! she thought. I am the older daughter-in-law, the widow of the first-born son! I am entitled to as many, if not more, riches!
She waited for the right chance. Then, one day, it came.
There was another relative's wedding party. When the mother once again excused herself from attending, the older daughter-in-law sprung at the chance to bring food home for Mother.
"Let me bring food home for you this time, Mother!" she said. "Just rest and I'll soon be home with some delicious food!"
The mother-in-law nodded.
The older daughter-in-law selected some nice food from the banquet, wrapped it up and excused herself to take it back to her beloved mother-in-law.
The older people all beamed at this display of filial love and watched her leave.
When she was good and far from the banquet hall, the older daughter-in-law headed over to a puddle and dropped the food in. She then separated the edible from the inedible and wiped clean the food she felt could still be eaten. She then headed directly home with her mother-in-law's dinner.
"Wonderful!" said the mother-in-law. "Very, very nice food!"
The mother-in-law continued to eat as the sounds of distant thunder rumbled. The older daughter-in-law looked outside. As expected, dark, menacing clouds had gathered in the sky.
"Eat up, Mother!" said the older daughter-in-law.
Only when the house was buffeted by thunder and lightning crackled outside did the older daughter-in-law abruptly stand up, look up at the ceiling, and cry out, "What have I done! I have fed my own blessed mother-in-law polluted food! God of Thunder, punish me!"
She ran to the front door, pushed it open and charged into the lightning storm. She ran to the nearest tree and stood with her back to it. She raised her arms up, looked to heaven, and said, "Here I am! Punish me!"
Immediately a lightning bolt split the woman in two.
Notes
from Shi Cuifeng, pp. 22-26
Filial piety is the Confucian concept that teaches each child to respect and to love his/her parent. It suggests unquestioned obedience and loyalty to members of the older generation, and its commands extend to the parents, who must offer utmost respect and love to their own parents as well. By extension, rulers are likewise loved by their local subjects. The pyramid reaches all the way to the top, to the emperor, loved, respected and obeyed by everyone else. The respect accorded to parents continues after the parents' deaths; there are then regularly scheduled memorial rites to be observed and to be picked up, eventually, by the grandchildren. And so the cycle continues. I think the best exposition of filial piety can be found in the classical Chinese statement, Daxue, "The Great Learning."
Filial piety is a defining characteristic of being a Chinese. What has it contributed? It has taught generations of children the need to be grateful to their parents and to excel in their studies, for doing the latter is a sign of devotion to the family in general and to the parents in particular. Many, if not most, go on to become highly devoted to their parents for the remainder of their parents' lives. Virtually all my students of Chinese descent from fifth grade on up already know the Chinese term for "filial piety": xiaoshun [孝顺]. I wonder how many non-Chinese youngsters know the term or a close cognate. I certainly was not aware of it until I took the late Professor Laurence G. Thompson's Chinese civilization course at USC so many years ago. Thank you, Professor Thompson.
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